Tag: A/V system

Christmas Shopping Almost Upon Us! Tips On Wasting Large Amounts of Money – Lampasas Government Style!

You need a HUGE new TV, you say? We got ya covered! Now, you COULD buy a kick-ass 75”TV with HD 4k with ALL the bells and whistles for $953. But that isn’t Spinley and The Seven Goldfish style of shopping!

You want something smaller, MORE expensive and with worse resolution, don’t you? Of course you do! Check out this baby – only 70”and without 4k resolution – and it costs 60% more!! Curious how the picture looks? Just head on over to the new $1.5 million Fishbowl on City Council night and have a look! There are FOUR of them to gaze upon!

You’re getting there – but that STILL ain’t City-Government-level money wasting. You need to pay more….WAY more for that smaller TV set! Well, Azbell Electronics has got you covered. Chris Anelundi and the scumbags at Azbell can get you that TV for $2,148.95! And NO it doesn’t matter if you buy four of them – NO volume discount for you! Sucker!!

Just ignore those 10 microphones at $240 each…

Don’t worry if your Assistant City Manager wife/husband tells you that Azbell sells their crap at a “significant markup over other vendors” – you go and do it anyways!!! THAT’S how you piss away money, baby. Goldfish style.

First Time Was Funny….Now It’s Just Sad

City Council met on November 12th for the second time in their new $1.5 million-dollar Fishbowl. I’d like to tell you that they finally got the fancy $95,000 no-bid Azbell Electronics video recording/archiving/streaming system to work this time, as was promised by recently fired resigned ACM Gary Cox well over a year ago. But, alas, it is not to be. Again.

You can hear the $95,000-quality audio recording here: https://www.lampasas.org/Archive.aspx?AMID=212

What’s the over/under on how many weeks it takes Monica to bite the bullet and call Azbell back out to re-teach her how to operate the Ferrari of A/V Systems? Go ahead, Monica. The $1,000 they charge you for the service won’t show up in the monthly list of “checks written for over $4,000″….so I probably won’t see it.

Or will I?

After all, it’s only been about a year since the system was installed and you were trained on it…and another 2 weeks since the last Council meeting. How could I possibly expect a City IT employee of 14 years to get things figured out THAT fast?

I should probably just “sit here for a minute and realize it was very worth it” to shell out $95,000 for an audio recorder and $8,600 worth of 70″ TV screens. Very, very worth it.

No-Bid $95,000 A/V System Is Just An ‘A’ System….No ‘V’ To Be Seen

I remember back in the heady days of Big Dreams and Profligate Spending…when City council was trying to explain why we needed a ridiculous no-bid $95,000 audio/visual system for their new chambers, with all the bells and whistles.

Assistant City Manager Gary Cox was explaining to The Dispatch:

“The monitors [TV sets Azbell raped them on] in the secondary rooms can be set up to provide audio and video from the main chamber — which would allow people to watch meetings live from the additional rooms if the crowd is too large [HAHAHAHAHA] for all audience members to fit in the main council chamber.”

And also this…..

“Cox said an archive of meeting videos will be available to the public. He added that the City Council could decide to stream live video on the internet so people could follow the proceedings if they cannot attend a meeting in person”.

WOW! Archives AND live-streaming! TOTALLY worth getting bent over for almost $100,000!

So I asked the City yesterday if I could see the video recording of the very first meeting in The Fishbowl on October 28th…seeing as how we paid almost $100,000 for the privilege. Their answer?

There is no video recording!

In fairness, Monica probably forgot how to work the fancy gizmo since they were likely trained on it almost a year ago. They did, however, send me a link to the audio recording. I’m no sound technician, but I’m pretty sure you can record audio-only for a LOT less than $95,000.

Audio link: https://app.box.com/s/k7e9kao553yiyt4vgatpfhvx6igyk9gq

So we don’t have live streaming of video…we don’t even have an ARCHIVE of the video. So I guess Monica couldn’t figure out how to record video after having over 10 months to do so, and all those fancy cameras and video recording devices were for naught. Just another failed Big Dream that cost the taxpayers a small fortune. Well done!

Her Name Should Probably Be Monica Can’t-Wright

I have held back on some of the more embarrassing examples of Monica Wright’s ineptitude because they weren’t really germane (go look it up, Monica…..)

However, since she and her BFF (and underling) Kristy Acevedo decided to antagonize me and my guests in a bar recently, I think it’s fair to post them now.

The following is from an email Monica wrote on Jan 3, 2017 to Chris Atkinson (a Nolanville bureaucrat) regarding bids for the audio/visual system she would later hand to Azbell Electronics arbitrarily (ignoring the bidding process altogether). Remember, this is a grown, 40-something, supposedly-highly-educated IT Department Head communicating with the outside world:

Chris, I wanted to reach out to you regarding the vm that you left me regarding A/V. I am currently working on our first big A/V project for our new City Council Chambers. I have not went out for bid for it yet, however I do have a vendor that I have met with on several occasions that has provided me with great information as well as will be bidding the project. I don’t have much information for you right now being that we are still working on our scope for this project.

If you would like, I can forward his information to you. I’m sure he would be happy to talk to you about your project/needs.

Broadcast Works – Adam Comer – North Texas Area Manager – 903-509-2470 x106 broadcastworks.com

Besides the atrocious grammar unbecoming of even a fourth-grade hillbilly, this is also even MORE proof that Broadcast Works was quite involved in the (supposedly) upcoming bidding process. Monica was clearly SO impressed by Broadcast Works (original A/V system bid of $34,000), she even sent THEIR company/contact information out for a recommendation to Nolanville City government….NOT the company information for Azbell Electronics (who was eventually handed a no-bid contract for almost $100,000 for the A/V system).

What a bargain the taxpayers get for $105,000 per year with Monica Wright-Like-A-Child: zero computer network skills, zero writing skills, zero make-up skills and only works 44 weeks per year!

Who Gave The Order to Dump Broadcast Works and Give No-Bid $96,000 Monstrosity to Azbell Instead?

So…I have searched every set of minutes and City Council packets from August 2014 (when Broadcast Works was awarded a $34,000 A/V contract for the new council chambers) all the way up to March 2017 (when Monica Wright appeared in a city council meeting and informed us all that Azbell would be doing the (no bid) work…which ended up being quoted at $84,000 – which quickly became $96,000)…and guess what?

Not a SINGLE mention of Azbell Electronics in all those thousands of pages.  Not one.  No mention in the minutes…the packets…Monica’s monthly IT report (where it lists everything she has been up to, like buying refrigerators)….nowhere at all.  It apparently just happened magically one day.  Everyone just woke up one morning and forgot about Broadcast Works simultaneously, I guess.

That tells me this decision had to happen in one of those “closed-door, executive council sessions” I keep reading about.  Far away from the prying eyes of taxpayers.  There is simply no way Monica would be allowed to make this big of a decision on her own.  It had to come from City Council, the mayor and/or Finley deGraffenreid.  There is no other possibility.

So, the question is….who and why?

 

More Damning Evidence Uncovered….IT Department Should Be Very Worried

What happens when it is cold and crappy out all day?  I go sleuthing ever-deeper into the mess that is the Azbell Electronics no-bid $100,000.00 “Ferrari of A/V Systems”” debacle.  And after 5 hours of digging, I found a few more HUGE nuggets….which will be posted later today.

Bottom line is this: in August 2014, Monica got three bids for an A/V system.  I have found all three bids in the August 25, 2014 City Council packet – the winning bid from Broadcast Works is on pages 187 through 200.  The Azbell and Whitlock bid sheets follow that one.

Broadcast Works even drew up a fancy little schematic…just like Azbell:

At some point between that day and March 13, 2017, Broadcast Works was dropped, Azbell was chosen, and the price zoomed from $34,000 (Broadcast Works original bid), past $43,000 (Azbell original bid) to $96,000 (Azbell final price which was NEVER BID). Somewhere in the council packets, the answer must lie.

So I thought of a new angle to pin down these slippery weasels: start by requesting and searching for every actual check that was written by the City during that time period (I have made a records request for copies of all checks).

The City is also required to post all these checks and they show up in the first packet to City Council every month.  I still haven’t found a check written to Broadcast Works but I found a lot of other interesting things – more money wasted and more questions raised.  The noose continues to tighten around the IT Department and some of their highly questionable purchases.  Stay tuned…more to come today.

 

 

Hold the Phones Chuck…Monica Wright DID Do Her Job Perfectly (in 2014) – Why Is She Covering for Morons Above Her?

I may owe Monica Wright a partial apology!  I have spent DOZENS of hours reading every page of the City Council minutes starting in January of 2013 (which are the very first minutes available on the website) looking for clues to the current A/V debacle….and let me tell you – there are some real nuggets in there.  Waste and incompetence on a colossal scale.  We are not talking $30,000 or $60,000 here and there anymore.  We are talking in the millions now (between City Council and LEDC waste).  Millions that could have been used to lower property taxes or fix the streets or fix water mains or beautify the parks and creek areas.  Oh boy.  Where to start?

Let’s start with this crazy fact:  in August of 2014, Monica Wright DID get three bids for an A/V system for the new council chambers.  Here is the screen shot for August 25, 2014:

Monica went out and got three bids and then recommended the lowest price – which was NOT Azbell and was just under $34,000 including warranty and training.  City councilman Toups then moved to approve, it was seconded by then-councilwoman MISTI TALBERT (current mayor) and with a unanimous vote, the motion carried.  Also present at this vote were Mike White and Finley deGraffenreid – who still both hold the positions today that they held during that meeting.  Which REALLY makes me wonder why everybody was playing stupid last month when I asked REPEATEDLY and PUBLICLY why we only got one bid on the current $100,000.00 Azbell contract.  Did Finley and Misti and Mike all forget completely that there actually WERE three bids and the lowest was for $34,000?  I highly doubt it.

I have to say, I feel VERY justified now when I went insane over the current $100,000.00 cost – you can see right here, that is almost TRIPLE what is/was considered reasonable.  I will also publicly apologize to Monica Wright for dumping 100% of this debacle in her lap – but I wonder WHY she has refused to mention any of this from day one, when I politely requested a meeting with her to discuss this.  She did her job correctly and found a good price back in 2014…so why the silence all this time?

Now a ton of questions emerge: how did this number TRIPLE so quickly?  Why did city council play stupid when I asked if there were other bids, when they knew damn good and well they DID get three bids?  Did they know that if they gave me those three bid numbers, they would look even more idiotic now since they are paying close to $100,000.00 this year?

Much more to come – including city council buying 100 “stacking chairs” for almost $13,000 for a council chambers building that hadn’t even gotten out of the planning stages yet (but yes, they got two bids on the chairs!).  Why did they spend nearly $13,000 on chairs before the building was even built, a sane person might ask?  Actual answer as printed in the minutes: to spend our year-end funds.  

My god.  Can you screw up any worse?  Can you be WORSE stewards of public funds?  I wonder where those 100 chairs are currently being stored and how much they are paying to store them.  Incredible waste and stupidity on display.