Taxpayers, Hold On To Your Wallets…Finley Utters “BuyBoard” Magic Phrase – Will Allow No-Bid $185,000 Bathroom

A $185,000 bathroom? Yes, it is true [page 131 and 132]. The same government that goes out and gets THREE bids for a measly $12,780 worth of stacking chairs for City Council deems it unnecessary to bother with any bids at all for a $185,000 bathroom for Campbell Park.

(I remember the Lampasas Economic Development Corporation going out and getting TWO bids for a crappy $1,500 sign for the “business park” – yet the City doesn’t see any benefit in getting several bids for a $185,000 bathroom – makes total sense, right?).

According to Council packets, the bathroom will be supplied by Restroom Facilities LTD and will be model #B424. I got in contact with this company and asked for a blueprint of the bathroom:

As you can see from the little man in a wheelchair, there is plenty of room for Bruce Haywood’s mobility scooter in there!

It is about 450 square feet with 6 toilets. So you can either look at this as $31,000 per toilet or maybe $400 per square foot. I have a friend selling a mansion in an exclusive suburb of Chicago who is asking right around $400 per square foot and not finding any takers. Makes total sense that a bathroom in a Lampasas park would cost more.

Looked at another way, the City recently told us that the average taxable value of a Lampasas residence increased over 6% last year – from $92,110 to $97,904. Therefore, as of a year ago, you could have purchased TWO HOUSES for the same price as this six-toilet bathroom the city sees fit to purchase without bidding.

Furthermore, a local contractor is donating the pad for this building! That is about $10,000 savings right there – yet the bathroom will STILL cost $185,000?? Impossible.

Pardon my French, but this “BuyBoard” scam is a big pile of bullshit. Every time Spinley utters that word, the taxpayer gets hosed. The last time Finley uttered this magic phrase, a $34,000 A/V system that was properly bid AND AWARDED to Broadcast Works turned into a $95,000 NO BID disaster handed to Azbell Electronics.

Here is a PARTIAL list of stuff that the City has deemed worthy of going out for multiple bids on (all FAR LESS than $185,000):

  • 100 stackable chairs – $12,780 (3 bidders)
  • Elevator for Old City Hall debacle – $96,000 (ignored by Chris Harrison and $126,000 bid accepted instead) (3 bidders)
  • A/V system for Old City Hall debacle – $34,000 bid awarded then cancelled and $95,000 no-bid contract awarded to Azbell Electronics (3 bidders originally)
  • Demolition of Old City Hall – $13,500 (2 bidders)
  • Sign for ‘business park’ – approx $1,500 (2 bidders)
  • Concrete/curb work for butterfly sculpture in front of city hall – approx $5,000 (2 or 3 bidders, I forget)
  • Repairing restroom on the 17th tee box at golf course – $5,200 (two bidders)
  • Shade structures at 580 Sports Complex – $15,240 (two bidders)
  • Re-route water and sewer lines – $11,450 (two bidders)
  • Construct 8-inch water line – $102,439 (two bidders)
  • Pipe, fittings and manholes for a sewer line – $10,656 (4 bidders)
  • Resurfacing four tennis courts – $18,060 (4 bidders)
  • Lighting and electrical for tennis courts (LED) – $9,700 (3 bidders)

And the most ironic of ALL from July 27, 2015 (page 6 and 7):

Mayor Pro Tem Talbert moved to approve the award of 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. This was PUT OUT FOR BID and THREE bidders responded (high bid was over $25,000)

So a mere four years ago, these exact same people thought it WAS wise to put a restroom out for bid – and the low bid was accepted at $18,930.

NOW, they decide on a NO-BID $185,000 restroom.

THIS is the kind of egregious wasteful spending the City does ALL THE TIME. It also explains why they are now looking to jack up tax rates, electricity rates and water rates to balance their budget. Absolutely disgusting. Misty Talbert….a drunken sailor indeed!!

I really have to wonder whose nest is getting feathered when I see absolute idiocy like this.

We Are in the 1% – Yay!

As many Lampassholes on Facebook were griping today about their utility bills being wrong or non-existent due to the 10-day computer outage from the recent attack, one dunce named Melissa Johnson wrote “well, you can’t really rag on the IT Department about that…after all, 20 other cities got hacked”.

I guess that is one way to look at it.

A better and more accurate way to look at it would be to say “well, 2000 other towns DIDN’T get attacked – thus 99% of the towns in Texas managed to keep their systems secured”.

But that’s just me.

