City Council Meeting 10-10-22 Recap

Haven’t been keeping up as much as I’d like with CC meetings. Here is a recap of tonight’s meeting:

Finley made his Manager’s Report. When he got to the “LEDC” line item, he babbled a bit about how the Business Pork has some paved roads now! Halleluiah! No doubt, it will be filled to the brim with “high paying jobs” in no time!

He then quickly segued into how they are looking for a replacement for Economic Director Mandy Walsh, who abruptly resigned last week. He also mentioned that Liberty Hill AND Georgetown are ALSO looking to hire economic directors! What are the odds??

[Actually Finley, Georgetown supposedly hired a new guy 17 days ago. Perhaps he didn’t work out? I know Finley himself has lost new hires (*cough* assistant City manager *cough*) just days after hiring, so I suppose it’s possible.]

Aaaaand, that was it! Not a single mention of how awesome Mandy was or thanking her for her 5.5 years of service. No gushing over her performance and listing of her accomplishments. No decorative pins or medallions for her years of service. No walk down memory lane with council members bawling about her departure. None of the mushy bullshit that Mayor Talbert got in spades when she ended her mayoral service (only 4 years). Nope. Just “we’re looking for Mandy’s replacement” – much in the same tone of voice you might say “I’ll have the Egg McMuffin”. Zero emotion at all. Zero appreciation.

Gee…some thanks, eh? I get the feeling that perhaps some people are miffed about the abrupt resignation right as the Business Pork was nearing its Big Completion Date and unveiling. We’ll see if any little birdies chirp in my ear at lampasshole@protonmail.com one of these days. I get the feeling there’s a story there somewhere.

Wayfinding signs: Council is consideringblowing $60,000on fancy “wayfinding signs” [also called “street signs”] like you may find in Fredericksburg or Marble Falls:

You know…so visitors from out of town can find our opulent vineyards, our many museums and the marina their yacht is moored at. I have foolishly been using the GPS function on my shitty Samsung phone all these years to find stuff. Thank goodness we now will have massive, overpriced signs to direct us where to go.

In fact, in the newspaper article about it, they mentioned Fredericksburg and Marble Falls SPECIFICALLY as models for this project. Because we are SO much like those towns in terms of millions of dollars sloshing around waiting to be wasted.

Council unanimously approved spending $60,000 on this project. Zero discussion.

Concrete removal at the Industrial Pork: I covered this a few days ago. I know City council reads here, but there were no questions about Finley’s assertions that removing the concrete will “make the property more valuable”. There were no questions about why they are bothering with this when they are ALREADY wasting millions to “make the property marketable” over at the Business Pork project. So they will be spending money on TWO ‘industrial parks’ at the same time – with ZERO realistic prospects to fill either one of them.

Of course, this is the same group that sold a City building for $75,000 and then bought it back 15 months later for $229,000 – so clearly they know a LOT about value, right??

The concrete removal money was approved unanimously in the course of maybe 30 seconds.

For those of you keeping count, that was $100,000 in spending approved on very questionable “necessities” in the course of roughly 90 seconds.

But don’t worry. Just keep sending those checks to City Hall!

Remember This Eco-Flex/Eco-Strong Gem From 2020?

Ahhh…memories:

That was from May of 2020. It was a gargantuan, whopper of a lie told by Alan Champagne and Mike Cour (of subsidiary Eco-Strong). There was no recycling plant groundbreaking planned. They made the whole thing up.

Then Mike Cour told me it was all going to be “privately funded”. A few months later he asked the LEDC for $1.8 million dollars. LOL.

The LEDC sure has been quiet about them lately! I’m sure that THIS time it’ll all work out. How many millions will the taxpayers have to throw in this time? Or will they be another dead body floating to the surface after Mandy Walsh resigned?

There sure doesn’t appear to be a lot of activity over there at the new “factory” next to Brown’s Feed Store. I guess we’ll know in the next 6 to 8 months!

Studies Prove Yet Again That ‘Renewable’ Energy Is a Disaster When Deployed at Large Scale

[Morons like AOC, Joe Biden, Robert O’Rourke and Clayton Tucker need to read stuff like this and comprehend it so we can avoid destroying our country’s economy – but, of course, they won’t. Because it’s not about ‘saving the planet’. It’s about control. Small-time dummies like Tucker and Haywood are just too blind to see they are nothing but useful idiots in this plan.]

