Is it Police Chief Cummings? Mayor Thelma Jean? Randy “Speedbump” Clarke? ‘Doctor’ Chane Rascoe?
Let’s look at the conflicting information given in the SAME ARTICLE today in the Lampasas Dispatch:
Statement #1: “Police Chief Jody Cummings said Lampasas Independent School District Superintendent Dr. Chane Rascoe began discussions about adding SROs immediately after the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
[Makes it sound like Rascoe is on the ball and immediately dealing with this. Although in my opinion, there isn’t much to deal with. Uvalde fucked up badly. Not us.]
Statement #2: “Councilman Randy Clark expressed his frustration that the discussion was occurring so late in the budget process. “This is last minute… I’m very disappointed about that,” he said. “I’m disappointed that no one is here from the schools”.
Statement #3: [transcript from council video – go to 33:00 mark, as I said days ago] “Mayor TJ Monroe agreed. ‘I think I feel the frustration of all the council,’ she said, adding that the council previously held a special session to discuss the state of the police department and school security.
[This meeting was JUST with Cummings, according to video of 8/8/22 meeting]
“THAT was the point for the school district to say what they needed,but they didn’t come forward,” Monroe said. “We’ve spent the summer working on what we thought was a balanced budget, and now they’ve thrown what could be $300,000 to $400,000 into our budget.”
So in statements #2 and #3 (in the SAME ARTICLE) Thelma and Speedbump are saying the opposite: that Chane and the LISD didn’t make a peep until just recently and are going to blow a $400,000 hole in the budget.
This is typical of City council, of course. Making massive expenditures in a big fat hurry with little to no deliberation. It just so happens this was the ONE time it wasn’t really their fault. Sounds like it was Chane Rascoe’s fault. Or perhaps Chief Cummings never relayed the message after he supposedly met with Chane “immediately after” Uvalde.
Somebody dropped the ball. Of course, we will NEVER hear that admitted (kinda like the skate park fiasco). Instead, the taxpayer just gets soaked to “fix” everything (also like the skate park!).
Of course, there are better solutions than wasting another $400,000. You can find those solutions at the link below: