The New Thing…
Author: admin
Walsh Resigns as Economic Director
Well, I did NOT see that one coming!
I had a lot of stuff on my Bingo card this year. Stuff like ‘Haywood grows fatter on Whataburger’ and ‘skate park delayed’ and “Hostess House cost overruns” but never in a million years did I see this happening. This is like Michael Scott quitting Dunder Mifflin just months before they open a new branch.
The “new branch about to open” in this case would be the much-ballyhooed Business Pork project. It will supposedly be done in just a few months and Mandy Walsh resigns before the Great Unveiling? After she has undoubtedly put hundreds of hours of blood, sweat and tears into it? After dealing with vermin like Mike Cour? She leaves now?
Hmmm. Very odd, to say the least.
As I’ve said in the past, she was given an impossible task…as was Kathi Masonheimer before her. As much as I love this small town, it’s just that: another small town. There are a hundred more like us in Texas, and to think that wasting $7 million on a “business park” is going to turn us into the next Georgetown is moronic. The LEDC shouldn’t exist. The Business Pork shouldn’t exist. The free market is superior at guiding growth – not a small group of self-appointed people blowing tax dollars.
The wave of morons spreading out from Austin northwards will not move faster or slower because of the LEDC or Mandy Walsh. When it finally gets here, methinks we’ll all be sorry we got the “growth” that Talbert longs for.
Anyways, looks like the impossibility of this position took another scalp. I hope Mandy succeeds wildly in her new private sector position. The next economic director will likely take forever to get up to speed on everything. At least this gives Talbert a convenient excuse in a year as to why the business pork still sits empty.
R.I.P.
Cherry Hargrove (2010? – June 26, 2013)
Kathi Masonheimer (March 2014 – 2017)
Mandy Walsh (Feb 13, 2017 – Oct 5, 2022)
Reminder #1: in 2014, Kathi Masonheimer told us that all they needed was to run utilities to the business park and they’d be on easy street. That was 8.5 years ago!
“We get at least a lead a week from the governor’s office, and every one of the prospective companies want land with infrastructure already in place,” the new Lampasas official said. “Having available land with infrastructure makes it so much easier to attract those primary job manufacturing businesses.
So, City council spent over a million bucks to “have land available with infrastructure” in 2014 and 2015. Yet the park has sat empty since then. What happened to that “lead a week’ bullshit? Ah yes. It was all nonsense.
Today is the start of Q4 2022 – or exactly SEVEN YEARS LATER.No businesses have shown interest in this corpse repository.
Reminder #2: The 5.6-acre ‘Industrial Park’ still sits empty and Martin Custom & Rod has STILL not made any agreements with the City to move in there – ONE YEAR after the deal was first proposed. I think we can consider that deal DEAD.
New Budget Admits Hostess House Revenue Will Only Be $10,450 Per Year.
First, City council took over the Hostess House three years ago and told us it needed some “minor repairs”:
Then Finley told us the budget for the project “is about $200,000”
Council picks architecture firm for Hostess House upgrades
THEN the brain trust of Kuehne, Talbert and Williamson got ahold of it, and they decided to blow about $1.4 MILLION on the project.
According to the new budget [see page 1], Hostess House revenues for the next fiscal year will be $16,000 and expenditures will be $5,550.
That leaves about $10,000 left over as “profit”. Pretty close to the $12,000 I have been using for a while now.
At $10,450 per year, it will only take the City about 140 years to get their ‘investment’ back.
Of course, compared to the Business Pork project (expenditures over $7,100,000 and revenues of $0) this looks like a huge winner!
Lometa School District To Waste Nearly $2 Million On New Track
Incredible…
As a reminder, Lometa ISD is one TENTH the size of Lampasas ISD (320 students versus 3200). This works out to an expense of roughly $6,200 per student.
Of course, when shitty test scores come out of Lometa, the cry will be for MORE MONEY to pay teachers. How about you pay teachers FIRST, educate kids better FIRST and THEN you can worry about running around in a circle faster than someone else. Unbelievable.
FYI:
Public Schools in Lometa ISD School District have an average math proficiency score of 42% (versus the Texas public school average of 51%), and reading proficiency score of 27% (versus the 47% statewide average).
This district’s average testing ranking is 3/10, which is in the bottom 50% of public schools in Texas.
2022/2023 Budget Increases Expenditures 14% Overall.
