This has been such an awesome week. Elon triggering woke Twitter twats, firing the pricks that censored everything and now this “intruder” smashes a Pelosi in the head. Thank you God!!
“Hammer” used in Pelosi attack
This reminds me of the Tiger Woods incident back in like 2009. None of it made sense. He “fell asleep” and crashed. OK. You just KNEW it was all bullshit.
They both held hammers. This hammer. Thor and Odin roleplay. Gotta live when you’re married to Nancy.
This story has a TON of loose ends. It’s more fucked up than the Jussie Smollet story and sounds more like a gay lovers’ quarrel than anything else. I have zero doubt the truth will come out eventually. And it won’t be the current nonsense about a MAGA guy from Berkeley breaking in.
A militant nudist? They both had hammers? He didn’t attack Pelosi until the police arrived for a “wellbeing check”? Who called THAT in? The glass was broken from the inside? Holy shit, yes.
First Walsh resigns abruptly, and now Neal Leavell is gone from the LEDC board. To see Leavell scurry off the LEDC ship after over TWENTY YEARS is surprising indeed. Very surprising. After all, the Business Pork Project is almost complete and about to open in a glorious fashion and attract dozens, nay, HUNDREDS of “high-paying jobs”. Why would Walsh and Leavell bolt so close to the payoff day?
So Leavell had to be replaced after he left. There was a tiny blurb in the most recent Dispatch about how “council voted unanimously to appoint Fin Erwin to the LEDC board of directors“
How nice. Fin Erwin. Never heard of him. Obviously just some random guy who was selected out of the many, many people who have submitted paperwork to be on the LEDC board of directors. I know there are a bunch of them, because I’ve seen their submissions in the council packets.Even Comrade Clayton Tucker applied to be on the LEDC board! In all, I’d say at LEAST 8 people submitted paperwork to serve on the LEDC board. People like Tim Hefley, Jami Sanchez, Kathy Crawford, Michael Sibberson, and Comrade Clayton Tucker.
Only it turns out he’s NOT just some random guy. Fin Erwin is married to Haley Gibson. Haley Gibson is….wait for it….
…Misti Talbert’s SISTER! Oh my. So Misti now has her brother-in-law on the LEDC board of which she is president.
I wonder how he’ll vote in the future. Will he vote WITH Misti’s chowderheaded ideas? Or against them?
Hmmm. What are the odds that her own brother-in-law is plucked from the pile of submissions to be on the LEDC? Oh wait…according to the list in the September LEDC packet, Fin didn’t even APPLY! Again, go see pages 16 through 29 to see who DID bother to fill out the paperwork.
The LAST time this happened (a year ago), the LEDC decided to ignore all the people who actually went to the trouble of applying and instead appointed Ryan Shahan to the board.That would be the SAME Ryan Shahan who is President of the Bank that is loaning the LEDC millions of dollars for the Business Pork Project.
Not really a good look, as I commented at the time. Don’t forget the taxpayers paid his bank an additional $15,000 “loan origination fee” for the honor of borrowing their money.
That would be the “agreement” that was first mentioned in November of 2021 – a year ago. It has been “in the possession of Mr. Martin and his attorney” for QUITE a while now…
March 21, 2021: “No the agreement is not quite finalized. It is under review by attorneys. We anticipate it being completed soon. I will get you a copy as soon as it has been finalized”
April 13, 2022:“No the agreement is still being reviewed by his attorney.”
June 9th, 2022: “Staff actually followed up this week and it is still in the possession of Mr. Martin and his attorney. We are hopeful that it will be finalized soon.”
BUT here’s the rub: if the agreement has been sitting on the desk of and “in the possession” of Mr. Martin and his attorney for the last seven months, then why is the City suddenly unilaterally spending almost $40,000 to “make it more marketable”?
Or did we not get the entire truth? Is the truth maybe “Martin demanded we pay to have to concrete removed or he won’t go forward”? If that is the case, then THAT should have been mentioned at the City council meeting.
If that is the case, then the story about “making it more marketable” is bullshit. Then the truth would be that the “agreement” that has supposedly been in their possession and waiting for them to sign or not sign is ACTUALLY still an ongoing negotiation and the Martin side is squeezing the City’s nut sack – which has historically been the case.
So either the deal actually IS dead and they are lying about that – and the expenditure really IS to “make it more marketable” to some future as-of-yet-unknown tenant out there somewhere who might come along….
….OR (more likely) Martin demanded the concrete be removed (at great expense to the taxpayer) and the City lied and said they did it to “make it more marketable” – and conveniently omitted the part about who was actually demanding it be done.
Feb 14, 2018 – City pays Lamco Construction $19,270 for “Hostess House repairs” [page 76]
October 2019 – City takes over Hostess House from DRT. They told us it just needed a ”few minor repairs”:
November 19, 2019 – Council votes to spend $5,850 with All Seasons for a new 5-ton AC unit [Dispatch front page news].
