There was a brief moment in time where an effort was made at transparency in City government. Just look below! They actually posted proposed budgets on-line so the peons could look through them at their leisure and have their eyes goggle at the outrageous wasteful spending. Three years in a row and then a random year for the 2016-2017 budget:
I don’t see the latest 2019-2020 budget there, do you? OR the year before….or the year before….
Of course, nobody has bothered to post that stuff in YEARS. We just half-ass it here. No need to sweat stupid details like posting the proposed city budget when you can instead make grandiose “transparency” plans like squandering $95,000.00 on a no-bid audio/visual system with lots of bells and whistles and cameras promising to record all City Council meetings for “transparency” sake. (A system which was paid for almost a YEAR ago and was supposed to launch six months ago but which STILL sits unused in the new Council chambers in the STILL unopened $1,500,000.00 Old City Hall renovation).
No, no, little peon taxpayer. They aren’t going to use the convenient website we pay $5,000 per year to maintain and which Monica Wright is supposed to update. Instead we will demand you show up in person at the school cafeteria at 7pm on a Monday night and sit through hours of Bruce Haywood pontificating on the new Burger King. THAT’s the Lampasas Way!
Never forget that THREE buildings collapsed symmetrically, at the rate of free fall, due to fires that were nowhere near temperatures that could weaken steel beams.
Never forget that WTC Building 7 was not hit by a plane.
Never forget that thermite (military-grade demo incendiary) was found in multiple, independent dust samples all over Manhattan.
Never forget that D.C., the most highly surveilled city on the planet, doesn’t have one single frame of the “plane” that hit the Pentagon
For those of you not aware, on August 16th the City of Lampasas was hit by a ransomware attack. The city network apparently having been left wide open by our TWO highly-paid computer experts. Here is a timeline of what transpired.
You’d think after the city was held hostage for ten days and at LEAST $36,000 worth of equipment was ruined (that we know of), City Council might have some questions and Monica Wright (the HEAD of the IT Department) might have some answers or explanations about how it happened and why it won’t happen again.
Nope.
One reason for the lack of details was that Monica Wright couldn’t even be bothered to show up for the August 26th City Council meeting to make her departmental report!! She sent her sidekick and supposed “network administrator” to the meeting instead [page 1: City Staff present]. See photo of minutes below:
There are only two explanations for this: Monica was on one of her many vacations OR she was afraid to face the music. She loves having the title and extra pay of a ‘department head’, apparently….but she doesn’t want all those icky responsibilities and hard work.
Well, at least Kristy was there to explain it all – since she is ostensibly (look it up, Monica) in charge of the City’s network.
Nope. Apparently Kristy sat there twiddling her thumbs the entire meeting. No report was made by her either. The fire chief made his report and that was the end of any departmental reports (see pages 5 and 6). See photo below:
Not only that, City Council (whom I call The Seven Goldfish, due to their very short memories) didn’t even ask about it!! In fact, Misti Talbert THANKED them for their hard work and that was the end of it.
I’d like to tell you that City Manager Finley “Spinley” DeGraffenried was there to make a report on the cyber attack, but HE wasn’t there either! He sent his assistant Gary Cox to “commend the IT and Finance Departments” over the ransomware attack. I assume he included the Finance Department since they will be writing a bunch of huge checks to replace all the ruined computer servers and computers, right?
The hits just keep coming! In addition to the $6,216 Monica Can’t-Wright is requesting for new computers wrecked by the recent “minimal impact” ransomware attack, there are even MORE requests to replace ruined equipment.
Only in Lampasas government would the Mayor praise our IT Department with one breath, and in the next breath be approving $36,604 to replace equipment ruined in the attack they allowed.
Wow. I wonder how many more pieces of expensive equipment were wrecked in this ‘minimal impact’ ransomware attack.
I guess the “hard work” the IT team did was to write up purchase orders for all the equipment they allowed to be wrecked by leaving the city network open to attack. Great job, team!!
Apparently the “minimal impact” ransomware event wasn’t entirely minimal. The first casualty popped up in City Council packets (page 103): Monica needs $6,216.36 to replace some ruined computers.
Over $1,000 per computer? Seems high – I see nice computers on Amazon for $300 all the time. But after digging, I see some of that is also for some new monitors! Because computer viruses always ruin the monitors too, right Monica? Or maybe somebody is just using this debacle as an excuse to buy some fancy new monitors. I’d place my bets on the latter.
