And these nuts wonder why there is no ‘affordable housing’ to be had! Just a slightly more extreme version than we see here in town. Don’t worry though, with all the locusts and lefty dummies moving here and yammering at our ‘town hall meetings’, we’ll be this stupid soon enough.
Wow…Lots Of New Readers
The “Tree Police” post has really brought in the readers. I’d hate for all you new people to miss out on the inside jokes…so here is a reprint of our “Glossary of Terms:
Boobus Lampasicanus: species native to Lampasas…see our encyclopedia entry HERE. See also “Bruce Haywood“.
Bruce Haywood: Lampasas resident who LOVES Krab Kingz food truck, filling out on-line surveys and attending town hall meetings. Dislikes: sales tax on groceries. Is known for being 100% wrong on every issues he babbles about. For example, he publicly predicted a landslide victory for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and is a big supporter of a civic center in Lampasas. See also Boobus Lampasicanus
Business Park – never-ending boondoggle dreamed up by LEDC and City morons on Highway 183 south of town. Well over $1,500,000.00 has been spent on this 165-acre weed patch. Much like a WWII ‘cargo cult’ in that the idiots at the LEDC think if they somehow mimic a successful enterprise, manna will drop from the skies. See also: weed patch and corpse repository.
“BuyBoard“: A magic word used by Finley to absolve himself of blame when he is caught red-handed paying WAY more for something than any sane human would find reasonable – after not bothering to send the project out for bidding. Examples include the $95,000 audio/visual system and the $185,000 Campbell Park bathroom. [Supposedly the “BuyBoard” member vendors are pre-selected as totally awesome government contractors because they are so reasonably priced. I have seen ZERO evidence of this].
Civic Center: An absolutely terrible idea (see also: turd) championed and adored by some of our elected officials as well as Bruce Haywood and other local dunces. The massive costs to construct and operate this civic center are ignored while vague phantom benefits like “a place for activities” are touted. Prime example of a turd that gets buried in City Council’s litter box for a while and then brought out and polished every few years (reintroduced and repackaged). See also “turd polishing” and “turd burying“.
Drunken sailor: Nickname for current Mayor Misti Talbert, for her propensity to spend “like a drunken sailor” on shore leave. Whether it is constant raises and increased benefits for every city worker, creation of a new Assistant City Manager position, a $185,000 bathroom, a $95,000 A/V system, or a $150,000 gift to local developers, Misti equates reckless spending with being a good elected official, apparently.
Eager Beaver CorViver: Any eager but naive person involved in an MLM (*pyramid-shaped*) scheme started by Jeremy “Meatball” Fouts at CorVive. Large numbers of Lampassholes were deluded into thinking they would become rich selling overpriced protein powders and laxatives to other Lampassholes. This fad raged from approximately December 2018 through June 2019. A dark chapter in Lampasas history and an interesting example of mass delusion and the madness of crowds. Similar to other MLM pyramid fads like LimeLife, Monat, Advocare and Plexus. CorVive has nothing at all to do with City Council but I hate seeing snake-oil salesmen prey on people.
Ferrari of A/V systems: Audio/visual system the City purchased from Azbell Electronics for $95,000 without putting the project out for bid…also part of Misti Talbert’s signature $1.5 million “vanity project” to remodel Old City Hall. The City had ALREADY bid and awarded the contract to Broadcast Works for $34,000 but The Seven Goldfish apparently forgot this. Finley later re-wrote history and invoked the magic “BuyBoard” phrase to grant himself immunity….but we dug out the truth here at this blog.
Fishbowl: Where The Seven Goldfish swim on the second and fourth Mondays of every month during City council meetings. See also “vanity project” and “wow! factor“
Goldfish Economics: An economic system whereby City council wastes massive amounts of money in hopes of ‘attracting high paying jobs’ or just growth in general. Many times, it involves deliberately paying double or triple what a job should cost. It also often involves The Seven Goldfish forgetting they had a way better deal previously. Examples include the Azbell Electronics debacle of 2018, the Old City Hall rehab, and handing out hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to developers to rip out huge oak trees.
“Greasy” Chris Harrison: Former City Council member who ran for office on a small-government platform but who later went begging his former City Council buddies for $150,000 in free money for his new employer S2M2 Inc to build a detention pond in their new development. He also happens to own a dirt works company. Total coincidence, I am sure.
