Big change coming to Paris neighborhood

PARIS, Ky. (WTVQ) — Trailers drive through the narrow streets of the Paris Westside neighborhood to access the city’s municipal incinerator and trash dump. It has been in the predominantly African American neighborhood since 1965.

“This neighborhood probably has the highest rate of flat tires than any neighborhood in the United States because as you’ve seen the trailers, the nails fall off people get flat tires,” neighborhood advocate Bill Alverson said.

Vanessa Logan is a resident in the Westside Neighborhood as well as the president of the Paris Westside Association. She has worked tirelessly next to Alverson to get the incineration site moved to a more industrial location, but she credits former city commissioner Anna Allen Edwards for starting the movement.

“It’s just become a great thing for the Paris Westside to do all of these things for the neighborhood again, to bring back like it was before when I was a little girl,” Logan said.

Both Alverson and Logan say the neighborhood used to look a lot better than this, but as people started moving away, the area became run down, filled with drugs and vacant houses.

“It was a close-knit community and we’re trying to bring this back to where folks can have homes to live in, we can make housing affordable,” Alverson said.

Hopefully soon it will be. The city of Paris is holding a bid on the land next Wednesday, as the incinerator and trash dump moves locations. Neighbors have already started planning for what they want to do with the land when the dump is gone.

“They want a park with walking trails, they would like to have a place where they can have picnics under shelters, they wanted a green grass area where children can play soccer, or they could do badminton and do just different things over here,” Logan said.

Thanks to the work of Alverson, Logan, Edwards, and the Bourbon County Judge Executive Mike Williams, the area will soon be able to be used for all of those activities.