I’d like to thank the Lampasas Economic Development Corp, their President, Misti Talbert, our Economic Development Director Mandy “Mandy Clause” Walsh and Mayor Thelma Jean Monroe for their hard work and tireless effort in bringing sushi to our town!
Just kidding. None of those dingbats had anything to do with this awesome “development” (see what I did there?).
It was just the beautiful free market and an amazing (privately held) company like HEB that made it happen without ANY help from Mandy and her clipboard.
Exactly three years ago, the ridiculous no-bid Azbell A/V monstrosity prompted me to finally speak out about local government waste. Little did I know exactly HOW much waste there was in addition to that A/V system! Millions of dollars more, as it turns out.
Finley immediately told a massive lie the very next month, trying to cover his ass against the colossal waste of money in a September 2018 Dispatch article:
DeGraffenried said if the City Council had decided to seek bids for the audio visual system instead of using the Buy Board method, the city would havehad to spend about $10,000 to obtain a professional design for the system. “I think we did get good value — I’m convinced of it,” deGraffenried said of the system the city purchased.
This is what is know as a “bald faced lie”.
The TRUTH is that the city DID originally seek bids – and it accepted the lowest one from Broadcast Works for $33,983 – which INCLUDED a one-year warranty AND training. It is right there in black and white in the City council minutes from August 25, 2014….on page six.
Monica Wright, Information Systems Director, explained that she received three quotes for Professional Service related to Audio/Video Distribution and System Automation for the new Council Chambers:
Wright said that the IT Department recommends the award of quote to Broadcast Works in the amount of $33,983. The selected A/V contractor will be required to work in conjunction with the architect, general contractor and sub-contractor, in addition to attending a pre-construction meeting. The scope of work to be done will be in accordance with the contract, which will include a one year warranty, as well as training.
Council member Toups moved to approve the award of quote for Professional Service related to Audio/Video Distribution and System Automation for the new Council Chambers. The motion was seconded by Council member Talbert and with a unanimous vote, the motion carried.
Yet despite all that, somehow that original agreement disappeared in a shadowy back room deal somewhere and Azbell was handed $95,000 without question.
Looks pretty cut-and-dried to me. Finley is a liar, plain and simple. So was Gary Cox, our former Assistant City Manager whowas fired resigned over a rumored prank involving goldfish crackers, if you can believe that!
The funniest part? If you actually publicly point out all the lies and money wasting and shady deals (and back up your accusations with copious amounts of hard evidence), you get called a “cowardly keyboard warrior” by the mayor! The very same mayor who babbles about being transparent but then hides behind her lawyer anytime a citizen requests public documents!
Well, good for you, Comrade Clayton! You are doing the very first useful thing you’ve ever done in your life. It only took until age 31, but look how productive you are being!
“I’ve been vaxxed but I still wear a mask…like a good little drone”
I guess Comrade Clayton wasn’t a special speaker after all – because it looks like they let any wacko walking down the street jump up there and scream about fairness.
As soon as his turn at the megaphone was over, he had to hold the sign for every other freak, loser and passerby to spit rabidly into the microphone and tell us that “healthcare is a human right!”
He/She/It/They?
Hey! That dude/chick looks like Scut Farkas’s sidekick in the movie “A Christmas Story“!
Such a good, obedient, unquestioning eunuch communist! He has already eagerly taken the unapproved vaccine even though he is in an extremely low risk group (young and female). But as soon as Grandpa Joe tells him to mask back up, he masks back up! There is NO useful idiot on earth as useful as Comrade Clayton Tucker.
Now I get to STILL wear a mask at my commie rallies! Yipee!!
Local socialist bum and Marxist louse Clayton Tucker took a day off from lounging in his parents’ attic to travel down to Austin to “speak” about stealing from one group and handing to another group:
“Our Revolution” is a Bernie Sanders commie group filled with losers and Marxist lice
The above pic was the fantasy. I think Comrade Clayton thought he would be given a podium and a microphone and the massive crowds would stand there rapt as he pounded the podium with his tiny fist and demanded “fairness”.
The reality was quite different. He reminds me of those crazy, homeless street urchin preachers in New Orleans who scream into their megaphone for 9 hours a day – which is EXACTLY where Comrade Clayton WOULD be if his parents weren’t kind enough to let him live in their house:
If this is your kid, you failed badly as a parent
One thing is certain from looking at this “man”: Comrade Clayton is no rancher or farmer. With that physique, he looks more like a Richard Simmons wanna-be. Seriously – looks just like him! Imagine him without the fake cowboy hat prop:
The pool has only been open 5 days a week this season instead of the normal six, because of this “staffing issue”.
