Here is a nugget from 2014 about how Lampasas was at a “crossroads” as it tried to decide whether to waste another $1.7 million on utilities for the Business Pork.….complete with a bizarre blurb about a Business Park built in the 1970s that “is 41% full, currently – according to officials”.
Wait. What?
From June 2014:
Two things can happen if the city does not prepare for the coming development, said Kathi Masonheimer, executive director of the Lampasas Economic Development Corporation, development will happen anyway and can make the process more expensive down the road without proper planning, or developers will simply move on down the road to another community.
Lampasas EDC and City Council members met after the city’s regular meeting Monday to discuss the viability of spending $1.7 million to extend utility lines to one of the city’s business parks, followed by several additional millions to build structures on the land.
[Wait…ONE of the City’s business parks?? We have others? BAHAHAHAHA. No way. The disasters NEVER end with this group.]
The city already agreed to invest around $2 million in infrastructure improvements this year to update water, sewer and electrical lines in the city.
Located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 183 and County Road 11, the 165-acre business park has remained a vacant field since 2005.
[Vacant field = weed patch. Also, it’s 150 acres. The LEDC didn’t even know how much land it owned? Classic.]
“There have been many times over the past years where we have had good perspective businesses that were interested in coming to Lampasas, and when they tried to come here there was either not a site with utilities to it or (privately-owned sites would become too expensive),” Neal Leavell said at the meeting.
[There’s that lie again! Also, it’s ‘prospective’, not ‘perspective’. Goodness.]
He explained that other cities do not face a utility problem and can place companies quickly and inexpensively on sites, which leaves Lampasas at a disadvantage.
Utilities were not originally extended to the park because the 2003 bond election that would have funded the utility construction failed, Leavell said.
[They did not consider that possibility ahead of time? Of course they didn’t!]
The site already has been passed over by Motorola, CGI Group Inc. and most recently by Lampasas Trucking and Readi-Mix, which relocated to the area from California in April.
A similar business park built in Lampasas in the 1970s is 41 percent full currently, officials said Monday.
[What the hell? ‘Officials’ said? Which officials? Finley was City manager back in 2014 – was he the one babbling about “a similar park’ built in the 1970s? Another park? Where is it? Is it that cement-covered turd on 580 E they are trying to unload on Martin Custom & Rod? Why would you start a SECOND business park if the first one was not even half full? Because Angelou charged you $25,000 to tell you that? BAHAHAHAHAHA. Jesus Christ!]
“This is a risky proposal … there’s no telling how long it would take to put businesses in this park, but I believe without a site, we’re really spinning our wheels in trying to do economic development,” Leavell said.
[Or you could do BOTH: have a site AND spin your wheels – which is the most costly and useless combination, by the way. Neal Leavell = world-class chump]
“LEDC Executive Director Talbot stated that he has had several economic development inquiries from prospective businesses in the past few weeks.”
That sentence appeared in the LEDC minutes from May 3rd, 2004. It also appears dozens of other times over the five years of minutes I read.
May 2004
June 2004
July 2004
I’d say 97% of the time it was just like that: nice and vague. No names given.
The other 3% of the time it was much more specific and everyone got an instant erection and ridiculous dreams danced in their heads of some sap who was going to come here and start handing out $100,000 jobs to everybody with a pulse. They threw money at anything during those times – swallowing the hype over and over.
First it was a $20 million medical center. Then it was “second-tier suppliers” for a new Toyota plant in San Antonio. Then it was a high-tech company and maybe the next Dell! And on and on and on. Like Charlie Brown falling for the football trick that Lucy pulled over and over and over.
Sad.
None of it ever came to fruition, obviously. But that lie has been used very successfully ever since.
Talbot used it. Cherry Hargrove used it. So did Kathi Masonheimer. Mandy Walsh has said it countless times as has Misti Talbert. Yet nothing ever happened. It is the irresistible bait that keeps City council coming back for more and lets the LEDC waste their next million.