The 2022/2023 budget has been approved. Below are some highlights.
City council set the tax rate as high as possible without triggering an election ($0.3156).
Total debt obligations are $1.4 million – up from $660,000 just five years ago.
They will raise 9.37% MORE from taxes on existing properties this year. Hey, someone has to pay for Assistant to the City Manager Ryan Ward’s COLAs and regular raises and benefit increases and all that other stuff in appreciation for his 9 long months of service.
Hey wait….didn’t the City government get showered with almost $2,000,000 in Covid money AND huge sales tax increases thanks to inflation and reckless federal stimulus? Yes. Yes they did. Now shut up and give them 9.37% more, you chump.
The IT department will see a 14.7% increase!Going from $353,690 up to $407,120. Of that, $222,500 (55%) is for salaries and benefits.
This is also a 42% increase over the budget five years ago…or over 8% annual increases.
Another $14,000 is for “professional services”. That means companies like TSM Consulting who come in and do anything more complicated than backing up data or changing printer cartridges.
Interesting side note: the “professional services” line item used to be50% higher– around $21,600 – roughly 5 years ago. Suspiciously, it started decreasing not long after I publicly shamed them over and over four years ago about hiring a third-party to do their work for them. Now, am I saying I’m a hero for exposing the waste and thus saving the taxpayer tens of thousands of dollars when City council finally started asking questions? No. But you can feel free to say it if you like.
Economic Director will see a 8.6% salary increasefrom $77,769 up to $84,423. Salary PLUS benefits will go from $107,053 to $115,879 (up 8.2%).
Police Department sees a whopping 26% increase! This is from $2.866 million to $3.616 million. Cost increase over the last five years is 47% – or almost 10% per annum ($2.46 million to $3.61 million).
I’m guessing a lot of this is due to the idiotic notion that we need cops in every school with $85,000 cars parked out front to “deter” lunatics. I said it would have been cheaper to arm some teachers. The more expensive path always prevails in government.
Fire Department beats them ALL with a 37% increase! Wow. The went from $1.9 million to $2.6 million in one year. Over the last five years, it has DOUBLED from $1.3 million to $2.6 million. Five years. Doubled. Ouch.
I’m pretty sure they are getting a new fire truck over there too – which I THINK was either fully or partially paid for with federal “covid” recovery funds. So that was something like $800k they didn’t have to spend out of their own budget. Yet they STILL went up 37%! Makes you wonder where it all goes.
Streets – well there is ONE area the City government is being stingy with: the STREETS category. They will spend $169,000 less on them.It goes from $1.58 million down to $1.42 million – a 10% DECREASE.
It’s not like streets are a priority. Ryan Ward (assistant to the City manager) has already told us that “our employees are our number one priority“. Remember? I do. He said it right HERE. Streets cannot be a priority when jacking up $100,000 salaries is the actual priority, fool.
Total expenditures for the operating budget go from $12 million last year to $13.68 million this coming year –an increase of 14%
LEDC Gives Succinct Mission Statement at Last Council Meeting
An overly short and factually lacking history of the LEDC was given by EDC Director Mandy Walsh on Monday night, when she made her report before council [see video at 30:00 mark]
Of course, the REAL history has already been covered extensively by me starting HERE.
Anyways, here is the short version of their history:
They implemented a 1/4% sales tax in 1998 (24 years ago). This was “designed to bring higher-paying, primary jobs.”. They spent a ton of money. No jobs were created.
The end.
Let’s see how that all worked out for them, shall we?
COSTS
Money skimmed off as sales tax since inception:approximately $5,000,000.00
Money wasted on Business Pork Project (started in 2002): well over $7,100,000 and countinghas been spent or is committed on paying off all the debt. They borrowed $1.5 million earlier this year and ALSO pilfered $971,000 in Recovery Act funds from the City. Money that could have been spent of the citizens, rather than in Misti’s Sandbox over on 183 South.
Wow. A LOT of costs over the last 24 years. Surely we got some benefits?
BENEFITS
“High-paying, primary jobs created”:Zero
Businesses moved into ‘Business’ Park:Zero
I’m no super smart Director with a lot of letters after my name, but I think “zero” might not be that great?
Oh, forgot one more from the “cost” list:
Salary and benefits for Economic Director for the last 6 or 8 years to re-post Facebook posts from The Rolling Pin and Merk & Tilly’s:approximately $500,000
Another Smear Job Hoax Falls Apart – Matt Gaetz Edition
We should know the Marxist playbook by now. Smear your opponent, repeat lies and “leaks” for months or years on end until weak-minded fools like Haywire and Comrade Clayton take it as gospel.
