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City Council Meeting January 8, 2001 Page 2 operational in June 2000. PEDC also began working on a female restitution facility with Lynn Home Management. Mr. Vest said there were four projects that they were working with, which are on going with industries, and they also had a lot of trade shows and conferences that they attended. He said they attended the National Plastic Association trade show in Chicago and the Texas Economic Development Council Annual Conference. Mr. Vest said they were still active in the Northeast Texas Economic Development Roundtable, the World Economic Development Alliance, Texas Economic Development Council, Texas Air Quality Coalition, Texas Economic Sales Tax Association, the Southern Economic Development Council, American Economic Development, Texas Gulf Highway Association, Texas Tax Payers Research Association, and the American Chamber of Commerce Research Association. Mr. Vest advised the City Council that another significant point of interest for the year 2000 would be the Skills Development Fund Grant for Paris Packaging, which was announced right before Christmas, in the amount of $279,680.00. This will be done through Paris Junior College to train employees at Paris Packaging. Mr. Vest pointed out that the Paris and Lamar County's unemployment rate is the lowest that it has been in over a decade, which is a good indicator of how strong our economy is and the availability of jobs. Mr. Vest said Lamar County was not included in the expansion of the DFW non-attainment area, which a very good thing. Mr. Vest pointed out that the report that he handed out to the City Council has a couple of attachments. One is clearing the air and it is written from the Houston perspective, having to do with the Texas Clean Air Strategy and how it affects Houston. The other two articles deal with the Dallas-Ft. Worth status non-attainment and how the Clean Air Strategy affects them. Mr. Vest said this is an issue that is going to come up year after year, and Lamar County was fortunate this time that we were able to not be included in the Dallas-Ft. Worth non-attainment area, but there were four counties thatwere added and we are nowthat much closerto being added. Mr. Vest advised that there might be more battles on that and that is one of the reason for including this information so that when it does comes up, the City Council will be aware of our situation. He said the PEDC will do everything they can to see that Lamar County remains outside the non-attainment area.