LEDC Claims Hundreds of Jobs Unfilled in Lampasas County. LEDC Also Spending $7 Million on “Business Park” To “Create More Jobs”. Huh?

I don’t know how I missed this one…from just 60 days ago [see page 85]:

“Workforce Solutions of Central Texas is partnering with the Lampasas Economic Development Corporation for the annual Lampasas Hiring Event.“

Hundreds of jobs need to be filled in Lampasas County. In May 2022, there were nearly 230 job postings in the county. Many of the jobs that are open pay well, according to Charlie Ayres Director of Industry and Education Partnerships at WSCT”

“These jobs hada median advertised salary of $20.00 an hour with 20% of the postings being above $30.00 an hourAyres said”

There is no shortage of jobs to be had. Quite the opposite. So I’m wondering exactly what Misti Talbert and Mandy Walsh and the rest of the LEDC think they are going to accomplish by blowing another $2.7 million (most recent Phase III) on their sandbox. Remember: this entire debacle was conceived and started TWENTY YEARS AGO. What may have been true then is not necessarily true now.

How the Business Pork Project Started 21 Years Ago (Spoiler: They Lied From The Start)

Businesses cannot even find enough workers NOW – how is any new business in the Business Pork (which will be heavily subsidized and also in direct competition with existing businesses in town) supposed to find workers in that environment?

I have made this point many times before:

Why the Business Park is a Disaster That Cannot Be Fixed

LEDC Just Got Pho-cked!

I think Christmas is coming early this year. Watching yet another of the LEDC’s “business prospects” take a shit on their heads is just too perfect. God must really love me to shower me with so many gifts.

You may recall PhoLicious. You should – they were JUST in the local newspaper a mere 15 days ago. The small-town small business hit it big by getting their Pho (essentially very expensive Ramen noodles made by dozens of other companies) onto the shelves of Wal-Mart. The owners, Joseph and Anh Trousdale, made sure to gush over the City and the LEDC and how they were going to save the day:

At first, the Trousdales feared they might have to leave Lampasas to find a large-enough building within their time constraints. But with the help of the city and the Lampasas Economic Development Corp., the couple found a developer who had land.

Well, I was quite skeptical two weeks ago of a 10,000 square foot facility being built “in a few weeks”. I was also surprised they “found land” since LEDC Misti Talbert has told us many times that her Business Pork is “the only game in town” right now and there is simply no other land to be had! She repeated that lie in February when she was begging for the $971,000 in city Covid money.

The LEDC ALSO listed PhoLicious as one of their “serious” prospects for the Business Pork earlier this year. I questioned that too, of course.

I have no doubt that when PhoLicious got accepted by Wal-Mart a few weeks ago, Misti and Mandy immediately had visions of a hugely successful business blossoming in their $7.1 million dollar Business Pork. They’d get to show everyone that the Business Pork was FINALLY worth it!

Best of all, they’d show that mean old Lampasshole he’s been wrong all these years!!

But that all blew up in their faces VERY publicly tonight on the LCBN Facebook page:

Ouch. That’s like when Jan Levinson gave David Wallace a big promotion on the TV show “The Office” and Wallace promptly told her he was quitting for a better job offer from Staples or Office Max or something. Complete and total kick in the nuts and huge douchebag move.

I was wondering who the “developer” was and where the “land” was. Trousdale let slip here that it was “by the fire station” so I can make a pretty good guess: the big warehouse that Mike Irvin just bought where Greenskeepers used to be, maybe? That is a HUGE building and more than enough for PhoLicious, so something else must have happened behind the scenes to scuttle this “deal”.

Did the City not cough up a big enough bribe subsidy economic incentive? Did Trousdale realize he will never find enough workers here (something I have pounded the table on repeatedly as a reason the Business Pork will never work)? Was all his gushing about the LEDC helping him out just a pile of shit to keep them buttered up for possible free land in a year or two?

If anyone out there has the dirt on how this all fell apart, email me at lampasshole@protonmail.com

As for the LEDC, get used to this feeling. It’s going to happen again with Eco-Strong very soon.

I’m Not Sure Mandy Walsh Knows How Sales Tax Figures Work

At the last City council meeting, Mandy and the LEDC went asking for a LOT more money (and got it, of course!).

Oh sure, there was a small question or two about massive increases in spending of 66% or 108% or 300% for certain categories – but that was just part of the rubber stamping process.