Must be awesome to work for the city IT Department: Blow hundreds of thousands per year on fancy equipment, take 8 or 9 weeks off every year, get almost $30,000 in benefits IN ADDITION to your bloated salary, leave the City network open to attack and STILL get to keep your job, nobody asks you a single question about how it happened and THEN you tell Spinley and The Seven Goldfish you need over $6,000 to buy some new stuff because you wrecked the old stuff.
Hell, $6,200 is spit in the ocean compared to a $185,000 bathroom – the Goldfish won’t even bat an eye.
Rest assured I have requested records on which department these computers were from, how old they were and what they originally cost. Maybe Jo-Christy Brown will deny me that information as well.
Far from being questioned or chastised about the recent IT Department screw-up which left the City’s computers open to attack, Monica Can’t-Wright and her accomplice Kristy “The Joker” Acevedo were PRAISED for their “hard work during the ransomware attack”! Seriously – there were ZERO questions from City Council about how the attack happened or why the IT Department got caught with their pants down (Council minutes page 66).
Only in government work can you screw the pooch that hard and then get praise for helping to clean it up. In the private sector, you’d probably be looking for a new job. God forbid The Seven Goldfish ask a single question about the entire incident – they have already forgotten it entirely!
What exactly did Monica do to save the day? What were the “emergency protocols” the quick-thinking Monica implemented? The City won’t say! That’s right. After I requested a copy of these supposed “protocols” that Monica implemented, the City attorney, Jo-Christy Brown produced six pages of drivel (lots of billable hours!) in a letter to the Texas Attorney General’s office explaining to them why the City of Lampasas should be able to deny my request.
Of course, I know damn good and well there ARE no protocols. But Ms. Brown and the City of Lampasas are taking the ridiculous position that release of any of this data “might result in a ‘targeted attack’ towards any perceived vulnerabilities”.
So, if I were to ask the fire department any questions about how they respond to fires, they would deny my request in a tizzy because I might use that information to go and burn down some houses?? Absolutely ridiculous.
Just more of the same from the Talbert administration: screw it up then cover it up and tell the citizens to pound sand.
Since the City insists we need a $185,000 no-bid restroom at Campbell Park to handle all the throngs of people, I decided to go see how big the Labor Day holiday crowds were. I happen to drive by Campbell Park all the time and never see a soul. I thought maybe a holiday weekend might be different. Here are three photos from Campbell Park.
Not a SINGLE soul. Not only that, it was the exact same picture at Cooper Springs Park, the tennis courts, the soccer ‘complex’, the 580 Sports ‘complex’, the Riding Arena and W.M Brooks!! NOT A SINGLE PERSON using ANY of these parks. NOT ONE.
Of course, the Parks and Rec Director assures us that Campbell Park has “four big events per year”! Really? Four? What is ‘big’? Forty people? I have two words for you, you numb skulls: PORTA POTTY. Ever heard of them?
Remember these photos when the City is trying to spend hundreds of thousands on more parks amenities because “all the people” want them:
Suffice it to say that “Greasy” Chris has a history of proposing horrible and expensive ideas that seem to serve “Greasy” Chris himself. The fact he is popping up asking for money from his former Council buddies makes a lot of alarms go off.
(For those of you who don’t get it, “cost sharing” is the new bullshit term for developers who want the city to hand them large sums of your tax dollars).
This bad idea ALREADY was shot down last May, but apparently whoever pulls the strings at S2M2 decided to hire Harrison to try and sweet talk his former council buddies into forking over $125,000 – Harrison supposedly then directly contacted Misti “Drunken Sailor” Talbert and made his case again. Misti, who has never met a spending idea she didn’t agree with, now thinks this is just fine and dandy.
I dug into S2M2 Inc online and found very little: an address here in town at 202 Riverview Drive, Suite #2 and some taxpayer numbers and a charter date of September 28, 2017. Here is a photo of the front of this “corporation” (it is actually the storefront of the nice lady who does his books for him):
I had one of my private investigators dig some more and apparently the only name associated with this ‘company’ is a guy named Steven McDonald. I assume that’s where the S&M comes from. Get it?? S&M?? S2M2??
