Oh my. Birdies are chirping ALL OVER town about the latest disasters striking the LEDC. I’ve heard versions of this from about five different people now, so there must be legs to it. Nothing I love more than having a beer in a bar and a citizen in the know says “holy shit, wait til you hear THIS one!”
It sounds like brand new EDD Mary Poche is definitely leaving after only a month on the job. The reason? Apparently the LEDC wanted her to have only ONE JOB: to find a tenant for the ill-fated money pit known as the Business Pork. Apparently she did the honorable thing and said “that looks like an impossible task” and quit, rather than milk the City for $110k in salary and benefits for the next two years.
Add her to the graveyard!
Cherry Hargrove (2011 – 6/26/2013)
Kathi Masonheimer (3/5/2014 – 2017)
Mandy Walsh (2/13/2017 – 10/5/2022)
Stacey Ybarra (1/15/23 – 6/19/24)
Mary Poche (11/11/24 – 12/13/24)
Mary apparently realized very quickly what I’ve been saying for about six years now: filling that park is a fool’s errand. No matter how noble the intentions of people like Mandy Walsh or Kathy Masonheimer, they were doomed to failure by forces beyond their control. Talbert, Monroe and the other LEDC dunces are the only ones who can’t see that.
You know what else this tells me? It tells me the story from a few months ago that “we need to keep Talbert, Monroe and Erwin on the LEDC because we can’t change horses in midstream” was an utter fabrication. There was no “midstream” because there was never any real progress. The rumor was that Talbert had “one or two tenants right on the CUSP of moving in” so we can’t possibly get rid of her now! That is now exposed as utter bullshit.
If she had all these tenants on the hook, they wouldn’t be telling Mary Poche that her ONLY JOB as EDD is to find them a tenant! It also AGAIN exposes the long-running lie that their inboxes were constantly overflowing with RFIs from the Governor’s office and the only thing holding them back was more millions to make it “shovel ready.”
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
There are also murmurs that some people are FINALLY putting their foot down on the endless spending with zero results. That may or may not include:
** Nixing the latest idea of paying a broker to get someone in there.
** Cancelling the $37,000 signage they are currently in the middle of erecting at the two entrances.
** Shutting this whole thing down altogether and finding another use for it (housing?).
** Digging through a lot of the old expenditures and documents (many of which appear to be missing) and unearthing many of the previous fuckups that went ignored by everyone (except me, of course).
Of course, this whole thing should have been shut down after the profligate Toups administration blew $1.929 million on it back in 2015 and promised it would be “shovel ready” after that.
They almost had their “come to Jesus” reckoning in May of 2020 at a huge multi-group meeting, but instead they choose the wrong path and poured ANOTHER few million into it – including the $971,000 Talbert pilfered DIRECTLY from the City (Feb 2021) and the taxpayers as it was labeled “Covid money” and could have been used for just about anything else.
I’m not sure of the exact amount of outstanding loans they currently have on that thing, but it’s got to be well over $2 million. Maybe $3 million.
Reminder: Misti Talbert was Mayor from May 2017 through May 2021 – and she was ALSO on the LEDC board at the time – a massive conflict of interest I pointed out repeatedly back then. THEN, only two months after leaving as mayor, she was made president of the LEDC in July of 2021, where she has been ever since. During much of that time, her buddy TJ Monroe was mayor and ALSO sat on the LEDC board.
Inbred LEDC Decides To Inbreed Some More – Talbert Takes The Wheel
TJ Monroe Should Be Removed From The LEDC Board Immediately.
Inbred LEDC Inbreeds More – Appoints Bank President Ryan Shahan to LEDC Board – THE SAME BANK They Just Borrowed $1.5 Million Dollars From.
Now that this thing is finally being exposed as a massive fuckup and it’s time to point fingers, let’s be sure they are all pointed directly at Talbert and Monroe, for starters. I don’t think there are two people MORE responsible for the current mess than Talbert and her sidekick Monroe. Time to lay in your bed, ladies.
For those of you trying to sift through the Business Pork mess and how we got here, I did a massive 22-year timeline synopsis that took me a good two weeks to create. It’s all yours for free:
How the Business Pork Project Started 23 Years Ago (Spoiler: They Lied From The Start)
The LEDC Was a Clueless Joke Even Back in 2004.
Did Lampasas Build A Biz Park In The 1970s??
Lampasas Citizens Have Been Ripped Off For 20 Years Now.
*UPDATE* – LEDC Loan Costs Now Much Higher For Taxpayer Thanks To Idiotic Extension Of Original Loan
