city council – The Original Lampasshole

Holy Shit! Chuck “The Vampire” Williamson Dies In Office.

Wow! Not sure how I missed this one. City councilman Chuck “The Vampire” Williamson passed away June 18th. He will join fellow City councilman Randy “Speedbump” Clark at that big City Council Chamber in the sky.

There is only one conclusion I can draw from BOTH Clark and Williamson passing away during their City council terms: dealing with Cathy “Porkchop” Kuehne is enough to put any man in his grave.

I disagreed with pretty much every single position Chuck took as a City councilman. I was especially galled when he voted to hand a pot of gold over to Deorald Finney and his Stone Valley development back around 2019. He was also instrumental in the boneheaded move to sell a City building for $75,000 and then buy the same building back later for $225,000.

I gave Chuck his “Vampire” moniker because despite being voted out of office, he somehow rose from the dead and was re-installed by TJ Monroe when they guy who beat him resigned suddenly. I think that might have even happened twice, actually. I’m too lazy to search my own blog, however.

Chuck was fairly useless as a councilman, but according to his obituary he served in Vietnam – which is a hell I wouldn’t wish on anyone. So my respect for him has jumped on that. I’m sure he has family that will miss him as well. My condolences to them.

R.I.P. Chuck.

Government Employee Cathy Kuehne is Seriously Deluded. Thinks She is a Small Business Expert

The delusions are strong with this one. I’m talking Julie Cain Landrum level of delusion.

In today’s Dispatch, Cathy Kuehne (who has been on City council for four years already) was asked to tell us about what she brings to the table as she runs for a third term.

After following her for four years on this blog, I can tell you with great confidence that the REAL answer to that question is an emphatic “nothing“…unless you count a lot of expensive screw-ups, ridiculous money wasting and hysteria about Covid.

She trots out her college major in Business Administration as proof of her business acumen. When you are in your 50s and still talking about what you majored in in college, you are seriously grasping at straws. Nobody gives a shit about that.

This is a woman who thinks spending $1.4 million to give the Hostess House a “facelift” so they can rent it out for $10,000 per year is a brilliant move.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 20210609_180353.jpg

She claims that thanks to her 30-year-old BBA degree, “she learned what it takes to keep a business running efficiently and effectively…skills which I have applied to our personal business as well“

What business is that? I thought you were a public school teacher for the last 30 years? Last I checked, you and your husband are full time employees of the Lampasas School District – pulling down a combined $126,000 per ~~year~~ nine months….PLUS benefits, sick days, 10 days of Covid leave IN ADDITION to regular sick leave (which is no doubt abused by everyone), all federal holidays, summers off and future pensions guaranteed. All to teach ‘art’, or something.

Is she talking about her “business” of taking photos of kids sports teams? I’d call that more of a hobby. You have no employees, no suppliers, no transportation costs, no exposure to massive price in creases of your packaging costs or shipping costs – and since you and your husband BOTH have extreme job security provided by the taxpayers, you could literally run that ‘business’ at a $10,000 per year loss and it wouldn’t hurt you a bit. It is a side hustle…NOT a small business.

Here are some REAL small businesses: Cherry on Top, Lampasas Beer Market, Bill’s Burgers, Copy Cat, M&M Butcher Block, Alfredo’s, Giovanis, Legacy Awning, PhoLicious, Putters & Gutters, Eve’s Cafe. THOSE are people risking their savings and dealing with 20 different issues every day.

You take pictures of little kids.

Oooh. That sounded a bit weird. Sorry.

Unfortunately, I think Kuehne has her sights set on being mayor someday. That cannot happen. She is part of the Talbert Faction of Cronies. This includes Misti Talbert (now wreaking financial havoc at the LEDC), TJ Monroe (current mayor), and Chuck “The Vampire” Williamson (who has his strings pulled by Monroe). It is an incestuous group that has squandered incredible sums of money over the last 6 or 8 years.

All remnants of the Talbert Faction of Cronies need to be pushed out of the Lampasas political body like a large bowel movement and flushed down the toilet. We need more council members who have actually lived in the real world and run a REAL small business. Zac Morris and Herb Pearce were a good start. Replacing Kuehne with Myles Haider (small business owner) would be a great continuation of this process.

Council Meeting 06-08-20 LIVE Updates

Tune in at 5:30pm.

5:30pm – only two of us watching today!

Ricky Roy up first! My lucky day. Khakis and a dress shirt. Ricky Roy knows how to dress. He’s talking about a drainage project. Go to it, Ricky. I have no beef with the City doing normal City stuff….like roads. Most superheroes have secret identities that are an alliteration between first and last name- just like Ricky Roy! Peter Parker. Wade Wilson. Clark Kent. Matt Murdoch. Bruce Banner.

Five of us watching online now. Talk about a huge stage! Be on your best behavior, City council – .07% of the City is watching.

Every time I watch these meetings online, I can’t help but remember they COULD have stayed in the old City council building (saving over $1.5 million) and then paid Broadcast Works $34,000 to rig up this exact same live-streaming setup (they paid Azbell $96,000 instead). It’s hilarious. The Internet has capacity for thousands to watch this and they get 5 people. LOL! Money well spent, Goldfish!

Whoah – the City spent over $100,000 on the airport runway? Did I just hear that? I’d love to know how many planes land there per year.

Secretary now telling us there is an entirely new “totally online” permitting process….I assume for construction. Wow. Cool! Guess we can fire whichever paper pusher used to do that stuff? Just kidding. Nobody EVER gets fired from City Hall. Except Gary Cox, that is.

Secretary now using the huge TV screens they paid like $8,000 for. Ironically, there is no public gallery, so nobody can see it. It is not visible on YouTube at this resolution.

Now showing off the new Wastewater Lab. I have no doubt tens of thousands of dollars of graft and waste were skimmed off while building this, but it is necessary infrastructure…so I let that shit slide.

5:52pm: Old City Council building. Oh joy. Now they get to spend a pile of money on the ‘old’ crappy building that wasn’t good enough. It’s going to be the “IT Building”. Better call in Network Solutions to take a look at where they’ll be doing all their work now.

Finley to talk about Hancock swimming pool. Their high-count day was last Saturday – 121 total swimmers, which is supposedly nowhere near the max. I see Finley is now laying the groundwork to allow people from out of town to use the pool. I suspect Delana Toups is behind this, as she was the most butt hurt about the “no non-residents allowed in the pool” rule.

To summarize, Council/Finley were too stupid to offer a wage that attracted lifeguards (they offered min wage). Nobody applied for a job. They used this as an excuse to close Hanna Springs pool rather than up the wage a bit. They then reduced Hancock capacity with some “Wuhan flu” horseshit. Now, after roughly NINE whole days of data, they have deduced that it’s just dandy to let out-of-towners take up valuable pool space.

Makes sense. Congrats Delana!

6:10pm – adjourn workshop session. Will reconvene in 10 minutes. Can’t wait to hear all the ‘business park’ discussions coming up!

6:21pm – meeting reconvened. Back to two people watching.

Manager’s reports. Finley talking about Brodie Estates. I think that’s the one where City council handed their old council buddy ‘Greasy’ Chris Harrison $150,000 for their detention pond.

Business park: staff looking at financing options. Trying to find suckers to provide a boatload of money for the LEDC waste on the business park. That’s it?! Finley tosses that off on the LEDC meeting coming on June 17th. What a letdown. I think their big plan is to “apply for grant” and steal money from other people. Shocker. True fiscal conservatives.

Well, that’s all I care about. The rest looks like fluff. See you in two weeks.

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?

Azbell Electronics pillaging Lampasas for $100,000.00 – City council OK with that!

Most suckers (I mean taxpayers!) see city council wasting money and just figure they can’t fight City Hall. They don’t have the time or the energy. They have real jobs, after all. Jobs that require them to get up at the crack of dawn and weld, or pour concrete or work the ranch in 100-degree heat.

Or maybe they don’t want everyone to get mad at them for pointing out the emperor has no clothes…they don’t want to be a jerk for making a big stink when money is clearly being wasted on idiotic ideas by city government.

For instance, they might not want to be seen as a jerk for pointing out we are spending ONE MILLION DOLLARS to RENOVATE City Hall.

(That’s $1,000,000.00 to RENOVATE an existing structure)

Or maybe they feel stupid and don’t want to be considered mean for calling out city council and IT Director Monica Wright for wasting ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND TAX DOLLARS on an audio/visual system for council chambers.

Yes…you read that right. City council and IT Director Monica Wright think it’s perfectly normal to flush $100,000.00 down a toilet for some TVs and microphones in city council chambers.

Well, one sucker has had enough. Me. I’ll be the Original Lampasshole. I’ll channel your rage. I’ll tell you the truth. I’ll get yelled at by city council and moron government employees. I’ll spend hours of my own time dogging these clowns about every penny they fritter away.

This website was started out of rage over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS being wasted on an audio/visual system for city council. But there are MANY more instances of waste, fraud and abuse. Please check back often to see the latest ways you, dear reader, as being screwed by a bunch of lazy, overpaid, government buffoons.

Azbell Electronics Charging Lampasas an Arm and a Leg!!!

As reported by the Lampasas Dispatch, city council has recently approved a nearly ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR EXPENDITURE on an A/V system for council chambers.

How is this possible? I wondered the same thing. After all, you can buy a HOUSE for that kind of money. How can a few microphones and speakers cost this much?

I contacted several council members and gave them a chance to explain the inexplicable. The verdict?

“Well, what can you do? Government always gets screwed”, they told me.

“It seemed about $20,000 too high to me”

“Yeah, it’s a boatload of money”, said another.

Seriously?? Sounds like they’re REALLY trying hard to save money, doesn’t it?

I asked how many companies bid on the job. Do you know what IT Director Monica Wright told me? They don’t need other bids. One bid will suffice: Azbell Electronics – who does a lot of military work out at Fort Hood. I’ll let you in on a secret you probably already know: companies who deal with the military are used to wildly overcharging them and having zero oversight.

ONE BID? For a ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR job?

I asked city council for the bid sheet. Guess what the VERY FIRST item on the sheet is? They are going to get FOUR 70-inch BIG SCREEN TVs at a cost of $2,150 each. Yes, you read that correctly. City council, which meets twice a month in the tiny little town of Lampasas, needs FOUR 70-inch BIG SCREEN TVs in their chambers….and they are willing to pay $8,600.00 of your tax dollars for that luxury.

I don’t have a 70-inch TV…do you, dear reader? They didn’t even exist until a few years ago. Gee…how the heck did city council get along for the last 10 or 20 years without this extremely vital equipment???

Furthermore, a 30-second search on the Internet found a Vizio 70-inch TV for sale at $900. Therefore, Azbell Electronics is charging $2,150 for a TV that could be had for $900. And they are doing it FOUR TIMES. That’s $8,600 in TVs just for starters. ARE YOU INSANE????

Since city council didn’t seem to care about this colossal waste of money, I emailed IT Director Monica Wright about this immediately. I asked for a meeting to talk about this. Maybe give her a chance to explain the inexplicable. Do you know what she said? She copied and pasted a couple sentences from the bid sheet! She couldn’t even be bothered to write a response telling me to buzz off!!

“While I understand your concerns as a taxpayer, I assure that all purchasing policies and state local guidelines were met and with best value kept in mind. If you would like to address City Council on the matter, please feel free to speak at one of our City Council meetings that is held on the 2nd and 4th Monday of each month at 7pm.”

This response was COPIED and PASTED straight from the bid sheet. Not even an original response! Monica Wright, the city IT Director who appears to make over $100,000 per year in salary, pension and benefits, essentially told me she can’t be bothered to meet with the chumps who pay her salary. Guess she’s super, duper busy working those government hours! Must be nice to land a cushy government job and apparently make $100,000.00 in salary, benefits and pension in a town where the average salary is around $24,000 and over 21% live below the poverty line. Very nice indeed! And air conditioned, to boot! Where do I sign up??

SO….here we are. City council will do nothing. City IT Director Monica Wright thinks this is all quite normal. She can’t be bothered to lower herself to meet with the peons like me…or to pick up a phone and get another bid on a ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR A/V system. What is a squeaky wheel to do??

The average citizen would just give up. Not me. I told these buffoons I will be starting a blog JUST TO EXPOSE THEM. I will also be filing several Freedom of Information Act letters requesting details on the profligate spending in the Information Systems Department of Lampasas.

More to come soon…..

The Original Lampasshole