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Regular Council Meeting November 16, 2015 Page 10 of revenue in taxes. He said in exchange for the abatement, the city should be certain that it receives tangible benefits in the form of economic development. However, when the PEDC and the City of Paris ran 100% tax abatement for 8 years on a warehouse, a tax abatement worth almost a million dollars to all 3 taxing entities and when the compliance with the contract is so inept that no one even notices that the warehouse on which the tax abatement was supposedly based was never even built, Council Member Clifford said then they have got problems. He also said when a company voluntarily agrees to create 30 new jobs as a condition of receiving an abatement, presents their plan to the PEDC, and then to the Paris City Council, and then when the requirement for 30 new jobs and an increase in payroll of $470,000 simply disappears in the final signed contract in direct contradiction to the information sheets applied to the city council, we have very large problems. Council Member Clifford said these are problems that lie at the foundation of the policies of the City of Paris and the PEDC and these events highlight massive fundamental deficiencies and incompetence at the PEDC. He said until these deficiencies are fully identified, fully addressed, and fully solved, neither the PEDC nor the City of Paris should be granting any abatements or any incentives whatsoever. He also said if they continue to grant these abatements and incentives, all that could be expected is that our tax money will once again be squandered with no verification of compliance and no measurable economic development. Council Member Clifford said if these problems could not be solved, if the PEDC continued to be a poor steward of the tax dollars entrusted to it, then maybe it was time for the City of Paris to consider whether or not it's time to do away with this organization. Council Member Pickle referenced the signed contract and the agenda information and then inquired what the minutes reflected. Council Member Clifford said the minutes did not reflect discussion, but only that Council approved what was presented. Council Member Pickle said they could not be sure about what was approved since there was no discussion. Council Member Clifford said the minutes reflected they approved it. He also said the information sheet was given to the city council, it was in the minutes, it was in the agenda packet, and they contradicted one another. Council Member Pickle said that was his point, that he was making an assumption. He referred to Mr. House's earlier item citing they were asked to decline the deal and they approved it, so in the minutes it will reflect that they approved it whereas on the agenda sheet it shows it was recommended that they decline it. Council Member Pickle said so they do not know what was approved. Council Member Clifford said that was a problem. Council Member Pickle said they could not assume that the Council did it one way, any more than you can assume they did it the other way. Council Member Clifford questioned if that was any way to run a City and expressed that was the whole problem. Council Member Pickle said in looking at these documents from 2000 forward, that he agreed there were problems with no compliance checks being done. Council Member Clifford asked Council Member Pickle if he realized the document he was working on regarded the building that was never built. Council Member Pickle said he relied on the then PEDC treasurer Rebecca Clifford who provided him the documents for them to check compliance. He said part of his question was if there was no evidence that any of the required mandatory compliance documents had ever been submitted, was there any evidence that they were requested, submitted, and lost. He said since city clerk Ms. Ellis had been there, the record keeping and writing of minutes had gotten much better. Council Member Pickle questioned if they should look at the