Talbot and Angelou Economics told us REPEATEDLY we just needed a Business Park (2000 through 2003) – then we’d have street cred since you couldn’t go to potential businesses empty-handed. AND, you could only apply for free Economic Development grant money from the state once you had a viable tenant (just like today).
“We are turning them away because we have no land!”, was the line they used.
“An economic study in 2001, [Neal] Leavell said,concluded a business park was the main item Lampasas needed to attract development.” – Oct 23, 2015
So the plan was always this: buy the land, use it to lure a business, then use that now-solid prospective tenant to get the EDA grant. They even paid Langford & Associates (remember them?) $1,500 in June of 2004 to do a “pre-application’ for an EDA grant!
So, the LEDC chumps bought the land ($1.1 million at 7% interest for 15 years) like Angelou said, and waited. And waited. And waited some more…
For 10 years they waited and not a SINGLE BUSINESS had any interest in moving into the “business complex”. That should have ended it right there. Talbot was wrong. The high-priced consultant Angelou Economics was wrong. Craig Benton and Judith Hetherly were wrong. All of them were wrong.
But that didn’t stop it! After 10 years, they told us “we need to run utilities into the park! THEN the businesses will flock here.
“We are turning them away because we don’t have utilities!”, was the new story.
They told us tall tales that business would be there any minute!
“Advocates of utility extensions have said entities compete vigorously for new jobs and that cities with ready-to-build sites have an advantage as they try to attract new businesses.” – August 8, 2014
“The incumbent said the city acquired the business park property several years ago but has lacked the infrastructure needed at the site. Soon, she said, the business park will be developed enough to be inviting to businesses. [Then-council-member Wanda Bierschwale] – April 10, 2015
“Grayson said he hopes to develop the business park and attract companies to the site.” [Then-mayor Grayson running for re-election] – April 3, 2015
For another seven long years they waited. They kept trying to convince themselves the entire time that success was just around the corner:
“Ms. Toups said she wants to continue to provide infrastructure to develop the business park — Ms. Toups said through the Lampasas Economic Development Corp.’s hard work, “we are on the verge of seeing large corporations come in [to the business park].” – April 21, 2017
But no businesses came.
But again, that wasn’t the end of it.
They came back to council in 2021 and assured them that they just needed another $1.9 million – later upped to $2.75 million – to build a couple roads and extend the utilities even FURTHER into the park and to concentrate on a 50-acre area of the 150-acre weed patch.
Misti even managed to grab $971,000 that fell into the City’s lap through the Covid Recovery Act bullshit federal giveaway. That was $971,000 the City could have spent on a lot of things. Instead it will be incinerated with the other millions on the weed patch. Misti facilitated this pilfering by telling that handy and time-proven lie about “we’ve had several economic inquiries in the last few weeks”….
So will the third time be a charm? Don’t bet on it.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before! It echoes today’s situation EXACTLY. Which means none of these people have learned a single lesson.
Back in 2004 – while the LEDC was having tunnel vision about building a “business complex” and spending countless hundreds of hours on committees, sub-committees, task forces, consultants, and all the rest, the FREE MARKET was creating jobs all around them. So much so, that some of the companies could not get any workers!
2/16/2004 minutes:Talbot stated that he had a meeting last week with representatives of Specialty Brands [now known as Ajinomoto Foods] concerning their shortage of SEVENTY EMPLOYEES, which they think is becoming critical to their operations here in Lampasas.
Once again (as today), the LEDC is spinning their wheels and wasting MILLIONS OF DOLLARS when there are companies RIGHT NOW who can’t get enough workers! If you don’t see the insanity in that, then your name is either Misti Talbert or Finley deGraffenreid.
You know who else opened up in 2004 and is mentioned repeatedly in the minutes? The Wal-Mart Supercenter. They are now the third-largest employer in town (184 employees). You know who else was ramping up in 2004? Oil States. They were ALSO having trouble finding workers!
As I read the LEDC minutes between 2000 and 2005, the LEDC morons like Mike Talbot are literally mentioning the “lightning speed” with which Wal-Mart is building their store (that is a quote). They also yammer about the expansion of Specialty Brands (Windsor/Ajinomoto) plant AND the expansion of Oil States!
The LEDC was busy jerking around and spending millions on their useless sandbox while the free market created hundreds of jobs right under their noses! Apparently the irony of this was lost on everyone.
The EXACT SAME THING is happening today! Misti and the other clowns are wasting ANOTHER $2.75 million on this thing [current grand total of $7.1 million and counting] while every single business in town is desperate for workers!
(2) Sell the 150 acres while land prices are outrageous and at least get SOME money back (perhaps $2 million back to the City)
(3) Eliminate the position of Economic Development Director (savings to City of over $100,000 per year)
(4) Ban Misti Talbert from ever holding any position in this town again. Ditto for fellow LEDC clown TJ Monroe.
(5) Eliminate the 1/4% sales tax that has been in effect for two decades now and which funds the slush fund these morons have played with uselessly for 22 years.
(6) Roll back the electrical code from the current ridiculous 2020 version back to 2014 – which is used by Austin and other big cities.
Let the free market do its thing. Get moron bureaucrats and Nerf-job clowns out of the way.
One of the biggest lies the LEDC keeps repeating is that the Business Pork Project is currently in Phase I (the $2.75 million boondoggle recently approved).
I have refuted this repeatedly by pointing out that when the LEDC and City council decided to waste over $1 million in 2014 to “bring utilities to the business park” and “make it shovel ready”, that THAT was Phase I. It actually goes back even further than that, according to the old LEDC minutes.
By calling this “Phase I”, Misti Talbert and the LEDC project the false impression that they are just getting started on this Business Pork debacle. It allows them to ignore 19 years of failure and “wipe the slate clean” as it were.
They even splattered the lie all over the Dispatch today!
Unfortunately for them, there are minutes dating back to 2000 that refute all of their lies. Turns out, this latest money grab makes it like Phase IV or Phase V.
Let’s look at some tidbits from 2003:
12/15/03: Executive Director Talbot stated that he recommends that the Board only approve the work associated with Phase I of the proposal. The Board could then decide whether to proceed with Phase II.
President [Paul] Wilborn asked if the price was reasonable.
Talbot stated the price is slightly high because of the time frame.
[Shocker – even back then, they were constantly overpaying for things and in a rush to get something done, even though they had no idea where they were going. This is seen REPEATEDLY throughout the minutes between 2000 and 2004.]
Talbot stated that Phase I was just gathering information and he would like the Board to authorize any testing that might come up.
Talbot stated that his recommendation is that the Board gives their approval for him to engage Turner Collie & Braden Inc only for Phase I in the amount not to exceed $26,830.00, unless additional testing is required associated with the garbage pit designated on the property.
[I guess Pope Eckermann hadn’t sniffed out this money trough just yet, way back then! Also remember, these were 2003 dollars – which is the equivalent of about $55,000 today]
Board member Hetherly moved to recommend Talbot to agree to the proposal. Hudson seconded the motion and the motion passed.
12/23/03 minutes: Talbot wants to enter into an agreement with SWCA Environmental Consultants for professional services associated with the property the LEDC currently has under contract. Hudson moves to authorize and Hetherly seconds. Passes unanimously. [cost is not discussed here – unknown]
Talbot states the following items have been done:
Surveying work has been completed.
Wow. Surveying work was completed in 2003? That is weird, because Pope Eckermann himself surveyed the SHIT out of that SAME PIECE OF LAND in 2014, 2015 and 2016! As I pointed out back in January of 2020:
Between 2/21/14 and 6/15/16 Pope Eckermann took a $168,740 bite out the taxpayer’s ass. Or about $6,000 per month. To do what? Great question. Here is a sample of just a few entries – it’s seriously almost on a monthly basis! They almost LITERALLY tithe Pope Eckermann on a schedule, it seems. Monthly rent to sprinkle holy water on the sacred site:
You’d think that for $168,740 worth of “serveying” [sic] over two years, they’d learn how to spell “surveying”.
