Tag: Chris Harrison

Former Council Members Meddling in Current Affairs, Spewing Bullshit

Well, I tried to take a relaxing day with the kids and enjoy the water slides at Kalahari yesterday. It was all well and good until late evening when the Dispatch electronic issue dumped into my email box. I should have let it lie there until today, but I saw the front page with “skate park” and “historic buildings” and I foolishly opened it up.

What I found was quite disgusting and enraging. FORMER council member “Greasy” Chris Harrison and FORMER mayor “Transparency” Talbert yammering total nonsense about the skate park.

Why a has-been council member and failed mayor are involved in this at ALL is beyond me. Doesn’t Talbert have enough on her plate wasting money in her $7 million dollar sandbox over on Highway 183? I guess not.

The skate park is a disaster that has been out of control for a while. Even Cathy “Pork Chop” Kuehne (who is almost as profligate a spender as Talbert) finally asked “how did it jump like that?”

You KNOW it’s getting stupid when Pork Chop arises from her slumber and asks some obvious questions.

Ya’ll remember the skate park, right? That’s the one that went from a $200,000 estimate in August of 2020 to a $400,000 estimate in August of 2021 (page 20):

Then Finley stood before council and lied right to their faces about it all…

City Manager Tells Blatant Lie To Council Without Blinking

First up to explain this train wreck was former council member “Greasy” Chris Harrison. Harrison hasn’t been on City council for years, so I have no idea why he was wheeled in to bloviate on this topic in the first place.

Chris is the guy who, while running for re-election to City council said: “To me, it’s not the government’s place to fund private business”.

Then after he left office, he whored himself out to developer S2M2 Inc and went to his good buddy and former council chum Misti Talbert to grab $185,000 in taxpayers’ money to “fund a private business” that he now happened to work for and which wanted a free detention pond built. The very same detention pond that Misti and council had said “NO” to before Greasy got hired on to lobby for them:

City Hands Former Council Member “Greasy” Chris Harrison and Developer S2M2 $185,000 In City Funds For Brodie Estates

Anyways, I guess old Chris felt he owed a favor to Misti for getting him that big $185,000 check, so he was in the paper carrying water for her skate park disaster yesterday and trying to tell us why the costs exploded.

His brilliant answer?

Diesel.

Yeah, according to Chris: “Diesel went from $2 to $5.19”

This is complete horseshit, of course. Harrison is cherry-picking the dead-nut low price and the current ridiculous $5.19 price and blaming it all on that.

[Note: Waste Connections is a hell of a lot more “diesel sensitive” in the business of hauling garbage than the skate park is – and THEY are ‘only’ raising trash rates 8.8% – NOT doubling them. Hmmmmm]

The problem is that the original estimate was made in 2020 and the new “doubling of price” estimate was made the next year – LONG before diesel went parabolic.

Let’s see what diesel prices were in August of 2020 and then in August 2021 – which are the two dates the estimates were made (as you can see from City council’s own minutes):

We can see that diesel actually went from $2.37 to $3.45 during that time.

Harrison blaming the skate park cost doubling on diesel is like that moron Biden blaming high gas prices on Putin invading Ukraine. Sorry, but the damage was done LONG before all that.

Granted, that 45% increase sucks, but no way in hell that is to blame for a doubling of the skate park cost. I actually live in the real world and help run real businesses. The cost of everything has been screwing us too, but NOTHING has doubled in price in a year. We’ve had 15% increases, 25% increases and some 30% increases – but NOTHING has doubled.

The skate park fiasco is not due to “diesel”. The skate park fiasco is the result of YEARS AND YEARS of a culture of incompetence and unaccountability on the part of Finley deGraffenreid and City council. It is the result of a council that rubber-stamped any and all project cost increases with zero discussion or interest in knowing why.

It is also the result of a City council heavily populated by idiots like Chuck Williamson and Cathy Kuehne who have never worked in the private sector in their lives and do not value a tax dollar properly.

Their attitude for YEARS, no matter what the project cost overrun (and there have been MANY), was always “well, it’s just another [fill in amount], we can’t stop now”.

Over and over and over again, ridiculous bungling, cost overruns and fiscal waste were left unmentioned and unpunished. Everyone just went back to the Magic Money Tree to pay for all the stupidity. Wildly overpriced elevators, selling a building for $75k and buying it back for $225k, paying $96,000 for a $33,000 A/V system, not bothering to get bids on bathroom construction, etc, etc, etc. It has been going on for YEARS!

I can almost hear Talbert sitting in on this skate park discussion (where she had no business being in the first place – you are a FORMER council member, sugar) and blabbering something like “well, it’s only another $90,000 and we have to get this done”.

This is known as the Sunk Cost Fallacy and it is why the shitty Business Pork is STILL going strong and wasting $7 million over 20 years despite not a single prospect showing any interest in the damn thing.

Then our Parks Director made a ridiculous statement too! Here is what Chris Eicher had to say in the newspaper:

“We knew if we wanted a $300,000 skate park, we would have to budget $400,000. That’s just the way it is”

Huh? Ummm, no. If you know it’s going to be $400,000 then you SAY it’s going to be $400,000. Anything else is bordering on fraud as you give a bullshit low-ball number to get your project passed and then admit the “real” much-higher number later. I can’t believe he actually said that out loud. It reeks of dishonesty or incompetence, I’m not sure which.

The whole fiasco wouldn’t be complete without a zinger from Finley himself. Here is his brilliant addition to the anaylsis:

“The only thing I can guarantee is that the exact cost will be different than budgeted”

THAT is the wizard who is supposed to be on top of things and who costs the city around $200,000 per year for his “expertise”. For 25 years he has been working in the government sector doing this shit, but hey – don’t expect him to have a fucking clue either!

I pointed out the “Finley Factor” many years ago on these very pages. Finley is always off by a factor of 3x or so – and the price is ALWAYS higher.

Lampasas Housing In High Demand – Good Thing City Council Dummies Handed Out HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS In FREE CASH To Home Builders

From today’s Dispatch [page 1]:

Between March 16 and March 23, page views of online listings for homes in rural areas increased 115% compared to the same period in 2019, according to Redfin analyst Tim Ellis. Page views of homes in small towns were up 88%.

In 2016, residential construction in Lampasas spiked to 47 new homes from 21 in 2015. From 2012 to 2015, the city added 15.75 homes each year, on average, and from 2016 to 2019 it added an average of 40.25 annually. By May 31 this year, the city had added 17 new houses. If that pace continues through Dec. 31, the city would gain 41 new houses this calendar year. Property values have risen with new construction. From 2012 to 2015, the value of single family houses on lots approximately 2 acres and smaller increased an average of 2% annually. From 2016 to 2019, they grew 4.3% each year, on average.

Well. Sounds like people are flocking to Central Texas from EVERYWHERE…. which anyone with a brain knew was happening for YEARS now. It is CERTAINLY not the type of environment where the City should be handing out HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF TAX DOLLAR SUBSIDIES to ‘encourage growth’, does it?

Yet that’s EXACTLY what the morons on City council did. Repeatedly.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that when most of City council has worked for the government their entire lives and have never worked in the real world. That’s how you end up with abominations like handing rich developer Deorald Finney FREE ELECTRICAL HOOKUPS for his 69 houses in Stone Valley that will cost the City over $72,000 in lost revenue.

GIMME $72,000!!!! <——————————-> “Duuuhhhhh…ok!”

It’s also how you end up with City council handing their FORMER FELLOW COUNCIL MEMBER “Greasy” Chris Harrison and his employer S2M2 WAY OVER $150,000 for THEIR development – Brodie Estates.

Great job, City council! What will you do for your next trick? Maybe give a $200,000 subsidy to Wal-Mart? I hear they are really struggling over there!

Residential construction in Lampasas spiked in 2016 and has continued at a similar pace since then, based on statistics through May of this year. BECKY SIMS | CITY OF LAMPASAS

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 trees that used to be here don’t count, as they were ripped out by a developer whom City Council blessed with $70,000 in ‘free’ electrical hookups, as well as tens of thousands of other gifts to ‘promote growth’!

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.

These trees don’t count either! City council handed their FORMER fellow council member ‘Greasy’ Chris Harrison’s developer buddy S2M2 $150,000 to help pay for bulldozers.

[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.

Former City Council Member “Greasy” Chris Harrison Goes Begging To City Council for $125,000 of Free Money for His New Employer S2M2 Inc.

The name “Chris Harrison” should ring a bell with longtime readers. He is not only the ex-city-council dummy who motioned to spend $126,000 (originally $119,000) on an elevator for the Old City Hall debacle (page 6) when there was a perfectly good $96,000 bid on the table….he is also the bozo who, as a then-current member of the Lampasas Riding Club AND City Council, pushed council to spend six-figure sums on lights and steel panels (page 7) for the “riding arena” over at the 580 Sports Complex (even though there are ALREADY existing arenas close to Lampasas). Naturally, they had MUCH bigger and more expensive plans (page 1 and 2).

[As more evidence of the insanity back in those days, then-mayor Toups and then-mayor-pro-tem Misti “Drunken Sailor” Talbert were ACTUALLY entertaining the notion of spending $2.5 million for a RODEO FACILITY (page 2 and 3). They thought it was a dandy idea and would pay for itself. THESE are the people in charge?? Truly boggles the mind.]

Suffice it to say that “Greasy” Chris has a history of proposing horrible and expensive ideas that seem to serve “Greasy” Chris himself. The fact he is popping up asking for money from his former Council buddies makes a lot of alarms go off.

Back to the present day: according to the latest Dispatch, Chris Harrison now “represents” a company called S2M2 Incorporated….and they want some free stuff: namely $125,000 from the city in “cost sharing” for a detention pond in a new subdivision.

(For those of you who don’t get it, “cost sharing” is the new bullshit term for developers who want the city to hand them large sums of your tax dollars).

This bad idea ALREADY was shot down last May, but apparently whoever pulls the strings at S2M2 decided to hire Harrison to try and sweet talk his former council buddies into forking over $125,000 – Harrison supposedly then directly contacted Misti “Drunken Sailor” Talbert and made his case again. Misti, who has never met a spending idea she didn’t agree with, now thinks this is just fine and dandy.

I dug into S2M2 Inc online and found very little: an address here in town at 202 Riverview Drive, Suite #2 and some taxpayer numbers and a charter date of September 28, 2017. Here is a photo of the front of this “corporation” (it is actually the storefront of the nice lady who does his books for him):

I had one of my private investigators dig some more and apparently the only name associated with this ‘company’ is a guy named Steven McDonald. I assume that’s where the S&M comes from. Get it?? S&M?? S2M2??

Well, this looks pretty damned greasy, if you ask me….hence the moniker “Greasy” Chris Harrison. How long has Harrison ‘worked’ for S2M2? Who the hell is Steven McDonald and why is he so keen to steal $125,000 from the taxpayers? Does he own property over there? Why does Steven McDonald list ONLY his accountant’s address in his corporate charter – which is extremely strange, in my book.

Perhaps City Council can look into those very questions instead of just handing over a chunk of money to every developer with a pulse (*cough* Deorald Finney *cough*).

Mayor Talbert City Hall Vanity Project Delayed Yet Again – Due to Overpriced Elevator

Wow. What a difference a week makes!

Just a 14 days ago, Finley assured City Council that the elevator for the City Hall Boondoggle would “arrive in mid-March” and take a week or two to install.

Not anymore.

NOW, according to Finley and city council packets, “production for elevator equipment has been pushed back two to three weeks”. Seriously?!?!? The arrival time is now “projected for the first or second week of April…and crews will take approximately two to three weeks to install.”

You will recall, back on November 14th, 2016…City Council approved an elevator bid from RKJ Construction for $119,532…and which later ballooned to over $125,000 – despite that fact that Austin Elevator bid $96,600 for the exact same job. Former city council genius Chris Harrison made a motion to accept the inflated elevator cost because “[RKJ] is local”

Let’s all take a moment to thank our stars that Harrison is a FORMER council member now.

Production?? WTF? Are they JUST NOW building an elevator for the Lampasas-Misty-Talbert-Finley-DeGraffenreid-“WOW Factor” $1,500,000 City Hall Boondoggle which has been in the works for years? How is that possible??

So, despite paying an extra $30,000 for an elevator to “keep it local”, and despite the fact it was bid on OVER TWO YEARS AGO, it is STILL not ready! What?? You’re telling me it is being specially constructed as we speak? Last I checked, an elevator is a simple box and was invented a century ago, at the least. What is the hold up? Once again – you can blame former genius Councilman Chris Harrison for this one – he made the motion to piss away an extra $30k for a local elevator – and council rubber-stamped it unanimously…as usual.

Just another delay and cost-overrun for the bloated and ridiculous City Hall “WOW Factor” renovation which is the centerpiece of the Talbert Administration. I’m seriously shocked she is running again after this debacle. I’d go hide my head in the sand, if I were her.