“…the City has a contractual agreement with SPA Skateparks for design services. New Line Skateparks is partnering on the design project….Kanten Russell, team lead/design project manager for New Line Skateparks, presented the three existing design options for the park…”
The problem with this is that back in December 2020, Finley told us that “staff had received six proposals from contractors for the construction of the skate park…staff ranked Austin-based SPA Skateparks and Lampasas based Lamco Construction as the best qualified to complete the projects.”
New Line Skateparks was never mentioned. EVER.
Finley then told us in January and February of 2021 that “he has met with BOTH the skate park contractor and pavilion contractor to timing, scope and tentative project schedules” and that “preparations for skate park and pavilion construction in Campbell Park are underway.”
Again, NO MENTION OF NEW LINE SKATEPARKS.
In June 2021 (a YEAR AGO!!!) Finley told us that “Design build contractor selected, geo-tech completed – contractor preparing base bid for review by staff”.
Presumably, everything was in the hands of SPA Skateparks to get this thing done A YEAR AGO.
Then it all went off the rails.
Nothing happened for months and months! Finley again teased us in the newspapers in early September 2021 with the assurance that “Design documents for skate park, pavilion set for unveiling Sept. 27”
That never happened either.
Either SPA Skateparks completely screwed the pooch, or Finley did. It can only be one or the other.
NOW, here we are in June of 2022 and we are reading about how New Line Skateparks is “partnering” with SPA Skateparks on the design project. Maybe a better word is “bailing out”? Did SPA get in over their heads and have to bring on New Line Skateparks to actually do the work for them? If so, why in hell are we dealing with these SPA morons at all? Why pay for TWO design companies?
THIS is the question City council needs to ask next Monday: how and when exactly did New Line Skateparks get involved when they were never mentioned back in December 2020 as a “best qualified” company for this?
Bottom line: either SPA Skateparks or Finley deGraffenreid is responsible for a 12 to 15 month delay in this project – a delay that is costing the City hundreds of thousands of dollars.
We already saw some of the very questionable (and self-serving) statements by ACM Ryan Ward and Finley deGraffenreid when it comes to some of our “underpaid” City Nerf job holders at the top of the City employee food chain – like (supposedly) Assistant City Managers and IT Directors.
I’d like to look at some remarks made by our Chief of Police and council member Herb Pearce.
Cummings seems to be saying that those nice retirement benefits are lost on the younger crowd – who want instant gratification, like so many of those under age 30. He seems to be implying we need to dangle a higher salary in front of them because they are too shortsighted to appreciate the massive 2-1 matching of retirement funds the City offers.
Well, ok then. I can almost see that point of view since that $10,000 they put away today will only buy the equivalent of maybe $3,000 worth of “stuff” when they retire – thanks to Bidenflation destroying the currency.
But if we go THAT route of higher salaries, then let’s just do away with the overly-generous benefits. After all – you just told us they don’t really appreciate or care about them. There is no rule anywhere that says you have to offer BOTH higher salary AND keep the ludicrous benefits. Out here in the real world, we make trade-offs because resources are limited. Maybe we give a new cop a choice: higher salary and lower benefits or vice-versa. But we make sure the TOTAL of both of them stays the same.
It also seems odd to me that it is so hard to attract new police officers. After all, every big city around (Austin, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, New York) has made headlines the last two years by DEFUNDING the police and shedding hundreds of officers. Seems to me that only INCREASES the supply of cops out there – not the opposite.
Herb Pearce then jumps in and points out the “continually rising cost of living” as some kind of justification for raises…
600 new homes??? Good thing the City is charging an impact fee on each of them to help defray future expenses. Oh wait…
As far as City council members go, I think Morris and Pearce are the only two with a functioning brain in their heads. I certainly don’t agree with Pearce on a few things (biz park), but at least he asks a lot of questions and seems open to persuasion by logic, reason and irrefutable facts. The other five goldfish are pretty much brain-dead in that regard.
However, his data on housing costs is way off. In Lampasas, it is more like $240,000 for an average, house – not the $330,000 he stated in the article. Here is the latest data from Zillow:
I am a stickler for accurate data, you may have noticed over the last 4 years.
But either way, I have to ask why it is the “right” of a police officer or a teacher to own a house? Hell, I rented until I was 42 years old. I liked renting. You think BUYING a house is expensive? Try maintaining one. Owning a home isn’t for everyone and it CERTAINLY isn’t an unalienable right for anyone – cop or no cop. We should have learned that back in 2008, but apparently we didn’t. I sure as hell don’t agree with using that criteria to decide teacher or cop pay. I don’t care if “a third year officer” can afford to buy a house. There is no shame in renting until you can.