August 10, 2020 – Council votes to spend$2,500 with Hendrix Consulting Engineers (HCE) to evaluate the Hostess House [Council minutes page 7 item 7.3]
February 15, 2021 – HCE report is huge and repairs look expensive. Council debating what to do. Council member Cathy Kuehne is quoted in the Dispatch as saying they should keep the historical look “even if it costs more” [Council packet pages 26, 27, 28]
March 8, 2021 – Council votes to spend $6,600 with Reliance Architecture to draw up a “master plan” [Council packet page 10].
October 25, 2021 – Council votes 5-2 to approve$130,570payment to Reliance Architecture to plan the Hostess House “upgrade” – representing roughly 10% of project cost.
January 18, 2022 – Reliance Architecture$8,460for “Predesign”
September 12, 2022 – Reliance Architecture$14,775for “Construction docs”
August 22, 2022 – Reliance Architecture$32,012and$12,312for “Design dev”
October 10, 2022 – Reliance Architecture$10,342for “Construction docs”
October 24, 2022 – City council meeting – project now estimated to cost $1.88 million!
February 27, 2023 – City council meeting packet – lowest bid is RKJ Construction at$2,973,738.00!!!!!
July 21, 2023 – City council dinged for another $38,000 in fees to change the scope of the project and re-bid.
Current total fees for project – $168,570
Total spent thus far before any building or renovation is done: $200,270
Revenue from Hostess House to City: approximately $1,200 between Oct 1, 2019 and September 30, 2020.
Projected revenue for FY 2022/2023: approximately $10,500 (revenues $16,000 and costs of $5,500 anually)
What Gump DOESN’T say (or more likely, doesn’t know) is that the software fees for all this shit goes up like clockwork every year – a LOT more than the rate of inflation. It is a massive rip-off.
Tyler Technologies ALREADY takes care of the City billing software – it’s called “Incode”…and they make sure to jack it up every single year. You’d think they’d give Assistant To The City Manager Ryan Schrute Gump a deal on the NEW software, since we’re already throwing $50,000 per year at them on the other stuff.
Yes…$50,000 per year. Of course, it started out as only $33,939. No doubt back in 2014 some other Gump-like dummy stood up there to sell council on the new billing software and said “Look! It’s only a recurring charge of $33,939! And it saves us some time!”
Tyler Technologies also severely screwed the pooch in 2019 during the Great Ransomware Attack – then-assistant City manager Cox was extremely pissed at them for their bungling during the Ransomware Recovery process.
But Tyler still rams it up the City’s ass every November:
2014 – $33,939.65
2015 – $35,540.42 (+4.70%)
2016 – $37,984.99 (+6.87%)
2017 – $39,820.80 (+4.83%)
2018 – $41,762.43 (+4.87%)
2019 – $43,816.63 (+4.92%) – this is AFTER Ransomware disaster!!
Average over five years: +5.82% per annum
2020 – $45,693.33 (+4.28%)
2021 – $47,463.11 (+3.9%)
2022 – $50,382.67 (+6.15%)
2023 – $53,176.24 (+5.55%)
2024 – $57,243..42 (+7.7%)
Expect the EXACT same thing with Gump’s new software. It will cost more than advertised and work worse than advertised. Bank on it.
Before she abruptly resigned, former Economic Director would spend a decent chunk of time copying and pasting dozens of OTHER Facebook posts to the LEDC Facebook page. If that sounds like it was highly duplicative…you are correct. We saw THOUSANDS of these re-posts over the last couple of years…
But guess what? Only 19 days after she resigned, the free market has a solution!
No way! You mean the people with the most to gain (business owners) actually figured out a way to get the word out all on their own?? Without help from the City government?
Tonight we will get to hear Finley explain why the Hostess House is now going to cost $1.88 million dollars – and we’ll hear if anybody objects to this ridiculous 44% increase in costs.
Assistant to the City Manager Ryan “Dwight Schrute” Ward has come up with yet another brilliant idea. If you thought the “lose-weight-to-get-time-off” scheme was a good one, wait til you hear this!
To say that Ryan Ward writes incoherently is putting it mildly. Sometimes I consider changing his nickname to Forrest Gump. If you ever heard him speak at City council meetings, you’d understand why.
Here is his suggestion:
You can see this on page 141 of the latest council packet.
Let’s ignore for a moment that the very first sentence makes zero sense grammatically. I have no idea what he’s trying to say. Then again, what do we expect from a guy who costs the taxpayers a paltry $155,000 per year? If you want someone who can write and explain at an 8th-grade level (and knows how to use apostrophes properly), that’s gonna cost you more!
So as far as I can tell, the gist is this: whoever has to keep track of employees’ time off (Dwight himself plus like 6 or 8 other people) is too lazy to spend “numerous hours” every month doing this minor task. Finley and Dwight cost the taxpayer $378,000 per year in salaries and benefits – but apparently spending a little time every month doing some paperwork that is in their job description is beneath them – despite the fact it has been this way for decades.
