You may recall developer Deorald Finney. He’s the one who asked City council for a bunch of free stuff for his Stone Valley development project of 67 new houses a year or two ago. I have ranted about him a few times on these pages.
He’s the guy who actually had the nerve to ask City council to waive pretty much every building fee they charge (loss of about $31,000 to City coffers) AND to provide free electrical hookups to each house – at a cost to the City of $72,000. Oh, and to hand over another $53,000 or so for other drainage/street stuff (3/29/19 front page).
City council nitwits TJ Monroe and Chuck Williamson voted to give him every single break he asked for (don’t forget that Chuck is up for re-election very soon!). They lost that vote 2-5.
Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and they only gave him everything he wanted MINUS waiving all building permits [5-2 vote – see Dispatch from 3/29/19 front page article]. Monroe and Williamson voted against the reduced package since they wanted to hand MORE free stuff to Finney.
I recall Mike White’s common-sense statement back in the 3/29/19 edition of the Dispatch (page 11): “If I’m building a house, I don’t get a fee waived”.
Bravo, sir. Monroe and Williamson don’t see it that way, apparently.
As early as July 17th, 2018 (page 10), Talbert was fine with handing out the $72,000 in candy. Her logic? The city would be willing to consider “doing the electric [infrastructure] at our cost because [it is] an enterprise for us; we do sell electric service.”
No shit? Then why does the City have a hookup fee at all for anybody?? Everyone else buys electric service too!
When Deorald was arguing for all the sweetheart deals, he said the houses would sell for between $150k and $180k (1/4/19 page 10):
“Finney estimated home prices would range from $150,000-$180,000”.
Hmmm. Weird, because one of them is currently listed at over $200,000 right now. Link here.
That $200k is THIRTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS MORE per house than the mid-point estimate he gave to the City. Multiply that by 67 houses and you are looking at over $2.3 million extra windfall dollars in Deorald’s pocket. Good thing the City handed him all that free shit. If they hadn’t done that, he may have been forced to live in a puny 5,000 square foot hovel….instead of the opulent mansion he is currently bragging about on Facebook:
Poor guy. Barely scraping by selling those Stone Valley houses. Without that $72,000 fee waiver from Misti and The Gang, he might have to live in a house WITHOUT corbels! The horror.
I sure hope City council gets invited over for the mansion warming party! Or maybe get invited on a trip to Hawaii or something. Anything to show his thanks for City council being such suckers with City money.
Here is a video of developers grabbing City of Lampasas tax dollars over the last few years. If you look closely, you can see Deorald and “Greasy” Chris Harrison in there!