When I was in my 20s (as many “new cops” or “new teachers” are), I was single and had three roommates to save money until I saved up enough to afford my own place. Of course, that was in the 1990s before the entire world turned into a bunch of entitled pussies who demanded instant gratification on everything from “free” college to “free” healthcare to a “livable wage” (whatever THAT means) and who just push a button to order food from 100 different restaurants.
But I digress.
Maybe we should be asking some other questions too. Like “what is the ‘correct’ number of police officers for a town our size? What is the ratio of cops to citizens for the rest of Texas? For the U.S.? For towns under 10,000 with a lot of old people who tend to not commit many crimes?
If we add three cops and the crime rate stays exactly the same, did we actually come out ahead? Isn’t it easier to pay EXISTING cops more overtime than to take on more bodies – bodies who come with the added expenses of MORE benefits?
I’m a BIG believer in the 80/20 rule. It’s fascinating how often it shows up in unexpected places. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that 20% of the town’s “known troublemakers” cause 80% of the problems. Maybe blindly adding more officers isn’t the answer. Maybe targeting those known shitbags is a more efficient way to do things.
Oh, and when these shitbags are caught, maybe the judges should PUT THEM IN JAIL instead of handing out the endless probations I see around here. THAT would be a good start too!
April 29, 2022: DeGraffenried also provided council members with an update on the skate park, which is another item to be discussed during the May 19 workshop. “We did do some initial investigation regarding estimates for excavation and pad for that skate park,” he said. Estimates are $70,000 to $75,000, deGraffenried said, adding “that’s still a very significant cost, however it’s about 20-30% less than the skate park contractor estimated.”
He is just NOW doing “initial estimates”? Again, I ask what happened to “preparations for skate park and pavilion construction in Campbell Park are underway,” from 14 months ago??
May 24, 2022: City Manager Finley deGraffenried presented a capital improvement project budget that showed significant spikes in costs, including a $170,000 increase to the Campbell Park skate facility.
“The skate park started at $200,000, went to $300,000 and is now sitting at $370,000,” Councilwoman Catherine Kuehne said. “How did it jump like that?”
Yes indeed, Pork Chop! How did that happen? Hey, maybe Wings of Eagles can hand over some of that “fundraising” money to defray costs! Just kidding.
What happened is that Finley got his mitts on it. He has a very long history of overpromising and under-delivering. Of course, this tendency was papered over and covered up by an idiot mayor for four years. A mayor who had her nose up his ass and considered him a “dear friend” instead of an accountable employee.
The bottom line is that the skate park project is AT LEAST 8 months behind schedule. Finley told us back in December of 2020 that he had narrowed down the contractors to SPA Skateparks and Lamco. Period.
THEN, after a huge delay of 5 months, broken promises on designs being unveiled in September of 2021, and preparations being “underway” in February of 2021, the ENTIRE “TIMELINE HAD TO BE REVISED” – and then New Line Skateparks appears out of nowhere to “partner” with SPA for the “design phase”.
This huge delay and changing/addition of yet ANOTHER contractor appears to have raised the cost significantly. But do you see anyone asking Finley questions about how this all happened? Nope. Finley is never to blame. It’s just “to be expected”, according to Chris Eicher.
Liberty advocates will NEVER give up their guns. It’s not going to happen. We have drawn a line in the sand when it comes to the 2nd Amendment and we are not going to move, not even an inch.
It does not matter what legislation or executive orders Joe Biden promotes, and it does not matter if there are future criminal events involving firearms. There is no scenario in which we are going to hand over our ability to defend ourselves and rely on the government alone. All the indignant wailing and preaching from anti-gun leftists is for naught; they will get nothing.
Gun rights are integral to a free society because they act as a deterrent to potential government over-reach and authoritarianism. Tyrants might infiltrate politics and take over governments, and they might even THINK they have the ability to oppress the public, but they will never be quite sure they can get away with it as long as the public has the means to “reach out and touch them” from a distance. They will always have doubts and this is vital for freedom – When tyrants have doubts, liberty prevails.
I am certain that anti-gun interests WILL try to disarm the American people before 2030, simply because they must. They cannot achieve the implementation of the “Great Reset” or the “New World Order” (their terminology from their own mouths) without first taking away our ability to fight back. They know that if they do not disarm Americans they will eventually fail. It’s really that easy to understand; if we keep our guns we will win. If we let our guns be taken, we will lose.
One thing must be made abundantly clear in this debate: Gun crimes are irrelevant to gun rights. They do not matter in terms of the constitution, nor should they matter. Our rights supersede the potential for abuse by bad people, and they supersede the whims of government.
The political left seems to think that gun crime is all that matters. They obsess over every single tragedy not because they actually care about the victims or the families involved, but because they assume that each gun crime is a kind of currency that they can use to pay for the eventual purchase of the 2nd Amendment. They think they can buy the option to erase our gun rights using the lives of shooting victims as a trade.
