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06-A PEDC (12/18/2002)MINUTES OF THE PARIS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION REGULAR MEETING December 18, 2002 The Paris Economic Development Corporation met in regular session on Wednesday, December 18, 2002, 4:00 P.M. at Paris Junior College, Applied Technology Building, Room 1016, 2400 Clarksville Street. President Jay Guest called the meeting to order with the following Directors present: Curtis Fendley, Richard L. Severson, and Don Wall. Also present were ex-officio members Bobby Walters, Mike Graxiola, Executive Director Gary Vest, City Manager Michael E. Malone, City Attorney Larry W. Schenk and City Clerk Mattie Cunningham. President Guest called for approval of the minutes from a previous meeting. A motion was made by Director Severson, seconded by Director Fendley, for approval of the minutes as presented. The motion carried unanimously. President Guest advised the Board Members that Mr. Anderson was not able to attend the meeting, but the financial report had been included in their packet for review. A motion was made by Director Wall, seconded by Director Severson, for approval of the financial report. The motion carried unanimously. President Guest called for the Director's report. Gary Vest, Executive Director of Paris Economic Development Corporation, reported that since the last meeting they have had thirteen inquiries from the advertisement program. There were two referrals from the Texas Department Economic Development, Project "Clean Water" and "Project Carl"; however, Paris was not able to qualify for those projects. Mr. Vest said a feasability study / impact analysis has been ordered for Project "Winter" and that TXU will be paying for the study. Mr. Vest advised that the report will outline all of the reasons why the city would want a company to come here and would explain all of the advantages that the company would bring to the Regular PEDC Meeting Dec. 18, 2002 Page 2 community. It would also tell the company what they could expect in terms of taxes and operating costs. Mr. Vest said that Paris is up against existing facilities in other areas. He said that Project ~Winter" had been looking at the LOF building in Sherman, but it looks like that will fall through because there a lot of things needed to be done to that building. It was his understanding that the Sherman Economic Development Corporation was not willing to do everything that is going to have to be done to the building. Mr. Vest said the other buildings being considered by ?roj ect ~Winter" are in Athens, Georgia, and the ?EDC does not know anything about the sites that Athens has to offer. Mr. Vest advised the Board that he had talked to Angle Mendez last Friday who is handling this project for the Texas Department of Economic Development to see what the ?EDC could do to enhance their opportunity. He also met with Todd Thompson and went over with him what they could do to enhance the ?EDC chances to stay in this project. Mr. Vest said he attended the Texas Association of Business Legislative Conference in Austin, Texas, last week. He said they reviewed a lot of political things that are going to come up in this next session as far as businesses are concerned. Mr. Vest said there were a lot of speakers at this meeting. Mr. Vest said that he also had a meeting in Austin with the TEDC lobbyist. He said there were only six people in the meeting. They talked about the proposed strategy as far as economic development issues that will be coming up in this legislative session. Mr. Vest said learned that the cities of ?lano, Addison, Carrollton, and Richardson have banded together and hired a full time lobbyist to try and get the sales tax for economic development eliminated. Mr. Vest said that is something they will be looking at during this legislative session. He said what those cities wanted to do is to amend the law to eliminate the economic development sales tax so that, when all debt was retired, the tax would be phased out in each community. Mr. Vest advised that their answer to that agenda is to give the entire 2% sales tax to the cities and let the cities allocate it as they see fit. Regular PEDC Meeting Dec. 18, 2002 Page 3 Mr. Vest told the Board that there is a new lighted billboard going up on Interstate 30 on the west side of Greenville next week and presented a picture of the billboard. He also said there is another one going up about one-half mile down Interstate 30 regarding tourism paid for by the Visitors and Convention Council. Mr. Vest said the new web page is up if anyone wanted to check it out at www. paristexas, com. Mr. Vest said the Northeast Texas Roundtable has a new brochure and passed out a copy of it to the Board Members. Gene Anderson, Director of Finance, came forward and passed out a monthly cash flow report that he normally gives to the Board. Mr. Anderson also gave a report on the sales tax through the month of December. Director Guest called for discussion of the Revolving Loan Fund for the City of Paris. Tommy Haynes, Director of Community Development, came forward telling the Board that last month he gave them a brief outline of the Revolving Loan Fund that the City of Paris has. Mr. Haynes advised that Bob Jones wrote the grant for the City of Paris about two and one-half years ago and that the city is currently pursuing people to loan this money to. Mr. Haynes reported that a public hearing was held earlier in the day on two applications and those will be submitted to the USDA. One of the applications is one that Gary Vest sent to the city from a tree service company that is being purchased by one of the members of the partnership. He said the other application is for Charles Fulbright who is building a BBQ Restaurant on Fitzhugh and Hickory Street, which will also be submitted. Bob Jones with R.I.M. Enterprises came forward giving the board members a handout of the written criteria for the Revolving Loan Fund. Mr. Jones said when the city applied for funding under