During her time at the podium trying to explain all the new spending, she made sure to tell us that sales tax receipts were really, really strong, so don’t worry about the money coming in. Except for that little 8% ‘dip’ in July just a couple weeks ago – which I commented on at the time (see front page).

But according to Mandy, that was nothing to worry about…because those numbers are for JUNE spending and she’s certain the very next month will see a jump because next month’s numbers”reflects July and Spring Ho and people coming in town, I think we’ll see another increase there…” [1:27:00 mark]

No, seriously. That was the explanation. What’s even crazier is that nobody on council caught that error in logic. Then again, they are used to tall tales from the LEDC and Mandy Walsh.

I’m not sure how to break this to Mandy, but those numbers are YoY (year-over-year) comparisons – NOT MoM (month-over-month) . So when we see the July 2022 sales tax numbers in a couple weeks, it will show a comparison to July 2021. You may be shocked to learn this, but we ALSO had Spring Ho in July 2021 – so you will be comparing a Spring Ho month to another Spring Ho month. There should be very little change, save for the effects of inflation.

I hate to tell her but whatever money is spent in bars and restaurants during Spring Ho is spit in the ocean compared to what is spent on, say, gasoline ($50 million annually) or car dealerships (about $7 million) or building materials and lumberyards (about $12 million).

Also, everyone but the Brandon Administration is well aware we are now in a recession. Spending tends to decrease in a recession. I would not be surprised to see the July sales tax numbers (released in a couple weeks) show yet another ‘dip’ from a year earlier.

The assumption that sales tax receipts will grow forever and ever is a risky assumption to make. I guess we’ll know in about 16 days!

“It’s For The Business Park”

That headline is starting to remind me of the teachers union and politicians favorite line: “It’s for the children”. It’s the bullshit they fall back on to waste mountains of money and if you ask any questions about the details, you are an asshole who hates children.

Well, I don’t hate children but I DO hate the Business Pork. So I will continue to point out uncomfortable truths about that disaster of a project.

One City council member actually pushed back a little on the LEDC’s request for tens of thousands more dollars to waste next year. Zac Morris actually asked our Economic “Director” about one of her line items [go to 1:28:00 mark]:

Zac: “With the travel and training, I see that that goes up, what, $4,000 this year in the request?”

[Note: last year it was $6,000 and they now want $10,000 – a 66% increase]

Mandy Walsh: “Correct. Yes…we increased it to $10,000…I’m assuming we’ll probably do more travel [unintelligible] to make sure with the Business Park and meeting people face to face as part of recruitment efforts.”

[Recruitment efforts??? I thought you already had all those many, many (about four) prospects ready to move in – at least that’s what you told us when you were begging for money back in February]

Randy “Speedbump” Clark: “Are you still getting calls?” [about possible tenants who want to move into the Business Pork]

Mandy: “I am…especially now that there’s movement out there” – Mandy then proceeds to list zero businesses she has “gotten calls” from about moving into the Business Pork. Mandy is well trained in The Lie That Keeps on Giving and she uses it once again here with Randy.

So, to summarize the current state of the LEDC budget and Business Pork Project:

(1) They want $5,000 more for advertising the Business Pork Project, even though they have spent close to $50,000 over the last 10 years doing that very thing with zero results.

(2) They ALSO want $4,000 more for “Travel and Training” so they can go out and “meet people face to face as part of recruitment efforts” for the Business Pork. This is despite the fact that the LEDC and Mandy have told us many, many, many times that they have “serious prospects” already. Clearly they don’t.

(3) The LEDC has not even been able to fill their tiny 5.6-acre “Industrial Park” and has been strung along for almost a year on that, but they STILL sling shit about filling their 155-acre Business Pork. Yes, that is as preposterous as it sounds.

Bottom line: these people STILL have no idea what they are doing but are willing to waste millions more thrashing around like a blind squirrel hoping to find a nut.

Here is a list of just a FEW of the failed promises we’ve heard in the last 18 years from the LEDC about ‘prospects’:

A $20 million medical center (2004)

A “second tier supplier to the new Toyota plant in San Antonio” (2004)

LAMCO (2017)

AWI (2017)

The development of the Santa Fe Depot property – where the guy strung Mandy and the LEDC along for most of 2019. LOL.

A “recreational insurance and lending company out of Austin that would EACH bring 15-25 high-wage positions to Lampasas” (2018)

Craft brewing company (2018 and many other times)

“A prospect from Bastrop” (2018)

Mike Irvin’s 5,000 sq ft Steel Fabrication Shop in the “Business Park” (2018)

A “prospect out of Abilene” interested in relocating their business to Lampasas but they “can’t give out details yet” (2018).