I’m sorry I have to inform them, but that’s not how it works. That’s not how it will EVER work. And if they think they can force the issue, then there are millions of us in the liberty movement that will teach them a painful lesson in humility. There will come a day when they’ll wish they had been more reasonable and not turned to authoritarianism.
In the meantime, they will try every trick in the book to con the public into thinking that incremental measures or executive orders are needed as a means to save lives. They won’t save lives, they’ll only lead to the disarmament of the population, making it easier to subjugate us and eliminate resistance.
The key to understanding gun control laws is to accept the reality that gun grabbers have NO INTENTION of staying satisfied with “common sense” gun control; they will only be satisfied with gun confiscation. This is why no quarter can be given to them. No compromises. No diplomacy. Nothing.
History shows us that disarmament of any population or subset of a population is eventually followed by the oppression and often genocide of that same population. Statistically, disarmament has led to some of the worst mass murders in the history of humanity. We risk losing far more lives by giving up our guns than we risk by keeping our guns.
By extension, a common argument among gun grabbers is that other western nations have extensive gun restrictions and they don’t have tyranny. I beg to differ. As we recently witnessed with the covid mandates and the attempted vaccine passports, many governments from the EU to Australia and New Zealand took the mask off (pun intended) and showed their true totalitarian colors to the point that they even created covid camps where people were locked up without due process.
I would argue that had it not been for the growing opposition among conservatives in the US and in parts of Canada, the Covid mandate agenda would still be active today and most of our freedoms would be erased. The opposition in the US is the reason why medical tyranny was scrapped through most of the world. For if we can be free despite the existence of Covid, then so can everyone else.
And how were conservatives able to defeat the mandates? Ultimately, it’s because we have guns.
The more I think about it, the less sense it makes for Alan “private jet” Champagne to ship crumb rubber 2,200 miles to Lampasas just to stamp it into the exact same products he is ALREADY making in Alberta.
Like, why not just use the plant, equipment and labor you ALREADY HAVE up there in the Great White North to make all this shit and then ship THAT finished product 2,200 miles to your fellow weasel Mike Cour here in Lampasas?
The shipping costs should be approximately the same and you save millions by not building a second “manufacturing plant” in Lampasas. It makes no sense, unless…(and this is ALL conjecture on my part – I have no evidence for any of these musings. I’m just using logic and reason here – something lacking at the LEDC)….
#1 – The Alberta plant is about to go bankrupt. Maybe the Eco-Flex turd is about to go bust and Alan is covering it all up by saying he is “moving the headquarters to Texas”. This would maybe allow him to grab MORE free money. Mike Cour sure seemed eager to grab more money for “moving headquarters” back in 2020:
Desperation is a stinky cologne, Mike
Maybe all this “free” grant money comes with even more bonus cash if you “move a headquarters”. Who knows? But if the plant in Alberta was about to go tits-up, it would be a clever move to kill two birds with one stone.
#2 – There is some kind of huge tariff/tax on finished goods. Maybe the Canadian or U.S. government taxes the shit out of “finished goods” crossing the border but not so much on “commodity” inputs like crumb rubber. If the tax were big enough on Eco-Turd’s finished goods, it would save them a ton of money to just ship the crumb rubber to the U.S. and “manufacture” their stuff here.
If THAT is the case, then the LEDC should realize Eco-Turd is ALREADY getting a huge financial boost by avoiding these taxes and there is no need to hand them even more “free” stuff at the expense of the Lampasas taxpayer. These idiots will NEVER, EVER employ 200 people, so if THAT is the reason you’re throwing free shit at them, you better rethink your plan.
The “data” idiotically included towns that were supposedly “similar” to Lampasas – you know, like Marble Falls and Fredericksburg.
Unfortunately, Ryan Ward’s “data” is wildly contradicted by REAL data from Salary.com – an organization that is neutral and gives unbiased numbers based on REALITY (not cherry-picked municipalities where many residents own yachts and vineyards).
As I wrote 5 months ago, Ryan Ward is actually OVERPAID by roughly 25% – as his STARTING salary a few months ago was $110,000. According to a PREVIOUS Dispatch article, the national average for Assistant City Manager “typically falls between $72,536 and $96,545“:
I’m pretty sure Ryan Ward knew what he was going to get paid when he agreed to work here. They didn’t pull it out of a hat AFTER he signed the papers. Ergo, there is ZERO case for giving him any kind of raise for quite a while.
Also, there were THIRTY applicants for that job. Hardly what would happen if Lampasas was paying TOO LITTLE for the position.
Ryan also took a page out of Finley’s favorite playbook: only talking about SALARIES and never even mentioning the word “BENEFITS”. Well, I’ll mention it:
Between Finley (the City manager) and Ryan (his assistant) the two of them pull down $91,348 in benefits EVERY YEAR. That is on TOP of their combined $260,000 in salary AND a generous car and phone allowance (another $8,250).