Talbert Administration 2.0 Off To A Very Rough Start

Poor Misti is off to quite a rough start during her second term as mayor:

Her $1,500,000.00 Old City Hall vanity project appears to STILL not be completed (which means the $95,000 “Ferrari of A/V systems” sits unused). I have yet to see a puff piece about the finished product in the local paper and the City continues to have “community meetings” at the school cafeteria and old council chambers.

She has recently jacked taxes up to just under the rollback rate, on TOP of the increase in valuations….meaning everyone will see a nice big tax increase this year. Again.

The “business park” weed patch on which they have wasted over $1,000,000.00 was at least hidden under a rug for the last 6 years, but then recently somebody went and dumped a dead body there and brought it onto the front pages – an ugly reminder of a failed dream. Now they are scrambling again to figure out exactly what they are going to do with that albatross around their neck:

“Business Park” vision as sold to the public about six years ago…and yes, they had an ‘artists rendition’ drawn up for this.



“Business Park” reality after over $1 million dollars were wasted on it: a weed patch where a woman’s corpse was recently dumped by her killer.

.…and now this embarrassing ransomware attack on the city’s network (which took 10 days to resolve). A network run by two city workers I have pointed out as unqualified for over a year, a fact which Misti and Spinley unfortunately ignored.

What will our intrepid mayor face next? Huge cost overruns on the wastewater plant? Locusts? Plummeting sales tax revenue during the coming recession?? We shall see…..

“Minimal Impact” Computer Disruption From Cyber Attack Appears to End on Day Ten

Well, ten days after the initial ransomware attack, the City appears to have their utility department website back up! Great job tech department TSM Consulting!! Can we assume ALL systems are back to normal? Hopefully the Dispatch or Radiogram will have some real information on this.

Now, we will await a full accounting of what exactly went down, how it was solved, and what will stop it from happening again.

Poor Eager Beaver CorVivers Just Can’t Catch a Break

It’s been a while since I poked fun at the CorVive crowd…mainly because the “crowd” has dwindled to just a few suckers left holding the pyramid-shaped bag with a garage full of over-priced CorVive laxatives. But I just couldn’t pass this up – way too funny.

A few days ago, I saw an article headlined “Top Ten Worst Resorts For Food Poisoning”. Since I am a worldly Lampasshole who frequently travels internationally, I figured it was worth a look.

Number three on the list was “Riviera Maya, Mexico” and it kept ringing a bell with me, but I couldn’t immediately remember where I had seen that resort before. Then it hit me: THAT is the “prize” that Jeremy “Meatball” Fouts dangles out for the CorVive suckers who suck the most chumps into his CorVive scam!! LOL. What a guy! Not only is he a scumbag, he is a CHEAP scumbag.

What’s the prize for the year after this one? Haiti? Or maybe Hurghada Egypt?? BAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Nice burn job, Meatball Fouts.

Was Kristy Acevedo Negligent or Incompetent?

Kristy Acevedo holds the title of “Network Administrator” for the City of Lampasas. She and her superior, Monica Wright, are paid quite well ($180,000 in salary and benefits – Pay Group 30 for Monica and 22 for Kristy) to “maintain and troubleshoot all network systems and equipment” (this is taken directly from the City of Lampasas description of her job).

The city spends over $300,000 per year on the IT Department and has spent about $1.5 MILLION DOLLARS on that department over the last six years. They are proposing a huge increase to $374,000 this year alone.

So it’s hard to argue they don’t throw enough money at that department. Hell, Monica had enough cash to blow almost $100,000 on a NO-BID audio/visual system for City Council chambers last year, when she COULD have only spent $34,000, so they are clearly rolling in dough. Perhaps I have simply been right all along in saying they are totally unqualified and in way over their heads. Incompetent, is the word I am looking for here.

Employees of the city serve “at will” and can be dismissed at any time [Section 13.01 of the City Personnel Policy]. One of the many reasons for possible dismissal listed is “Incompetence or Neglect of Duty”

Now, this problem hasn’t even been resolved yet, so the finger pointing can wait until our TWO IT ‘experts’ have fixed their mess….but after the dust has settled, it seems City Council should be looking into how this was allowed to happen and whether our Network Administrator was incompetent or neglectful of her duties. Considering how many days off they get per year, there is about a 20% chance one of them wasn’t even at work last Friday!

The Finley-Spin Begins. Here is a TRUE Ransomware Timeline

City Hall is already starting to spin the narrative on this ransomware attack, so I felt it necessary to start and maintain a timeline of what REALLY transpired and will continue to transpire – with my commentary in brackets:

Friday August 16: Somebody launches a ransomware cyber attack against 22 Texas cities this morning. That same day, multiple Lampasas citizens start questioning why their utility payments aren’t being processed. According to the August 21 Radiogram, “IT Director Monica Wright immediately implemented response protocols for this type of incident.” [This is the spin it took Finley FIVE days to come up with? So the official spin is “thank god Monica was there to slam the barn door shut well AFTER the cow got out, knocked over the lantern and burned down the city…the very same door she left wide open in the first place.]

[The “protocols”! Sounds very sophisticated. Like a James Bond movie. I’d guess the actual “protocol” was Monica voiding the entire contents of her bowels into her underwear, yanking the power cord of her personal computer out of the wall thinking that might help, and then running in tears to Finley’s office sobbing about some “randomware” on her computer. Finley then turns a sickly green color and calls TSM or the state of Texas or SOMEBODY who knows SOMETHING about computers, dammit!!!]

Friday afternoon August 16, Saturday August 17, Sunday August 18: Not a peep from the City about this disaster. At this point, the police and sheriff computer systems had to be down, but that was not made public. I know this because the police system was still down on Tuesday the 20th at 5pm [and yes, I have proof]. I know they will say “we couldn’t make this public since we had a target on our backs”, but that is a pile of nonsense….because remember, the quick-thinking Monica had ALREADY implemented “protocols for this type of incident”…which any moron must assume included chopping all connections with the outside Internet world to prevent further damage….right? [at this point, the City probably hoped to solve this quickly and sweep it under the rug so as to not be completely embarrassed. Thus total radio silence]

Monday August 19: I myself started getting suspicious reading about all the people unable to pay their bills and remembering the attacks in Texas the previous week. Still not a PEEP from the city 72 hours after the incident….and police systems STILL presumably down.

Tuesday August 20: Finley tells a blatant lie to the Radiogram, saying that “a series of unrelated incidences [sic] caused the Sheriff’s Department, Police Department and Utility Department to go offline last Friday and the problem is being corrected.” [Why make this blatant lie? This is why I don’t ever trust a thing Spinley/Finley says. The cat was going to get out of the bag eventually and you know damn good and well the CITY MANAGER knew this was a coordinated attack three days ago – so why tell this complete b.s. about “unrelated incidences [sic]??]

Tuesday August 20: This very blog begins to connect the dots and get info from reliable sources at the city and state level that Lampasas DID get hit – despite Finley’s lie in the Radiogram that very morning. This blog questions Gary and Finley point-blank about it by email around 3:30pm. By 9pm, ACM Gary Cox admits they were hit and federal authorities are involved.

Wednesday August 21: The Radiogram finally prints an official statement from the Police Department that includes all the b.s. Spinley/Finley has produced after five days of polishing this turd. The most laughable part of the Spinley’s yarn is this part:

“While this attack did have some impact on City operations, the City implemented its continuity of operations plan and continued to provide City services with minimal impact to our citizens……As of press time, the City of Lampasas utility department is still offline. They are assuring customers that no cut-offs, or late notices are being processed. They hope to be back on line by Friday morning”.

[Seriously?? Continued to provide city services with minimal impact? Yeah sure….everything was just fine except all the broken parts. Lol. Then a few sentences later they say the utility department is STILL offline!! AND, they HOPE to have this mess sorted out by Friday!! A FULL WEEK after the attack! (but the impact is limited, lol) That is some serious b.s. spin, right there. Wow. Bill Clinton himself couldn’t have spun dog shit into diamonds that well].

Thursday August 22: Problem still not solved. A source of mine entered city hall and saw our two intrepid IT “experts” looking “quite frazzled”. [Probably the first full week either of them have clocked in years]

Friday August 23: One full week after the attack – problem still not solved. The Lampasas Dispatch Record reports on the attack – and regurgitates much of the same palaver reported in the Radiogram. The Original Lampasshole also makes an official Open Records Request and asks for copies of these “response protocols” and “continuity of operations” plans that were supposedly implemented in the wake of the attack.

Saturday August 24: Tried to log on and use the “Pay Utilities” page….still not up. Eight days and counting!!

Sunday August 25: The “minimal impact” STILL continues – cannot log onto the utilities payment page. How long until they just give in and pay the ransom? Will it come out of Kristy’s paycheck? Do they even know how to buy bitcoin?? We shall see…

Monday August 26th: Systems appear to be back to normal after 10 days. Mayor Misti “Drunken Sailor” Talbert thanks the City Staff for all their “hard work during the ransomware attack” (page 66). No seriously. She did.

Tuesday September 3rd: City attorney Christy-Jo Brown writes a six page letter to Texas Attorney General pleading their case as to why I should be denied information about the ransomware attack. Yup – keep the taxpaying citizens in the dark. As usual.

Monday September 9th: requests come flooding in for replacement equipment to replace servers and computers ruined in the ransomware attack – currently over $36,000 of equipment is ruined.

When the the clouds of dust settle from this debacle, there needs to be a very PUBLIC and HONEST accounting of what the hell happened. Answers to things like:

  • How EXACTLY did they get in?
  • Exactly when did Finley realize this was part of the statewide ransomware attacks and how quickly did he call in the REAL experts?
  • How long was the police system completely down?
  • Was ransom demanded? How much? Did the city pay in full?
  • Which “experts” were called in and how much did they bill the city for this mess?
  • Where was Kristy Acevedo Friday morning and afternoon? She is not mentioned at all, yet her job is “Network Administrator” and the network was left vulnerable and attacked.

Proposed 2019/2020 Budget Sees IT Department Spending Jump 24%

The IT Department was budgeted $301,143 in the 2018/2019 budget. The new 2019/2020 proposed budget sees that skyrocket 24% to $374,346!! By all means, reward the department that just fell victim to a massive cyber attack…that’s how it works in government.

[For reference, the IT budget was $213,336 back in the 2014/2015 budget – a mere 5 years ago….a total increase of 75% (or 15% per YEAR)]

It appears all my screaming has fallen on deaf ears. What is driving this year’s massive increase in spending? Thankfully not salaries and benefits. Those are barely budging. Small victories.

No, that massive $73,000 increase shows up in two spots:

“Supplies” [line item 5200] is increasing from $63,751 to a whopping $116,758!! A massive $53,000 (83%) increase. I can’t wait to see what THAT gigantic expenditure is….could they already be budgeting in a large ransom payment for the recent cyber attack debacle??

“Maintenance” [line item 5400] is nearly TRIPLING from $12,675 to $37,904. A $26,000 (200%) increase. Another one I can’t wait to see details on….maybe this is payment to the REAL computer experts who had to come in and clean up the mess after the recent successful cyber attacks?? God only knows.

Spending by year in the IT Department (nearly $1.9 million total!)

  • 2019: $374,346 (proposed)
  • 2018: $317,143
  • 2017: $285,727
  • 2016: $277,267
  • 2015: $263,754
  • 2014: $213,366
  • 2013: $179,600

Where has this nearly TWO MILLION DOLLARS gone over the last seven years? Clearly not towards any kind of security infrastructure or up-to-date security training for our two IT ‘experts’.

Ransomware Attack Confirmed By City

It’s official.

According to Assistant City Manager Gary Cox, “the City of Lampasas is one of 22 entities which was affected by a ransomware attack that occurred last Friday.  The matter is under investigation by federal law enforcement authorities at this time.”

Wow.

No word on the amount of “ransom” demanded by the perpetrators. I’m sure the Dispatch and Radiogram will be all over this with the details soon (right guys?).

How much are they demanding, if anything? Will the city pay up? Will any heads roll in the IT Department or City Hall for this colossal screw-up?

Stay tuned.

Contacts at State Level Tell Me Lampasas WAS Hit By Malicious Computer Attacks

The birdies are chirping too loudly for me to ignore now. I am told by well-placed sources at the state level that Lampasas WAS on the list of cities hit by the malicious cyber attacks last Friday.

If true, this is a HUGE black eye for City Manager Finley DeGraffenried and our TWO IT ‘experts’ Monica Wright and Kristy Acevedo. For a department which sucks up $300,000 $374,000 per year of the city budget, it is highly embarrassing and unacceptable. I love hate to say “I told you so”, but I did tell you so….about 50 times over the last 12 months: our IT Department is an overpaid, under-qualified joke – and now the city is AGAIN paying the price.

There are plenty of clues that I am correct. The most glaring is that even though the attacks happened last Friday the 16th, Finley stated in yesterday’s Radiogram (four days later) that the problem “is being corrected”.

Not “corrected”….but BEING corrected…as in, still NOT corrected.

When a computer problem is not solved four days later, it tells me that either (1) somebody is holding them hostage and they are locked out of their own systems or (2) it is so bad that even the expensive outside REAL computer experts are having trouble figuring it out – which means a LOT of billable hours at about $150 per hour, I’m guessing.