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LEDC Meets Tonight After Nice Two-Month Vacation. Here Are Highlights:

[** UPDATE 4/21 ** – last night’s meeting was cancelled due to a lack of quorum. That means they couldn’t even get 4 people to show up. As Misti Talbert said: ‘we are all very dedicated to this Business Park and believe in it strongly”. Funny way of showing it!!]

The LEDC skipped their March meeting – which is exactly what you would expect from a group of wizards who are right smack in the middle of incinerating their next $2.75 million on Phase II (Phase I was in 2015 under Toups regime) of their Business Pork project.

As you may recall, these same wizards told us the park was “shovel ready” nearly SEVEN YEARS ago after they wasted the first few million dollars:

Over $7,100,000.00 will have been spent before it is all said and done…and they really have no legitimate tenants for this debacle right now.

As for tonight’s packet:

We already have another “amendment” – which will line the pockets of Pope Eckermann to the tune of $10,000:

As I blogged WAAAAAY back on June 8th, 2021: “Guys like Pope Eckermann are not stupid. Once the big $2 million dollar [update: now $2.75 million] project is well underway, the LEDC and City council will not even blink at a few “cost increases” of $60,000 here and $86,000 there. That’s how these things work. He knows that morons like Chuck Williamson and Total Joke Monroe will fall victim to the Sunk Cost Fallacy, because they have done so repeatedly in the past.“

I was proven right almost immediately back on August 17, 2021 when they piled another $53,700 onto the taxpayer’s tab. More tithes for the Pope!

**EEI is the Church of Eckermann Engineering Inc.**

Then AGAIN on Jan 28th of this year (another $30,000 to $40,000 additional cost) when they decided to use “lime-stabilized subgrade”.

So with this latest $10,000, we are looking at$103,700in additional costs already – and ground is barely being broken!

FEB 2022 MINUTES – LEDC

I finally got a look at the February minutes (two months old now) and here are the highlights:

The Industrial Park agreement with Martin’s Rod & Custom is still languishing in limbo – no surprises there! It has been nearly SIX MONTHS since the “deal” was drawn up. According to the City secretary, the agreement now sits with the lawyers for Martin’s for them to approve.

Here is a refresher on the “deal” the LEDC is making with the “Industrial Park”:

LEDC Swallowing More Bullshit and Hype.

Speaking of handing out free money, supposedly there is a “new tenant” moving into the old “Perks” building that will “be a bar…serving mixed beverages, but highlighting bourbon specifically”.

[See page 53 for all the details!]

You know what that means! LEDC about to hand out some more fat checks as “life safety grants” so the new owners can comply with the onerous and ridiculous building codes that the City has implemented. So with one hand, the City piles expensive and unneeded codes onto any new business and the other hand of the City hands them free shit paid for by the taxpayer.

Out here in the harsh private sector, this is known as a “circle jerk of fuckery”. In government, it is “business as usual”.

There will ALSO supposedly be two MORE businesses “on each side of the formers Rutland’s building. One has a distillery/tasting room concept, with the upstairs as an event rental space“ [emphasis mine].

Oh no! Event rental space?!? The City is already wasting millions on the Hostess House so THEY can run an “event rental space”! I wonder which one will be better run and cost less in the long run? I know who I’m betting against!

Some Lady Rented Out The Hostess House – Shows Us What a Shit Pile It Is…

Poor LEDC. First they spend over seven million bucks on their business pork project and the free market is already beating them with great jobs available WITHOUT wasting seven million.

***Tons of jobs going unfilled in Lampasas – LEDC wants to spend $7.1 million to (maybe) bring a couple more. Genius!!***

NOW, the City is wasting $1.4 million on the Hostess House as an “event rental space” and the free market is going to pound their asses in that game too!

The funniest part (if you find humor in flushing tax money down the toilet) is that the morons on the LEDC will likely hand the owners of this new “event rental space” a bunch of free tax dollars as a “life safety grant” for the very spot that will be competing against THEIR OWN $1.4 million dollar Hostess House spot!

You seriously cannot make this shit up.

Lampasshole Solution To LISD “Teacher Shortage”

Today’s Dispatch tells us that LISD is “seeking alternative ways to hire more teachers”. Apparently the guy in charge of this effort will be “doctor” Chane Rascoe.

[Rascoe is the guy who makes well over $200,000 in salary and benefits every single year and educates exactly zero students.]

I’m guessing the eventual answer will be “we need more money”, as it usually is. This may shock you, but I’m OK with that.

However, that money doesn’t need to come out of the taxpayer’s ass. The taxpayer is already soaked hard at the local, state and federal level to keep a lot of people fat and well-paid. Resources are limited and we are all tapped out here in the private sector, buddy.

I propose to start cutting salaries of the Nerf positions and eliminating a lot of bullshit paper-pushers outright. Those savings can then be used to hire more REAL teachers. You know, the ones who stand up there and TEACH and deal with asshole kids all day, rather than push papers around in the back office.

The increase in administrators and “other” employees has FAR outstripped growth in student enrollment…

***WAY more staff and administrators per pupil***

So, let’s see where there is fat to cut, shall we?

Chane Rascoe: Slash his salary by 20%. It is outrageous that this guy costs taxpayers about $18,000 per MONTH and presumably gets summers off. I just saved you about $40,000. If he doesn’t like it, show him the door. I hear Wal-Mart is hiring truck drivers.

Eliminate the assistant superintendent position. I have no idea who it is since Bott left. I’m guessing nobody reading this has any idea either….so he can’t be THAT important. Whoever he is, he makes over $111,000 and educates nobody. He can go drive trucks too. I just saved you another $111,000 to hire real teachers with.

In fact, eliminate just about any job title with “assistant” in it. That goes for all the assistant principals.

Eliminate more Nerf jobs altogether:

Occupational therapist? Sounds like bullshit. Bye bye. Just saved you another $76,000 to hire real teachers with.

Educational diagnostician? Sounds even more bullshitty – possibly the biggest joke job in the world. Eliminate it. Saved you another $76,000 right there.

What are we up to now…about $300,000? That was easy. Let’s see what else…

School counselor? Gimme a break. MAYBE you need one or two of them at the high school level to help you decide what to do with your life. There is no need for that at any other school. Your parents should be your counselor. We never had any of that shit in my grade schools. There are NINE school counselors listed on the first 3 pages of the LISD salary site. That is insane. Say goodbye to seven of them at about $65,000 each – just saved you another $455,000.

I have now saved about three quarters of a million dollars ANNUALLY. But we aren’t done yet!

Psychologist? See “counselor” above. LISD salary site lists FOUR psychologists in the first three pages of salaries – at about $57,000 each, I just saved you another $228,000.

They WILL have to spend $19.99 to replace all those psychologists though. Meet your new psychologist:

Amazon.com: Bamboo Spanking Paddle for Sex Play, 13.4inch Lightweight and Super Durable with Smooth Finish Wood Paddle for Adults : Health & Household

If you think this is all outlandish and we can’t POSSIBLY get rid of all these important people, I give you this chart yet again:

I’ve ranted before about how my grade school was run with very few people and a class size of 30 kids. I would also argue that kids were FAR better educated back in the 1950s and 1970s than they are now. We spend a LOT more money for shittier results. That is a fact you cannot deny.

Part of the problem is an absolute explosion in “administration and other staff”. You see the same thing at hospitals. Time to slash and burn, baby. There are TONS of jobs going unfilled out here in the real world. Time to wean some of these people off the government titmilk for good.

LEDC and City Council Predictions From Exactly 5-7 Years Ago Are Completely Wrong. Why Keep Believing Them???

This month, the LEDC will embark on spending ANOTHER $2.7 million on the train wreck known as the Business Pork project. Supposedly, THAT will finally make the project “super duper shovel ready” starting in May 2023 – a mere 19 years after purchasing the property.

Here are some predictions from the wizards in charge of the Lampasas Economic Development Corp and City council from almost exactly five and seven years ago. These are all predictions about the Business Pork project after they spent millions of dollars – all taken from the local newspaper The Lampasas Dispatch Record:

“Ms. Toups said she wants to continue to provide infrastructure to develop the business park — which she said Harrison spoke against publicly. 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

[On the verge? BAHAHAHAHA!]

“DeGraffenried said the LEDC was bold in its decisions to purchase the business park property and extend utilities to it. The city manager predicted Lampasas will enjoy many “spin-off benefits” throughout the city because of the utility work. ” – Oct 23, 2015

[Spin-off benefits = new fishing boat for Pope Eckermann]

“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 [Masonheimer was Mandy Walsh’s predecessor]

[So attractive that it sits empty seven years later!]

“An economic study in 2001, [Neal] Leavell said, concluded a business park was the main item Lampasas needed to attract development.” – Oct 23, 2015

[The 2001 “study” was clearly wrong!]

“We look forward to working with you and working to fill this business park with good jobs,” she said [Carol Faulkenberry, Texas Dept Agriculture] – Oct 23, 2015

[Fill? There still isn’t ONE job…unless you count the small fortune Pope Eckermann has made off of these clowns]

**Sample of money already wasted in 2014, 2015, 2016**

“Mrs. [TJ] Monroenoted the Lampasas Economic Development Corp. is working with the business park south of town on U.S. Highway 183, and she said she hopes the site will attract good employers to Lampasas. [Council member TJ Monroe] – April 14, 2015

[No employers attracted yet – but one murderer was attracted enough to dump a corpse there!]

“The incumbent said the city acquired the business park property several years ago but has lacked the infrastructure needed at the site. Soon, she said, the business park will be developed enough to be inviting to businesses. [Then-council-member Wanda Bierschwale] – April 10, 2015

[“Soon”? LOL!!]

“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]

“Economic development officials have said utilities for the business park are essential to make the 165-acre area attractive to companies.” – July 22, 2014

The LEDC was “proactive,” deGraffenried said, in acquiring the U.S. 183 property several years ago for a business park. The goal of utility extensions, the city manager said, is to develop the land into a site that can promote economic growth. – June 17, 2014

[Eight years later? Zero economic growth or tenants]

Here is the final side-splitter – 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.”

[Actual annual revenue 8 years later? Zero dollars!]

Only a Socialist Bum Like Clayton Tucker of Lampasas Texas Would Be Trying to Shut Down Oil Pipelines on April 15th.

If you are an unemployed bum who lives with his parents, the date of April 15th means very little to you. It’s just another day. Another day to sit on Twitter and post garbage while mom and dad pay the rent:

[Notice this was posted at 10:30am on a Wednesday (April 13th). Because lots of REAL farmers/ranchers/cowboys spend their entire mornings posting commie crap on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram.]

What is a “Big Oil trade attack on climate policy”? Sounds like Green New Deal/Big Gov socialist crap to me.

And it is….

If socialist bum Clayton Tucker of Lampasas was a REAL rancher/farmer/cowboy, he would not be applauding and encouraging the shut down of pipelines on any day of the year. He would instead be screaming bloody murder about the high price of diesel and livestock feed. But a fake rancher/farmer who raises imaginary crops doesn’t have these worries. He can just sit around posting stupid ideas that will fuck up the economy even more…

Clayton Tucker is not a farmer. Or a rancher. Or a cowboy.

For the productive members of society (the ones who get up at 6am, drive an hour to work, work a 12-hour shift, come home to kids and a house to run and DON’T sit around posting crap on Twitter at 10:30am on a Wednesday) the date of April 15th means a lot.

April 15th is the day you have a large portion of your income forcibly taken from you and handed to shitbirds who can’t be bothered to work at all or repay money they borrowed. Shitbirds like Clayton Tucker who want “free” medical care and “free” college.

Comrade Clayton is a HUGE fan of “free” college for everyone. He can’t wait for student debt to be cancelled. He tells us this all the time, in between his slurps of Bernie Sanders withered, dried-up, Triscuit-like scrotum…

That way, we can have an entire country full of Clayton Tuckers who get a useless degree in “International Relations” while fucking around for 4 years while people who DIDN’T waste money on college pay for it with their taxes.

They then ‘graduate’ and go back to living with mom and crying about how they deserve ‘free’ health care and a $15/hr wage the very first day they show up for work with zero skills.

Remember Clayton Tucker when you file your taxes on Monday. He is the kind of useless commie scumworm you are paying for:

**“I’ll put my fist THIS far up the taxpayer’s ass!!”**

City Manager Tells Blatant Lie To Council Without Blinking

While discussing the skate park last night, a few questions were asked.

[Frankly, it seems lately (maybe the last 9 months) a LOT more questions get asked by council. Perhaps it’s the addition of two guys who came in from the real world? I don’t know, but it is pleasing to see. It never happened under the Talbert Gang of Cronies. I think more questions and clarifications have been asked for in the last 9 months than in the previous 3.5 years, to be honest.]

Anyhow, this exchange took place at the 1:17:25 mark:

Zac Morris (addressing Finley): “So we were at about $300,000 and now… we’re at about half a million for that skate park?“

Finley: “Were it to be…[blah, blah, blah, waffle, waffle, filler talk]….it would be $470,000…correct”

Cathy Kuehne: “Wasn’t the original [estimate] for like $200 [thousand]?”