the Rural Development Economic Regular PEDC Meeting Dec. 18, 2002 Page 4 Development Grant, they had to develop a Revolving Loan Fund strategy, which was approved by the City Council and the Rural Development Division of USDA. He furnished the board copies of this material in the handout, also including forms indicating employment to be created by a project and a form for the applicant to indicate sources of funds and uses of funds for a proposed project. Mr. Jones advised that he had a list of forms that normally would be requested over the process of an application. He said the Revolving Loan's guidelines occupy the first four pages of the handout. It basically says what the applicant is going to do and how the applicant is going to do it. Mr. Jones said the fifth page is a list of information required from the applicant. Mr. Jones said that loans usually do not exceed 50% of the total amount needed for the project. The bank would provide 40%, with the borrower having at least 10% involved. It is possible for the borrower to put up the other 50%, as long as they are not exceeding grant funds of 50%. Mr. Jones said that this is a direct loan meaning that the payments are due 30 days after closing. The interest rate is indexed to prime and bottoms out at the jumbo CD rate at the time of the loan. The term of the loan depends on what the collateral is, just like it would at a bank or the SBA. Mr. Jones advised that on two occasions they sent mail outs about money being available to the banks. These mail outs also explained the uses of the money and the amount of funds available. Mr. Jones advised that when they get calls from people who are interested, he gets paper work to them or lets them know what they need to do next. He said they fill out the application packet from an interview. Once that is done, they have to hold a public hearing, and two of those were held today. Mr. Jones said these applications then go before the City Council for approval. Then they go to the Regional Rural Development office in Mt. Pleasant, Texas, where they are reviewed and approved. They do an environmental check on each of the projects and send it to Temple, Texas, for approval. Mr. Jones said that after this money has been loaned, the returned principal and interest comes offUSDA books and all he has to do is let them know annually what he is doing. They do not go back for approval of the next loan. Regular PEDC Meeting Dec. 18, 2002 Page 5 President Guest called for discussion and possible acceptance of a form to be used by businesses seeking assistance from the Paris Economic Development Corporation. Mr. Vest advised that there were two applications. One is for Economic Development Assistance - New Construction and the other one is for Economic Development Assistance Expansion. After reviewing the applications, a motion was made by Director Fendley, seconded by Director Severson, to accept the applications as presented. The motion carried unanimously. Resolution No. 2002-008, approving the form of the Incentive Agreement with Paris Custom Trailer, and authorizing and directing the President of the Board to execute, on behalf of the Paris Economic Development Corporation, the Incentive Agreement, was presented. A motion was made by Director Severson, seconded by Director Wall, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried with Director Fendley abstaining. Resolution No. 2002- 009, approving the form of the Incentive Agreement with Hydro-Conduit, and authorizing and directing the President of the Board to execute, on behalf of the Paris Economic Development Corporation, the Incentive Agreement, was presented. City Manager Malone informed the board that he asked Shawn Napier, City Engineer, to attend the meeting to describe the project and what the city has done and where this line ties into the plant. Mr. Napier came forward and explained that Mr. Wall had called and informed him that they were going to have to close the plant down because they did not have enough water to operate. They had only 17 gallons a minute when they went to the site. Mr. Napier said there is a six inch line that was put in by Wall Concrete about twelve years ago, and there is a slanted portion of the line that is running across the railroad track. He said that ties into a four inch line that is in Regular PEDC Meeting Dec. 18, 2002 Page 6 Sycamore Street and that four inch line is an old cast iron line that is very old and probably has low pressure and needs to be replaced. Mr. Napier said that the City went to Neagle Street where there was a new eight inch line and installed about a block and half of eight inch water line, then came up north. Mr. Napier said that he met with the plant manager of Hydro-Conduit and he agreed that the city would install the line through our right-of-way, and he would take it from there and run it due east to their box culvert plant to a fire hydrant. Mr. Napier presented a drawing illustrating the project. Mr. Napier said when they tied everything in, they turned the water line on and had the same 17 gallons a minute. Mr. Napier said they found that the inch and half line they had going from the meter into the building was corroded causing most of the problem. City Manager Malone pointed out that one of the advantages of this project is that we now have a new eight inch line that serves the fire hydrant located next to the building. He said the city spent about $16,000.00 running the eight inch line and there is great water pressure now for fire protection for the box culvert facility. City Manager Malone said it has been looped in to the six inch line that goes to the original tie-in on the four inch line. He advised that in the future the city will go back and replace the four inch line. After discussion, a motion was made by Director Fendley, seconded by Director Severson, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried unanimously. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned. ATTEST: JAY GUEST, PRESIDENT MATTIE CUNNINGHAM, CITY CLERK