Stop me if you’ve heard this one…
The LEDC shells out thousands upon thousands of dollars to join some group or attend some conference and then….nothing happens.
If you have read here for any appreciable amount of time, you HAVE heard it before. In fact, I once painstakingly compiled a list of conferences, conventions, workshops, webinars, clinics, summits, groups and retreats that the LEDC has paid good (taxpayer) money to attend/join. Feel free to refresh your memory re-reading my awesome post:
Nerf Job = Nerf Workshops + Nerf Travel
The “Save Your Town” course back in 2019 was my favorite outrageous scam of all time. Just look at these two charlatans!
Those are two very happy scammers. Did I say scammers? I meant campers.
Anyways, according to the latest LEDC packet (page 3, section VIII), they are at it again!
This time, they want to join the Grand Central Texas Economic Development group. Not to be confused with the Central Texas Council of Governments, another useless group of plecostomi.
Cost? A bargain at $4,200. Which seems to be a very common ballpark amount of money to ask for, when it comes to these groups. Some worm must have done a study about the maximum number that idiot politicians and City employees will say “YES” to without putting up much of a fight.
Like your teen kid asking for money. If he asks for $40, you are likely to hand it over, no questions. If he’s dumb enough to ask for $400, you are going to ask a LOT of questions.
Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered.
Speaking of pigs, here is Rosa Rios Valdez. She is the president of the Grand Central Texas Economic Development group.
You’d have a shit-eating grin like that too if you were paid $182,000 to ‘work’ 12 hours a week [page 7, section VII, line 5] at some horseshit non-profit like this scamming the gullible rubes in the “economic development” groups of smaller cities like Lampasas.
I tell ya, those of us in the private sector are the true morons. Ybarra, deGraffenreid, Ward, Wright – they are the smart ones. Sitting around sipping on chilled government tit milk and taking 4 or 6 weeks of vacation per year while getting health insurance at 75% off. Must be nice to make that kind of cheddar when you’d barely be qualified to work the counter at 7-Eleven in the real world.
But I digress.
What does the City get for their $4,200 ‘investment’ (which I assume is an annually-administered titty twist and not a one-time fee)? Let’s see [page 3]…
They get “website/swag/conferences” for starters! WOW. Swag!
They also get “visibility/resources” – nice and vague…and unquantifiable.
Finally, they get “targeted industries” – whatever that means.
Sounds like a deal! I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that the same geniuses who squandered $7.2 million to build a park that sits empty after 20 years will DEFINITELY puke up $4,200 for the extremely unlikely chance that Rosa Rios Valdez will find them a prom date for the Big Dance.