It’s almost like I totally called this back in 2020!
1/19/2004 minutes: The Board has 150 acres under contract. The survey has been completed. All of Phase I field work has been done.
THEN on April 5, 2004 (minutes): “Board member Benton made a motion to authorize Talbot to sign an agreement with Turner Collie & Braden to proceed with Phase II work for the 150-acre Business Complex…Hetherly seconded motion. Passed unanimously.
So THERE is your Phase I (and Phase II) back in 2003 and 2004.
After combing through years of LEDC minutes about the Business Pork, it becomes depressing and frustrating to see how the EXACT same useless ideas are tried over and over and over.
Committee after committee after committee. Economic plan after economic plan after economic plan. Task force after task force after task force.
Below is an excerpt from a 2007 article. It interviews Judith Hetherly. Hetherly shows up repeatedly in the LEDC minutes in the 2001 to 2005 time frame. She was another clown on the LEDC board who was instrumental in wasting money on failed ideas. As you read this, you can’t help but notice the similarities to today. Just substitute Misti Talbert for Hetherly. Both were on City council. Both were mayor. Both were president of the LEDC and both helped waste enormous sums with nothing to show for it.
Truly, there is nothing new under the sun:
Last month, Judith Hetherly took the seat of mayor of Lampasas, a position formerly held by Jack Calvert for the past 16 years.
“I think Lampasas is a progressive city that has a lot of possibilties for business growth and economic growth, and I think we’re going to see that. With the springs we have here, we’re sitting on a gold mine,” Hetherly said.
In fact, the natural mineral springs are what got Hetherly involved in Lampasas politics. The town was thinking of shutting down Hancock Springs Pool, which Hetherly saw as a potential tourist attraction, so she joined the campaign to keep the pool open. Hancock Springs Pool remains operational to this day, and Hetherly remains active in city government.
Hetherly served two terms on the city council and is the president of the Lampasas Economic Development Corporation board. As mayor, Hetherly sees herself as a facilitator, collaborating with city and county officials, the school district and Lampasas citizens to achieve positive growth and a sound economy.
Her priorities as mayor are to develop a recently purchased business park and to work with the newly formed Downtown Task Force to inventory available downtown commercial space and attract buyers.
“We have a beautiful downtown, and it’s here only because of that courthouse,” Hetherly said. “We have never planned for anything down here. It just happened. This task force is looking at where (downtown) wants to go.”
The city council is also challenged with revising the Comprehensive Plan for the city. The plan was developed in 2005, but the broad scope of the document created challenges in implementation. Hetherly said that the plan must be more focused.
Amazing! SAME EXACT BULLSHIT. Task forces. Trying to snazz up the downtown area. The Business Pork pipe dream. She even talks about a Comprehensive Plan developed in 2005!!!!
By my count, that is FOUR “economic plans” the City has wasted time and/or money on. Angelou Economic Advisory was the first back in the 2001/2002 era (cost of $25,000). Then the one Hetherly mentions here from 2005 (cost unknown), then the “Strategic Plan” formulated in July of 2017 by the LEDC and then the Comprehensive Plan that Finley keeps under his pillow from Halff Associates (cost $120,000).
When will these dummies EVER learn that government bureaucrats, central planning, economic development con men who charge by the hour, and endless committees are a colossal waste of time and money??? Truly amazing.
Here is how it all began…(this document will be edited and updated as I comb through the minutes – last update 4/27)
The Lampasas Economic Development Corp (LEDC) used to be known as Lampasas 4B, Inc (it was changed in December of 2001). Lampasas 4B, Inc was incorporated July 13th, 1998. Jack Calvert was mayor and signed the resolution approving the articles of incorporation. Michael Talbot (City Manager at the time) was also present as was Jim Wallace.
Talbot? Now hold on a second while we jump into the Talbot situation:
“The business park has been a colossal waste of money to this point. The citizens of Lampasas voted to not buy the property, but then the City Manager, Mike Talbot managed to purchase the property through the Lampasas Economic Development Corporation, which is funded by the City of Lampasas.”
No major business wants to build here because we are too far from the interstate, we don’t have a rail head, we don’t have the workforce to sustain it and we don’t have the things that are attractive to those businesses, such as hotels and restaurants and housing. It is my opinion it should be sold to recoup some of the money or at the very least, stop throwing money into it, until there is a firm commitment from a major business to come there.
Talbot? Talbert? Funny that these two idiots have almost the same name.
But back to our story…
Lampasas 4B, Inc articles of incorporation were then filed with the Secretary of State on September 9, 1998.
For the next three years, it appears they did very little. Then in 2001, they decided to get serious about wasting some big money.
The 4B Inc board hired a company called Angelou Economic Advisory, Incfor $25,000 to draw up an “Economic Master Plan”. Sound familiar? The City paid $120,000 a couple years ago for something similar – the Comprehensive Plan. I’ll bet you a signed dollar than nobody who okayed the Comprehensive Plan had any idea that the City ALREADY went through this back in 2001 and it was a waste of money then, too.
Angelou pushed hard for an industrial park: (6/4/01 minutes) “the development of an industrial park should be a priority“. Craig Benton (4B board member) was also a huge proponent of this idea. In fact, Benton was hoping they would waste money on 200 acres originally!
Angelou ALSO pointed out some obvious problems that I have mentioned myself and which have not changed in 20 years. Namely, that the educational levels of the local labor force are not up to snuff for the types of jobs you need to bring in.
City manager Mike Talbot was a HUGE cheerleader of this park as well. Remember – Talbot was a CITY EMPLOYEE and not an elected official.He was also Executive Director of 4B, Inc. This was a HUGE mistake, in my opinion. This setup gave an inordinate amount of power to a guy who didn’t answer to the voters.
[The more I read about this Talbot guy, the more I am convinced he was a complete shithead. Which may explain why he has had problems in Bastrop as THEIR City manager and finally retired again. He is now sitting pretty collecting a fat pension while Lampasas chokes on a $7 million disaster. Talbot bailed on Lampasas in May of 2006 and left them holding a big bag of shit while he scurried back to Bastrop to grab a paycheck there].
Retarded bureaucrat was giving orders back in 2001. Total disaster.
Talbot can be seen in the minutes pushing REPEATEDLY for the 4B Board of directors to shit or get off the pot and do SOMETHING/ANYTHING to change direction and get things moving.
5/12/01 minutes: “Talbot expressed concern of how much longer are we going to continue on the same path. Maybe we need to bite the bullet and do something”
I can safely say Talbot is to blame more than anyone else for steering Lampasas down this disastrous Business Park path. Craig Benton is a very close second. Angelou Economics also pounded the table for a “business park” after the LEDC morons hired them for $25,000.
The most ridiculous part of all of this is that Talbot went out to look at other “industrial parks” in Round Rock, Georgetown, Temple and Killeen. Notice anything about those cities? They have MASSIVE populations compared to Lampasas. From Day One, this moron was biting off WAY more than he could chew – and the LEDC board let him get away with it, no questions asked. These clowns had NO business trying to emulate a big city. None.
Here is the very first notice they posted for their “proposed economic development project”:
The first thing you may notice is that they were going to issue this bond for the purchase, planning, development and construction of a business/industrial park.
Let that sink in for a moment: the original bond was supposed to pay for ALL OF IT. The land, the utilities, the contracted services – everything.
Purchase AND CONSTRUCTION of a business/industrial park, INCLUDING THE INFRASTRUCTURE NECESSARY, and for the promotion or development of new or expanded enterprises.
