A week ago, LEDC President Misti Talbert stood before her former City council buddies with her hat in hand and begged for almost $1 million for her ill-fated ‘business’ park project. A project that is 18 years old and about 6 million over budget.
It has produced zero jobs.
While she was rattling her tin cup, she made all sorts of outrageous statements. One of them was “there is no more commercial development space in Lampasas…that Business Park is it”
Patently absurd. I could drive around town and take photos of at LEAST 10 spots that have been sitting empty for years and years.
But don’t take my word for it….just ask the Internet:
Seven million dollars. That’s a LOT of money. Money that COULD have been used for the City of Lampasas and its citizens. Instead, it is being vaporized by the Lampasas Economic Development Corporation and City council on an ill-fated “business park” project that has promised “high paying jobs” for nearly TWENTY YEARS now.
The jobs are always just around the corner but the cost is NOW…and it just keeps skyrocketing higher. Every year they plead for “just a little more money” and every year, City council throws more money down the rat hole, following that carrot on a stick like a donkey.
In 2003, it was a million bucks to buy the land. In 2015 it was another $1.9 million to make it “shovel ready”. In May 2021, it was another $1.97 million to REALLY make it ready [page 15]. On Feb 14, 2022 it was bumped to $2.7 million [page 11] to “have a home run”, according to Steve Hudson.
And every promise turns out to be a lie. The promise of jobs “about to happen“, the promise of “$250,000 per year in revenue“. All lies. But City council thinks with every step, they’ll finally get a bite of that carrot.
The people MOST culpable for this fiscal crime are Misti Talbert, TJ Monroe, Steve Hudson, Neal Leavell and Roland Schaub. Mandy Walsh and Finley deGraffenreid are on that list too, as cheerleaders and enablers – even though they technically work for the City at great expense to the taxpayer (approximately $300,000 per year).
Here are some of the MANY intractable problems with this entire project:
#1 Misti Talbert, Mandy Walsh and the LEDC have ALWAYS refused to divulge the names of any possible prospects for the park. If you are going to keep going hat-in-hand to City council and vaporizing millions with vague promises of “many prospects ready to move in”, then it’s only fair you give a solid prospect or two BY NAME.
The LAST time they had a “prospect” and kept the name hidden, it turned out to be Mike Cour and Eco-Strong – which was a complete and total scam. The LEDC was strung along for almost a YEAR before the scam blew up. Misti, Mandy and TJ have NEVER answered for that disaster….and City council has NEVER called them on it. There is NO WAY that anyone on the LEDC should be trusted after bungling that so badly and falling for such an OBVIOUSLY nonviable scheme.
So they are batting .000 after 18 years. That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
#2Misti Talbert makes mention of “all the jobs” this will generate, but never EVER says how many jobs we are talking about and at what salary. Therefore, it is all pie-in-the-sky nonsense. You cannot say that spending $7,000,000.00 is worth it for “jobs” if you don’t explicitly define the benefits of that cost. She never does. She claims it will be a great ROI (return on investment) but that is a charade since she never gives the “R” part of the equation.
So what will happen? Workers will commute from the south – Georgetown, Liberty Hill, Round Rock. This means the citizens of Lampasas are getting gouged for over $7,000,000 for a “business park” that very few will be working at unless they are sweeping the floor. But we will ALL get to enjoy the traffic and bullshit that comes with it.
Here is a crazy idea: if you want a “high paying job” move to Austin, Round Rock or Georgetown! Why is that so hard to fathom? There is a tradeoff you cannot avoid: the high-paying jobs are in the Big Expensive City. Period. They go hand-in-hand. Anyone with huge brains will graduate school here, go to college (maybe not, as college is quite useless now) which requires moving away anyways. The LEDC is trying to reinvent the wheel by bringing “high paying jobs” here when they are literally already 60 miles down the road.
Moronic, to say the least. The LEDC would save about $6.5 million by just buying and running a commuter bus from Lampasas to Round Rock for those who want to work there and avoid driving! Sounds crazy but it’s true.
#4Do we even really NEED jobs??? Like a general fighting the last war, the LEDC acts like we are some worn-out, down-on-their-luck steel mill town desperate for jobs. The reality is quite the opposite! Every single business in town is hiring and cannot find workers. There are something like 4 million more jobs than workers in this country.