How many hours is “numerous”? Well, he has a convoluted spreadsheet to explain all this, but I’ll be damned if it makes any sense. These clowns at the top of the food chain are salaried, so breaking down every little task they do on an hourly basis makes zero sense.
Dwight thinks the “recurring fees” will be the same every year! Good one.
So many people needed to record the time off! Staff, managers (plural), HR coordinators (plural), accountant, finance director, City manager and Assistant to the City manager! Whew. Could be as many as NINE people involved in this operation!
If you have nine different people wasting 11.5 hours every two weeks JUST to jot down the “requests for time off” for a few employees, then you are doing it wrong. Rube Goldberg would be proud.
So, in order to save ourselves a few grand of Dwight Schrute’s precious time every year, we must now do the following:
Blow $30,509 with Tyler Technologies to get the software and touchscreens and all the other shit.
Blow $8,339 EVERY YEAR for the privilege of using this software. And if history is any guide, this cost will go up 5% a year without fail. Why? Because after they get you reliant on this UNNECESSARY fancy toy, they know the government won’t give it up for a couple hundred extra measly dollars every year. So it will be $8,755 next year, $9,200 the year after that, $9,600 the year after that, etc, etc. I have seen Tyler Technologies do this over and over with the City with every piece of software they sell. It’s a tremendously good scam for whoever owns Tyler Technologies.
Blow an undisclosed sum on “third-party timeclocks, badges and a badge print device”
As someone who has helped run small businesses, I can also tell you that all these timeclocks and badges and badge printing devices and software will constantly fuck up and require our IT ‘experts’ to waste hours and hours dicking around with them. Did Dwight put THAT into his equations?
Doubtful.
My guess? City council will OK this expenditure with roughly 2 minutes of discussion. I will also predict that the “recurring charge” for the exact same software next year will be about $8,750. Any takers??
I have some ideas for saving the City money! Here they are:
Fire Ryan Ward. This saves the City $155,000 or so every single year.
Second derivative effects: with Ryan Ward gone, the City no longer blows $30,000 or $50,000 on a bunch of stupid ideas every year like $5 greens fees, losing weight for PTO and $40,000 software rip-offs to save a few hours of time every month.
I warned you! I warned you over and over and over. I laughed when the Hostess House “minor repairs” were first talked about….
That was exactly three years ago. Just some “minor repairs” and “minor decorations”. Yeah, sure. I called bullshit. I reminded you of the Old City Hall debacle and the $1.6 million spent on that vanity project (soon to be $1.85 million) – a pet project of Misti Talbert’s.
THEN it jumped up to “about $200,000”, according to City Manager Finley deGraffenreid in the Lampasas Dispatch in March 2021 – a mere 18 months ago:
Maybe Finley can stand up there and tell us how he never said this…kinda like the skate park lies.
THEN it ballooned to $1,308,670 – which is a sick joke all by itself. Morons like Cathy Kuehne said they should keep the historical look “even if it costs more”. Why not? It’s not her money! It’s just play money, apparently!
But I knew from years of watching these clowns that it wouldn’t stop at $1.3 million. No way. As of today, the costs have exploded once again…as they ALWAYS DO. That’s what happens when chimpanzees get ahold of somebody else’s checkbook.
Why the massive increase? Well, inflation of course! Yes, we all know inflation is running at about 44% per year.
So the consulting and engineering firms – who were paid HUGE amounts of money [$130,570 to Reliance Architecture in Oct of 2021] to plan all this – are just NOW realizing “oh wait! We need a fire alarm system! We need a sprinkler system! Oh, and a grease trap and exit stairs!”
Bullshit. They are either monumentally incompetent or this is some kind of kickback scam. There is no way they are that stupid.
[I seem to remember the EXACT SAME THING happening with the Old City Hall remodel back in March 2015 – except THAT time it was JNW Architects that was getting big checks to screw the pooch. Hmmm…wonder why Finley didn’t go with JNW again THIS time?]
Oh, and also “scope creep” – which is a fancy way of saying “we just keep adding shit and agreeing to more because – once again – it isn’t OUR money“. – ALSO known as “change orders”, which is how these contractors fleece their customers. Oldest trick in the book.
Christ, TJ Monroe is making Misti Talbert and her Old City Hall debacle look like a penny-pinching Jew with this outlandish waste of money.
This is EXACTLY like the Old City Hall debacle a few years ago. A bunch of children acting like it’s Christmas and Santa will give them everything they want. A $59,000.00 canopy? Yeah, why not. A pool changing room for $49,000? Hell yeah – that is obviously a necessity we can’t do without. Some random vague bullshit like “expanded renovation” and “technology” for an additional quarter of a MILLION bucks? Yes please!
Any City council member who votes to approve this shit should be voted out of office when they are up for election next time. This is absolutely disgusting. I can’t believe they are even bringing this up publicly for discussion. I’d be ashamed to bungle things up this badly and ask for a 44% increase in the money wasted on this idiotic project.