Well, this looks pretty damned greasy, if you ask me….hence the moniker “Greasy” Chris Harrison. How long has Harrison ‘worked’ for S2M2? Who the hell is Steven McDonald and why is he so keen to steal $125,000 from the taxpayers? Does he own property over there? Why does Steven McDonald list ONLY his accountant’s address in his corporate charter – which is extremely strange, in my book.
Perhaps City Council can look into those very questions instead of just handing over a chunk of money to every developer with a pulse (*cough* Deorald Finney *cough*).
Funny what you find in the City Council meeting minutes. Specifically the November 14, 2016 City Council minutes (page 2 and 3). Back in those days, the city was REALLY spending like drunken sailors and wanted to look into bathrooms for FOUR different spots – including Campbell Park.
It didn’t take me long to find the recent recommendation of Micky Tower – the Director of Parks and Recreation. The following is lifted DIRECTLY from Council’s own minutes:
Restroom capacity and recommendation for Campbell Park: – 3 toilets, 1 urinal, 2 lavatories.
Micky Tower reviewed the restroom construction costs: for a Wood Frame 3 toilets, 1 urinal and 2 lavatories with Buy Board pricing and Architectural and Engineering included:
Base Cost $83,157.00
Metal Roof $ 2,370.00
Installation $ 9,000.00
Freight/Crane $10,900.00
TOTAL $105,427
Mr Tower then went on to describe FOUR other bathroom options – NONE of them exceeded a cost of $143,000.
Does City Council not EVER look into ANYTHING they vote on? Do they just sign six-figure checks without even cursory research? I’m not even on City Council and I have a better grasp of this stuff.
Not to mention, just about everyone who is sitting on City Council today for the $185,000 screw job WAS ALSO THERE THREE YEARS AGO! They all have the memory of a goldfish, apparently! The SAME thing happened with the Azbell no-bid contract. Everyone got collective amnesia and forgot they had ALREADY awarded the A/V contract to Broadcast Works.
I guess I’ll just start calling City Council The Seven Goldfish.
Yet another example of apparent memory loss: as a council member in 2015, Talbert HERSELF previously “moved to approve the award of a bid in the amount of $18,930.00 to Whitley Steel Building Supply for the construction of a Restroom and Concession Facility to include steel package cost, foundation cost and erection cost at the Gavin Garrett Soccer Complex” (July 27, 2015 page 6-7).
Above is a photo I JUST took today of that Gavin Garret Soccer Complex restroom she approved for $18,930. Looks pretty sweet to me AND there is a concession stand included! But hey – why spend $19,000 when you can blow $185,000 instead? That’s the Lampasas Way. I can’t decide if these clowns are totally incompetent or utterly corrupt.
Oh, and they also have a couple of Porta-Potties there too – which are FAR LESS than $185,000.
…and has FOUR employees in their City Information Systems Department (page 32) yet Lampasas manages to spend JUST AS MUCH MONEY on IT ($374,000 versus $379,000).
Amazing. We have TWO ding dongs in our IT Department for a city of 7,500 citizens and manage to spend $374,000 (this year’s proposed budget).
Copperas Cove has a population of around 35,000 and an IT Department with FOUR employees, yet they spend almost the EXACT same amount.
So our IT Department costs us about FIFTY DOLLARS per citizen while Cove somehow manages to do the same job for about $11 per citizen. Cove is nearly FIVE TIMES more efficient with their tax dollars.
I never run out of ways to point out the enormous waste and incompetence of our City IT Department. Pretty sure Cove didn’t just get hacked in a cyber attack either. Just saying.
On a slightly related note, Cove spends $1.4 million per year on health insurance for their city employees – the EXACT same amount we spend despite having a (presumably) much smaller government. Put another way, every man woman and child in Lampasas kicks in $186 per year for City employee healthcare….and in Cove that number is $40. AGAIN, nearly FIVE TIMES more efficient with tax dollars.
Retirement costs follow a similar pattern: in Cove they spend $1.6 million on City worker pensions while we spend about $1.16 million. That works out to $154 per Lampasshole and only $45 per Cove citizen – or THREE times more efficient in Cove.
No matter how you slice it, the cost of Lampasas government on a per citizen basis is orders of magnitude greater than a town just 15 miles up the road. It is an absolute outrage and a testament to poor governance and poor management.