They even slapped a 1/4 cent sales tax on everyone to pay for it – a tax that remains in effect to this very day 21 years later.
Around this exact same time, there was still some trepidation by a some on City council about going through with all this. According to the minutes (9/4/01):
“Jack Calvert, mayor and citizen, noted that he was skittish about the cost of property. He does not know how we protect ourselves from overpricing”
Others didn’t bother to think twice:
“Glynda Carpenter, Councilwoman and citizen, noted that we definitely need an industrial/business park, because not having one held us back”
[Part of me wonders where morons like Carpenter and Talbot are right now. I’d bet they don’t even live here anymore. Probably in another city, fucking things up there, too].
MONEY WASTING AND WHEEL SPINNING FOR THREE YEARS
They blew a LOT of money on questionable crap in these years (2001, 2002, 2003). Names like The Hogan Corporation, Dr Ray Perryman, Bexar Group and Berkley Enterprises show up in the minutes. Like Angelou, they appear to be serial con men selling big dreams and lots of bullshit to a very gullible group of people. They definitely paid Ray Perryman but the minutes never say how much.
This has all the appearances of a slush fund run by morons. It looks worse than a college kid with his parents’ credit card for the first time. A LOT of money was flushed down the toilet and there was ZERO accountability.
They were getting nowhere – just spending a lot of money with nothing to show for it. They decided to bring that idiot Angelou BACK to town. The cost was $750 a pop to have him show up and answer questions. In October of 2002, Angelou was STILL demanding they “build a business complex and then go to Austin to try and get businesses interested…”
Angelou stated: “there is still time [to build the park] because of the [poor] economy. It will still take around two years by the time the property is bought“.
After reading a few hundred pages of minutes and the ramblings of Angelou, it is clear he was WAY off on all his predictions. The LEDC paid this con man $25,000 for a “Master Plan” and help, and all he did was put them on a path to the ruin we see now: 19 years later, over $7 million wasted, and zero tenants or legit prospects.
LAND IS FINALLY PURCHASED
But they finally got around to buying some land in chunks here and there in 2004.
The Board of Directors convened a “special meeting” on April 26th, 2004 and voted 5-0 to authorize a $1,100,000.00 bond issuance. Those five people were Paul Wilborn (President), Neal Leavell (Secretary/Treasurer), John Cole (Director), Judith Hetherly (Director) and Debbie Fuller (Director).
[Two members were absent and did not vote (Craig Benton and Steve Hudson)].
They got the $1,100,000.00 at 7% interest!!
For the math-challenged – that is $77,000 per year wasted on interest.
Then the land-buying spree commenced:
In April of 2004, they bought 63.639 acres from Jimmie D and Gayle L Meyers for $379,500 ($5,963 per acre):
In May of 2004, they bought 45.02 acres from the Dana Lynn Davis Trust for $270,000($5,997 per acre)
Then in August of that year, they bought another 43.29 acres from Leonard Everett Spivey for $260,400 ($6,015 per acre):
That adds up to about 152 acres for $909,900.
We can check this by looking at the 2004 non-profit filing for the LEDC – and there we DO see them carrying “land, buildings and equipment basis” on their books for $909,835 – a mere $65 off my calculations.
I know the land is currently referred to as a “165-acre tract”, so those other 13 acres must have been picked up along the line somewhere for zero dollars (unlikely, in my opinion) or else the “165-acre tract” is wrong and it’s only 152 acres. I can find no record of it.
This represent a loss of 10% on their “investment” over the first 8 years…and ZERO utilities or infrastructure had been taken care of yet…DESPITE the promises that the original $1.1 million would cover all of those expenses!
In other words, over those first 8 years they were paying 7% interest for the privilege of owning land that was depreciating at 1.25% per year. They paid $616,000 in interest payments and lost almost $100k on the land value. So they were roughly $700,000 in the hole in the first 8 years.
That is called being underwater BIG time. That is a worse deal than the worst scumbag used car salesman would give you on a jalopy at usurious rates.
