The goat pasture called a “Business Park” is the grift that keeps on giving to Eckermann Engineering, as I have covered in the past. Eckermann has engineered and surveyed the SHIT out of that goat pasture! Here are some past tithes the LEDC paid to Pope Eckermann to bless their corpse repository:
Month after month! Like a greengrocer paying off the mafia or something. Unbelievable!
That was a total of $168,740 back in the 2014 and 2015 timeframe.
The scam started WAY before that, however, as this photo of the LEDC 2004 Form 990 tax filings show [Schedule A – part VII]:
They blew $43,429 on “Engineering/Surveying” right off the bat after purchasing the goat pasture – and those are 2004 dollars!
This “business park” has been engineered and surveyed more times than Ronnie Witcher has cried ‘wolf!’ over Wuhan Flu!
At least back then, they called it what it was: “Engineering/Surveying”, which makes it easy to see and add up. Things then changed, apparently. In an odd way:
The LEDC finally filed their tax forms for the 2018/2019 fiscal year. I saw an odd line in there under “MANAGEMENT” for $57,338 [Part IX 11 a]. I have never noticed a “management’ number in their tax filings going back 17 years.
For instance, the previous year, there was ZERO on the “Management” line item – although you can see they wasted about $43,000 on “Legal”!!!
[Are you beginning to understand the SCOPE of the absolute WASTE OF MONEY all of this is??]
The year before that, same thing: zero money on “Management” and $41,244 on “Legal”:
And over and over again [2015/2016 return]:
SO! Why the huge “management” fee JUST this past year? The LEDC board works for free and Mandy Walsh is handsomely paid a six-figure package of salary and benefits to be “Economic Director”.
So who the hell was paid $57,338 for “management”?
Turns out Eckermann Engineering got the lion’s share. According to Mandy Walsh, Pope Eckermann “was paid $48,800 for engineering services of Business Park Phase 1 Roadway and Utility Improvements”
Why not break it out as “Engineering/Surveying” as was done many times in the past? Why stick it under the ridiculous line item of “Management” when it has ZERO to do with management?
Maybe because it makes it a little harder to see without a bunch of digging?
After requesting all checks written to Eckermann Engineering for 2019, it turns out that even MORE was paid out to him to “engineer” the business park for the millionth time. Specifically $70,800
06/13/19 [check #005015] – $11,800
09/03/19 [check #002533] – $17,600
09/18/19 [check #002536] – $19,400
12/27/19 [check #005017] – $22,000 (will show up in FY 2019/2020 tax filings)
The first three total out to the $48,800 placed into the “management” line item expense on the latest (2018/2019) LEDC Form 990 tax filing. The last $22,000 occurred after the new fiscal year and will (presumably) show up somewhere in the next tax form – which I’ll be lucky to see by November of this year, even though it is required by law to be filed with the IRS by February 15th.
A colossal $239,540 has been paid to Eckermann Engineering between 9/11/14 and 12/27/19 on this ridiculous ‘business’ park. How many times can you “survey” and “engineer” the same crappy goat pasture??
And you wonder why I beat on this Business Park disaster over and over again.
[I haven’t even asked yet how in the hell they wasted over EIGHTY-FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS on “Legal” in only two years!!]
I’ve called the LEDC’s very existence nothing but a slush fund for idiots to play god with and flush money down the toilet with zero results. Disgusting tax dollar waste like THIS continues to prove me right.
P.S. – that is a grand total of $323,540 wasted JUST on Eckermann and “legal” fees for this corpse repository, for those keeping track at home.