That includes their generous 2-1 matching for retirement. When Ryan puts $7,000 into his pension, the City forks over ANOTHER $14,000 FOR him. That is REAL money but it is something Finley and Ryan try hard to ignore every summer in their ‘we’re underpaid’ rain dance they do for council.
The City has a generous paid-time-off and sick leave policy too! Which I have mentioned on more than one occasion – including a year ago when it was made more generous yet again:
In fact, the word “benefits” never escaped Ward’s mouth during his presentation until Randy “Speedbump” Clark brought up the 2-1 matching thing and Ward was forced to admit it.
The report ALSO mentioned that our police chief pay is 7.9% HIGHER than average and our library director is 11.2% overpaid, among others:
Are they going to cut Jody’s salary by 8% next year? Are they going to tell Shanda Subia SHE is making 11% less next year? Something tells me that’ll never happen. They will only consider ‘adjustments’ to the UPSIDE, if history is any guide. So what is the point of this exercise?
Back in the old days, the saying for government workers was “great salary, great benefits, great job security – pick two”.
Most of the time, government workers weren’t paid outlandish salaries but they had incredible benefits and never got fired. Which they should be quite happy with. Especially considering the outrageous cost of health insurance now compared to 40 years ago. That benefit ALONE costs the Lampasas taxpayers about $1.2 MILLION per year for the city’s roughly 105 employees.
NOWADAYS, they get all three: great bennies and job security, AND salaries that are higher than their private-sector counterparts who are paying for all of this.
Hardly seems fair to the taxpayer who is footing the bill. City council has a chance to tap the brakes on this “automatic raises for everyone and every year” bullshit. Will they??
I happened to dig up a report called “Quantifying the Economic Value of Alberta’s Recycling Programs“. I was trying to find ANY mention of “Eco-Flex” being an “industry leader” as Alan Champagne likes to brag in his promotional material.
There is ONE mention of “Champagne Edition” on page 78:
They USE already-recycled crumb. They do NOT recycle the tires
The first thing we see is that, indeed, a LOT of crumb rubber is shipped out of province – bolstering my theory that Alan actually might be shipping all this crumb rubber 2,200 miles to Lampasas.
The second thing we see is some OFFICIAL usage numbers for Champagne Edition – not Alan’s bullshit numbers he tells to Mandy Walsh or posts on his website. Two years ago, his OLD website said they “recycled” 6 million tires. In actuality, they don’t recycle SHIT. They use the crumb rubber created when REAL recyclers process tires into usable pieces.
The report says that Eco-Flex USES (not “recycles”) 7,000 to 8,000 tons of material. Which sounds like a lot – call it 15 million pounds. But since the average tire weighs around 22 pounds, this only comes out to about 682,000 tires (and far LESS if there are a lot of 30 and 35 pound truck tires!). A FAR cry from the 5 million he currently has posted on his website.
Also, once again, they DO NOT recycle anything. They take the crumb rubber from ALREADY-RECYCLED tires and mold it into other products. Just like dozens of other companies do. Alan and Mike seem to have trouble telling the truth on this. Here is a copy of their bullshit press release from two years ago when they were stringing the LEDC along the FIRST time:
The above press release from May 2020 encapsulates every reason why I refer to Alan and Mike as lying scumbags:
(1) they were NOT about to break ground on any recycling plants – that was a lie.
(2) they do not recycle tires at all, and thus cannot be a “leader” in that endeavor. It’s about as truthful as me saying I’m a “leading receiver in the NFL” – a complete and utter psycopathic fabrication.
(3) they slipped up when they sent this to Mandy Walsh by forgetting to fill in the CITY and XXX-square feet – even though they gave Mandy and the LEDC the idea that Lampasas was their only choice for location.
(4) they can’t even get their lies straight on how many square feet they need. Mike Cour said 10,000 in his presentation to the LEDC and another fake press release said 25,000 square feet.
(5) There is no way in HELL they will employ 200 people. Their Alberta plant employs less than 50 – and THAT plant is 35,000 square feet and has been there for years. Yet somehow a SMALLER plant here in Texas is going to employ FOUR TIMES that number? BULL SHIT. Absolute fucking lie.
The fact that Alan Champagne and Mike Cour are so loose with facts and the definition of “recycling” should send up red flags for the LEDC and anyone else dealing with these morons.
Lastly, it is now clear that there WERE subsidies at some point. I have no idea when they ended or how much was handed out, but one company immediately went under when they ended – as most of these “green” companies do (see: A-123, Solyndra, etc)
I have zero doubt that Eco-Flex was a beneficiary at some point – despite Mike Cour telling me “we have not received any funding from anyone, and we intend for this to be a private effort.”