Also remember: they borrowed $1.1 million and spend $909,900 – leaving them $190,000 in reserves. I believe they did this to look better for the bond rating agency. There was some discussion in the minutes about it.
Hi there Dana! I’m doing a project about Texas politics for high school. I’m wondering if being on the SDEC (as you are for District 24) is a paid position. Thanks! Just trying to figure out how it all works
She responded to me as follows:
It’s not a paid position and none of the expenses incurred are reimbursed (mileage, meals, hotels, etc). Thanks for asking! Best Wishes,
Dana Rushing
So Comrade Clayton will be ‘earning’ a negative salary for this position. Sounds about right. I didn’t think it could get worse than his current situation where he holds a bunch of unpaid titles to make his resume look good while mom and dad let him live in their upstairs bedroom. I was wrong. This one actually COSTS money to do. LOL.
She got two useless shots and wears a useless mask, all so she can signal on Facebook that she is better than you.
Like most weak-minded, old lady progressives (**cough ** Janet Crozier ** cough **), she believes in stupid pseudoscientific bullshit like mind reading and clairvoyance:
If you are stupid enough to go to a “clairvoyant medium” and waste your money, the last thing you should do is let that be known publicly. You should hide it in shame. But there she is actually REVIEWING a con artist! She is BRAGGING about being swindled. She is essentially saying “Jerry was an amazing scam artist! He fucked me good and hard! He took my money and fed me some amazing bullshit!”
Hmmm….where have I heard that kind of pseudoscientific babbling and stupidity before? Oh yeah…another moron liberal…
No. Scientists are not saying that. No real ones, anyways.
Knowing what I know about Crazier Crozier and watching her retarded antics for years now, I truly believe her statement about her learning more from the autistic kid than he learned from her.
She believes in other insanity too:
It is not happening because you are a helpless moron
Gee….hard to believe she failed as a “life coach”. She really seems to have her shit together here.
You wonder why idiot libs believe every ridiculous thing they hear? Things like: masks work, Jan 6th was an insurrection, Trump is a Russian agent, Fauci is a genius, Biden doesn’t have dementia, inflation is Putin’s fault, solar panels can run everything, Bernie Sanders has all the answers, etc, etc?
It’s because their brains were wired wrong at birth. Janet Crazier Crozier, Bruce Haywire Haywood, this Dana idiot, Comrade Clayton. All victims of a sad kind of brain damage where they don’t understand how anything works and they have deluded themselves into thinking they’re smart.
Grab your clubs! There is a baby seal on the loose again!
Local socialist bum and fake farmer Clayton Tucker has finally announced he is running for SDEC! I knew this a month ago, but had to keep it quiet as he hadn’t officially announced yet…
What is SDEC, you are asking? Good question. I had no idea myself!
Since Comrade Clayton can’t get anyone to vote for him in an election where someone OTHER than a moron democrat is involved (like City council or state senate), he is clearly now trying to move up the ladder within the Democratic Party and be king of the dipshits.
This kid will do ANYTHING to avoid an honest day’s work, won’t he? My god.
He went from state ‘organizer’ for Our Revolution (Bernie Sanders socialist group) to Advisory Committee Member for Ground Game Texas (an unimportant little group founded by socialist scumworms Julie Oliver and Mike Siegel) to Chairman of the Lampasas County Democrats (see his success HERE), to Deputy Finance Director for Texas Young Democrats (the only ones stupid enough to believe he knows anything about finance) to the Trade Justice Education Fund (another weird, unimportant tiny group that wants free vaccines for Africa or something – despite the vaccines not working).
He has held all of these “jobs” while ALSO pretending to be a farmer, cowboy and rancher! It must be exhausting trying to keep all the lies straight! It’s also odd that despite having 12 ‘jobs’ he still lives upstairs at mom’s house here in town.