City Has $367,000 Deficit In Water/Wastewater – Guess We Could Have Used That $971,000 Talbert Swiped For Business Pork Project Back in Feb.

The City seems to be very proud of themselves that they have a “solid” budget with a $250,000 ‘surplus’. Don’t forget, however, that the Feds literally dropped almost $2 million in their laps for “Covid” and that, thanks to inflation (especially gas prices, of which a LOT is sold within the City) sales tax receipts ballooned and handed them another couple hundred thousand bucks they didn’t expect.

[Fun fact: in 2017, gasoline sales accounted for $26.3 MILLION dollars in Lampasas (see page 37)- they are very likely double that now]

I wouldn’t expect any of those gifts to repeat next year, but they are already salivating on blowing that $250k on raises for everyone with a pulse.

One place they DIDN’T balance the budget was the water/wastewater fund – which had a $367,000 hole blown in it. This is thanks to all the upgrades we now need for all the new “rooftops” that were added to the City, as Finley likes to put it.

You can thank former mayor Misti Talbert for the first part of the problem: she threw hundreds of thousands of dollars at developers to subsidize their homebuilding – which I have covered HERE, HERE , HERE and HERE. Without all that free money, those homes would have never been built and we wouldn’t need to upgrade and expand the water and sewer systems, right?

Or maybe they WOULD have been built anyways and you just pissed away several hundred thousand dollars for nothing.

I’d argue that they WOULD have been built anyways and the City would still have those hundreds of thousands of dollars they wasted on subsidies – which would then plug the current $367,000 hole in the water budget.

Instead of handing OUT money, the City should have been taking IN several thousand dollars per home in ‘impact fees’ to pay for future upgrades….but they are not that smart.

But there’s more!

When MAYOR Talbert was all done mucking things up by handing out piles of money to homebuilders as head of City council, she took off her MAYOR hat and then put on her LEDC PRESIDENT HAT to muck things up over there for a while!

To wit:

LEDC President Talbert Begs City For $971,000 in ‘Covid’ Money

Talbert: [24 minute mark] “It has come to my attention that the City is blessed with a significant amount of money in the American recovery funds to the tune of 1.978 million dollars, I believe….and the water/wastewater portionof this project will run $971,000 and the funds can be used for this project...I’m quite certain there’s not another project you can put these funds into that….are gonna bring you the potential ROI that this project is gonna bring you…“

Yes, Talbert grabbed almost a million bucks from the City for the LEDC Business Pork project – a project that has taken almost 20 years and $7 million dollars and produced zero tangible benefits.

She actually managed to drain the City coffers TWICE holding a different title each time!

The final irony? Talbert pilfered that $971,000 for WATER/WASTEWATER in the Business Pork! She grabbed money that COULD have been used to help out the CITY water fund (and thus all of you who pay a water bill every month) and is instead using it to AGAIN put ‘pipes in the ground’ in a “Business Park” that has had no tenants for almost TWENTY YEARS!

I say “AGAIN” because back in 2015 and 2016, they ALREADY WASTED piles of money putting water pipes in! [$678,000 to Qro Mex Construction between 12/22/15 and 7/7/16 to install water and wastewater pipes]

That is like, TRIPLE IRONY while wasting seven figures of tax dollars holding TWO different titles with the City! Amazing.

You seriously cannot make this shit up.

LEDC Wants Much Bigger Budget To Squander In Fiscal Year 22/23

Like a tick on the ass of the City of Lampasas, the Lampasas Economic Dunces Club just gets fatter and fatter every year gorging on taxpayer blood.

It’s time to haggle over the 2022/2023 budget and the LEDC is not being shy about asking for a LOT more money.

For example:

They are requesting $12,500 for “promotion and advertising”! This is a 66% increase over last year’s $7,500.

What do they need to advertise? Well, that they have a giant sandbox over there on 183 south called The Business Park. But guess what? They have ALREADY spent close to FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS in “advertising” since 2012! What did that get them? Nothing – the “business pork” has sat empty for close to 20 years now!

They will also see a massive increase in interest payments to the banks for all the money they have borrowed for the ill-fated Business Pork. Last year they flushed $40,795 down the toilet. This year, they will blow $87,370 in interest payments – an increase of 114%. That number will remain at $87,370 for years and years to come.