Of course, Mike Cour then immediately asked the LEDC for $1.85 million in cash and land to basically pay for the entire startup of this charade here in Lampasas.
The only thing I HAVEN’T figured out yet is who is paying for the rent on that brand-new warehouse on Pecan Street and financing the buying/leasing of the rubber press machines. There is NO WAY Mike Irvin is stupid enough to allow Mike Cour in there without paying some serious rent. Empty promises of a future payout might work on dummies like Talbert, but Mike Irvin would never swallow that tripe.
If anyone has a good explanation on that, feel free to email me at lampasshole@protonmail.com
Oh well. It’ll ALL come out eventually as I chew this bone down to nothing.
Well, the LEDC is certainly throwing caution to the wind and ignoring ALL the past skulduggery with Mike Cour, Alan Champagne and the Eco-Turd plans. They are doubling down and risking looking like complete idiots when this all blows up in their faces AGAIN.
They even have a video up over at the LEDC Facebook page showing TJ Monroe and new council member Davis Keele touring the “plant”. LOL.
Unfortunately for scumbag duo Alan Champagne (Eco-Flex) and Mike Cour (Eco-Strong), I’m smarter than them and when I get hold of a bone, I’m not going to let it go until it’s all chewed up.
Since City council and the LEDC read here, I’ll give you a few big leads to check out and questions to ask these serial con-men:
#1 – According to all their presentations and Internet material, Eco-Flex is a tire recycler in Legal, Alberta – a dying town in very northern Canada:
But according to the website for the Alberta Recycling Management Authority, there are only three tire processors registered with the ARMA: Alberta Environmental Rubber Products (AERP), Crumb Rubber Manufacturers (CRM) and Liberty Tire Recycling Canada, Ltd.
So Alan Champagne and his fake “tire recycling” company are just one of many, many outfits that get crumb rubber from those three REAL tire recyclers and turn it into “green” products. There is nothing “innovative” or special about Eco-Turd. Crumb rubber is a commodity like gravel or sand or aluminum. All this shit has been around for a looooong time.
#2 – In the LEDC video, it shows some guys prepping crumb rubber to be stamped into a mat or a wall or something. So, since Eco-Strong is the “distributor” for Eco-Flex in the U.S., I have to assume that all that crumb rubber comes ALL the way from Eco-Flex in the town of Legal, Alberta – which is a 2,200 mile trip ONE WAY. Considering the high price of diesel here and even HIGHER price in Canada ($8.65/gal) it seems to me it must cost a small fortune to ship all that crumb rubber here just to stamp it into a mat.
There happens to be a very REAL and very BIG (12 million tires per year) tire recycling plant in Houston called Genan. Genan has SIX factories that recycle 54 million tires between them. Houston is only about 180 miles away. The cost to acquire crumb rubber from them would be a fraction (less than 10%) of the cost of having that idiot Alan Champagne send it 2,200 miles from Alberta, right?
You might want to ask Mike Cour about that. Genan also produces all the same shit everyone else does – mats, asphalt replacement, etc. Again – nothing special there.
Pretty sure “Eco-Flex” comes between Coastal and FABA in the alphabet
Wanna know what I think? This is just my OPINION, but I think this Alan Champagne douchebag gets some kind of highly-subsidized deal for crumb rubber. Canada is very socialist and HUGE on handing out “free” stuff to “save the environment”. It is run by people even more greentarded than AOC and Clayton Tucker combined.
Maybe Alan gets taxpayer-subsidized crumb rubber so cheaply that it makes sense to ship it 2,200 miles to a fly speck on the map named “Lampasas”. Why do I think this? Because in the shitty Power Point Mike Cour presented to the LEDC two years ago, I found this nugget:
“Developed a program with the Alberta government“. Sounds like free shit to me! Notice there isn’t a WORD about him actually recycling a single tire – just “controlling” and “managing” the program.
This guy is a serial grifter, in my opinion. Only a serious grifter douche nozzle would put a picture of himself standing next to a private jet to project a false sense of success. I also wouldn’t be shocked if this dildo also legally changed his last name to “Champagne” for the same reason. I had some email exchanges with this anus 21 months ago, and he can barely string a sentence together – not to mention the completely amateurish Power Point piece of shit they presented the LEDC two years ago.
Anyways – there it all is for the LEDC to read, go over and ask the proper questions of this clown horn. I guess they didn’t learn their lesson the LAST time these charlatans tried to rip them off and spew lies:
40 million little piles of bullshit
Remember that time in 2020 the LEDC believed that these idiots were going to recycle FORTY MILLION TIRES in Lampasas when their Alberta plant only does 5 million? I pointed out how ridiculous that was back then when I wrote:
Also, your existing Canadian 35,000 square foot plant recycles 5 million tires per year, but in your bullshit PowerPoint you gave to the LEDC, you are going to recycle 40 million tires in Lampasas with 22,500 square feet. If anyone believes THAT nonsense I have some land to sell you on south 183.