So if jobs are plentiful, why is the LEDC wasting $7,000,000 to bring MORE jobs?
Imagine for a moment the LEDC actually gets their pipe dream and company XYZ decides to locate here and provide 100 jobs (this is for the sake of argument – it will never happen). First thing XYZ does is negotiate goodies like reduced property taxes or no property taxes or cheap electricity. That’s a fact Misti also never mentions. The LEDC will give them anything they want in their desperation to ‘prove’ the business park was a genius idea.
So now, Company XYZ has saved a lot of money because the LEDC has handed them a lot of free shit. What does XYZ do? They proceed to hire workers away from EXISTING businesses in this town. Maybe they poach a dozen workers from Ajinomoto, Oil States, etc and end up fucking THOSE existing businesses in the process.
How do you think THOSE existing companies are going to feel after the LEDC makes finding and keeping employees that much harder? And the LEDC did it using THEIR TAX DOLLARS! Talk about rubbing salt in the wounds.
There are many more reasons the ‘business’ park is a structurally unsound idea. I would LOVE to debate LEDC President Misti Talbert on the issue any time she wants. The gauntlet is thrown down.
Rain collection system for local idiot Janet “Crazier” Crozier‘s community garden: this has no business being funded by HOT funds in the first place, but it is a turd that won’t die. It was off the menu, but then Randy “Speedbump” Clark wanted it back on there. So now Finley is telling us that due to the shitty economy created by the Brandon administration, the price of the moronic water tanks (which are not needed at all because the Community Gardens get FREE water from the City already) has gone from $10,200 up to $12,750 (exactly 25% increase).
The irony here is that Janet is a raging libtard and very likely voted for Joe Biden – so she essentially caused this price increase herself. But she doesn’t care, because the money is “free”.
Randy is now arguing that the city needs to “do some investment in rain water collection and conservation effort”. Wrong, Randy. You are now officially in the “dummy” group of City council. From a cost/benefit standpoint it is not even REMOTELY a good idea to spend $12,750 dollars to catch rain when the Community Gardens ALREADY gets water from the City for a total cost of $35 per year. Crazier Crozier could pay for city water for 364 years before she breaks even on that trade.
Cathy “Porkchop” Kuehne now jumping in with the idea to only use one tank to save money. It does not occur to her pea brain that perhaps the City should buy ZERO tanks and let Crazier Crozier raise the money herself.
Now Janet herself is up there muttering into the mic and no doubt making a completely incoherent case for wasting $12,750. From what little I can hear (she won’t speak into mic) it is even more elaborate and idiotic than I imagined. Underground pipes?
I can’t believe there is any discussion on this at all. This is PURE virtue signaling – kind of like wearing a face mask to stop an aerosolized virus. No wonder Kuehne is all in favor of it.
It makes ZERO economic sense to waste $12,750 of taxpayer money for an elaborate rain catch system when the City has ALREADY put in EIGHT water spigots for free. Water is water, you dumb shits. You’ll also get plenty of rain from mother nature all year long. It is crazy that this is even on the table.
Goat pasture updates: the ‘business’ parkcontinues to increase in cost. No surprises there with Misti Talbert in charge. Oh wait! There is Misti Talbert at the podium….asking for money! I am SHOCKED, I tells ya, by this development.
Misti and Steve Hudson casually ask for “roughly another” $700,000 – $971,000!!! [32:50 mark].
Insanity.
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 thewater/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 thisproject is gonna bring you…“
ROI? Less than two years agoformer councilman Mike White admitted this about the goat pasture businesspark project: “I don’t love it, just from a return on investment standpointit’s never…never going to be anywhere close…” [5/26/20 Council meeting at the 10:08 and 19:30 minute mark].
And that was when a much smaller number was being thrown around! Now, here we are less than two years later, and Misti wants ANOTHER $700k? Pure stupidity. Mike White was right. This project will NEVER make sense but they are too far down the road now to stop – because they will all look like the idiots they are. It’s called The Sunk Cost Fallacy and they have all fallen into it.
Furthermore, pardon my impertinence, governor, but you ALREADY SPENT $678,000 on “water/wastewater”back in 2015!
