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]