I recently emailed Many Walsh, our very well-paid Lampasas Economic Development Director [$101,285 in salary and benefits – page 82], to ask her a few very basic questions about the Eckermann retirement fund ‘Business Park’. Simple things like the original cost of the land, the terms of the loan are and the appraised value.
Mandy has been on the job for almost three years, if I am not mistaken, so she should definitely know what’s going on over there. Furthermore, the ‘Business Park’ is by FAR their biggest endeavor measured in terms of tax dollars being incinerated. Yeah, she may throw $10,000 to the Lampasas Higher Education people every year, or throw Halff Associates a $120,000 bone to do her job for her…..but the corpse repository ‘Business Park’ is where MILLIONS of dollars go to die.
In short, Mandy Walsh should know ‘Business Park’ stats like the back of her hand. So when she answers my email request with “Thank you for your email. I will forward your email to Christina Marez, City Secretary, who has been designated to handle these requests“, it means one of two things:
Either Mandy Walsh is monumentally incompetent and hasn’t the foggiest notion what the answers to those questions are OR Mandy Walsh is being a deliberate pain in the ass to make my life a little harder. She has to know I WILL get all that info in the end, one way or another.
I’m going to go with “deliberate pain in the ass” on this one. Probably because I have spilled gallons of ink over the last year taking a shit on the entire concept of a Business Park and uncovering embarrassing truths about the (high) costs and (zero) benefits of this debacle.
Not to mention doing an expose on the “shovel ready” lie.
The only reason to hide all the numbers I requested is because it makes this whole project look even worse than it already is. So touche, Mandy Walsh. You win a small victory. It’ll be a few more weeks before I take yet another public dump on the corpse repository. You can trust that I will not be kind with the waste and incompetence I find in those numbers.
Until then, let’s revisit what Kathy Masonheimer (Walsh’s predecessor) had to say in the Lampasas Dispatch about the corpse repository. Remember, this is from September 2014:
“Of the LEDC’s loan from First State Bank Central Texas, $1.3 million is for the business park utilities. Another $465,000 is for refinancing of the LEDC’s debt on the business park land. The total $1.77 million loan is for 15 years at a fixed interest rate of 3.35 percent. Along with the infrastructure the LEDC will fund, Lampasas has $200,000 in the city’s upcoming fiscal year budget for electrical extensions to the business park.
“The LEDC’s new debt service payment will be about $150,000 a year, Mrs. Masonheimer said. The economic development corporation projects annual revenue of about $250,000, which will leave approximately $100,000 for operating costs after making loan payments.“
[“Annual revenue of about $250,000” – BAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Makes me laugh every single time I read it]
For those of you on the short bus (and the IT Department) that 3.35% interest for 15 years on $1.77 million totals up to $889,425 in interest payments – tax dollars going directly into the pockets of First State Bank Central Texas. That is $889,425 vaporized, for all intents and purposes.
Oh, and also in 2014: “The [Lampasas City] council also voted to guarantee funds for the LEDC’s loan with First State Bank Central Texas. The bank requested the guarantee in the event the LEDC becomes unable to pay off the loan“.
Translation: if this whole thing blows up and/or land values go to shit, the City of Lampasas will bail out the LEDC. Must be nice to be a bankster! Heads I win ($889,000 in free money) and tails you lose (taxpayer bailout).