04/13/2010 Commissioners Meeting

I apologize to my readers for not posting this sooner, but my wife has been seriously ill and she is my 1st. Priority.
I finally got a cd recording and listened to the commissioners meeting of 4/13/2010. The following is what went on. Commissioner Fryman was absent but all others were present. This was the last meeting for assistant city manager Matt Belcher, but it sounds like he is going to contract his services back to the City on an as needed basis?

Most of the meeting was centered around Cable TV Franchise for the City of Paris.  The city wanted cable tv and high speed internet extended to the Business Park on Georgetown Road , Houston Oaks Subdivision, and any other areas within the city limits that wasn’t served now.

Time Warner representative Mrs. Deaton, gave a presentation to city officials explaining Time Warner position on these items. She noted the contract with the city expired December 31-2009. Mrs Deaton stated that roughly it would cost 60 to 70 thousand dollars to build cable to the business park. She explained that they would have to take a survey from the businesses in the area to see what their needs were first. If their needs didn’t meet Time Warners business model on [return on investment] they would not be able to provide service.

Next Mrs Deaton stated it would cost about 94 thousand dollars to build cable to the Houston Oaks area. Again she indicated if Houston Oaks needs didn’t meet Time Warners business model on [return on investment] they would not be able to provide service to this area either.

Mayor Thornton stated he didn’t look at it as just an investment in a geographic area of Paris, [talking about Time Warners return on investment model] but it should be an investment of the entire City of Paris. Mayor Thornton stated “he thought it was very crucial that services were provided to these areas.”

Commissioner Horne said he disagreed with Time Warners business philosophy. “He said he wanted to see aggressive action taken toward our community”.

It was also stated that channel 6 is the Community Channel that all of Paris could use. It was suggested that commission meetings, court session, high school ball games, all could be filmed and then shown on tv. The big kicker there would be getting enough people in the community involved to do it.

Next item was Communications. The Mayor and City Commissioners gave the ok to advertise two new jobs for the City of Paris. One position is for a Chief Finance/Utilities Official. The other is for a Human Resources Insurance Generalist. If you are looking for work, this might be one of those good jobs that our tax dollars pay for.

Next on the consent agenda the Little League baseball Parade is slated for May 8th.

Next item was the Landfill Contract Extension with Central Ky Landfill. City Manager Nagy stated ‘that the language had finally arrived at a satisfactory set of terms for the City and Central Ky to extend the contract for another year.” He stated that “Central Ky Landfill would provide the city with some additional containers with no extra cost to the City.” The Mayor and City Commissioners all voted yes to extend the contract for one year.

This meeting was rather short compared to others in the past. It was only one hour long? Maybe because I wasn’t their to ask questions? JUST KIDDING!
I was hoping this new weed/grass ordinance would help the situation around my house, but the weeds and grass are taller than the 10 inch maximum height stated in the ordinance at the writing of this post. I recall the mayor telling code enforcement people to make sure this gets enforced this year.


I didn’t want to fight with it this year again, but it better get mowed soon or else I will be on the door steps of City Hall asking why not.

Until next time,