paragraph markers

i have version 1 of html editor.
i have it on page where there are other fields as well.

each time the update page is loaded it adds paragraph tags.
when i first copy/paste text (plain text) it saves correctly.
however when i go to update, the page loads with <p> tags.
then if i save it that way, and reload the update page, i get <p>&lt;p&gt;

whats causing this and how can i get rid of it.
is this a version 1 issue only?

edit the HTML Editor instance.

for the initial value, click the lightning bolt and reselect the corresponding recordset column to recreate the initial value code.

the problem is that the initial value has code to convert the < and > characters to the HTML Entity.