Author: admin

Buttering Up Goldfish?

“A few weeks ago, the Lampasas City Council unanimously approved a request to have a train mural painted on the north end of the historic Santa Fe train depot, which is located at East Second and South Live Oak streets. Austin artist Bill Tavis will paint the mural, which Economic Development Director Mandy Walsh said will be funded by Santa Fe depot owner Richard Hardin.”

Awwwwww! Sneeeeaaaakyyyy, dawg! Could it be that Richard Hardin is buttering up some Goldfish in order to better his chances of a $100,000 handout of tax dollars? He is a ‘developer’, after all. Which means you can do no wrong in the eyes of a Goldfish.

You’ll recall that Hardin was making some grumblings about grabbing some City cash so he can spruce up the building he has owned for about 12 years – and then lease it out to a craft brewery or some other such pipe dream. Lol. Gotta hand it to the guy: spend $1,500 on a mural and nearly guarantee yourself a $100,000 gift from taxpayers! Be sure to hire ‘Greasy’ Chris Harrison too….so it’s a lock.

The Tree Police Won’t Like This One Bit…

Ruh roh! The tree police are gonna be miffed about this! The nerve of S2M2 and ‘Greasy’ Chris Harrison! Going hat in hand to City council and scoring $150,000 in taxpayer money to help with their housing development…then going and ripping out a shit ton of trees – including these three beauties I photographed yesterday:

The entire property looks like a tornado hit it – splintered oak tree remnants everywhere. They DID leave that one single tree standing in the back ground there…so there’s that.

This one below kinda looks like a future water detention pond to me…the one the City handed S2M2 $150,000 for, after their former Council member ‘Greasy’ Chris Harrison was hired to beg them for it. Note the massive amounts of roots and splintered wood – this likely indicates destroyed trees, by my estimation:

Don’t even get me started on Deorald Finney and Stone Valley. I don’t think he left more than a tree or two standing – remember, the City gave him over $70,000 in ‘free’ electrical hookups, plus a bunch of dough for other stuff:

Just another example of ‘Goldfish Economics’: subsidize certain behavior and then get confused when that behavior increases.

Some Goldfish Want To Have Their Trees And Eat Them Too

The latest news out of City council is the desire to “protect trees” from those evil developers. You know, the very same developers they keep handing hundreds of thousands of dollars to in order to entice them to develop more. As I understand it, ‘developing’ land usually requires clearing it out of a bunch of trees and replacing them with houses and roads and drainage ponds. At least that’s what I saw over at Stone Valley and the S2M2 development – nothing but smooth ground for close to 100 new houses.

Perhaps the Goldfish already forgot (as they are wont to do) about the free electrical hookups they handed to Deorald Finney at Stone Valley (69 houses = approx $72,000 in lost revenue to City)? Or maybe they forgot about the $150,000 they are handing to S2M2 for a giant water detaining pond. Last I checked, water retention ponds don’t have giant oak trees in the middle of them – they are cleared out in the name of “development”.

The Goldfish proposing this hypocritical idea was Delana Toups. She mentioned TWICE in the article that she “was sad to see last week that an oak was knocked down for a new development”. Neither time did she actually mention WHICH development it was – which I suspect was not an accident. She would look pretty stupid complaining about the S2M2 or Stone Valley development after just handing them $150,000 of taxpayer money. I actually drove over to the S2M2 development a month ago, and saw a TON of trees had been destroyed.

So, they want growth and development so badly, they hand out huge checks and waive tons of fees for these private developers – GIVING these rich developers tax dollars so they can clear cut trees, build homes and make a huge profit on their houses.

THEN, the same person complains that a tree was cut down by a developer! I mean, I have to thank this group for giving me unending, low-hanging fruit to ridicule them with. It’s just too easy now.

Instead of infringing on peoples’ property rights to do what they want with their trees, how about STOPPING COMPLETELY all the handouts to your rich developer buddies and the scumbag former Council members who lobby for them (*cough* Chris Harrison *cough*)?

Nah – that would be too easy. Let’s instead make a whole new pile of regulations and restrictions on the rest of the population. Awesome idea!

In fairness, Mayor Talbert immediately came out against the idea of telling people what they can do with the land they own. Good for her. She is on the correct side of this issue.

Rickie Roy Kicks ASS!!!

I finally heard my first Public Works Department presentation by Rickie Roy during the latest City council audio recording. All I can say is “WOW!!”

Rickie has a voice that could make a wolverine purr. If Clint Eastwood, Matthew McConaughey, and Ronald Reagan had a love child, it would be Rickie Roy.