Oh – and the principal payments going forward will be $117,000 (page 102)

As you can see, the LEDC is REALLY tightening their belts during these hard times,

Last budget cycle, Economic Development “Director” Mandy Walsh got a fat 6.2% raise (from $71,448 to $75,842 – see page 96). What will it be this year? I would not be surprised to see it cross the $80,000 mark before all is said and done. That’s not including the roughly $25,000 in extra pay, retirement benefits and insurance benefits she will also see.

Being an “Economic Director” sure is lucrative!!

Mandy also wantsa 66% increasein her Gallivanting Fund “travel and training” fund – from $6,000 to $10,000. This is the money spent for her to gallivant from one useless convention to another. Stuff like the Texas Municipal League Conference, TEDC Annual Conference, TEDC Legislative Conference, and a whole alphabet soup of inanity – which I have listed before.

Other massive increases:

“Business expenses”: a 100% increase from $2,500 to $5,000

“Professional services”: a 108% increase from $6,000 to $12,500

“Computer software and equip”: a 300% increase from $250 to $1,000

“Building & Grounds Maintenance” – from $0 to $2,500

What are we up to now…about $70,000 in additional expenses next year BEFORE Finley gets done throwing a raise in there too?

Amazing. Remember – belt tightening is for the suckers who pay taxes, NOT for City government. Not ever.

SPA Skateparks Hands City Council a Shit Sandwich. Council Gobbles It Down.

Color me shocked.

The same clown horns that bungled the skatepark, leading to massive delays and cost increases (SPA Skateparks) have now ALREADY broken their latest promise to begin construction in 90 days.

From the 6/17/22 Dispatch article:

“During the regular session, the council voted to proceed with the design and construction of the park, with a cost not to exceed $400,000 and timeline of 90 days for the start of construction.

“‘If it doesn’t happen within 90 days, we should reconsider,’ Councilman Zachary Morris said in his motion”

So back on June 13th, SPA Skateparks agreed to begin construction within 90 days. But guess what? Assistant City Manager Ryan Ward stood up there before City council on Monday night (7/25) and basically said “Ummm…that’s not going to happen – SPA was awarded another contract and will be starting that one first, so we go to the back of the line”

Again, I am shocked! So will council “reconsider”? Of course not. They will bend over and take it, because every council bluff with a contractor is an empty bluff. Always. They know this.

I’ll admit, it WAS fun watching Ward try to dance around and not admit outright that SPA Skateparks just spit in his eye (go to 2:30 mark) and told him to get lost until next year. Good thing we pay him $110,000 per year to run things and take charge and push back on this screw job and maybe demand a price concession for breaking the agreement.

Oh wait. He did none of those things. He bent over and said “OK”.

Even Cathy “Porkchop” Kuehne complained a little bit about it (go to 4:30 mark):

“So they’re waiting to do us….until the beginning of the year…because they got a different bid? A different package? But they were here and they’re the ones that agreed that it wouldn’t be a problem to do the 90 days…I don’t think we should be blown off because they got a different bid.”

Highly-paid ACM Ward: “I’m not sure exactly what happened on their end other than they were awarded another contract and they started that one”

[Derp derp derp I don’t know what happened! Can I have a raise?]

Yes Porkchop, that is EXACTLY what he said. What are you going to do about it?

Nothing.

In the end, they do what they always do: bend over and take it. They did that with the City Hall elevator. They did it with Azbell Electronics and the A/V system. They do it all the time – because it’s not THEIR money. It’s yours.

I guess the good news is that since it’s going to be another 6 months, the price will go DOWN since diesel went down 10%, right? I mean, Chris Harrison just told us last month that the huge increase in cost was because “diesel”, didn’t he? Doesn’t it work the other way too?

Just kidding. We know ACM Ward isn’t smart enough to get a concession like that. The high price will be locked in but they’ll start building whenever the hell they feel like it, right? Yep – that’s about it.

City Manager Admits Electricity Is More Expensive Thanks To “Green Energy” Idiocy

A few nights ago, Finley eloquently expressed a basic economic and power generation truism that greenie idiots can never seem to grasp. He was explaining to City council why the price of electricity will go higher for you and me.

Starting at the 19:30 mark:

“…as well as the cost of increased reliability….but again, to have that [power] reserve…that spinning reserve and that non-spinning reserve on hand, the market pays for that. And that means on our ancillary costs, we pick up a piece of that and so reliability on the electric side does cost us money“

RELIABILITY COSTS US MONEY. Say it louder for Comrade Clayton.