Remember this from two years ago??
Guilty until proven innocent if you are on the right side of the political aisle.
But of course, it was just more bullshit like the Russia Hoax, the ‘vaccine’ hoax and all the rest.
Gee, I wonder if the scummy liberal media will trumpet this news loudly to the unwashed masses. Or will it be on page 37 in the bottom corner?
Scumbags.
Lots Of Insanity in Latest City Council Packets – Plus Review Of New Budget Coming…
I’ve been swamped with a million things in real life, almost all of them due to having a group of idiots destroying the country. Unfortunately, I don’t live off the government like Loose Haywire or off my parents like Comrade Clayton – so I have problems to solve daily. Those of you who live in the real world understand.
People like Comrade Clayton with no job and no responsibilities can waste away their days kissing the asses of Muslims – this is because he is a parasitic socialist who hates America and wants to see it destroyed. Letting in ass-backwards foreigners who also love socialism and refuse to assimilate into American culture is a great way to do that….
Reminder: this is the CHAIRMAN of the Lampasas Democrats.
A self-loathing American. Disgusting.
I’ll get to the latest City council meeting AND the brand new budget later this week.
Lib Vaxholes Were Wrong Big Time. Many Will Likely Pay With Their Lives. I’m Fine With That.
Remember WAAAAY back in 2021 when all the good little tyrants were screaming at us to get an unproven “vaccine”? The media (and the Joe Biden puppet) repeated the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” lie a few million times. All the dumb, fat, liberal middle-aged women (and Clayton Tucker) posted the same false stats on social media over and over:
Lots of evil libtards even demanded that anyone who refused the vax should be refused admittance to a hospital because “they were asking for it”. They dreamed out loud and laughed about “all the right wingers dying of Covid” so there would be none left at election time.
People’s lives were ruined when they were fired for refusing a “vaccine” that was untested and ultimately proved to be useless at protecting against Covid. People who needed organ transplants were denied because they refused the “vaccine”.
Well, as usual, our side was right all along.
Now you know why they want to seal the Pfizer test results for 55 years.
It’s now a well-know (if seldom acknowledged on liberal media) fact that the vaccine is causing a LOT of problems. The people who seem to catch it the most as the ones who are vaxxed and boosted the most. LARGE numbers of people who were “vaccinated” are dead. Since a large majority of those are probably liberals, I’m fine with that.
Hopefully, the voter rolls on the D side of the ledger will be thinned out considerably over the next few years. Not that being dead ever stops Dems from voting.
Same Company That Appraised Business Pork at Ludicrous Valuation Was Previously Sued For….Inflating Land Values (Among Other Scumbaggery)!
I recently wrote about the ludicrous land valuations assigned to the Business Pork’s three tracts under development. The LEDC hired CBRE to do the appraisals and the price per acre they came up with was about 5x higher than anything in the surrounding area.
I have been digging around trying to find out who the hell CBRE is – I had never heard of them. I was thinking maybe it was a small company run by Misti Talbert’s brother-in-law or Mandy Walsh’s uncle or something.
Then I found this:
Credit Suisse nears $360 million deadline in fraud suit built on a hunch
I’ll let you go ahead and read it, but here is a nugget:
As a first step, the law firm filed a lawsuitaccusing the appraiser, CBRE, of artificially inflating land valuesand sales projections. In discovery, the firm obtained Credit Suisse’s communications about those appraisals.
Highland settled its lawsuit against CBRE, which did not admit liability, in 2013, but materials obtained during discovery emboldened the company to also sue Credit Suisse.
An original, lower appraisal by CBRE had been changed after pressure from Credit Suisse, Highland alleged.
The assertion was based in part on communication between CBRE appraiser William Acton and Credit Suisse’s Arik Prawer, one of the Credit Suisse bankers involved with the deal.
Wow.
Oh, and they were also sued for bid rigging in another case!
CBRE rigged bidding for a bank branch, fraud lawsuit alleges
I wondered why the LEDC used this CBRE company to appraise the land, when they had PREVIOUSLY used Herbst Real Estate to appraise this EXACT SAME LAND back in 2012.
I still don’t know why. Perhaps the LEDC can explain it to us someday.