Finley: “No”

Just an absolute blatant falsehood from City Manager Finley DeGraffenreid. It takes years and years and a salary of $140,000 to be able to lie that nonchalantly and project bullshit with such confidence.

As a reminder, Finley – this comes from YOUR MINUTES on August of last year. You can link HERE and go to page 20. It was an estimate provided by FINLEY HIMSELF (also known as “staff”). Here is the screen shot:

Skate park: August 2020 estimate $200,000 – updated estimate $400,000

It doesn’t get much more clear-cut than THAT.

Of course, Finley has amassed a large body of work already in the lying department. I keep track of them over at my GLOSSARY OF TERMS. Here is the entry for Finley DeGraffenreid:

Finley “Spinley” deGraffenried: Nickname for City Manager Finley deGraffenried. His nickname comes from his ability to spin tall tales of bullshit such as “the computer attacks were unrelated” or “we didn’t need to bid that project” or “Old City Hall will be ready in January of 2019” or “Old City Hall rehab ‘only’ cost $1.02 million.” or “our electric department does carry adequate reserves or “the skate park estimate was never $200,000”

The best bullshit your tax dollars can buy!

All this lying without consequence is hilarious to me. Rumor has it that former ACM Gary Cox was fired (by Finley!) for lying about some Goldfish crackers. Guess the rules don’t apply to Finley.

LEDC Strikes (Out) Again!

Good thing the Lampasas Economic Dunces Club is spending $7 million on a Business Pork Project to bring “high paying jobs” to Lampasas. They have been at it for almost 20 years now and have squandered millions.

Meanwhile the private sector is way ahead of them, as usual:

Mandy Walsh had zero to do with this. Misti Talbert had zero to do with this. The LEDC had absolutely zero to do with this. Yet somehow, there are some great jobs available! How did they ever do it without a bunch of bumbling morons wasting millions?? It boggles the mind.

So Wal-Mart is desperate for workers. Everyone is desperate for workers. There are WAY more jobs available than there are people to fill them, so naturally the LEDC thinks they need to spend millions to “bring jobs” here. Makes complete and total sense.

This is the SAME Misti Talbert who, when she was mayor, had trouble finding enough lifeguards to open the City pool! Truly, hers is a towering intellect and razor sharp business mind.

I have already brought this up before: Why the Business Park is a Disaster Than Cannot Be Fixed. But that didn’t deter LEDC President Misti Talbert from scamming $971,000 straight out of the City coffers to waste on this project.

Speaking of Misti…she assured us a mere 7 weeks ago that there is NO commercial space in Lampasas! Her beloved Business Pork is the only game in town! She told us this when she begged the City for $971,000 for her idiotic project:

***Groveling for money: lies and more lies***

Makes me wonder how THIS place opened, if that’s the case….

Not to mention NextLink, PhoLicious, etc, etc, etc – how can this new place possibly exist when “there is no commercial space in Lampasas”?

What a bunch of maroons.

Skate Park Cost Shoots Ever-Higher. Looks Like We May Get Ripped Off. Again.

When they first started selling us on the skate park, the estimated cost was around $200,000.

Pretty small potatoes, in the grand scheme of things – considering City council wasted over ONE POINT FIVE MILLION dollars (or almost EIGHT TIMES MORE) just to renovate the Old City Hall building that nobody (except City council and City employees) gets to use.

Then a year later in August 2021 (page 20), we were informed that actually, the cost will be more like $400,000 – a straight doubling of cost in one year.

NOW, hidden down on page 65 of the latest council packets, Finley informs us that “consultants estimated the increased cost of construction to be on the order of $170,000“.

By my math that makes it $570,000 for this thing – but the packet (page 69) tells us $470,000

Of course, that same page also tells us a lot of what ISN’T included and will be “done by others”:

So your guess is as good as mine but I’d say we are looking at WAY over a half-million bucks for sure. Sounds very expensive to me. I paid less than that for my house – and this is just a bunch of shaped concrete. According to the plans (page 69 again) the Lampasas skate park will be 5,000 square feet.

Let’s see what the experts say:

The average price to design and build a skatepark is from $40-$60 per square foot. Most projects cost around $50 per square foot in total. Skateparks rarely are more than $65 per square footand can sometimes be as low as $25 per square foot.

At the average cost of $50 per square foot:

A 3,000 square foot skate spot will be $150,000 and will support a few skaters at a time.
An 8,000 square footskatepark will be $400,000and will serve a neighborhood of about 25,000 residents.

So we’ll get 5,000 square feet instead of 8,000, it will cost about $100,000 more than the above assumptions, and Lampasas county has pretty close to 25,000 residents. It works out to about $100 per square foot – or double what the experts say is average.