I have no doubt that Rickie Roy BUILT the very hospital he was born in.

I heard that one time a cobra bit Rickie Roy in the leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.

Rickie pops up at the 37:30 mark of the latest CC meeting – and you can tell that Rickie Roy and the kind of guy who gets shit DONE. Not only that, he is just proud as hell of the work he does. I listened with rapt (look it up, Monica) attention as Rickie went on for about 11 minutes about all the jobs his guys were banging out. At the end of that 11 minutes, I wanted to join the Rickie Roy team. No joke.

I have no doubt Rickie inspires his men. He doesn’t sit in his office all day. He is right out there with them wrestling live high voltage wires to a new Oil States building – NEVER allowing a power interruption for the rest of us.

Rickie Roy for City manager! Rickie Roy for Mayor. Rickie Roy FOREVER!!

I’ll end this with “Go Badgers” because THAT is the Rickie Roy way. Hell yeah.

After Blowing $95,000 On Opulent NO-BID A/V System, City Decides Not To Use Video At All

After THREE City council meetings in the new Fishbowl and ZERO video records of said meetings, I finally just asked the City outright: “Are you aware of any plans to EVER have video recordings of council meetings?  It was promised last year by [recently fired resigned Assistant City Manager] Gary Cox.”

The official response: At this present time, the City does not have any plans to video the Council meetings.  If and when the decision is made to video the Council meetings, the videos will be made available on the City’s website.

You seriously can’t make up stuff like this. It’s almost as good as the LEDC promising “shovel-ready” sites in the Business Park four years ago and still having a useless weed patch today.

Just a quick reminder that not only did Gary Cox specifically promise video archives of the meetings, but thousands and thousands of dollars were spent on cameras and other devices to allow video recording of meetings and (later) live streaming.

Some expenses:

The City bought TWO Lumens VC-B30U PTZ cameras with RS232 controllers – those were $920 EACH = $1840

The City also bought a Matrox Monarch HD video streaming and recording appliance for $1,227 (NewEgg sells this same device for $995)

That alone is $3,000 worth of bells and whistles that the IT Department can’t figure out how to use. I have to assume that is the case: either simple incompetence or laziness. Why else would the City blow thousands on cameras and video streaming and recording and then NOT use it???

Of course, tens of thousands are wasted all the time in the IT Department and hundreds of thousands are wasted by the City in general. Three grand is spit in the ocean when it comes to City waste. But it just shows for the umpteenth time how wasteful and incompetent some parts of the City really are.

You would never catch Rickie Roy pissing away money like this in the Public Works Department. Never.

TJ Monroe: AC-wise and A/V-foolish

Yes, the headline is my little play on “penny wise and pound foolish”, but when it comes to The Seven Goldfish, it’s truly more like “foolish all the time,” when it comes to spending money. Also, the headline should be titled “A-foolish” since there is no ‘V’ (video) to be seen with the new $95,000 no-bid audio/visual system screw job. But I digress….

Recently, a few of the goldfish had a minor squabble about a bid for a new air conditioning unit for the Hostess House. Three bids were received (all in the same $5000 to $6000 price range) but Mike White wanted to go with the most expensive. If you read the details [see below], his decision makes sense. The warranty was better and the bid was more detailed. This should have been one of those things City Council passes in 30 seconds, since the difference between bids was a measly $1,000. Given the difference in warranties, I would say that is fair compensation.

But TJ Monroe was having none of it. As you can see from the Dispatch article below, she chose THIS hill to inexplicably die on. I mean, seriously, she is worried over a few hundred bucks for an AC unit, but last year she was part of the Dream Team that waved through a $95,000 NO-BID audio/visual system without so much as a peep!

TJ was also sitting on Council earlier this year when Spinley deGraffenreid informed the Council he would be spending $185,000 on another no-bid project: an unneeded bathroom in Campbell Park!

So, to recap for the people on the short bus and in the IT Department:

(1) A few hundred bucks on an AC system: TJ Monroe squawks and wastes council time with picking nits.

(2) $95,000 no-bid a/v system that had PREVIOUSLY been bid and accepted for $34,000 (a difference of SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLARS): TJ Monroe is as quiet as a church mouse

(3) $185,000 no-bid bathroom for a project the Parks Department head pitched a couple years earlier for $105,000 (a difference of EIGHTY THOUSAND DOLLARS): TJ Monroe is as quiet as a fart in a flour sack.

It’s also hilarious that they put a $5,000 AC unit up for bid but NOT a $95,000 or $185,000 project. Talk about flying upside down with your head up your butt.