…but I guess Mandy Walsh and Misti Talbert suck at math and logic.
Something about the skate park keeps gnawing at me. I mean besides the fact that a bunch of this was SUPPOSED to be financed by “fundraisers” and “volunteers” which never materialized.
I haven’t figured it all out yet, but let’s take a look at a quick timeline as reported by The Dispatch:
July 10, 2020: Lisa Parker (Wings of Eagles Outreach President) said if the city adds the [skate] park to its budget, the park could be funded jointly by Wings of Eagles and the city, and maintained by the parks department.
October 16, 2020: DeGraffenried said Wings of Eagles members have initiated fundraisers for the skate park.
December 4, 2020: The city has issued requests for qualifications for the design, engineering and construction of a skate park and pavilion to be built in Campbell Park.
December 25, 2020: The city received six proposals from contractors for the construction of a skate park…..at Campbell Park. Staff ranked Austin-based SPA Skateparks and Lampasas based Lamco Construction as the best qualified to complete the projects. Council members voted unanimously to allow city staff to negotiate the scope and cost of project with the highest-ranked firms.
January 8, 2021: According to city manager’s report (page 95), “skate park contractor has been contacted for a kick-off meeting…after determining the contractor’s design criteria, staff will have geotechnical surveys done…”
January 19, 2021: During his city manager’s report, Finley deGraffenried said city staff were scheduled to meet last week with the highest-rated contractors for the Campbell Park pavilion and skate park projects.
January 22, 2021: In his manager’s report (page 125), Finley tells us that he has “met with BOTH the skate park contractor and pavilion contractor to timing, scope and tentative project schedules. Additionally, staff has communicated with Langerman Foster regarding geotechnical investigation…”
February 16, 2021: DeGraffenried said preparations for skate park and pavilion construction in Campbell Park are underway.
Okay – if construction preparation is underway, who was chosen as contractor? SPA Skateparks or Lamco? WE ARE NEVER TOLD BY FINLEY! This is the first suspicious item. Lamco is a local outfit that builds houses. As far as I’m aware, they have never done a skatepark. How were they ever included as “best-qualified” to build this thing?
March 9, 2021: Langerman Foster to charge the City $6,400 (pages 103 and 104) to drill two 20-foot bore holes (one for skate park and one for pavilion) for their “geo-tech” report.
April 2, 2021: “We should be open to amenities that support young families and youth activities, like the skate park, for which the council recently approved funding” – Councilwoman TJ Monroe statement while running for Mayor.
So according to the City manager and Mayor Monroe, by April 2021 they had already “approved funding” for the skate park and “preparations for construction were underway”. If that is true, how in the hell did the price “estimate” jump up again in August of 2021? Sounds like everything was already settled, doesn’t it??? That’s our second suspicious item. Also, we STILL haven’t been told who the contractor is.
May 24, 2021: After a bunch of council meetings where the skate park is completely forgotten, Finley reports (page 157) that “Contractors were notified to incorporate the findings and recommendations of the geo-tech into their foundation design and costs. Staff has also included stakeholder representatives in the notification and communicated the need to have a combined stakeholder/contractor meeting within the next 2 weeks.“
June 8, 2021: Finley informs council (page 42): “Design build contractor selected, geo-tech completed – contractor preparing base bid for review by staff”
Hmmm – so I guess all that stuff about “preparations for construction are underway” four months ago was complete nonsense.
July 30, 2021:Included in the base budget, according to staff reports, are the purchase of two police patrol vehicles; pool liner and….upgrades at Campbell Park and the new skate park.
AGAIN – statements made in The Dispatch that money has been set aside for skate park. The same statement appeared on August 6, 2021.
August 17, 2021: Dispatch article tells us “In August of last year, the estimate to fund approximately five projects [Hostess House, pavilion, and SKATE PARK included] totaled around $940,000. Last Monday during a workshop session, City Manager Finley deGraffenried indicated the updated estimate increased to $1.9 million.“ Nothing mentioned about skate park in manager’s report for two months now. This is when the following appeared in the minutes:
Those two projects ALONE increased $1 million total
Ruh roh. Massive increases in the cost of everything (especially Hostess House). How is this possible since Finley told us just six months ago that “preparations for construction were underway”?How these estimates were arrived at is anybody’s guess – since the “skatepark contractor” hasn’t submitted anything yet, according to my reading of the minutes.
September 17, 2021: We get a reprint of the July 30th article – Included in the base budget, according to staff reports, are the purchase of two police patrol vehicles; pool liner and….upgrades at Campbell Park and the new skate park. We also get the headline “Design documents for skate park, pavilion set for unveiling Sept. 27” – which seems odd…seeing as how “preparation for construction” was “underway” seven months ago!!