Back on June 22nd I also said “I’ll bet you Finley’s left nut that this isn’t the last time this happens.“
Well, looks like Finley just lost his nut in a bet:
So nice of them to give everyone 48 hours notice before they close the pool two weeks early. They are SUPPOSED to close when school starts again – which is around August 12th or 13 – another two weeks from now.
So for those of you who had plans next week to get in a few more fun times at the pool with the kids – you’re shit out of luck. But that’s the way it works with government bureaucrats: costs go up and service goes down. Finley would have made an excellent postmaster general.
I guess Misti Talbert and the LEDC hate free money and would rather put the taxpayers on the hook for hundreds of thousands in unnecessary interest payments.
That is the only thing I can conclude from a few indisputable facts that come from the LEDC’s own minutes.
FACT #1: The LEDC has the option to apply for a “standard EDA grant” and get some FREE cash for their business park. They talked about it at the Feb LEDC meeting this year – a mere five months ago. From the Feb minutes (page 3, item IV):
“Mandy Walsh discussed with the board the options of the Business Park. One being the possibility of applying for the standard EDA grant contingent on a business prospect” [emphasis mine]
[I swear – Talbert makes such horrible money decisions so often that I would not be shocked to see a personal bankruptcy in her past. I’m not even kidding]
This is presumably the same EDA grant they talked about back in 2014. The one Masonheimer was unable to drum up much support for:
FACT #2: The LEDC is getting non-stop requests for information from the governor’s office on a weekly basis – aka, ‘business prospects’. We know this because Mandy Walsh just told us this at the last council meeting. Go to the 15:40 mark at the meeting video:
“We receive RFIs from the governors office on a weekly basis – and they’re all looking for acreage and, currently, as it stands, there is nowhere to put someone…that’s looking for even 2 to 5 acres…we’re having to pass up on some possible prospects because we don’t have the land and we’re not fully developed“
So, explain something to me:
If all that is required for the free money from the EDA grant is a viable business prospect to put down on your application AND you are getting calls from viable business prospects “weekly” from the governor’s office, then WHY DON’T YOU USE THOSE PROSPECTS IN A GRANT SUBMISSION FORM TO THE EDA GRANT OFFICE?
I’ll be here waiting for an answer to that question…
It’s amazing what you find rummaging through the old archives. The people running the LEDC should try it some time.
A few days ago, Mandy and Misti stood up and implored council to let them blow ANOTHER $2 million on the “business” park. Her main point was:
“We receive RFIs from the governors office on a weekly basis – and they’re all looking for acreage and, currently, as it stands, there is nowhere to put someone…that’s looking for even 2 to 5 acres…we’re having to pass up on some possible prospects because we don’t have the land and we’re not fully developed“
That is an EXACT quote. The implication: there are just TONS of businesses out there clamoring to throw money at us, and we just don’t have the land and infrastructure (of course, they can’t give us the NAMES of any businesses – that’s a secret, according to Mandy).
Now let’s go back to June of 2014 – almost exactly SEVEN YEARS AGO. That’s when LEDC President Neal Leavell stood before council and said the following…lifted VERBATEM from the LEDC minutes from 6/12/14 (page 15):
Neal Leavell, LEDC President, explained that the City has had good perspective [sic] businesses interested but the City does not have the land available with infrastructure to accommodate them.
Leavell pointed out the following: The City cannot develop the Business Park without infrastructure LEDC feels that infrastructure to the Business Park needs to be done
As you can see, Leavell made almost EXACTLY, word for word, the SAME plea to council: we are turning businesses away! We need to spend $1.3 million on infrastructure to make it happen! Then we’ll be on easy street!
After they got the $1.3 million, LEDC President Leavell then publicly voiced his assurances that they were finally ready to bring in the businesses:
“I feel like we’re getting somewhere,” board president Dr. Neal Leavell added. “I think we’ve really accomplished something. It’s taken a lot of patience, but we’re here.” – September 23, 2014
[Leavell STILL sits on the LEDC board, by the way. NONE of these people ever leave – they just shuffle titles around.]
This week we heard the SAME BULLSHIT out of Mandy’s and Misti’s mouth – only now the number is $1.9 million (with LEDC borrowing $1.5 million of it this time).
The worst part? They knew damn good and well that there was NOT a “huge interest” out there on the part of prospective businesses back in 2014. How do I know this? Kathi Masonheimer (the Economic Development Director that Misti forgot about) said it herself!
You see, back then, they were ALSO trying to get a grant to pay for this stuff (JUST LIKE they tried and failed last year with the CARES ACT scam). According to Masonheimer herself (5/21/14 LEDC minutes – page 3):
EDA Grant requires letters from companies saying they will bring in a total of 100 jobs. The jobs and letters can be from different companies but must equal 100 total jobs. Masonheimer is having a hard time getting letters.