From the Epoch Times:

A California-based leading eco-modernist has disputed the widespread claim that renewables are a cheap and clean energy source, arguing that it’s the opposite.

Michael Shellenberger, founder of Environmental Progress, said one of the “most misleading ways that renewable salespeople sell their technology” is they claim the electricity produced by wind and solar is cheaper.  

However, the paradox about renewable energy is when deployed at scale,they actually make electricity production more expensiveShellenberger told CPAC Australia in Sydney on Oct. 1. 

“There are basically two reasons,” he said, “It requires more machines, more backup power generators, more transmission systems, and more people to manage the chaos of an electrical grid with a large amount of unreliable weather-dependent energy.”  

Shellenberger pointed to a prediction by German economist Leon Hirth that the economic value of wind and solar declines significantly as they take up a larger proportion of the electricity grid.  

In a paper for Energy Policy in 2013, Hirth estimated that when wind turbine power generation comprises 30 percent of the grid, its value declines by 40 percent; while solar power’s value declines by 50 percent when it reaches 15 percent.  

“The reason is easy to understand,” Shellenberger noted, “Solar and wind produce too much energy when you don’t need them and not enough energy when you do, and both of those impose costs on the electrical grid.”  

He said the ideal situation was for the electricity supply to keep up with demand at “all times.”

“Every time you take electricity off the grid and put it back on, you’re paying energy penalties, which increase the cost of that energy somewhere between 20 to 40 percent.”

Shellenberger said this was the case whether it was using electricity to pump water uphill to operate hydroelectric dams or siphoning excess electricity supply into lithium batteries. He noted that it would cost the United States three-quarters of a trillion dollars to create enough storage to back up the entire country’s electricity grid for just four hours.  

“We don’t need to backup the grid for four hours, we need to back it up if you’re relying on solar and wind for weeks or months because there are periods of time where there’s no sunlight, no wind, including often at night,” he said.  

What About the Waste?  

The comments from the environmentalist come as Western countries ramp up their efforts to decarbonise to move towards net zero by 2050, with renewables believed to be the solution as they produce neither greenhouse gases nor polluting emissions.

But Shellenberger, author of “Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All” and “San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities,” argued that renewables were more environmentally damaging than fossil fuels and nuclear energy. 

Renewables produce 300 times more waste than nuclear plants do, while every solar panel removed from a rooftop was categorised as hazardous waste, the environmentalist noted.  

“The problem is that renewables actually degrade the natural environment,” he said. 

Shellenberger also said the push for more renewable power sources like wind and solar would result in Western countries moving “in the opposite direction towards a ‘higher material intensity’ society than we have under fossil fuels and nuclear.” 

According to a report from the International Energy Agency, natural gas and coal only require a small fraction of mining to support their operations compared to what is needed for offshore wind and solar.  

“We use about 10 percent of the materials in the world today for energy production, if we move towards 100 percent renewables that would rise to between 40 and 50 percent, and that’s going to be inflationary.” 

He further said that “as a result of the war on natural gas, and this obsession with renewables,the world’s actually going to burn more coal in 2022 than it ever has before.”

City Gets Plowed By Martin’s Rod.

To be discussed at Monday’s council meeting [see page 71]:

Staff has identified the need to remove surplus, excess, damaged, and unusable concrete work at the City’s Industrial Park to make the property more marketable. Council to consider a motion to award contract for concrete removal in the amount of$38,300to WT Excavation.

But…but…but…Martin’s Rod & Custom was gonna buy that! RV and boat storage! Distilleries! Barber shops! Cigar lounges! Twenty jobs! $30 an hour!

Fairy tale from November 2021

So can we FINALLY now drop the ridiculous pretense that Martin’s Rod and Custom is going to do ANY of that bullshit? I’ve been saying that for nearly a year, but I guess this kind of seals it. You don’t need to waste nearly $40k to “make it more marketable” if the Martin Custom fairy tale was going to come true.

I wonder how much money the City wasted on their attorney J.C. Brown drawing up “an agreement” last year. The very same agreement that the City secretary has told me is “in the hands of Martin’s Rod lawyers” for the last 6 months.

I wonder how many other “dead bodies” will come floating to the surface now that Mandy Walsh has resigned.

I also wonder why the City would waste 40 large on this cement abomination when they just spent ANOTHER $2.7 million on the Business Pork project to create three “marketable” tracts that are pretty much EXACTLY THE SAME SIZE as the ‘Industrial Park” parcel.

