Seven million dollars. That’s a LOT of money. Money that COULD have been used for the City of Lampasas and its citizens. Instead, it is being vaporized by the Lampasas Economic Development Corporation and City council on an ill-fated “business park” project that has promised “high paying jobs” for nearly TWENTY YEARS now.
The jobs are always just around the corner but the cost is NOW…and it just keeps skyrocketing higher. Every year they plead for “just a little more money” and every year, City council throws more money down the rat hole, following that carrot on a stick like a donkey.
In 2003, it was a million bucks to buy the land. In 2015 it was another $1.9 million to make it “shovel ready”. In May 2021, it was another $1.97 million to REALLY make it ready [page 15]. On Feb 14, 2022 it was bumped to $2.7 million [page 11] to “have a home run”, according to Steve Hudson.
In ADDITION to all of that, more millions were wasted on legal fees, surveying the SAME land many times over, brush clearing and even promotion!
See the pattern??
And every promise turns out to be a lie. The promise of jobs “about to happen“, the promise of “$250,000 per year in revenue“. All lies. But City council thinks with every step, they’ll finally get a bite of that carrot.
This project has no possible way of EVER creating any kind of return on investment. Former councilman Mike White admitted as much on May 26th, 2020. Current City councilman Bob Goodart called it “a colossal waste of money” just 15 months ago.
The people MOST culpable for this fiscal crime are Misti Talbert, TJ Monroe, Steve Hudson, Neal Leavell and Roland Schaub. Mandy Walsh and Finley deGraffenreid are on that list too, as cheerleaders and enablers – even though they technically work for the City at great expense to the taxpayer (approximately $300,000 per year).
Here are some of the MANY intractable problems with this entire project:
#1 Misti Talbert, Mandy Walsh and the LEDC have ALWAYS refused to divulge the names of any possible prospects for the park. If you are going to keep going hat-in-hand to City council and vaporizing millions with vague promises of “many prospects ready to move in”, then it’s only fair you give a solid prospect or two BY NAME.
The LAST time they had a “prospect” and kept the name hidden, it turned out to be Mike Cour and Eco-Strong – which was a complete and total scam. The LEDC was strung along for almost a YEAR before the scam blew up. Misti, Mandy and TJ have NEVER answered for that disaster….and City council has NEVER called them on it. There is NO WAY that anyone on the LEDC should be trusted after bungling that so badly and falling for such an OBVIOUSLY nonviable scheme.
So they are batting .000 after 18 years. That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
#2 Misti Talbert makes mention of “all the jobs” this will generate, but never EVER says how many jobs we are talking about and at what salary. Therefore, it is all pie-in-the-sky nonsense. You cannot say that spending $7,000,000.00 is worth it for “jobs” if you don’t explicitly define the benefits of that cost. She never does. She claims it will be a great ROI (return on investment) but that is a charade since she never gives the “R” part of the equation.
#3 We lack the workforce: If you want “high paying jobs” from Big Companies, you need an educated workforce. Unfortunately, only 30% of the citizens of Lampasas over the age of 25 have a high school diploma. Only 13% are college graduates. Those are not the numbers that “high tech, high salary” companies are looking for.
So what will happen? Workers will commute from the south – Georgetown, Liberty Hill, Round Rock. This means the citizens of Lampasas are getting gouged for over $7,000,000 for a “business park” that very few will be working at unless they are sweeping the floor. But we will ALL get to enjoy the traffic and bullshit that comes with it.
Here is a crazy idea: if you want a “high paying job” move to Austin, Round Rock or Georgetown! Why is that so hard to fathom? There is a tradeoff you cannot avoid: the high-paying jobs are in the Big Expensive City. Period. They go hand-in-hand. Anyone with huge brains will graduate school here, go to college (maybe not, as college is quite useless now) which requires moving away anyways. The LEDC is trying to reinvent the wheel by bringing “high paying jobs” here when they are literally already 60 miles down the road.
Moronic, to say the least. The LEDC would save about $6.5 million by just buying and running a commuter bus from Lampasas to Round Rock for those who want to work there and avoid driving! Sounds crazy but it’s true.
#4 Do we even really NEED jobs??? Like a general fighting the last war, the LEDC acts like we are some worn-out, down-on-their-luck steel mill town desperate for jobs. The reality is quite the opposite! Every single business in town is hiring and cannot find workers. There are something like 4 million more jobs than workers in this country.
So if jobs are plentiful, why is the LEDC wasting $7,000,000 to bring MORE jobs?
Imagine for a moment the LEDC actually gets their pipe dream and company XYZ decides to locate here and provide 100 jobs (this is for the sake of argument – it will never happen). First thing XYZ does is negotiate goodies like reduced property taxes or no property taxes or cheap electricity. That’s a fact Misti also never mentions. The LEDC will give them anything they want in their desperation to ‘prove’ the business park was a genius idea.
So now, Company XYZ has saved a lot of money because the LEDC has handed them a lot of free shit. What does XYZ do? They proceed to hire workers away from EXISTING businesses in this town. Maybe they poach a dozen workers from Ajinomoto, Oil States, etc and end up fucking THOSE existing businesses in the process.
How do you think THOSE existing companies are going to feel after the LEDC makes finding and keeping employees that much harder? And the LEDC did it using THEIR TAX DOLLARS! Talk about rubbing salt in the wounds.
There are many more reasons the ‘business’ park is a structurally unsound idea. I would LOVE to debate LEDC President Misti Talbert on the issue any time she wants. The gauntlet is thrown down.