All in all, it sounds like the kind of typical fucked-up, overpriced deal that TJ Monroe and Cathy Kuehne would slobber over and call “an excellent price” while a couple hundred grand of tax dollars disappear unaccounted for into thin air (see also: Campbell Park pre-fab bathroom, new City council chambers, Azbell A/V system, Business Pork Project, RKJ elevator, etc).

I also don’t hear a peep about “volunteers” or “fundraising” anymore. That charade has been dropped. This will come 100% out of the taxpayer’s hide. As usual.

I can GUARANTEE you that neither Kuehne nor Monroe (nor Williamson) has spent one second of their time Googling “skate park costs” over the last two years. This is all play money to them – especially Kuehne who is up for election next month.

Even Those Frog-Eating Socialist Loons Know How to Vote Properly.

Yesterday, the socialist nation of France held elections.

In that election, there was no mail-in voting or early voting. They use paper ballots cast in person and counted by hand.

In fact, mail in voting was BANNED in 1975 amid fear of potential fraud!

There was a mandatory proof of ID to vote.

Why can’t we get that basic election integrity here? Much of the rest of the world understands how to run secure elections. Hell, even Puerto Rico is far more stringent than us. You know, that entire island populated by “people of color”. Somehow THEY all manage to get with the program and obtain ID for themselves.

One can only conclude that: a) those opposing voter ID laws (like local socialist bum Comrade Clayton Tucker) are racist/classist/elitist toward those they (incorrectly) view to be inferior and without the means and wherewithal to get a voter ID (see Ami Horowitz’s video)

Or…

b) the issue is just a smokescreen and those who oppose stricter voter ID laws really ultimately want to facilitate voter fraud and voting by non-citizens because they believe it benefits them politically in terms of obtaining and retaining power.

Some Lady Rented Out The Hostess House – Shows Us What a Shit Pile It Is…

Catherine Groothoff recently rented out the Hostess House.

It did not go well:

The City only just barely took control of the Hostess House a mere 29 months ago! What do you think they are…miracle workers?

Catherine must be new in town or she doesn’t read here. If she DID, she would understand that the numbskulls who run the City can’t be bothered with the little things. They are too busy arguing about how to blow the next million dollars on some hare-brained project – like the Business Pork.

You want them to spend $400 or $500 to fix a sink and get a new microwave? Surely you jest. They are busy planning to spend $1.4 million on the Hostess House “facelift” and “minor repairs”. It will take another year in addition to that $1.4 million. They cannot be bothered to replace a microwave. What fun is that?

I’m sure they DO have people to fix a sink, but they are too busy wasting time and money putting in hose bibs, pipes and a $12,750 water tank for a local moron to grow a couple of squash at the Community Garden!

It’s the same reason they blow almost $200,000 on a “pavilion” but literally 100 feet away at the local pool, they won’t spend any money to hike lifeguard wages to make sure the pool is fully staffed for summer. They’d rather close it an extra day every week.

It’s the same reason the City electric fund is “in trouble” and rates had to be hiked on everyone last November while they simultaneously give out hundreds of thousands of dollars in ‘free’ electrical subsidies to rich developers at Stone Valley, Hidden Oaks and Hillside Acres.

See how it works?

It’s also the reason the water fountains at the 580 Sports Complex have been non-functioning since March 2020. They cannot be bothered with something that tiny. They are too busy deciding if they should waste $1.3 million on a bike path over there that nobody will use.

Now, I’m not sure who to point the finger at…..so I’m just going to go ahead point it squarely at Cathy Kuehne since she is up for election next month and actually has a challenger. She’s also the one who was quoted that they should keep the historical look at Hostess House “even if it costs a little more“.

Cathy Kuehne: great spender of OTHER people’s money since 2018!

NOW It All Make Sense

I always wondered why Robert Francis put his hands protectively around Comrade Clayton Tucker….

Comrade Clayton went from short hair and clothes you might find in the men’s department to looking like a lesbian at a hemp rally….

The purse…the fupa…the longer hair…

It all makes sense now….

As the kids say: “OK groomer!”

Weird. Now that Robert Francis is officially running for governor, you’d think Comrade Clayton would be pumping him (pardon the pun) on his Twitter and FB pages non-stop. But Clayton Tucker has been strangely silent about Robert’s entire campaign.

OR, maybe we need to ask Clayton to show us on a doll where Robert Francis touched her/she/him/his.