A hard time getting letters?? That doesn’t sound like anyone is knocking down the doors to me! Quite the opposite.
So – in May of 2014, Kathi Masonheimer admits publicly she is “having a hard time getting letters” from any companies committing to this whole “business” park charade.
Then, literally ONE MONTH LATER, LEDC President Neal Leavell stands up there in front of council begging for a huge pile of money and tells them that they need this infrastructure ASAP because there are SO many people beating down the door!
We saw Herb Pearce ask a few tough questions in Part I. He continued with more questions after asking for a list of these supposed “prospects” and being told by Mandy “those are confidential”.
19:19 mark: Herb asks “We’ve had this land for about 20 years? Why are we just now coming around to this right now?”
Ouch! Herb is rightly wondering “wtf have you guys been doing for the last 17 years with millions of dollars??“
This is where it gets hilarious.Mandy is not used to being grilled like this. She is used to being rubber-stamped by her girlfriends sitting on council. Since 2017 when Mandy started as ED Director, she has had her good buddies Misti Talbert, Delena Toups and Cathy Kuehne sitting up on the dais as Mayor and councilmembers.
In other words, no hard questions at all. Actually, no questions of any kind, really. Ever.
[Misti ALSO sat on the LEDC board at the exact same time she was mayor. So why would she EVER question anything the LEDC does? She’d be impugning her own actions!]
Why would they? They are all good buddies outside the confines of City council. Call it the “Good Old Girls” network. They used to travel every October to the Texas Municipal League convention (on the City’s dime) and have a grand old time.
Goofing around on teeter-totters, dressing up as snowmen, and of course, singing karaoke together several years in a row.
Council members fraternizing with the very employee they oversee ALWAYS leads to conflicts of interest. We have it in spades with the LEDC and City council.
[I get that this is a small town and it’s hard not to know a lot of people, but I never saw Talbert, Kuehne and Toups attend any “lawn maintenance” seminars with Jose the guy who mows the fields at 580 Sports Complex. Just saying!]
But that has all changed now. Talbert and Toups are gone and in their place sits Pearce and Morris – and they want some answers!
After Herb asked this question, Mandy was like a deer in the headlights. There was a VERY long pause (go to 19:24 mark) before she turned around to look behind her into the peanut gallery for some help from SOMEONE..ANYONE. I mean, it was REALLY uncomfortable. I’ve watched it a dozen times.
Here is the screenshot:
Help!!
Turns out her good gal pal (and recently elected president of the LEDC – shocker!) Misti Talbert was out in the peanut gallery ready to swoop in and save her, as we’ll see in a few minutes.
But Mandy couldn’t wait that long. First she stammered about how “I’ve only been here since 2017” and then she offered up a non-sequitur about how “we don’t have other land to offer a prospect coming into the City right now” – which has nothing to do with the question Herb asked. She was pretty much stammering nonsense answers – then quickly thought to turn it over to Finley, who is an expert at babbling bullshit:
“Help! Finley?? Wanna step in here and do my job for me??”
Finley dutifully stepped in and glazed over the eyes of council with gems like “leveraging enterprise funds”.
It wasn’t long until Misti charged in from the Peanut Gallery to save the day – and BOY was she talking a million miles a minute! Telling us about “the reality of the situation”.
The “reality” is she told a whopper right off the bat:
21:20 mark: “I’ve been on the EDC board since I think 2014…15…at the time we started revving things back up…at that time, there wasn’t even a director for the EDC, it was just the board…“
[Yes, by all means, let’s start in 2014 – TEN YEARS after you bought the land. We’ll just ignore everything before that, Herb!]
“How could you expect us to get anything done in 17 years with only two million dollars! WE DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A DIRECTOR FOR THE EDC!”
You’d think someone who has been buried like a tick in City government for all these years would know her history. There most certainly WAS an Economic Development Director during that period. Does the name “Kathi Masonheimer” ring a bell?
It should ring a bell. She is listed as “Economic Development Director” over and over in your own LEDC minutes all during that time frame. Go ahead and check for yourselves! Minutes from 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.
ED Director Masonheimer even assured us publicly that all the money they spent in 2015 was going to do the trick:
“Recent land clearing and development of a road at the business park, Mrs. Masonheimer added, have made the site more attractive to prospective businesses and U.S. 183 passersby.” – Oct 23, 2015
Furthermore, Masonheimer was also telling us that the “business” park was going to be generating lots of money soon – this was back on September 23, 2014:
“The LEDC’s new debt service payment will be about $150,000 a year, Mrs. Masonheimer said. The economic development corporation projects annual revenue of about $250,000, which will leave approximately $100,000 for operating costs after making loan payments. “
Whoops. Another “LEDC projection” pipe dream crashes down. But hey, the LEDC will REALLY be right with their predictions this time! Pinkie swear!!