“We have no more commercial development space in Lampasas…that business park is it.”
That is a bald-faced lie. Sorry, but that is an outrageous statement.
In an unsurprising turn of events, Cathy “Porkchop” Kuehne gives this colossal waste of money her blessing: “I’ve been filled in on this, and I think it’s a win-win“. [34:45 mark]
Lady, you’re an art teacher. You know nothing about numbers, unless they are maybe paint-by-numbers. You have proven that repeatedly during your time on City council. You also think wasting $1.4 million on the Hostess House so you can rent it out for $12,000 per year is a great idea. So we can safely toss out your opinions on the goat pasture.
This was an insane presentation by Misti and there is a lot to unpack. Not the least of which is her outrageous claims of all the jobs this will bring in. We have heard that bullshit for 20 years now.
I’ll get into it more later when my blood pressure is lower….
P.S.
Don’t ever forget the PREVIOUS lies we were told by these fools. For example:
“Ms. Toups said she wants to continue to provide infrastructure to develop the business park — which she said Harrison spoke against publicly. Ms. Toups said through the Lampasas Economic Development Corp.’s hard work, “we are on the verge of seeing large corporations come in [to the business park].” – April 21, 2017 [FIVE YEARS AGO!]
“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.” – September 23, 2014
So 7.5 YEARS AGO the head of the LEDC (Kathi Masonheimer) was projecting revenues of $250,000 per year. It has actually been $0.00 per year. So they are only currently off by about $1.9 million on their revenue estimates. No biggie!
Guys like Pope Eckermann are not stupid. Once the big $2 million dollar project is well underway, the LEDC and City council will not even blink at a few “cost increases” of $60,000 here and $86,000 there. That’s how these things work. He knows that morons like Chuck Williamson and Total Joke Monroe will fall victim to the Sunk Cost Fallacy, because they have done so repeatedly in the past.
Now let’s take a look at the packets (page 1, Item V) for tomorrow night’s monthly LEDC meeting:
V. Discussion and possible action regarding Additional Services Amendment No. 2 from Eckermann Engineering Inc to provide additional consulting civil engineering services for the Business Park….Phase I
Hell, the ink on the $1.5 million loan isn’t even dry yet, and Pope Eckermann is already collecting more tithes and dispensations for the project! Don’t worry though, it’s only a measly $33,000 (page 9) for this “Amendment number two”:
You’ll also notice that it’s “Amendment number TWO” – the first amendment was $20,700 (page 13).
See how it works?? I mean, I called this thing two months before it happened. Another $53,700 down the toilet in a blink. TJ Monroe and LEDC President Misti Talbert will never stop a $2 million boondoggle for a mere $54,000. Pope Eckermann knows this. Expect to see several more “amendments” before this is all over.
I can’t help but notice that the $54,000 they just set on fire is close to the additional amount I calculated they needed to pay lifeguards to keep the pool open – instead of closing it two days a week and two weeks early. But hey, I’m sure the “business” park will generate TONS of jobs when it’s all done in like 27 years.
Ain’t that just like government morons! Wreck and shortchange the jobs we have now (lifeguards) for some bullshit pie-in-the-sky 17 years down the road. Makes total sense!
Without a doubt, Misti Talbert is the biggest money-wasting moron to ever hold any office in this town. She is truly unparalleled.
Business Park Additions To Running Total Cost: $53,700
The Lampasas Economic Dunces Club (LEDC) finally released the minutes from the March 24th meeting. It is apparent they are not going to let the Eco-Strong debacle deter them one bit.
Even though they have no prospective tenant AND the labor market is so tight right now that they can’t even fill lifeguard positions, they are considering BORROWING $1,500,000.00 of the $1,900,000.00 needed to complete Phase I Phase II of their ‘business’ park goat pasture disaster – to “create good jobs”.
[Let’s not forget, the LEDC already wasted $7,500 for a grant application for free federal money that apparently fell through when local scumbag Mike Cour was exposed as a charlatan. They have also already paid Pope Eckermann over $70,000 for the “plans” for Phase I Phase II of this money-burning endeavor]
Bancorp South is going to be kind enough to lend these idiots money at 3.2% for the next 21 years [page 12 and 13] so they can build some roads and put MORE pipes in the ground. For those of you who are math challenged, that is $48,000 per year in interest payments over 21 years = over $1 million just in interest payments.
They are willing to do this, because that debt will be serviced “SOLELY by SALES TAX COLLECTED“. This is essentially a completely risk-free loan by Bancorp South – it is backed completely by YOUR tax dollars. Tax dollars that could be spent on lots of other things, but instead will be wasted to the tune of $48,000 per year, every year, until the year 2042.
Oh, and they want to charge a $15,000 “loan origination fee” on top of it all!
And bankers wonder why they are disliked! They keep my deposits at the bank and pay me 0.00% interest….and then lend it to these morons at 3.2% – and the payback is GUARANTEED by a sales tax stream! Talk about free money. PLUS the $15,000 “loan origination fee”. Absolute scumbags, if you ask me. Good thing we bailed them all out back in 2008.
How will the LEDC “invest” this new $2 million pile of money into their goat pasture? Well, for one, they are planning to blow $379,115 JUST ON PIPES! [see page 15 PVC water pipes and wastewater pipes].
Almost SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS already spent on “pipes” back in 2016
But here we are – five years later and these morons are doing it all over again and they have the NERVE to call it “Phase I”!!
Just a reminder: TJ Monroe was up to her eyeballs in ALL of this shit. She was (and STILL IS) a sitting member of the LEDC AND City council during this entire time period. She is a disaster and you fools just elected her mayor for two more years of this kind of dipshittery. Congrats.
Three years ago today, then-candidate for City council Delana Toups made the following horribly inaccurate statement to The Lampasas Dispatch hoping to justify the millions wasted on this corpse repository ‘business park’ which still sits as an empty weed patch today:
“Ms. Toups said she wants to continue to provide infrastructure to develop the business park — which she said [her opponent ‘Greasy’ Chris] Harrison spoke against publicly. Ms. Toups said through the Lampasas Economic Development Corp.’s hard work, “we are on the verge of seeing large corporations come in [to the business park].” – April 21, 2017
On the ‘verge’? As in Detroit Lions are on the ‘verge’ of winning the Superbowl? Or I am on the ‘verge’ of having ripped, six-pack abs and becoming fluent in Icelandic? That kind of ‘verge’?
My only question: since you were all so wrong about this 3-5 years ago, what makes you think continuing to spend millions will ever be correct? I’m willing to bet another three years will pass and we will STILL be ‘on the verge’ of large corporations entering the ‘business park’.
Another jog down memory lane….five years ago today in the Lampasas Dispatch. As a reminder, the corpse repository ‘business park’ still sits there an empty weed patch and TJ STILL sits on City council making poor decisions:
“Mrs. Monroe noted the Lampasas Economic Development Corp. is working with the business park south of town on U.S. Highway 183, and she said she hopes the site will attract good employers to Lampasas. [Council member TJ Monroe] – April 14, 2015
It has, in fact, attracted ZERO employers…good OR bad. The bill for that boondoggle is in the millions of dollars. It still looks like a useless weed patch and is nowhere NEAR ready.
These are the same people that think their judgement is so sound, they can ‘help’ local businesses during the Chinese virus scare. Ummmm….ok, sure.
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:
“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?
“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.
We will be doing a DEEP dive on the Lampasas Economic Development Corporation for the next few posts. I have been reviewing ALL of their 501(c)(3) tax filings since inception in 2000. Nearly TWENTY years of shenanigans and obscene money wasting.
Lets start with how much money the LEDC have skimmed off of productive citizens. Their main source of “revenue” is sales tax. Since their formation in the year 2000 through Sept 2018 (the last Form 990 available online) they have skimmed $3,796,974 for this ridiculous slush fund.
Seeing as how the amount of sales tax skimmed has increased every single year for the last 17 years (except 2009), I think it is safe to assume it increased for the 2018/2019 tax year as well. Which means we can safely tack another $300,000 onto that total.
Yes, the LEDC is now skimming about OVER $300,000 PER YEAR in sales tax revenue to run their little slush fund.
Let’s call it a nice even FOUR POINT ONE MILLION DOLLARS skimmed.
They purchased their ‘Business Park’ land on Oct 1, 2003 according to the records….for $909,835. They carried it on their books at that exact price until it was marked down on their 2013 tax filings to $817,978 (Schedule D Part VI).
Only a group of clowns like this could buy land for $909,835 and have it worth 10% LESS ten years later. Did they think to have it appraised BEFORE they bought it? I’d love to know who sold these chumps the land.
The most disturbing and disgusting part about the $4.1 million being skimmed over the last 19 years is that their controls are nonexistent. 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].
That means that officers, directors, trustees and key employees are NOT required to disclose interests that could give rise to conflicts.
They also answered NO to “does the organization have and written document retention and destruction policy”.
Look at the other GOBS of money flushed down the toilet: $24,000 on ‘admin and overhead’, $23,408 on ‘miscellaneous’, $20,900 on ‘other services’, $34,240 on ‘professional services’. WTF???? $146,913 vaporized in the blink of an eye! [$200,000 in today’s dollars]
Then let’s get into the LEGAL fees they have wasted…..they blew over FIFTY-ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in 2003 and 2004 alone ($69,000 in today’s dollars!). I’m assuming related to the purchase of the land? What else could it be? Who knows but that is an insane amount of legal fees.
[More coming soon as this is a huge amount of work to dig all these out of the archives]
I recently emailed Many Walsh, our very well-paid Lampasas Economic Development Director [$101,285 in salary and benefits – page 82], to ask her a few very basic questions about the Eckermann retirement fund ‘Business Park’. Simple things like the original cost of the land, the terms of the loan are and the appraised value.
Mandy has been on the job for almost three years, if I am not mistaken, so she should definitely know what’s going on over there. Furthermore, the ‘Business Park’ is by FAR their biggest endeavor measured in terms of tax dollars being incinerated. Yeah, she may throw $10,000 to the Lampasas Higher Education people every year, or throw Halff Associates a $120,000 bone to do her job for her…..but the corpse repository ‘Business Park’ is where MILLIONS of dollars go to die.
In short, Mandy Walsh should know ‘Business Park’ stats like the back of her hand. So when she answers my email request with “Thank you for your email. I will forward your email to Christina Marez, City Secretary, who has been designated to handle these requests“, it means one of two things:
Either Mandy Walsh is monumentally incompetent and hasn’t the foggiest notion what the answers to those questions are OR Mandy Walsh is being a deliberate pain in the ass to make my life a little harder. She has to know I WILL get all that info in the end, one way or another.
I’m going to go with “deliberate pain in the ass” on this one. Probably because I have spilled gallons of ink over the last year taking a shit on the entire concept of a Business Park and uncovering embarrassing truths about the (high) costs and (zero) benefits of this debacle.
The only reason to hide all the numbers I requested is because it makes this whole project look even worse than it already is. So touche, Mandy Walsh. You win a small victory. It’ll be a few more weeks before I take yet another public dump on the corpse repository. You can trust that I will not be kind with the waste and incompetence I find in those numbers.
Until then, let’s revisit what Kathy Masonheimer (Walsh’s predecessor) had to say in the Lampasas Dispatch about the corpse repository. Remember, this is from September 2014:
“Of the LEDC’s loan from First State Bank Central Texas, $1.3 million is for the business park utilities. Another $465,000 is for refinancing of the LEDC’s debt on the business park land. The total $1.77 million loan is for 15 years at a fixed interest rate of 3.35 percent. Along with the infrastructure the LEDC will fund, Lampasas has $200,000 in the city’s upcoming fiscal year budget for electrical extensions to the business park.
“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.“
[“Annual revenue of about $250,000” – BAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Makes me laugh every single time I read it]
For those of you on the short bus (and the IT Department) that 3.35% interest for 15 years on $1.77 million totals up to $889,425 in interest payments – tax dollars going directly into the pockets of First State Bank Central Texas. That is $889,425 vaporized, for all intents and purposes.
Oh, and also in 2014: “The [Lampasas City] council also voted to guarantee funds for the LEDC’s loan with First State Bank Central Texas. The bank requested the guarantee in the event the LEDC becomes unable to pay off the loan“.
Translation: if this whole thing blows up and/or land values go to shit, the City of Lampasas will bail out the LEDC. Must be nice to be a bankster! Heads I win ($889,000 in free money) and tails you lose (taxpayer bailout).