You think MAYBE you’d want to fill at least ONE spot in your $7.1 million Business Pork monstrosity BEFORE you go pissing away $38,000 on the “Industrial Park” of almost exactly the same size?

How many empty industrial parks can you waste money on at the same time? I guess we’re about to find out.

Walsh Resigns as Economic Director

Well, I did NOT see that one coming!

I had a lot of stuff on my Bingo card this year. Stuff like ‘Haywood grows fatter on Whataburger’ and ‘skate park delayed’ and “Hostess House cost overruns” but never in a million years did I see this happening. This is like Michael Scott quitting Dunder Mifflin just months before they open a new branch.

The “new branch about to open” in this case would be the much-ballyhooed Business Pork project. It will supposedly be done in just a few months and Mandy Walsh resigns before the Great Unveiling? After she has undoubtedly put hundreds of hours of blood, sweat and tears into it? After dealing with vermin like Mike Cour? She leaves now?

Hmmm. Very odd, to say the least.

As I’ve said in the past, she was given an impossible task…as was Kathi Masonheimer before her. As much as I love this small town, it’s just that: another small town. There are a hundred more like us in Texas, and to think that wasting $7 million on a “business park” is going to turn us into the next Georgetown is moronic. The LEDC shouldn’t exist. The Business Pork shouldn’t exist. The free market is superior at guiding growth – not a small group of self-appointed people blowing tax dollars.

The wave of morons spreading out from Austin northwards will not move faster or slower because of the LEDC or Mandy Walsh. When it finally gets here, methinks we’ll all be sorry we got the “growth” that Talbert longs for.

Anyways, looks like the impossibility of this position took another scalp. I hope Mandy succeeds wildly in her new private sector position. The next economic director will likely take forever to get up to speed on everything. At least this gives Talbert a convenient excuse in a year as to why the business pork still sits empty.

R.I.P.

Cherry Hargrove (2010? – June 26, 2013)

Kathi Masonheimer (March 2014 – 2017)

Mandy Walsh (Feb 13, 2017 – Oct 5, 2022)

Reminder #1: in 2014, Kathi Masonheimer told us that all they needed was to run utilities to the business park and they’d be on easy street. That was 8.5 years ago!

“We get at least a lead a week from the governor’s office, and every one of the prospective companies want land with infrastructure already in place,” the new Lampasas official said. “Having available land with infrastructure makes it so much easier to attract those primary job manufacturing businesses.

So, City council spent over a million bucks to “have land available with infrastructure” in 2014 and 2015. Yet the park has sat empty since then. What happened to that “lead a week’ bullshit? Ah yes. It was all nonsense.

Today is the start of Q4 2022 – or exactly SEVEN YEARS LATER.No businesses have shown interest in this corpse repository.

Reminder #2: The 5.6-acre ‘Industrial Park’ still sits empty and Martin Custom & Rod has STILL not made any agreements with the City to move in there – ONE YEAR after the deal was first proposed. I think we can consider that deal DEAD.

New Budget Admits Hostess House Revenue Will Only Be $10,450 Per Year.

First, City council took over the Hostess House three years ago and told us it needed some “minor repairs”:

Then Finley told us the budget for the project “is about $200,000”

Council picks architecture firm for Hostess House upgrades

THEN the brain trust of Kuehne, Talbert and Williamson got ahold of it, and they decided to blow about $1.4 MILLION on the project.

According to the new budget [see page 1], Hostess House revenues for the next fiscal year will be $16,000 and expenditures will be $5,550.

That leaves about $10,000 left over as “profit”. Pretty close to the $12,000 I have been using for a while now.

At $10,450 per year, it will only take the City about 140 years to get their ‘investment’ back.

Of course, compared to the Business Pork project (expenditures over $7,100,000 and revenues of $0) this looks like a huge winner!

Lometa School District To Waste Nearly $2 Million On New Track

Incredible…

As a reminder, Lometa ISD is one TENTH the size of Lampasas ISD (320 students versus 3200). This works out to an expense of roughly $6,200 per student.

Of course, when shitty test scores come out of Lometa, the cry will be for MORE MONEY to pay teachers. How about you pay teachers FIRST, educate kids better FIRST and THEN you can worry about running around in a circle faster than someone else. Unbelievable.

FYI:

Public Schools in Lometa ISD School District have an average math proficiency score of 42% (versus the Texas public school average of 51%), and reading proficiency score of 27% (versus the 47% statewide average).

This district’s average testing ranking is 3/10, which is in the bottom 50% of public schools in Texas.

