admin

Checking The Math Shows Us Finley Has ALREADY Billed Us For “Growth”

As I posted the other day, Finley is already putting a bug into the ears of City council that with all the “new rooftops” (built by developers subsidized with YOUR tax dollars) we may need to grow the size of the City payroll, add more people and spend more money.

These costs of growth, of course, FAR outpace the property tax revenue they get from the new “rooftops” (houses) – a math fact that escapes the likes of Monroe and Talbert. Let’s just take a look at the fire and police departments, because Finley referenced them in his little speech on Monday.

The City has grown in population roughly 22% since the 2008/2009 budget was approved. Let’s see how much the budget has grown during that time.

Police Salary and Benefits 2008/2009: $1.42 million

Police TOTAL Department Expenses 2008/2009: $1.723 million

Police Salary and Benefits 2020/2021: $2.36 million (INCREASE of 66% – triple the rate of population growth)

Police TOTAL Department Expenses 2020/2021: $3.143 million (INCREASE of 80% – almost quadruple the rate of population growth)

Now, I am a law and order kind of guy – NOT an idiotic “defund the police” guy. Just like the U.S. military at the federal level, law enforcement is one of the main functions of any government since it is nearly impossible to have those things provided by the private sector (see: free rider problem).

BUT, also like the U.S. military, just because it is an important and legitimate function of government doesn’t mean you write blank checks and never say “no” to exorbitant spending every now and then to keep things under control. Seems to me, the cost of those services should move roughly in tandem with population growth.

I have no clue if we just have a lot more officers now than we did back then or if we have the same number and they are just paid a lot more. I have no way to tell that as the “salary and benefits” line item is not broken down further.

What IS certain from these numbers, is that the rate of growth in EXPENSES is FAR outstripping population growth…Finley’s “rooftops” he was speaking of. So for him to point at a bunch of “new rooftops” and draw the conclusion that we obviously need to hire more people is completely disingenuous. We’ve been increasing spending all along – apparently a bit more than we should have.

Let’s do it for the Fire Department as well:

Fire Salary and Benefits 2008/2009: $547,000

Fire TOTAL Department Expenses 2008/2009: $700,000

Fire Salary and Benefits 2020/2021: $1.234 million (over 125% increase)

Fire TOTAL Department Expenses 2020/2021: $1.818 million (over 150% increase)

Oops. Spending has been increasing there FAR more than population growth at the fire department as well! Yet Finley is already prepping us for “MORE!!”.

How about the TOTAL cost of City government over the last 10 years? Population has grown about 20% over that time period. What do the budget numbers look like for the entire City?

2010/2011 total expenditures: $7,500,000
2020/2021 total expenditures: $12,175,000

This represents an INCREASE of 62% over 10 years – TRIPLE the rate of population growth.

Bottom line is that City council needs to take everything Finley tells them with a grain of salt. This is a guy who has been caught lying more than once [see: ‘Spinley’ deGraffenried] and who has also been caught wasting piles of money more than once as well (Azbell and the $180,000 pre-fab bathroom come to mind immediately).

Do your own research. Go through the old budgets. Search the old Dispatch archives. Perhaps look at OTHER cities our size and see how large their police and fire departments are – so you can tell if we are WAY out of line or not. Maybe see what percentage of the overall budget these departments make up and if THAT is normal for a town our size.

Common sense stuff.

Remember, Finley is a well-paid bureaucrat. Well-paid bureaucrats are always looking to increase the size of their little fiefdom. Same goes for every department head. It is the natural inclination of government to grow itself and suck up more and more resources. They put the taxpayer LAST. It is the job of City council to look out for the taxpayer and ask the tough questions Finley was never asked by the last administration.

Finley Laying Groundwork For Bigger City Government – All Thanks To City Handing Free Money To Developers

“What is the shape of our organization….especially as we balance our growth with our human resources? We’ve got another new 20 rooftops over here…we’re doing 40 over here, we’re doing 25 over here…..what does it take to serve an additional 100 to 150 rooftops? That’s a conversation we need to have.”

Finley uttered those words at the last council meeting [go to 46 minute mark]. The translation is “get ready for the cost of government to increase rapidly”.

Well, well, well. So there IS another side to the “growth at any cost” that was a hallmark of the Talbert administration. I ALWAYS brought up the point that “growth” has another side to it in addition to the “increased tax base!” line that Talbert always liked to parrot. When Talbert and Finley and the rest of the Goldfish would give away hundreds of thousands of dollars to developers (Deorald Finney, S2M2 and others) they would defend themselves by saying “well, those 100 new houses will add $40,000 per year to the City coffers!”

Unfortunately, that $40k is a drop in the bucket compared to the COST of that growth. But the tiny minds of Talbert and Monroe never considered that side of the ledger.

Now, Finley may want one more cop or firefighter on the payroll – and that is a HELL of a lot more than $40,000 per year. And that is JUST the beginning of the new “unseen” costs.

Also, there have been issues lately out by the 580 Sports complex area with water pressure. Gee…why would that be? Oh yeah....the developer that TJ Monroe, Chuck Williamson and Misti Talbert voted to hand tens of thousands of dollars of free shit to is in the process of building almost SEVENTY new houses out there! I’m guessing several hundred new people sucking on the water line might have consequences there too.

To solve that “upper pressure plane” issue, the City is already spending $48,000 on a study ($48,000 is bigger than $40,000, right Mayor?) and may need to add a third pump out at the Spring Street Station. I’ll admit I am not up to speed on this issue [I will be soon], but between the study and the solution, you can bet it’ll be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars EASILY.

Schools….roads….congestion – all of those are going to cost us all a LOT more than $40,000 per year.

I’m not saying Lampasas should lock the gate and never let another home be built here. That would be ridiculous and hypocritical of me.

What I AM saying, is that Talbert and her City council were monumentally stupid in giving huge amounts of money to developers to build (roughly $100,000 to Deorald Finney’s Stone Valley and $185,000 to S2M2’s Brodie Estates). You have ONE chance to offset all those future costs related to having hundreds more people in town: you get your pound of flesh from the developers UP FRONT before they build. You hit them with impact fees and permit fees and the like.

What you DON’T do, is the exact opposite! What you DON’T do is hand them hundreds of thousands of dollars to build their houses, you colossal idiots!

If you ignore the Old City Hall disaster and the Business Park disaster, the fact that Talbert gave away well over $250,000 to developers during her time as mayor is definitely one of her biggest blunders – I’m already being proven right on that count.

TJ Monroe Should Be Removed From The LEDC Board Immediately.

The LEDC meets today and they will be discussing some big numbers – millions of dollars – when it comes to their ill-fated ‘business’ park.

I’ve recently been thinking about how this group has gotten away with being such a massive failure and waster of tax dollars for at least a decade now with ZERO repercussions.

Not only are there no negative repercussions, but they are allowed to keep throwing millions in good money after bad.

I think the problem is obvious: we have a very incestuous group that is essentially policing themselves and judging their own performance.

To wit…

TJ Monroe AND Misti Talbert have been sitting on the LEDC board AND City council concurrently for the last six years (Talbert) and nearly NINE years (Monroe).

Misti only just left City council very recently. Considering her long association and obvious friendship with Monroe and council, she should still be considered essentially a member there. She is one of the “group”.

The LEDC exists at the discretion of City council. By my understanding of the rules, City council has the power to dissolve the LEDC whenever they want.

[If I am wrong about that, please feel free to correct me at my email address at lampasshole@protonmail.com]

Considering Talbert and Monroe were/are members of BOTH groups, this makes for a very incestuous situation with ZERO checks and balances: what are the chances that Monroe and Talbert would sit on City council and decide to dissolve the LEDC – an organization they are ALSO members of – for mismanagement?

They are essentially judging their own performance.

The LEDC also appoints their own board members, so it is the same group of idiots re-appointing each other over and over in a giant six-million-dollar circle jerk. In addition to Monroe, Neal Leavell, Ronnie Vineyard and Roland Schaub have ALSO been there since at LEAST 2013 – as far back as their records go.

So for 8.5 years (and the bulk of the profligate spending and mismanagement) we have had Leavell, Vineyard, Schaub and Monroe calling the shots. Talbert has been there since at least October of 2015.

During that SAME period, TJ Monroe and Misti Talbert sat on City council and Talbert was mayor from 2017 through 2021 – and Monroe is mayor NOW.

Furthermore…

The LEDC also has NO written policy about conflict of interest and NO written policy about document destruction.

These are facts taken from their non-profit tax filings.

Add all this up and you have a very small, insulated group of people who have proven themselves to be in WAY over their heads and who are handling LARGE amounts of tax dollars but who don’t see any problems because they police themselves.

I humbly ask the newer members of City council to at least mull this over. At the very LEAST, I believe TJ Monroe should be removed from the LEDC board for conflict of interest. She cannot fairly judge the performance of an organization which she simultaneously oversees AND is a member of.

The Six Million Dollar Land

The LEDC will meet Wednesday for their usual monthly meeting. They will be discussing the most inefficient way to incinerate millions of tax dollars with their “business” park project.

In honor of this, I want to summarize the big-ticket loans they have either taken out or are about to take out for this never-ending boondoggle.

Oct 2003 – LEDC purchases land for $909,000. To do this, they took out a loan from First State Bank of Central Texas for $1.1 million for 15 years at 4.95% [see page 14]. If you use an amortization calculator, you see the total cost for the land was $1,560,000. That works out to approximately $9,500 per acre. Loan matured in November 2019.

March 2015 – LEDC takes out a loan for $1,345,000 for 15 years at 3.35%. The loan is written by First State Bank of Central Texas. This money was mainly wasted putting a bunch of pipes in the ground and running electricity to the site (roughly one million dollars). Loan is SUPPOSED to mature in March of 2030. Thanks to Misti Talbert and TJ Monroe [page 4, item VI], loan will be extended to March 2040 – costing the taxpayers an extra $207,000. TOTAL cost of this loan (principal and interest) $1,925,000.

Spring 2021 – LEDC fails to pull off their Covid money scam. Local scumbag Mike Cour turns out to NOT actually be a viable tenant. In fact, he had his hand out for roughly $1.85 million from the taxpayers. Of course, Mandy Walsh, Misti Talbert, TJ Monroe and the rest of them were strung along and CONNED by this weasel for a YEAR before it all fell apart.

So NOW they have to do it the old-fashioned way – go to the banks and take out a loan. BancorpSouth [which acquired First State Bank of Central Texas at the end of 2019] has agreed to back the loan (but only if they agree to extend the $1.345 million loan for another TEN YEARS (see above).

The BancorpSouth loan is for $1,500,000 for 21 years at 3.2% (according to LEDC packets – pages 9 and 10). With interest added in, that will cost the taxpayers $2,061,000.00 after all finance charges. Oh, plus a $15,000 loan origination fee. Total of $2,076,000.

Add up all the loans, and you get $5,561,000 after financing charges.

Pope Eckermann himself pegged the cost of ~~Phase II~~ Phase I at around $1,900,000 back in early 2020. Given the inflation we have seen in the last 18 months, I highly doubt that figure is still valid. It will be at LEAST $2.2 million. Subtract out the $1.5 million borrowed, and the LEDC will be on the hook for another $700,000 if they are lucky.

New total? $6,261,000 if my estimates are correct and just under $6 million if The Pope’s numbers from early 2020 are still valid.

That works out to roughly $37,000 per acre.

Number of tenants recruited for the “business park” since 2004: 0

Number of jobs created: 0

The Goldfish Swim Tonight: 6-14-21 Council Meeting

A weem-a-way, a weem-a-way, a weem-a-way, a weem-a-way

In the fish bowl, the pricey fish bowl, the Goldfish swim tonight!

Oooooh, oooooh eee-ooo-wam-a-way.

Join us on Gab.com – for live commentary. Find us at The Original Lampasshole.

Tonight will be Misti-Free as Total Joke Monroe takes the reigns as Head Goldfish. Don’t worry though – Misti still sits on the LEDC board and is making poor decisions over there, so we haven’t seen the last of her yet.

Tonight’s agenda looks fairly boring. No mention of the Hostess House OR the Business Park – the two biggest boondoggles going right now.

There is an item for “budget” and for “updates related to City projects” – so perhaps those will bear fruit.

14 Fish Tank Castle Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images

Local Socialist Bum Clayton Tucker Mad That Texas Won’t Allow “Critical Race Theory” Bullshit In Schools

Local failed City council candidate Clayton Tucker is at it again.

Wow! So deep!

Truth? That’s a good one. To Marxist progressive trash like Clayton Tucker and his buddies, “truth” is provable nonsense like “a human with a penis can be a woman” or “global warming will kill us all in 12 years” or “there are more than two genders” or “masks save lives” or “math is racist“.

This chick is a GRIFTER. Just like Clayton Tucker

Their latest favorite “truth” is that white people are all inherently racist and privileged . So they rallied yesterday to stamp their feet and whine that Critical Race Bullshit should be taught in Texas schools.

I mean, I can see why CLAYTON thinks there is such a thing as “white privilege” – because he erroneously assumes every white guy has a sweet deal like him:

Clayton’s parents paid $80,000 for his useless “international relations” college degree. Then Clayton went out and did…nothing. He traveled all over Asia on someone else’s dime (presumably mom and dad). He lives in a house that mom and dad own. He has never worked a real job, yet still has a car and cell phone and Internet and all that – again, presumably provided by someone else.

He’s in his THIRTIES and has never worked, yet enjoys a pretty cushy existence – posting socialist screeds on “Our Revolution” and moaning about the plight of “the working man”, despite never having been a working man himself. Or even a man, for that matter.

In short, Clayton, if you feel guilty about your “white privilege” or “white supremacy” or whatever horseshit you are peddling today, then I suggest you go out and get a job so you can feel that sweet sting of sweat on your brow and experience the satisfaction that comes from being an independent man who can provide for himself and maybe even a family.

It’s sad how badly this kid’s parents have failed him. Their enabling has made him into the useless, Marxist scumworm that he is today.

Nice Day For The Pool

Man – another hot one today! Those of us who DON’T have a nice, cushy Nerf job at City Hall are really sweating it out this weekend.

Would be an AWESOME day to hit Hanna Springs Pool and ride the slide a few times. Maybe sit under the Mushroom Fountain with the kids.

Oh wait. The pool is now closed on Sundays instead of open from 1pm to 6pm like it was for YEARS prior to this one. All thanks to Finley being too cheap to pay lifeguards more than the absolute minimum wage of $7.25

The city budget discussions are going to be popping up soon for the fiscal year 2021/2022. Can’t wait to see how big of a raise he wants to give the Nerf job holders this time around. I read they had TWENTY-FIVE applicants for “Assistant City Manager”. They have so many applicants because they offer a ridiculously generous salary and benefits.

That’s a lesson Finley never applies to the lifeguards, for some reason. God forbid you find $20,000 for the summer help in a budget of $31 million.

CPI Soars. Americans Being Screwed. Thanks Biden “Voters”.

Well, Biden-loving retards like Bruce Haywood, Potato Head Stephanie Fitzharris, Clayton Tucker, Karen Spivey-Cummings and Julie Cain Landrum should be ecstatic this morning. The CPI came in at 5%. We all know inflation is running much hotter than this watered-down government-massaged number, but even with the lies, they managed a 5% print.

Consumer Prices Surge at Fastest Rate Since 1992

Seeing as how the average Lampasshole is getting 0% on their money in the bank, that means you are feeling a NEGATIVE 5% REAL rate right now. Your purchasing power is DECREASING by 5% per year – and likely MUCH more.

Cartoon: Biden's Inflation | Columnists | tulsaworld.com

Been to grocery store?

Pumped gas lately? Up 56.2% in CPI

Bought any clothing? Apparel prices +5.6% in CPI

Travelled anywhere? Transportation services in CPI +11.2%

Bought a house? (+19% )

This is what happens when you print trillions in fake confetti money and hand it out to everyone with a pulse. You get many more people CONSUMING with that unearned money while those same people PRODUCE nothing, since they are content to sit home and collect checks. The end result is MUCH more money chasing FAR fewer goods [see: housing prices, used car prices, every business in town trying to find workers, etc].

Now, those of us with brains know Biden did not REALLY win the election (see: Georgia cheating) but plenty of real-life morons DID vote for him and help bump his vote total up high enough so that cheating could push him over the edge. Those same morons cheered that the cheating got their guy in.

So, if you see Bruce or Karen or Clayton Tucker or any of the other brain-dead Biden voters, be sure to thank them for this mess!

Hell, Clayton is probably not aware of ANY of this because he lives in his parents’ house and spends all his time masturbating over Bernie Sanders tweets.

Hostess House 2019 Versus Hostess House 2021

It all started so innocently, didn’t it? Just a “minor repair” here and “minor interior decoration” there.

Minutes from October 16, 2019 [page 5]:

Then The Goldfish, Finley and a troup of chimpanzees got ahold of it…and it turned into THIS abomination:

And you wonder why I NEVER believe a word these people say.

UPDATE – LEDC Loan Costs Now Much Higher For Taxpayer Thanks To Idiotic Extension Of Original Loan

So, I have the NEW amortization schedule in my hands, thanks to a very efficient City secretary.

As I stated before, the OLD loan only had about $133,000 remaining in interest payments over the next 9 years (total interest of $377,000 minus the $244,000 already paid over the last 6 years).

That is now out the window. The balance of the ORIGINAL loan ($885,652.00) will now be re-amortized at the old interest rate of 3.35% and extended another ten years – which will cost the taxpayers $340,882

So the LEDC went from only owing another $133k to now owing $340k in interest over the life of that $1.35 million dollar loan- thus fattening bank coffers by an additional roughly $207,000 in tax dollars.

Thus, that original loan for “pipes in the ground” of $1,340,000 will NOT cost the taxpayers $1,722,000 as originally stated back in 2015. It will now cost the taxpayers very close to $2 million total, after all is said and done.

Why would the LEDC just bend over and take it up the pipe like this? Why put the taxpayer on the hook for ANOTHER $207,000 in interest payments for no reason whatsoever?

Well, for starters, morons like TJ Monroe and Misti Talbert sit on the LEDC board. I mean, you couldn’t try to NEGOTIATE a bit? Maybe say “Hey, we agree to all your terms EXCEPT the loan extension – we don’t want to keep shelling out money for an extra TEN YEARS”.

Nah. Nobody negotiates anything when it comes to tax dollars. It’s all play money to imbeciles like TJ Monroe.

Let’s not forget that the NEW $1,500,000 loan from BancorpSouth will cost the taxpayers roughly $560,000 in interest payments over the life of THAT loan.

So we are now looking at $4,000,000.00 to get the ‘business’ park “shovel ready”, apparently, if you just look at the cost of those two loans taken out since 2015.

But there’s more!

Pope Eckermann himself guestimated the cost of ~~Phase I~~ Phase II to be around $1.9 million – with a 10% contingency thrown in there. Those numbers were arrived at in Jan 2020 (see page 4) – 18 months ago! I GUARANTEE you the new cost will be north of $2.3 million before all is said and done.

[** UPDATED Feb 2022: new cost was $2.75 million**]

Guys like Pope Eckermann are not stupid. Once the big $2 million dollar 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.

So, the LEDC is on the hook for the difference between the loan amount of $1.5 million and the actual, final cost of construction – which could be $2.3 million or more.

If history is any guide, it will be more. Much more.

So that’s ANOTHER $800,000 thrown in for good measure. We’re at $4.8 million now.

The original cost of the 150 acres was $909,835 as well – back in October of 2003. Terms of THAT loan (see page 14) were to borrow $1.1 million for 15 years at 7% (later refinanced down to 4.95% but not sure when that happened).

Why borrow $1.1 million when the land cost $909,835? Well, probably for some pocket change!

THAT loan matured in November of 2019 and over the course of the loan, the LEDC paid approximately $460,000 in interest payments. So the land they bought for $909,835 ACTUALLY cost the taxpayers $1,560,000.00

Roughly $6.3 million is what this debacle will have cost the taxpayers by the year 2040, JUST from these loans. I have no doubt they will decide in ten more years that they need a Phase III or Phase IV.

I’d love to hear what City council thinks about this absolute waste of money. Not TJ Monroe, of course. I couldn’t care less what she thinks, as she has shown herself to be a fool over and over and she sits on the LEDC board.

Maybe the NEW council members could chime in on this at their next meeting.