Holy shit. So basically NOTHING has been done yet! There was no “design unveiled on September 27th”, just SPA laying out “the design and build process”! Oh, and you owe us $18,000 upon “acceptance of the renderings, base plan, drawings and PRELIMINARY COST ESTIMATES” – then you owe us another $12,000 if you decide to use those documents.
So we are now at the end of September and apparently there is not even a preliminary cost estimate yet! SPA wants to City to cough up $18,000 just for a preliminary cost estimate and renderings? What the hell have these guys been doing since May when the geo-tech reports were sent to them?
Gee – sounds like things got very bunged up along the way. As usual. But WHO bunged them up? Finley told us he sent the geo-tech report to contractors back in MAY – FOUR MONTHS AGO!! Did Finley just get too busy with all his other ridiculous projects like the Hostess House and New Hope Baptist Church? Did SPA Skatepark just drag their feet all this time??
Clearly, the design documents were NOT unveiled on September 27th – why not? Lots of unanswered questions.
Also, how did TJ Monroe and council “approve funding” in April of 2021 if they didn’t know what the number was? Who supplied them with the original, bullshit low-ball number they okayed? Was Monroe just spouting bullshit to make herself look good right before the mayoral election? “Hey! We’re giving you a skate park!” Yet more unanswered questions.
Mind boggling incompetence.
Keep in mind, as former council wizard “Greasy” Chris Harrison recently informed us, diesel prices just kept going up and up all this time. So why did Finley fart around for 4 months getting nothing accomplished?? ESPECIALLY after “DeGraffenried said preparations for skate park and pavilion construction in Campbell Park are underway” in February of 2021 – a YEAR EARLIER!
THEN there is a HUGE gap of FIVE MONTHS in mentioning the skate park. The next mention in The Dispatch was February 1, 2022: “In reference to the skate park, deGraffenried met with contractors Friday to review and possibly revise the project’s timeline.”
January 10, 2022: We get another update (page 110) that tells us “New Line Skateparks has submitted a project timeline for staff review. As the contract indicates, the timeline allows for public input, conceptual design phase, design development, and construction documents. Bidding is tentatively targeted for September, 2022 with construction 1Q 2023.“
New Line Skateparks? I thought we were dealing with SPA Skateparks? This whole thing is a giant clusterfuck, if you ask me.
February 4, 2022: At the Jan 24th meeting, Councilman Randy “Speedbump” Clark asked about the skate park status. DeGraffenried responded to Clark’s inquiry by stating, “As we’ve discussed, and the contract says, we will go through a public engagement process on that preliminary design and we hope to …I believe the target for the complete design is September [2022], with bidding [during the] first part of [2023].”
Whoa! NOW he’s saying that they won’t even have a design until four months from now!! What happened to “preparations for skate park construction are underway” back in February of 2021?? What happened to “design documents set for unveiling on September 17th, 2021? What happened to “geo-tech reports were sent to contractors to incorporate into their foundation design and cost” back in MAY OF LAST YEAR??
Then comes THIS nugget in the council packet from April 11th, 2022 (page 65):
“Staff participated in an update call on the Skate Park on March 31st. Consultants presented the Workshop Summary and responses to on-line and in-person surveys. Based on the geo-tech report and technical guidance, the consultants estimated the increased costs of construction to be on the order of $170,000”
WTF? Consultants? In-person surveys? What consultants? They are just NOW doing geo-tech reports a YEAR after “approving funding” and “preparing for construction”? None of this makes ANY SENSE at all.
We finally got a look at some plans from SPA – and some hard numbers. WE also find out that they are leaving a LOT of the work to “others”. Would have been nice to know that a year ago when council “approved funding”, no?
“Others” is gonna cost a pile of money. I wonder if “Greasy” Chris Harrison, the dirt mover, is going to be paid a huge pile of money to do the “other” work at the newly inflated price? I’ll bet you $100 that he is.
Pardon me, but after reading through 10 years of city Council packets and minutes, I can tell you with absolute certainty, Finley deGraffenreid doesn’t take a shit or put his pants on in the morning without a geo-tech report. Every single hare-brained scheme council comes up with (business park, pavilion, civic center, Hostess House) ALWAYS STARTS with a nice big bill for a geo-tech report. It is ALWAYS the first thing he does.
I’m seriously starting to wonder if Finley has a massive kick-back scheme going on all these construction projects. It’s about the only thing that makes sense to me. Maybe he’s not happy with his $200,000 per year in salary and benefits. Maybe feathering his nest is a better idea? I really can’t explain this any other way. Same goes for Azbell A/V system, the $185,000 bathroom and all the other massive cost overruns.
