Some Free Writing Lessons for Ryan Ward. He Needs Them.

I’m sure many people think I’m being a nitpicker with all this grammar and spelling shit, but if you’re going to hire someone as the #2 guy on the City totem pole (soon to be #1?), he should be able to write in a way that isn’t a complete embarrassment to the City of Lampasas.

We’ve seen this before, but it was at a lower level: merely a department head.

Ward is one of the top bananas and costs the City about $158,000 in salary and benefits. I’m guessing he corresponds by email with dozens of people as well as the outside world. He should know how to string a few sentences together.

Here is a screenshot of the last City council packet blurb:

Posed with opportunities?? I think he means “presented”….but that is the least of the issues here!

Here is how it SHOULD read:

As more photovoltaic (PV) systems are installed in our city, we need to make sure our electric customers have the data to make informed decisions. This presentation aims to educate Council regarding the scale and impacts of PV system deployment in Lampasas.

BAM. Done.

All that other shit is just poorly-worded fluff. One thing I have learned in my 53 years is that when someone writes like Ward (with all the extra words and repeating themselves) they are usually trying to sound a lot smarter than they really are.

As for the CONTENTS of this presentation…

Actually, I would argue it is not your job to make sure any solar customer makes an informed decision. That is the job of the guy buying the PV system and the guy selling it. Are you going to tell them how to buy a car too? Maybe tell them to stay away from the Ram 1500 because it is a giant piece of shit? Then you could move on to the moronic 28-year-old welfare mom about to have her fifth kid with her third boyfriend and tell her she is making a VERY shitty decision?

Every grown adult should know to do their research when making a big purchase. If not, they will sure as hell know after they muck it all up. It’s called experience…and you are trying to deprive them of that.

As for the presentation itself? Ward wasted considerable time on this whole thing. About the only time I feel sorry for council members is when they have to sit and listen for 22 minutes to something that could take 4 minutes. I’d lose my shit if I was them.

He could have easily said “we currently have 30 houses with PV systems. We estimate maybe two or three more per year. Don’t worry about any of it because the guys installing this shit AND the power company know what they are doing. Worst case scenario is you get a little extra power from these guys and pay them 5 cents a kilowatt-hour and then sell that same power for 11 cents per kilowatt-hour. But I doubt you’ll notice shit because we are talking about spit in the ocean here. End of presentation.”

Two minutes tops. Then hand out your ridiculous nine-page Power Point for people to read (or throw away) on their own time.