Last night at the joint meeting of the Paris City Council and the Paris Economic Development Corporation (PEDC), Ricky Hayes, owner of Retail Attractions, gave a written statement to the members concerning the audit and investigation done by Defenbaugh and Associates.
Retail Attractions is an economic development consulting firm that was hired by the PEDC. Mr. Hayes and his firm were mentioned in the final report submitted by Danny Defenbaugh (pictured). In the letter and memo sent to the media and the Paris city council, Mr. Hayes states that ” that comments made in the ‘Defenbaugh’ report are false, misleading, and slanderous toward my company.”
Mr. Hayes goes on to state, “I also want to point out that those responsible for making false statements in a report of this kind open themselves up to litigation when they make false, defaming and slanderous statements. My company works directly with cities, Economic Development Corporations, developers, retailers and restaurants. Obviously our reputation, integrity, the character of our firm could be damaged by these false statements.”
One of the assertions in the report is that “at the very least, according to his contract, Hayes should have paid for his own hotel room and not PEDC.” Mr. Hayes shows receipts where he did in fact pay for his own room. He also points out that Retail Attractions actually paid for Mr. Gilbert’s membership and conference fees and flew Mr. Gilbert on a chartered plane also paid for by Retail Attractions. This was not in the Defenbaugh report.
Mr. Hayes states, “Neither I nor my staff received one phone call, email or other contact from the Defenbaugh groups to provide the information. We would have gladly done so.”
Mr. Hayes concludes in his memo, “Instead the investigator wrongly speculated and ultimately made false and misleading statements. I didn’t bother to read the rest of the report, but would surmise that it contains much of the same.”