As promised, I want to go through the latest Dispatch puff-piece about the Lampasas Economic Dunces Club (LEDC) ‘business park’ and their attempt to fleece the United States Federal government to fund it further. I have highlighted particularly odious piles of horse shit for further discussion:
Right off the bat, they TWICE repeat the lie that this is “Phase I” of the development. This implies they are JUST NOW starting out on this project. It hides the ACTUAL history of complete failure and money wasting for the last 17 years. I SUSPECT they did this so it looks better on their grant application.
The reality is that they spent close to ONE MILLION DOLLARS back in the 2014/2015 time frame when Chris Toups was mayor. THAT was “Phase I”. It was also supposed to be the ONLY phase of this debacle. The pitch back then (SIX YEARS AGO) was that we just need to throw a million at this ‘goat pasture’ and the high-paying jobs would come pouring in.
Don’t believe me? I went through the Dispatch archives and found every idiotic quote from every idiotic politician and government dingbat and listed them all RIGHT HERE going back to 2014. Go ahead and click the link to have a look. I’ll wait.
You’re back? OK. Let’s continue.
Walsh said “Last fall, an international business expressed interest in opening an operation in the park”.
Notice how Mandy NEVER names names of all these supposed interested parties? What business was it, Mandy? Wait, don’t tell me. I already know. It’s “Eco-Strong LLC” which was not even formed a year ago? You have met with Mike Cour several times – starting last fall. About ONE MONTH after this “Eco-Strong LLC” was incorporated, according to Texas filings.
It is SUPPOSEDLY a distribution arm of “Eco-Flex”, which is a Canadian company. Eco-Strong LLC appears to be a one-man operation…SUPPOSEDLY somehow related to Eco-FLEX but with a different name(?).
A British website called “Tyre & Rubber Recycling” ran a huge (obviously bullshit) story back in May of this year describing how ground was JUST ABOUT to be broken in Lampasas on a tire recycling plant in early June. I emailed the author (Ewan Scott) the DAY AFTER his highly erroneous article was published. No answer! How odd. I feel it highly unlikely Ewan Scott would just make this crap up out of thin air. He must have had someone feeding him “information”, right?
So, did Mike Cour feed Ewan Scott this line of shit to make his “company” look more legit when he went to the LEDC? What exactly was his “presentation” to the LEDC?
We can never know, because the LEDC does their best to keep everyone in the dark about these back-room deals: The LEDC skips meetings constantly (they skipped TWO of SEVEN meetings already this year)…..they move meeting times to noon to make it inconvenient for working stiffs to attend…they REFUSE to record their meetings on the City’s $96,000 A/V system, despite them holding their meetings in the exact same building as City council (the $1.5 million dollar Fishbowl).
But let’s get back to the article!
“Walsh said most businesses are unable to wait for the city to prepare sites in the park”
Again I ask you Mandy: WHAT BUSINESSES! Please, name ONE single business that is just chomping at the bit to break ground tomorrow. Just name ONE.
You can’t. Because it is just more bullshit. Bullshit you pile upon bullshit to make this corpse repository appear to be a viable project when it is anything but.
Part II coming soon…..