Haywoodian: adjective used to describe anything that is massive in size. For example: Michael Moore is a socialist scumbag and hypocrite of Haywoodian proportions. [Entymology – Haywood + ian] Origin 20th century, referring to Bruce Haywood – a Lampasshole of hefty proportions.
Janet Yoder Kraeff-Crozier-Thunberg: a locust from Norton OH and later Austin who spends every waking hour scheming of ways to implement a massively expensive and useless recycling program here in Lampasas. She has been partially successful, unfortunately. She is also a ‘life coach’ and believes autistic people are clairvoyant.
Joker: Nickname for Kristy Acevedo, City Network Administrator and underling of Monica Can’t-Wright. Her arched eyebrows and makeup bear a striking resemblance to Jack Nicholson’s Joker character in the 1989 movie Batman. Also, since TSM Consulting is already paid $1,800 a month by the city for ‘network support’, her redundant position is, in fact, an expensive joke.
Locust: any liberal idiot who moves here from the north (or California…or Austin) to escape high taxes but then works non-stop to implement the same stupid liberal programs (like recycling) that ruined their former home cities . See also: Janet Yoder Kraeff-Crozier-Thunberg.
“Look it up, Monica”: Phrase used in many blog posts when a vocabulary word might puzzle someone with less than an 8th-grade education. Usually linked to the definition, since Monica reads here daily.
Monica Can’t-Wright: Humorous nickname for Monica Wright (City IT Director) due to her constant mangling of the English language in private City emails. Frequently seen with her sidekick and underling – The Joker.
Pope Eckermann: Local engineer Derrek Eckermann, whose firm (Eckermann Engineering) seems to get every single City (and LEDC) engineering contract without question or bid at what appears to be outrageous fees. Whether we are discussing water lines, land surveys, geotechnical surveys, business park development, possible civic centers, a $185k crapper in the park, or perhaps even just Mayor Talbert considering buying dinner for City Council, Pope Eckermann is consulted and large tithes (tax dollars) are handed over for his blessing. These tithes run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. See also “tithes“.
Ransomware attack: computer attack on August 16, 2019 which crippled City systems for roughly ten days. About 20 other cities in Texas were affected (2000 Texas cities were not). The IT Department has never publicly explained how it happened and all my efforts to uncover the truth have been stonewalled. My current cost estimate of this screw-up is over $39,000 in new equipment. The Joker and Monica Can’t-Wright are somehow still employed after this debacle.
Rickie Roy: Current Public Works director and general kicker of ass. Rickie gets shit done and doesn’t waste time. His voice could make a wolverine purr and Rickie’s City council presentations are the BOMB. One time, a cobra bit Rickie Roy in the leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.
Seven Goldfish: Refers to the six City Council members and the Mayor – and their tendency to forget important details due to having the memories of goldfish. Examples include (1) handing out a no-bid A/V contract to Azbell after already voting to award the same contract to Broadcast Works for FAR less money and (2) giving the go-ahead for a no-bid $185,000 bathroom in Campbell Park when the exact same bathroom was pitched a couple years earlier for $105,000. (3) Selling a building for $75,000 and then buying the same building back less than 24 months later for $229,000. The poor memories of these Seven Goldfish seem to ALWAYS cost the taxpayer money.
“Spinley” deGraffenried: Nickname for City Manager Finley deGraffenried. Finley has been running the City since approximately the time planet Earth cooled and formed a hardened crust. His number one priority is growing the size of City government while increasing benefits and salaries for those employees. His number two priority is making sure that no matter how badly a City employee screws up, they are never held accountable or fired. His nickname comes from his ability to spin tall tales of bullshit such as “the computer attacks were unrelated” or “we didn’t need to bid that project” or “Old City Hall will be ready in January of 2019” or “Old City Hall rehab ‘only’ cost $1.02 million.“
Taj Mahal: New Lampasas County jail which is costing us roughly $18 million dollars (plus most recently, another $50,000 in change orders). If I had my way: (1) we would not waste jail space with victimless ‘crimes’ like owning/smoking a plant – which would greatly reduce the number of jail cells needed….and (2) those Lampassholes who commit REAL crimes like theft or assault or vandalism would be thrown on a chain gang every day to pick up garbage on the highway or pull weeds in the creek instead of lounging in an $18 million Taj Mahal with hot water and three meals a day. Perhaps THAT would incentivize them to behave. But hey…what the hell do I know. I’m old-fashioned.
Tithes: Massive sums of tax dollars handed over to Pope Eckermann in order to get his blessing on any project under consideration. These tithes are often given whether the project is ever started or not (see: civic center). See also “Pope Eckermann“
Turd polishing/burying: the act of City Council forgetting about a terrible idea (civic center, rodeo arena, business park, recycling, tree police, etc) for a little while but then resurrecting the same awful idea over and over and trying to make it sound palatable (polishing a turd) – usually at the urging of a Boobus Lampasicanus at a town hall meeting. The civic center turd has been subject to several cycles of burying, uncovering and polishing over the years.
Vanity project: The $1,500,000.00 Old City Hall renovation and new City Council chambers championed by current Mayor Misti Talbert. Was supposed to be completed approximately December of 2018….still not finished and is wildly over budget. If it ever opens, you will get to see the “Ferrari of A/V systems” and the magic $126,000 elevator. See also “Wow! factor“
Weed patch: A 165-acre albatross around the neck of the Lampasas Economic Development Corporation (LEDC). They refer to it as a shovel-ready “business park” but that is a total misnomer (look it up, Monica) as there are no actual businesses in the ‘park’. However, one less-than-intelligent murderer mistook the term “shovel-ready” and brought a fresh corpse there to be hidden. Over $2.2 million dollars have been wasted on this monstrosity with no end in sight. See also: corpse repository and business park.
Wow! factor: Actual phrase found in City Council minutes (page 3) to justify the spending of outrageous sums (currently around $1.5 MILLION) on a new City Council chambers and renovation of Old City Hall. It is not specified who actually used this phrase, but I suspect it was Misti “Drunken Sailor” Talbert. See also: vanity project
Tree Police Just Won’t Stop
Like the civic center, the Tree Police idea is apparently one of those turds that just refuse to stay buried. It has come up AGAIN at the last two City council meetings.
I previously went into what hypocrites some of the Goldfish are for even dreaming up this idea: they hand out “free” stuff (Stone Valley development electrical hookups: $70,000) and gobs of taxpayer money (S2M2 and former Council member: $150,000) to developers then get their panties in a bunch when the developers go out and cut down trees – which is kind of necessary when putting in roads, houses, ponds, etc.
The very next meeting after I pointed out the hypocrisy on these pages, Delena Toups (who is the mastermind of this idea) made sure to throw in that she is only talking about COMMERCIAL development and not RESIDENTIAL. Clearly she reads here regularly. It’s unfortunate she didn’t learn anything from the wisdom on these pages.
I guess that makes it ok then, eh? Ripping down, say, fifty trees for residential development is ok but ripping down two trees for commercial development is BAD BAD BAD! Makes total sense if you are a Goldfish, I suppose. Out here in the real world, however, a tree is a tree.
[I guess her head is REALLY gonna explode once Pope Eckermann or a future tenant (LOL!) gets into the corpse repository ‘business park’ and has to start removing trees to build all the big buildings to house all those ‘high tech jobs’ Mandy Walsh dreams of at night.]
Sorry, I just cannot type that with a straight face.
So already they are backpedaling so as to not look completely ridiculous by previously subsidizing (with tax dollars) the very behavior they are now upset about.
But it gets worse.
Enter Sandy Tompkins at the last City council meeting on Feb 10th. Yet another person with zero respect for (or understanding of) property rights or economic incentives.
You can listen to her screed (look it up, Monica) here (go to the the 48:38 minute mark)
First she informs us she was a school teacher for 33 years. Not sure what that has to do with the price of tea in China. Just one of my pet peeves: I don’t care how many years anybody taught grade school. Doesn’t make you any smarter than anyone else. Oftentimes quite the opposite, in my vast experience.
Then she tells us a kind of sob story about how a lady who sold some property to developers (on Central Texas Expressway) didn’t want to sell it because she was afraid the developer would take out trees. Of course, she DID sell it and the trees WERE taken out – which is why she is telling this sad, sad story.
Um, sugar plum?? That’s what ‘selling’ means. You transfer all rights to that property and now have ZERO say in what subsequently gets done with it. If you love the trees so much, then feel free to choose them over the money. But she didn’t. She wanted the money. And the REASON the money was so good, is because they are going to develop it commercially. You would not have gotten anywhere NEAR the amount of cash you got if it was just sold so some tree-hugger who wanted to gaze at the trees all day long. You made a choice. Don’t cry about it now.
Sandy tells us she’s “a private property rights person”….but then she spends the next six and a half minutes proving otherwise by championing the tree police.
She continues blah, blah, blah for the next few minutes. Then her bright idea towards the end [51:38 mark] is “we need to let developers know that we care about trees in this community”, but then immediately admits “I don’t know how you put teeth into this and still have private property rights”.
BINGO!! EXACTLY. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. It’s quite simple. That should be the end of discussion. Bye bye Tree Police.
But of course, it’s not. All the do-gooders love to hear the sound of their own voices and let everyone know how much they CARE. Much like the bleeding heart liberal lefties who whine about how we need more ‘free’ health care for everyone so the answer is to steal from one group and give to another. If they REALLY cared, they would go to medical school and become doctors and work for peanuts. But that’s HARD and requires WORK and SACRIFICE. Better to just boss everyone else around. But I digress….
Their answer to everything is more rules, more regulations, more enforcement. Kinda like the Tree Police.
So here is the Lampasshole Free Market Solution to this perceived problem – free of charge:
(1) People can do whatever they want with their property. Period.
(2) MOST people (I’d say 97%) value trees highly, or we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Therefore, it is in the DEVELOPER’S best interest to keep as many trees as possible since it INCREASES the value of the property (people’s desire for trees leads them to choose a property with many trees over a property with none – that preference shows up in market prices).
(3) STOP handing tax dollars to developers to subsidize their activities. You are distorting the free market. Some of these developments are extremely marginal and YOU DUMMIES handing them $150,000 in tax dollar subsidies might be just the push it takes to make them ‘profitable’. The ‘market clearing’ number of developments would be slightly lower without these distortions caused by YOU…and less trees are then destroyed.
You dummies still with me?
So far, the free market is taking care of incentives. But some people want MORE trees to replace the ones that HAD to be removed. I have an answer for that too:
Go plant some damn trees!! I wonder how many trees Delena Toups or Sandy Tompkins or any other Tree Police Cheerleaders have actually planted themselves in the last 10 years. Zero? Nobody is stopping you from planting a boatload of trees on the land you own. Go ahead and do it! Maybe offer to plant a tree or six on your neighbors property for free.
Ah, but that’s hard! It costs some money and takes some effort. How do I know this? Well, not to toot my own horn, but I have planted over 45 trees on my property since I bought it 8.5 years ago. That’s probably 45 more trees than all the Tree Police Cheerleaders have planted combined.
It cost me a chunk and was hard work to keep them watered in the summer those first few years. Digging holes, mulching, fertilizing, pruning, and running hoses all over the place….it kinda sucks. But, you see, I value trees also. I just don’t show that by puffing out my chest and standing at the microphone telling other people what to do with their property. Instead I think “hmmm….I like trees. I’ll plant some more on my land.”
I also built my house in such a spot as to not remove a single tree. Did I do this because Delana Toups or Sandy Tompkins and the Tree Police types demanded it? No. I acted on my own free will due to economic incentives. Imagine that!!
Unfortunately, instead of this terrible idea dying a quick death, the City council geniuses are thinking of taking it to a Town Hall meeting so the likes of Janet-Yoder-Kraeff-Crozier-Thunberg and other morons can cheer for it as well.
I can’t wait to see the abomination that results from all this pearl clutching. Should be something to behold.
Howbowdat??
Somehow, my generation survived smoking mothers, access to medicine cabinets, sandlot sports with no equipment or adults, no car seats, rides in the backs of pickup trucks, water from a tap or hose instead of bottles, sandwiches made of Wonder Bread, sugared drinks, burned calories by disappearing all day only to return at dinner because of hunger, no cell phones, and unsupervised trick-or-treating to collect candy we actually got to eat (after Dad stole some of it).
We sold flower seeds or coconuts (which we had climbed up a 15-foot tree to get and smashed open ourselves with Dad’s hammer and chisel) – all so we could buy our first BB gun and occasionally shoot each other with it. We got smacked by Dad, usually because we needed it. We crashed and burned doing pretty much anything imaginable and turned to our friends and their own twisted imaginations for entertainment.
We got hurt, patched up (with Bactine), and sent out for more action. I suspect the death toll from all that was FAR less than from soaring suicide rates stemming from chronic depression in the modern era.
You know what precautions our parents DID take? They vaccinated us.
Howboutdat???
New Bathroom Opens In Park Nobody Uses
Well, it’s not exactly “open” – it was dropped there in prefab form by a crane back on Jan 21st. Which was only one month after Finley originally promised it would be delivered. Pretty quick results compared to the other Finley Follies.
Here we are over two weeks later (and after lots of crowing by City Hall and some Goldfish) and it STILL isn’t hooked up, finished or unlocked yet. Which begs the age-old question: if a bathroom is dropped in a park and nobody can use it…did it really happen?
But don’t worry, the company that received this no-bid contract got their $158,000 check paid in full long before the bathroom was delivered.
Did I say $158,000? Yes I did…and it will be even higher before it’s finished. I’m guessing some of you readers live in a HOUSE that isn’t even worth $158,000, bro! The park bathroom is worth more than your HOUSE! The house that no doubt (1) also has several toilets (2) has a garage (3) has air conditioning and lights and is probably 5 or 6 times bigger than this public crapper. So let that sink in for a moment.
Did I mention that Finley and The seven Goldfish did NOT put this project out for bid? Much like the $96,000 Azbell A/V system debacle. Clearly, the Goldfish learning curve is more like a straight line.
I took a few photos on Jan 25th and 27th, which were gorgeous, unseasonably warm days. Once again….ZERO people in Campbell Park. But hey, we already knew that.
Village Idiot Channels Greta Thunberg At Council Meeting – Whines For MORE Expensive and Useless Recycling
The FIRST time local screwball Janet Crozier demanded a recycling program (and cost the rest of us at LEAST $12,000 per year – thank you Gary Cox), I kept my mouth shut. I couldn’t bring myself to publicly lambaste an old lady who clearly lost her marbles (just like Greta Thunberg).
But NOW she is in front of City council demanding they do MORE – so she is now fair game, in my book. What are the new demands of Janet-Yoder-Kraeff-Crozier-Thunberg?
(1) She wants a “city wide campaign” to promote the program (which has been in operation over a year) (2) She wants all the schools and the City/County governments forced into her hippie-dippy scheme (3) She wants the recycling center open more days and more hours (4) Worst of all, she wants a curbside weekly pickup!!
This dim bulb has zero clue about how useless recycling really is or the astronomical costs associated with house-by-house pickup. From what I can gather from her copious (look it up, Monica) Facebook posts, she can barely run her own life – but can’t wait to tell everyone else how to run theirs.
First, allow me to sum up my Facebook evidence that Janet Crozier is a dummy who does not traffic in science, evidence, data, logic, reason or mathematics and should not be listened to when it comes to ANYTHING:
She is a Democrat. She is from Ohio. She moved here a mere three years ago and yet had the gall to IMMEDIATELY demand a useless and VERY expensive program be imposed from on high that has been PROVEN to be a disaster in other cities. She is a “life coach” [fact: this is NOT a real job]. She loves Beto O’Rourke. She thinks autistic people are clairvoyant [fact: there is no such thing as clairvoyance in ANYBODY]. She paid good money to go to “Life Coaching School” (oh, dear god no). She announced her home address to City council before whining about the recycling program [fact: council meetings are recorded, archived and available to the public….OOPS!!]
Besides being a dummy, she is also a huge hypocrite. Thanks to her foolishly announcing her address to the world, I was able to drive by her house and learn a few things:
(1) She is only 1.3 miles from the recycling drop-off center. She claims recycling and “saving the planet” is important to her – but clearly not important enough to carry her useless dirty paper plates and hoarded newspapers just over a mile down the road…..or to bother to memorize when the center is open. Rather, she demands a huge diesel-powered, carbon-spewing truck stop at every house in town to pick up recyclables. Even though probably 96% of us don’t recycle for a very good reason – it is a complete waste of time and money.
(2) She and her husband own TWO cars – neither of which is electric or even a hybrid! FOR SHAME! Hypocrite!!
(3) She has at LEAST two kids and at least NINE grand kids. Ergo, she is solely responsible for at LEAST 11 humans currently populating the planet. The diapers ALONE from those 11 humans total to around 60,000 crap-filled plastic bombs dumped into a landfill, as I highly doubt she re-used cloth diapers. All 11 of those humans drive cars, use a HUGE amount of plastic (iPhones, video games, toys, multiple TV sets, plastic water bottles, etc, etc) and other resources. She dumped 11 people onto the planet to consume resources and doesn’t think anything of THAT…but she thinks that carrying her shitty old mason jars to the recycling center (where they will actually very likely end up in a landfill anyways) is saving the planet?? HUGE hypocrite!! Stupendous ignorance!!
(4) STILL has that Beto bumper sticker on the car!
Truly, Lampasas must be a village of surpassing wealth and refinement to boast an idiot of such caliber. The halls of its opulent Council chambers must ring with laughter all the day long!
In short, Janet, PLEASE KEEP YOUR YAP SHUT about recycling. You are nothing but a nag and a virtue signaler who has very likely done more harm than good for the planet over your life, if you want to tally up the score. You’re lucky Gary Cox had nothing better to do two years ago and implemented the tiny program we have now. Wasting tens of thousands of dollars is bad enough, but if you had your way it would be exponentially higher.
If pawing through your garbage like a starving raccoon means that much to you, there are PLENTY of liberal havens you can move to and hoard garbage. San Francisco or Austin come to mind. They have recycling programs that lose MILLIONS. You’d be much happier there.
Oh wait, what’s that? Those cities are super expensive with ridiculously high taxes, idiotic regulations and homeless people splattering feces on the sidewalks? You know why? Because they are filled with liberal do-gooder morons like you. Morons who then flee their ruined liberal dumps and move like locusts to a new place like Lampasas. Naturally, the liberal dummies cannot connect the dots of CAUSE and EFFECT, as evidenced below:
We don’t need it. I don’t need it. And I will publicly call you out on your hypocrisy instead of sagely nodding my head for fear of offending anyone.
If City council IS dumb enough to even consider Janet’s demands, I humbly request at least SOME cost/benefit analysis is done on the CURRENT program. Such as: how many roll-off containers have been hauled away per year (we are talking RESIDENTIAL here – not commercial), what’s the TOTAL COST of all that (not JUST the $12,000 flat rate but EVERYTHING), and publishing the records from Waste Connections as to EXACTLY where these ‘recyclable’ items are being sold and for how much…and proof they aren’t going into a landfill.
Good luck with that.
You can hear her absolute nonsense HERE (go to 37 minute mark).
LEDC OK With Puking ‘Business Park’ Land Below Value
The Lampasas Economic Dunces Club “Incentive Guidelines and Principles” [page 7] is a gift that keeps giving. A never-ending list of bad ideas and tax money giveaways. I already covered the “affordable housing” nonsense…now we get to the land giveaways:
Please turn your attention again to page 10 Section 4 – Types of Benefits and scroll down to 4.01 Land Grants:
“The LEDC currently owns more than 165 acres of real property for development by primary employers. The first preference for the LEDC is to sell property AT OR BELOW MARKET VALUE to qualified applicants.”
Wait….what? Here I thought the LEDC has been ‘developing’ this land for the last 7 years and $1.5 million dollars. This says they want to let the ‘primary employers’ develop it! Which is it? Why is Pope Eckermann hoovering up $100,000 to ‘develop’ the park as we speak if you want the ‘primary employer’ to develop it?
But even more confusing is this: if your first preference is to just SELL the property (at BELOW market value, no less) then why were you previously projecting ‘business’ park revenue of $250,000 per year?
Remember this from September 2014? =====>
“The LEDC’s new debt service payment will be about $150,000 a year, Mrs. Masonheimer said. The economic development corporation projects annual revenue of about $250,000, which will leave approximately $100,000 for operating costs after making loan payments.”
I just assumed that $250,000 per year in revenue was to come from renting or leasing the land you already wasted $2.5 million dollars on buying and ‘developing‘. NOW you say your first preference is to SELL the land? AT BELOW MARKET price?? LOL. How do you make revenue on an asset you already sold on the cheap? I’d love to know.
Maybe they think they’ll face rape the new employer on electricity prices to make up for all their other screw-ups (like the City currently does to its residents)? That will never happen. A private business is so much smarter than the LEDC, and the LEDC will be SO desperate to get SOMEONE in there to prove the project was a good idea that they will CAVE to the inevitable demands by the employer for a cut-rate electricity deal. I guarantee it.
We’ll dig deeper into the “Incentive Guidelines” in upcoming posts.
Socialism Alert! LEDC Now Worried About ‘Affordable Housing” – And Allowed To Waste Money On It.
The deeper I dig into the Lampasas Economic Dunces Club, the worse it looks. On January 15th, they posted their most recent “Incentive Guidelines and Principles” [page 7] in their monthly meeting packet.
What is in there should alarm all fiscally responsible, hard-working taxpayers. The “gimme free shit” crowd and the trailer trash with five kids they can’t afford will love it, however.
Please turn your attention to Page 10: Not all Type B projects are required to create or retain primary jobs. The following projects are NOT required to create or retain primary jobs:”
A long list follows this, and when you get to “E” you see “Affordable housing”.
Say WHAT??? What exactly does ‘affordable housing’ have to do with economic development? Nothing. It is simply a handout. It sounds like something that moron Nancy Pelosi would say: “food stamps are GOOD for the economy because then the people can go spend it and stimulate the economy” (yes, she said this once).
That would be like taking all the money from the HEB cash registers and handing it out to bums in the parking lot so they can go shop inside at HEB. Idiot socialists/libs only look at ONE side of the ledger, ignoring that that same money is stolen from someone else.
“We need more affordable housing” is liberal/socialist talk for “take money from people who earned it and hand it to people who didn’t”. It’s really as simple as that.
The funny thing is that Deorald Finney and his Stone Valley housing development are selling houses now in the $200,000 range. Seeing as how there are plenty of houses on Zillow in the $120,000 to $140,000 range, I would say Mr Finney’s new houses are on the expensive side – and thus NOT affordable. Yet the City essentially handed him $70,000 in tax dollars for his new development.
The City of Lampasas and The Seven Goldfish voted to WAIVE electrical hookup fees for ALL 69 of Deorald’s planned houses. That is over $70,000 in foregone revenue for the City – all so Finney could make an extra 1% on each house.
Tell me this: if Finney had a house listed in Stone Valley and said “you can buy this house for $200,000 with NO electricity OR you can pay $201,150 for the house WITH electricity, how many people would say ‘go ahead and give me the electricity’? All of them – they would GLADLY pay an extra measly $1,150. NOBODY would balk at that extra pocket change to have power in the house. It represents far less than 1% of the price. Therefore, this $70,000 handout to a rich developer was a complete waste and did ZERO for the City coffers, ZERO for ‘development’ and ZERO for ‘affordable housing’.
The very term “affordable housing” is complete nonsense. It’s like a “livable wage”. It cannot be defined as it differs for each individual, therefore success cannot be measured, and therefore the socialist/lib (or LEDC) can always have a job redistributing the wealth as the ‘problem’ can never be solved.
It’s as idiotic as me whining that there are “no affordable Corvettes over at Hoffpauir Chevy” or “there are no affordable private jets around here”. You don’t have a RIGHT to ANY of that stuff.
To the libs and commies and SJW morons: you are NOT entitled to a house/apartment. You are NOT even entitled to an “affordable” house/apartment. If you cannot afford the housing that is in your area, either (1) move to a more affordable area (2) lower your expectations (3) work more hours and/or increase your value as an employee or (4) get a roommate or two…or three. PERIOD.
(Oh, and maybe stop having 4, 5 or 6 kids you cannot afford – since they will likely grow up to be the next generation of parasites asking for the same handouts)
Pretty sure we already have Section 8 housing around town…and those tenants always treat their “free” stuff so well, don’t they? We need Mandy Walsh and the Economic Dunce Club handing out MORE ‘free’ housing like we need colostomy bags on our hips.
If Mandy Walsh or any of the other LEDC geniuses are SO concerned about ‘affordable housing’, I suggest they open their own wallets, buy a house currently on the free market, and go ahead and rent it out at a very low rate. Maybe jam a white trash welfare family with five kids in there. Maybe even let them live there for free! See how that works out for you.
No? Well, if it’s not a good idea with your own money, it ain’t a good idea with mine. Go pound sand.
Eliminate the LEDC. Stop meddling in the free market. Let workers keep what they earn instead of stealing it to hand to someone else.
Lampasas Economic Dunces Club – Wildly Off On Cost Projections (Once Again)
Less than 6 years ago, the Lampasas Economic Dunces Club (LEDC) made projections of costs all the way out to the 2019/2020 year (which happens to be NOW). As is ALWAYS the case, they were completely wrong. Just like they were wrong in 2014 and 2015 about an imminent influx into the corpse repository ‘business’ park.
The point of this exercise is to ONCE AGAIN prove you cannot believe ANY of the asinine promises of the LEDC OR the City government. EVERYTHING ends up costing far more and producing far less benefit than promised. That is the very nature of government – be it federal, state or even little ol’ Lampassy.
Finley is the poster boy for this kind of stuff.
Below is a photo of cost projections posted in the July 2014 LEDC minutes (see page 6).
Now, see a photo of the APPROVED recent budgets – the REALITY 5.5 years later (page 152):
Let’s look at more proof that government and (quasi-governmental groups of economic illiterates) ALWAYS grows faster and spends more than projected.
SALARY: projected $47,530 ACTUAL $71,448 (plus $28,462 in benefits – page 82) 110% higher
PHONE: projected $720 ACTUAL $1,176 (63% higher)
TRAVEL/TRAINING: projected $5,000 ACTUAL $7,500 (50% higher)
ENGINEERING: projected $5,000 ACTUAL $10,000 (100% higher)
PROMOTION/ADVERT: projected $5,000 ACTUAL $7,500 (50% higher)
BUSINESS EXPENSE: projected $1,000 ACTUAL $5,000 (400% higher)
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES: projected $9,000 ACTUAL $7,000 – this may look good as it is $2,000 LOWER than projected. However, if you look at the 2017/2018 year ACTUAL, it was $39,393 versus $9,000 projected!!! OVER FOUR TIMES HIGHER.
The category of “professional services” (which I covered HERE) probably enrages me the most. It is a category which should not exist. Was it legal expense? Engineering? Advertising? No – because those are listed separately. So what ‘professional service’ cost $39,393 yet cannot be listed specifically and requires this vague horseshit catch-all term? Those types of vague categories where tens of thousands go POOF always stink to high heaven.
Perhaps you think I’m unfair to immediately suspect graft? Lest you have forgotten: Their tax filings SPECIFICALLY ask “Does the organization have any ‘conflict of interest’ policy?” – and the LEDC answers NO every year [Part VI section B, 12a].
I think these two photos say it all – they encapsulate what a giant failure the LEDC is and how their ridiculous pipe dreams always fail to come to fruition:
More Money Torched By LEDC – ‘Professional Services’
From 2004 through 2013, the LEDC incinerated over $250,000 of taxpayer money on ‘professional services’ (later labeled ‘contract services in 2012 and 2013). I stopped listing at 2013 because I have already covered 2014 onwards by a records request previously. That’s where Pope Eckermann really had his snout in deep and I didn’t want to double count. For instance, ‘contract services’ was $138,516 in 2015 – which overlaps with the $168,740 I previously showed him scarfing down.
What are ‘professional services’? Who the hell knows. Nice and vague. The IRS Form 990 gives you a LOT of categories into which you can slot your expenses. But LEDC chose to enter their own. Here is a list I made by compiling them by year:
In 2003, they just used the term “other services” which is even MORE vague. It is a whopping $185,794!!! (or over $250,ooo in today’s dollars). I have to think if a quarter of a MILLION dollar line item popped up in the LEDC today and it said “other services” it would seriously raise some eyebrows. Looks like these idiots got away with murder back then.
I mean, this was BEFORE they bought the corpse repository ‘business’ park! These clowns start up a “non-profit” for “economic development” and then have the balls to spend $230,000 on “legal fees”, “admin and overhead” and “other”? Jesus Christ! These are UNELECTED BOZOS making huge sums disappear ($320,000 in today’s dollars!)
That “admin and overhead” number adds up too! It was $18,000 in 2003 ($25,000 in today’s dollars) then jumped to $24,000 in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Finally, it dropped in half to $12,000 from 2007 up until present day….or another $246,000 vanishing into thin air.
Admin and overhead for what, exactly? We already have Mandy Walsh ostensibly running the LEDC for $101,285 in salary and benefits. Soon, the City will create another Nerf job (Development Director) costing the taxpayer another six-figures. Yet the LEDC still needs $12,000 per year for “admin and overhead”? Lovely.
Start adding all these nickels and dimes up and you can see how the LEDC wasted the $4.1 million dollars they have skimmed since 2000.
Well, it’s not entirely wasted. We DO have a 165 acre weed patch with $800k of water/sewer pipes under the dirt. Eckermann is hard at work as we speak spending the latest $100,000 to ‘develop’ this shovel-ready site even more!!