Paris City Councilman Matt Frierson said nothing has generated as many calls in his time on the council as the recent decision to take the R3bi incubator and Rickey Hayes’ Retail Attractions out of the PEDC budget.
On June 24, the council voted 4-2 to reject the PEDC’s proposed $600,000 budget for the 2014 fiscal year because it included $89,000 for the incubator and $33,000 for Retail Attractions.
Councilman John Wright called those retail-oriented initiatives a clear violation of the citizens’ 1992 vote creating the PEDC as an organization to recruit manufacturing jobs.
In a weekend interview with eParisExtra, Frierson said he thought this might be a good opportunity “for Mr. Hayes to come in and talk about what he does in promoting Paris, how he markets the community – not necessarily retail but just the community as a whole.”
Hayes, 56, a Paris native, is in his third year of a relationship with the Paris Economic Development Corporation to sell retail executives on Paris and Lamar County as the place they should locate their next store.
Hayes told eParisExtra he will “just talk about our company and what we do, and what we think the reality of the situation is in Paris.”
The dynamics are right for explosive new growth in Paris, Hayes said last month. He said the Paris market is growing like some of the other booming retail communities.
What makes Paris dynamic, Hayes said, is that it pulls from communities scattered for 40 to 50 miles around.
“It’s not rocket science. It’s fairly easy to see, and I knew that from when I was growing up pumping gas at my family’s gas station in Paris, back when service stations were service stations. We had regular customers from Oklahoma who traded with us.”
Ideally, Frierson said, Hayes’ presentation will clear up misinformation and misunderstanding not only by the council but by the community.
“My motivation is purely to get the proper facts out there and let people be able to weigh in on it, having heard it straight from Rickey Hayes,” Frierson said.
“To me, this is a good way to get him in front of the public to say, ‘You know, this is really what I’m doing, and I know what you may have heard, but here is in fact the way I go about my business of promoting Paris.’ “
The council’s vote last month to strip the Red River Region Business Incubator and Retail Attractions from the PEDC budget came despite a succession of business leaders who spoke in their behalf.
A furor erupted on Facebook protesting the council’s action.
Hayes said he himself received “a ton of emails, phone calls and Facebook posts.”
“It’s been really spectacular, the feedback we’ve gotten from the city, so I know we’ve got a lot of support,” Hayes said.
“There’s lots of support for retail development, there’s lots of support for the EDC and the successes they’ve had, and I think people realize that something is going on. What I’m hearing over and over is, you know, the council is trying to fix something that’s not broken.”
It won’t be Hayes’ first appearance before the Paris City Council. He came before the council “right after the PEDC first contracted with us in 2010.”
The council has completely turned over since then.
“You know, I love Paris,” Hayes told eParisExtra. “I’ve spent a great deal of time and energy and blood, sweat and tears in the community. It’s a great place. I met my wife there; we’re both from Paris, so we care a great deal about the community and have a great deal of local knowledge about the market.”