Well, I tried to take a relaxing day with the kids and enjoy the water slides at Kalahari yesterday. It was all well and good until late evening when the Dispatch electronic issue dumped into my email box. I should have let it lie there until today, but I saw the front page with “skate park” and “historic buildings” and I foolishly opened it up.
What I found was quite disgusting and enraging. FORMER council member “Greasy” Chris Harrison and FORMER mayor “Transparency” Talbert yammering total nonsense about the skate park.
Why a has-been council member and failed mayor are involved in this at ALL is beyond me. Doesn’t Talbert have enough on her plate wasting money in her $7 million dollar sandbox over on Highway 183? I guess not.
The skate park is a disaster that has been out of control for a while. Even Cathy “Pork Chop” Kuehne (who is almost as profligate a spender as Talbert) finally asked “how did it jump like that?”
You KNOW it’s getting stupid when Pork Chop arises from her slumber and asks some obvious questions.
First up to explain this train wreck was former council member “Greasy” Chris Harrison. Harrison hasn’t been on City council for years, so I have no idea why he was wheeled in to bloviate on this topic in the first place.
Then after he left office, he whored himself out to developer S2M2 Inc and went to his good buddy and former council chum Misti Talbert to grab $185,000 in taxpayers’ money to “fund a private business” that he now happened to work for and which wanted a free detention pond built. The very same detention pond that Misti and council had said “NO” to before Greasy got hired on to lobby for them:
Anyways, I guess old Chris felt he owed a favor to Misti for getting him that big $185,000 check, so he was in the paper carrying water for her skate park disaster yesterday and trying to tell us why the costs exploded.
His brilliant answer?
Diesel.
Yeah, according to Chris: “Diesel went from $2 to $5.19”
This is complete horseshit, of course. Harrison is cherry-picking the dead-nut low price and the current ridiculous $5.19 price and blaming it all on that.
[Note: Waste Connections is a hell of a lot more “diesel sensitive” in the business of hauling garbage than the skate park is – and THEY are ‘only’ raising trash rates 8.8% – NOT doubling them. Hmmmmm]
The problem is that the original estimate was made in 2020 and the new “doubling of price” estimate was made the next year – LONG before diesel went parabolic.
Let’s see what diesel prices were in August of 2020 and then in August 2021 – which are the two dates the estimates were made (as you can see from City council’s own minutes):
We can see that diesel actually went from $2.37 to $3.45 during that time.
Harrison blaming the skate park cost doubling on diesel is like that moron Biden blaming high gas prices on Putin invading Ukraine. Sorry, but the damage was done LONG before all that.
Granted, that 45% increase sucks, but no way in hell that is to blame for a doubling of the skate park cost. I actually live in the real world and help run real businesses. The cost of everything has been screwing us too, but NOTHING has doubled in price in a year. We’ve had 15% increases, 25% increases and some 30% increases – but NOTHING has doubled.
It is also the result of a City council heavily populated by idiots like Chuck Williamson and Cathy Kuehne who have never worked in the private sector in their lives and do not value a tax dollar properly.
Their attitude for YEARS, no matter what the project cost overrun (and there have been MANY), was always “well, it’s just another [fill in amount], we can’t stop now”.
Over and over and over again, ridiculous bungling, cost overruns and fiscal waste were left unmentioned and unpunished. Everyone just went back to the Magic Money Tree to pay for all the stupidity. Wildly overpriced elevators, selling a building for $75k and buying it back for $225k, paying $96,000 for a $33,000 A/V system, not bothering to get bids on bathroom construction, etc, etc, etc. It has been going on for YEARS!
I can almost hear Talbert sitting in on this skate park discussion (where she had no business being in the first place – you are a FORMER council member, sugar) and blabbering something like “well, it’s only another $90,000 and we have to get this done”.
This is known as the Sunk Cost Fallacy and it is why the shitty Business Pork is STILL going strong and wasting $7 million over 20 years despite not a single prospect showing any interest in the damn thing.
Then our Parks Director made a ridiculous statement too! Here is what Chris Eicher had to say in the newspaper:
“We knew if we wanted a $300,000 skate park, we would have to budget $400,000. That’s just the way it is”
Huh? Ummm, no. If you know it’s going to be $400,000 then you SAY it’s going to be $400,000. Anything else is bordering on fraud as you give a bullshit low-ball number to get your project passed and then admit the “real” much-higher number later. I can’t believe he actually said that out loud. It reeks of dishonesty or incompetence, I’m not sure which.
The whole fiasco wouldn’t be complete without a zinger from Finley himself. Here is his brilliant addition to the anaylsis:
“The only thing I can guarantee is that the exact cost will be different than budgeted”
THAT is the wizard who is supposed to be on top of things and who costs the city around $200,000 per year for his “expertise”. For 25 years he has been working in the government sector doing this shit, but hey – don’t expect him to have a fucking clue either!