He did all this in about 14 months. So, as I predicted long ago, it’s not about actually accomplishing anything of value or improving anything or gaining any skills. It’s about how much crap you can load onto your resume so you can weasel your way up the next rung of the ladder.
The kid would have made a GREAT public school superintendent, don’t you think?
So will the Baby Seal get clubbed for the SIXTH time in a row?
Tough call.
If this is a paid position that requires any kind of talent or skill, he will definitely be clubbed and feasted on by Eskimos.
If it is another bullshit title without a paycheck (like Ground Game Texas), then he is probably a shoo-in.
With all these titles-but-no-paycheck jobs Comrade Clayton seems to get, it is a damn good thing that mom and pop let him continue to live in their upstairs bedroom!
[** UPDATE 4/21 ** – last night’s meeting was cancelled due to a lack of quorum. That means they couldn’t even get 4 people to show up. As Misti Talbert said: ‘we are all very dedicated to this Business Park and believe in it strongly”. Funny way of showing it!!]
The LEDC skipped their March meeting – which is exactly what you would expect from a group of wizards who are right smack in the middle of incinerating their next $2.75 million on Phase II (Phase I was in 2015 under Toups regime) of their Business Pork project.
As you may recall, these same wizards told us the park was “shovel ready” nearly SEVEN YEARS ago after they wasted the first few million dollars:
We already have another “amendment” – which will line the pockets of Pope Eckermann to the tune of $10,000:
As I blogged WAAAAAY back on June 8th, 2021: “Guys like Pope Eckermann are not stupid. Once the big $2 million dollar [update: now $2.75 million] project is well underway, the LEDC and City council will not even blink at a few “cost increases” of $60,000 here and $86,000 there. That’s how these things work. He knows that morons like Chuck Williamson and Total Joke Monroe will fall victim to the Sunk Cost Fallacy, because they have done so repeatedly in the past.“
Then AGAIN on Jan 28th of this year (another $30,000 to $40,000 additional cost) when they decided to use “lime-stabilized subgrade”.
So with this latest $10,000, we are looking at$103,700in additional costs already – and ground is barely being broken!
FEB 2022 MINUTES – LEDC
I finally got a look at the February minutes (two months old now) and here are the highlights:
The Industrial Park agreement with Martin’s Rod & Custom is still languishing in limbo – no surprises there! It has been nearly SIX MONTHS since the “deal” was drawn up. According to the City secretary, the agreement now sits with the lawyers for Martin’s for them to approve.
Here is a refresher on the “deal” the LEDC is making with the “Industrial Park”:
Speaking of handing out free money, supposedly there is a “new tenant” moving into the old “Perks” building that will “be a bar…serving mixed beverages, but highlighting bourbon specifically”.
You know what that means! LEDC about to hand out some more fat checks as “life safety grants” so the new owners can comply with the onerous and ridiculous building codes that the City has implemented. So with one hand, the City piles expensive and unneeded codes onto any new business and the other hand of the City hands them free shit paid for by the taxpayer.
Out here in the harsh private sector, this is known as a “circle jerk of fuckery”. In government, it is “business as usual”.
There will ALSO supposedly be two MORE businesses “on each side of the formers Rutland’s building. One has a distillery/tasting room concept, with the upstairs as an event rental space“ [emphasis mine].
Oh no! Event rental space?!? The City is already wasting millions on the Hostess House so THEY can run an “event rental space”! I wonder which one will be better run and cost less in the long run? I know who I’m betting against!
Tons of jobs going unfilled in Lampasas – LEDC wants to spend $7.1 million to (maybe) bring a couple more. Genius!!
NOW, the City is wasting $1.4 million on the Hostess House as an “event rental space” and the free market is going to pound their asses in that game too!
The funniest part (if you find humor in flushing tax money down the toilet) is that the morons on the LEDC will likely hand the owners of this new “event rental space” a bunch of free tax dollars as a “life safety grant” for the very spot that will be competing against THEIR OWN $1.4 million dollar Hostess House spot!