2022/2023 Budget Increases Expenditures 14% Overall.

The 2022/2023 budget has been approved. Below are some highlights.

City council set the tax rate as high as possible without triggering an election ($0.3156).

Total debt obligations are $1.4 million – up from $660,000 just five years ago.

They will raise 9.37% MORE from taxes on existing properties this year. Hey, someone has to pay for Assistant to the City Manager Ryan Ward’s COLAs and regular raises and benefit increases and all that other stuff in appreciation for his 9 long months of service.

Hey wait….didn’t the City government get showered with almost $2,000,000 in Covid money AND huge sales tax increases thanks to inflation and reckless federal stimulus? Yes. Yes they did. Now shut up and give them 9.37% more, you chump.

The IT department will see a 14.7% increase!Going from $353,690 up to $407,120. Of that, $222,500 (55%) is for salaries and benefits.

This is also a 42% increase over the budget five years ago…or over 8% annual increases.

Another $14,000 is for “professional services”. That means companies like TSM Consulting who come in and do anything more complicated than backing up data or changing printer cartridges.

Interesting side note: the “professional services” line item used to be50% higher– around $21,600 – roughly 5 years ago. Suspiciously, it started decreasing not long after I publicly shamed them over and over four years ago about hiring a third-party to do their work for them. Now, am I saying I’m a hero for exposing the waste and thus saving the taxpayer tens of thousands of dollars when City council finally started asking questions? No. But you can feel free to say it if you like.

Economic Director will see a 8.6% salary increasefrom $77,769 up to $84,423. Salary PLUS benefits will go from $107,053 to $115,879 (up 8.2%).

Police Department sees a whopping 26% increase! This is from $2.866 million to $3.616 million. Cost increase over the last five years is 47% – or almost 10% per annum ($2.46 million to $3.61 million).

I’m guessing a lot of this is due to the idiotic notion that we need cops in every school with $85,000 cars parked out front to “deter” lunatics. I said it would have been cheaper to arm some teachers. The more expensive path always prevails in government.

Fire Department beats them ALL with a 37% increase! Wow. The went from $1.9 million to $2.6 million in one year. Over the last five years, it has DOUBLED from $1.3 million to $2.6 million. Five years. Doubled. Ouch.

I’m pretty sure they are getting a new fire truck over there too – which I THINK was either fully or partially paid for with federal “covid” recovery funds. So that was something like $800k they didn’t have to spend out of their own budget. Yet they STILL went up 37%! Makes you wonder where it all goes.

Streets – well there is ONE area the City government is being stingy with: the STREETS category. They will spend $169,000 less on them.It goes from $1.58 million down to $1.42 million – a 10% DECREASE.

It’s not like streets are a priority. Ryan Ward (assistant to the City manager) has already told us that “our employees are our number one priority“. Remember? I do. He said it right HERE. Streets cannot be a priority when jacking up $100,000 salaries is the actual priority, fool.

Total expenditures for the operating budget go from $12 million last year to $13.68 million this coming year –an increase of 14%

LEDC Gives Succinct Mission Statement at Last Council Meeting

An overly short and factually lacking history of the LEDC was given by EDC Director Mandy Walsh on Monday night, when she made her report before council [see video at 30:00 mark]

Of course, the REAL history has already been covered extensively by me starting HERE.

Anyways, here is the short version of their history:

They implemented a 1/4% sales tax in 1998 (24 years ago). This was “designed to bring higher-paying, primary jobs.”. They spent a ton of money. No jobs were created.

The end.

Let’s see how that all worked out for them, shall we?

COSTS

Money skimmed off as sales tax since inception:approximately $5,000,000.00

Money wasted on Business Pork Project (started in 2002): well over $7,100,000 and countinghas been spent or is committed on paying off all the debt. They borrowed $1.5 million earlier this year and ALSO pilfered $971,000 in Recovery Act funds from the City. Money that could have been spent of the citizens, rather than in Misti’s Sandbox over on 183 South.

Wow. A LOT of costs over the last 24 years. Surely we got some benefits?

BENEFITS

“High-paying, primary jobs created”:Zero

Businesses moved into ‘Business’ Park:Zero

I’m no super smart Director with a lot of letters after my name, but I think “zero” might not be that great?

Oh, forgot one more from the “cost” list:

Salary and benefits for Economic Director for the last 6 or 8 years to re-post Facebook posts from The Rolling Pin and Merk & Tilly’s:approximately $500,000