Misti then stated [21:32 mark] that “Economic development within the City of Lampasas….everybody can look at and see…that is something to be proud of”
Huh? Examples please. Or do we just take your word for it as a self-evident truism? Which “development” are you all responsible for? Burger King? Whattaburger? Schlotskys? The Corner Store? Cefco?
I have news for Misti: all that “development” was going to happen ANYWAYS. – with or without a City bureaucrat on the payroll costing us over $100,000. Large corporations know EXACTLY when to move into an area. It all has to do with population, traffic and demographics – NONE of which are controlled by Mandy Walsh and the LEDC.
In short, the REAL answer to your question, Herb is “Because the LEDC motto is ‘Ready, Shoot, Aim”. Misti is essentially admitting that the LEDC bought that land back in 2004 with NO IDEA what the hell they were gonna do.
They had no idea in 2004 when they bought it. They had no idea in 2014 when they decided to blow another $1.3 million on it. They have no idea NOW as they stand before you asking for ANOTHER $2 million dollars. This is the same group of amateurs that was conned for a YEAR by Mike Cour and his Eco-Strong pipe dream.
In fact – that would be a GREAT question for Mandy and Misti next time they stand before council:
Some (relative) fireworks last night as a City council member actually asked some tough questions of Mandy Clause and the Lampasas Economic Dunces Club (LEDC) about their “business” park. Kudos to Herb Peace for asking some tough questions that former council members like Delena Toups would never ask.
Let’s get to some highlights:
15:20 mark: Mandy says “this project is fully funded by the EDC”. This is not true. You are borrowing $1.5 million and posting future sales tax collections as your “collateral”. Sales tax that would otherwise be going to the CITY and its citizens for services.
15:40 mark: Mandy “We receive RFIs from the governors office on a weekly basis – and they’re all looking for acreage and, currently, as it stands, there is nowhere to put someone…that’s looking for even 2 to 5 acres…we’re having to pass up on some possible prospects because we don’t have the land and we’re not fully developed“
From the way Mandy paints this picture, you’d think the poor, underfunded LEDC was just formed last year and operates on a shoestring budget.
“Everybody wants to come here and set up shop! We’re missing the boat!!”
The LEDC has only spent 17 years and millions of dollars so far – and you expect them to have a finished product? Especially after they basically said in 2015 “Hey, we have a finished product!”
“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
Guess that was another lie. They sure have a way of piling up when the LEDC starts talking.
Let’s be clear about something else: the “prospects” are not looking for acreage, they are looking for a handout from the taxpayers. Period. There are TONS of acres around here. I see them every day. So let’s cut the shit about “no land available” – what the prospect wants is free or subsidized acreage, courtesy of the taxpayers. Huge difference.
In fact, Mike Cour and Eco-Strong strung Mandy Walsh, Misti Talbert and TJ Monroe along for about a YEAR and THEN said “hey, we need $1.85 million from you to start this thing” – and it promptly fell apart.
Mike Cour, who flat-out lied to my face and said “we aren’t asking for anything from the City”, later asked for $1.85 million, as you can see from his shitty PowerPoint page above
17:15 mark: New councilman Herb Peace asks “do you have a list of names of the people that have contacted you from the governor’s office?“
Bravo Herb! I have been arguing for that info repeatedly for years. They always keep everything a huge secret. Mandy’s answer??
“I have a list of the projects…the names are confidential….until they choose a site and are ready to start building and developing”
BAM. That is absolute bullshit. I don’t care what the “procedure” is, there is ZERO reason to keep the “prospect” a secret until the very last second. The thought of some clever businessman/scam artist going up against Mandy, Misti and TJ Monroe at the “negotiating table” in a secret room makes me nauseous. That is because Misti Talbert, TJ Monroe, and the rest of the LEDC are incapable and incompetent when it comes to vetting a “prospect”.
How do I know that the LEDC is incapable of “negotiating” a “deal” with a prospect? Because their last “prospect” (which they also kept super secret) strung them along for a YEAR before being dumped. Not a single person on the LEDC (all of whom are STILL there) thought to do a cursory Google search on Mike Cour or Eco-Strong.
Let me repeat that: their ONE and ONLY “prospect” they have had for their ‘Business’ Park and who they tried their best to keep secret, was a CON MAN who has been in the paper for CONNING clients out of money!!
Don’t believe me? Check out “Triton Financial in Austin Texas Lawsuits“