In other words, it costs a LOT to have a bunch of RELIABLE power sources standing by in case the pinwheels stop spinning on a windless day. Huge power stations aren’t free. They are built and maintained by smart, hard-working people who expect to get paid.

Greenies can’t fathom this because they are neither smart NOR hard-working and mainly sponge off of others. They think electricity magically appears from the hole in the wall in their mom’s upstairs bedroom.

So if you are dumb enough to demand we run on mostly solar and wind and you are ALSO dumb enough to scream “fix the damn grid” when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun is not shining, then the only solution is to make sure you have REAL power plants standing by to save the pinwheels. This costs a pile of money – since you are effectively duplicating your efforts.

It is simple math. You can have lots or pinwheels and solar panels OR you can have a stable grid. You cannot have both without adding a LOT of cost.

The Fupa, Terrific Happy Hour!

The Democrats socialist scumbags had their little party last week. Every freeloader, grifter, goldbricker, layabout, deadbeat worm and commie scumbag in the great state of Texas was there to take pictures with each other…

You wonder why there is nobody to fix your plumbing or AC? This generation is a bunch of lazy grifters, that’s why.

Greg Casar and Comrade Clayton have one thing in common – a complete lack of any real jobs on their resume. Greg Casar has LITERALLY never worked a day in his life. At age 33, he will be heading to U.S. Congress to join other deadbeat morons like Sandy Cortez and Ilhan Omar as they glom together to try and form a commie critical mass to destroy this country for good.

I already knew Casar was a grifter, scumbag and all-around lazy asshole. What I didn’t know is that he was an honest-to-goodness midget as well. He makes the 5’5 Clayton look like Abe Lincoln in this picture. That is, if Abe Lincoln had a giant fupa and pubic hair on his chin.

The similarities end there, however. Casar has somehow weaseled his way into a paying position suckling at the taxpayer teat by winning two elections.

Comrade Clayton, on the other hand, is 0-5 in elections and appointments and still suckles at his mother’s titty in the upstairs bedroom in his parent’s house here in town – where he lives as an able-bodied 31-year-old with no real job.

We know he has no real job because (a) he has admitted to being a ‘virtual’ rancher already and (b) if he was a REAL rancher, he’s be losing his shit right about now with the drought, feed and diesel cost issues. Instead he is trying to rub elbows with successful grifters at a commie convention.

“I have my nose THIS FAR up Casar’s asshole!”

Oh wait, he DID win two “elections” – he ran unopposed for Chairman of the Lampasas Democrats and he also ran unopposed for SDEC-24 recently. Both of those positions actually COST him money to hold! Truly, a socialist in every possible way – he can’t even figure out how to GRIFT properly! Some people just suck at everything.

Luckily, he can live for free in mom’s upstairs bedroom while he cries about how expensive rent is:

Hey Comrade Clayton: EVERY apartment is expensive when you don’t have any income. You should try getting a job or two.

You know, when I was in my 20s and broke, I didn’t get on social media and whine about how expensive shit was (we didn’t have social media anyways). I also didn’t crawl back into my mommy’s womb after having her pay $80,000 for a useless International Relations degree.

I did what a normal independent male does: find a place that was bigger and got three roommates. Then I worked three jobs so I could save enough money to get away from those fucking slobs who never washed a dish or took out the trash. Living with three fellow 23-year-old guys for a few years is a huge motivator to make bank and get your own place.

But in the year 2022, spoiled millennial socialist scumbags think they are entitled to a big apartment all to themselves. Plus high-speed internet that never goes down. Plus ‘free’ college as long as they live. Plus ‘free’ medical care. Instead of getting to work to EARN these things, they sit on Twitter and demand them.

Clayton and his generation are truly spoiled, helpless babies in every sense of the word. Clayton’s parents failed him very badly. They should be ashamed for creating such a worthless loser and foisting him upon the rest of us.

Watching these ass-clowns parade around like this reminds me of that old song “Today’s the Day the Teddy Bears Have Their Picnic”:

“For every scum that ever there was

Will gather there for a certain because,

Today’s the day the communists have their picnic!”

Ruh Roh. Did Industrial Park Deal Fall Through?

My goodness…how can someone be talking about using the “Industrial Park” for food trucks if Martin Rod & Custom is going to use it for barber shops and breweries??

I’m sure the LEDC would never hide information from the public or refuse to admit failure. Martin will probably move in there any day now and this is all a big misunderstanding.