I Was Wrong

It takes a big man to admit he was totally wrong. I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I could not have been more wrong.

Back on November 8th of last year, I wrote a piece entitled “RKJ Construction Kicks deGraffenreid In The Nuts One Last Time For Elevator“. I was lamenting how RKJ screwed our City manager one last time at delivery by jacking up the price a teeny bit more ($8,800) on the elevator the City had ALREADY paid a THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLAR premium for. The elevator that was about SEVEN MONTHS LATE and held up the entire $1.5 million dollar City Hall remodeling debacle.

I was wrong: RKJ Construction was NOT done kicking Finley’s ball sack. They have actually kicked it a LOT more over the last year. Apparently this elevator (which City council stupidly agreed to pay $128,400 for when there was a perfectly good $96,605 bid on the table) has had to be serviced FIVE TIMES already!

Mayor Talbert is “disappointed” and “unhappy” that Finley’s nuts have been pummeled like this. But, she says she has asked if FIVE elevator repairs in a year is normal, and “everybody” says it is.

Really?

Of course, she probably DIDN’T complain to RKJ Construction – the ones who raked the City over the coals on this piece of shit elevator.

I lived in the Big City for quite a while. I worked for 10 years in the same skyscraper. The elevators there actually went up and down 110 floors hundreds of times a day, and I don’t recall them breaking down every other month. Those were HIGH USE. Same goes for the high rise I lived in. Maybe broke once a year, at most.

But HERE at City Hall – which has a whopping TWO floors and is probably used only 10 times a day, the thing breaks down constantly! Amazing! RKJ Construction must do quality work.

So now, the City (after a careful discussion of approximately 90 seconds) unanimously agrees to enter into a SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DOLLAR maintenance agreement! Are you kidding me???

Do you know what Mr Lampasshole would be doing if HE was the City manager? Here’s what:

You get on the phone with RKJ Construction and say “Hey buddy! Remember that elevator we paid an EXTRA $30,000 for to “keep it local”? Remember how you screwed the pooch and held us up because it took you an extra SEVEN MONTHS to get that overpriced elevator installed?”

“Yes, well, it’s a huge piece of shit that has broken down every other month. So we’d like you to go ahead and pay the first two years of our new wildly overpriced $17,000, 3-year maintenance contract. It’ll cost you about $5,800 a year. Considering you fleeced us an extra $30k for this thing, I think that’s a fair deal.”

If RKJ Construction are a bunch of assholes and says NO to that request, you inform them politely that “you will NEVER, EVER see another dime of City contract money. Thanks very much”

THEN you make sure The Lampasas Dispatch prints THAT in their newspaper and publicly humiliates RKJ Construction.

I mean, Jesus Christ. Didn’t ANY of you idiots on City council or City Hall think to take this route? Get Rickie Roy on it. He’s one of the few guys in City government who seems like he DOESN’T have his head up his ass.

No. Nobody thought to grow a pair of testicles and play hard ball with RKJ Construction. Instead, they just bend over and waste ANOTHER $17,000 on it. What a bunch of wimps and punching bags.

Oh, and thanks again ‘Greasy’ Chris Harrison, for your brilliant motion as councilman years ago to overpay RKJ Construction by 30% because they are “local”. You complete moron.

Quick recap: