Not content to just blow MANY MILLIONS of dollars of Lampasas city money on a 165-acre weed patch ‘business park’ over the last 17 years, the Lampasas Economic Dunces Club is now formally submitting a grant application (asking for free stuff from federal taxpayers) to the federal government. Which means that nurses from Georgia, bus drivers from Oklahoma and teachers from Michigan will now be funding the LEDC’s ‘business park’ boondoggle indirectly through their federal tax payments.
Langford Community Management Services will be charging the LEDC $7,500 to write up the grant. This money is to help pay for the nearly TWO MILLION DOLLAR “Phase I” (actually it’s Phase II but who’s counting) ‘improvement’ to the goat pasture they own.
I have covered this boondoggle of waste and (in my opinion) outright nest feathering HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE
Recently, the same idiots who said we were all set five years ago, NOW say we need to plow ANOTHER $1.9 million into this fiasco to get it REALLY shovel-ready (even though it was supposedly shovel-ready before). They are even brazenly (and DISHONESTLY) calling this “Phase I” of the ‘business park’ improvements. I guess the ONE MILLION you blew back in 2015 was Phase Zero?
Mike White HIMSELF called the ‘business park’ “a goat pasture” and a “poor return on investment” which has been going on for DECADES [5/26/20 Council meeting at the 10:08 and 19:30 minute mark].
According to Mandy Walsh herself at the last meeting [go to 6:34 mark]
“We have discussed the EDA (Economic Development Administration) CARES ACT…with our grant writers at length for community management services. What that is, is Congress appropriated $1.5 billion to strengthen and assist communities recovering from the coronavirus pandemic. So the EDA is accepting applications for grants that support a wide variety of projects…um, including, ah, infrastructure…and economic development projects, so that’s what we’re going to be applying for, is the disaster funding through the EDA”
Yeah Mandy….the ‘business park’ is a disaster, all right. But it is a disaster of YOUR making, NOT because of the coronavirus.
So, Mandy and the LEDC are going to try and scam the feds out of a huge pile of money EVEN THOUGH THIS BUSINESS PARK FIASCO HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CORONAVIRUS and has been a disaster for “DECADES”, by the admission of Mike White himself [5/26 council meeting].
This enrages me just as much as when I see scumbag politicians in Illinois/Chicago or New York tell the Federal government that they need to fork over $41.6 billion to their cities/states “because of Covid” and Uncle Sugar should just hand over a check.
I’m sorry, but no, your finances aren’t a train wreck because of Covid. They have been a train wreck for decades because of wasteful and idiotic spending by liberals. Chicago and New York made their beds by electing socialists and morons who ran their budgets into the ground….they should lay in those beds WITHOUT a bailout from the Feds – i.e., the rest of us.
Same goes for Mandy Walsh, the LEDC and our own City council…many of whom I would assume identify as “Republican” or “conservative”. YOU made this mess. YOU kept throwing good money after bad. YOU made this bed and now YOU should lie in it….not some poor tax paying sap who lives in Georgia or Arizona.
I can tell you this: if it’s the last thing I do, I am going to try and stop this theft of federal money you are using to cover up LEDC and City council incompetence. Get ready for a flood of Open Records Requests from me. Who is your “viable tenant” for the ‘business park’ that you are pinning your hopes on and bullshitting the Feds with on your grant application? I sure hope it isn’t Mike Cour and his Eco-Strong scam, because I already visited his OTHER company (Equicare at 15500 S-US 183) and took photos of the absolute JOKE ‘Eco-Strong” is. It is a weed patch with some crappy rubber mats piled up that have been there for quite a while, by the looks of it.
[Not to mention, Mike Cour and Equicare currently sit on approximately 200 acres ALREADY. He has ZERO need for the business park unless he himself is trying to scam some free stuff from the taxpaying chumps of Lampasas. Don’t worry…I’m all over him like a cheap suit, too]
I’ll be there at every turn calling you all out as welfare queens and parasites, which you most certainly are. This is brazen theft and, in my opinion, fraud. The money you are trying to scam out of Uncle Sugar has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with coronavirus and EVERYTHING to do with rampant incompetence and fiscal mismanagement on the part of the LEDC, City council and Mandy Walsh herself.