I’m not going to dump on Clark, because he wasn’t around last year when the Azbell debacle slipped through Council. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he would have likely raised a stink about it.

Here is the Dispatch article with all the details:

On another agenda item, the council voted to pay All Seasons Service Inc. to replace a 5-ton heating, ventilation and air-conditioning unit at the Hancock Springs Hostess House.

The city received quotes of $4,800 from TexAir HVAC Inc., $5,298 from Miller’s Service Co. and $5,850 from All Seasons Service Inc. Those are all Lampasas companies.

Councilman Mike White said he does not think the bids are comparable, as he said All Seasons’ quote is much more detailed than the others.

When Mayor Pro Tem TJ Monroe asked White what questions he wants resolved, White said he wants to be sure city officials are “comparing apples to apples,” particularly in regard to the electrical phase and Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio rating.

White also noted All Seasons’ warranty — listed on the quote sheet as 10 years for the compressor, two years for labor and seven years for parts, with online registration. TexAir’s quote listed a five-year parts warranty, and Miller’s bid does not contain warranty information.

White said the Hostess House has had extensive air-conditioning problems, and he alluded to multiple service calls in recent years.

“So there’s [about] a thousand dollars’ difference between the most expensive and the cheapest, and you’re of the opinion that the warranty itself is worth that extra thousand dollars?” Monroe asked White.

The councilman responded: “And the detailed professionalism of the estimate, yes.”

Councilman Randy Clark said he does not believe city officials asked the companies for particular specifications on the HVAC quotes.

White said he talked to Parks Department Director Chris Eicher and learned that representatives of all three contractors met with Eicher at the Hostess House about the work the city needs to have done.

“And I can’t vote for the lowest bid when it’s not comparing [to] any of the other bids,” White said.

Clark asked White if he “would live with” a motion to delay action and seek new bids.

White said he does not think it is the city’s responsibility to have the companies submit new, more detailed bids for the HVAC unit replacement. He said the companies have worked on jobs for the city before and “know full well what to do.”

A motion by Clark to award the HVAC unit replacement to TexAir failed for lack of a second.

White moved to award the job to All Seasons. That motion passed 5-1, with Clark opposed

Christmas Shopping Almost Upon Us! Tips On Wasting Large Amounts of Money – Lampasas Government Style!

You need a HUGE new TV, you say? We got ya covered! Now, you COULD buy a kick-ass 75”TV with HD 4k with ALL the bells and whistles for $953. But that isn’t Spinley and The Seven Goldfish style of shopping!

You want something smaller, MORE expensive and with worse resolution, don’t you? Of course you do! Check out this baby – only 70”and without 4k resolution – and it costs 60% more!! Curious how the picture looks? Just head on over to the new $1.5 million Fishbowl on City Council night and have a look! There are FOUR of them to gaze upon!

You’re getting there – but that STILL ain’t City-Government-level money wasting. You need to pay more….WAY more for that smaller TV set! Well, Azbell Electronics has got you covered. Chris Anelundi and the scumbags at Azbell can get you that TV for $2,148.95! And NO it doesn’t matter if you buy four of them – NO volume discount for you! Sucker!!

Just ignore those 10 microphones at $240 each…

Don’t worry if your Assistant City Manager wife/husband tells you that Azbell sells their crap at a “significant markup over other vendors” – you go and do it anyways!!! THAT’S how you piss away money, baby. Goldfish style.

First Time Was Funny….Now It’s Just Sad

City Council met on November 12th for the second time in their new $1.5 million-dollar Fishbowl. I’d like to tell you that they finally got the fancy $95,000 no-bid Azbell Electronics video recording/archiving/streaming system to work this time, as was promised by recently fired resigned ACM Gary Cox well over a year ago. But, alas, it is not to be. Again.

You can hear the $95,000-quality audio recording here: https://www.lampasas.org/Archive.aspx?AMID=212

What’s the over/under on how many weeks it takes Monica to bite the bullet and call Azbell back out to re-teach her how to operate the Ferrari of A/V Systems? Go ahead, Monica. The $1,000 they charge you for the service won’t show up in the monthly list of “checks written for over $4,000″….so I probably won’t see it.

Or will I?

After all, it’s only been about a year since the system was installed and you were trained on it…and another 2 weeks since the last Council meeting. How could I possibly expect a City IT employee of 14 years to get things figured out THAT fast?

I should probably just “sit here for a minute and realize it was very worth it” to shell out $95,000 for an audio recorder and $8,600 worth of 70″ TV screens. Very, very worth it.