debacle – The Original Lampasshole

Hostess House Debacle – Running Total of Expenditures (Updated)

** Last updated 7/21/23 **

Feb 14, 2018 – City pays Lamco Construction $19,270 for “Hostess House repairs” [page 76]

October 2019 – City takes over Hostess House from DRT. They told us it just needed a ”few minor repairs”:

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November 19, 2019 – Council votes to spend $5,850 with All Seasons for a new 5-ton AC unit [Dispatch front page news].

August 10, 2020 – Council votes to spend $2,500 with Hendrix Consulting Engineers (HCE) to evaluate the Hostess House [Council minutes page 7 item 7.3]

February 15, 2021 – HCE report is huge and repairs look expensive. Council debating what to do. Council member Cathy Kuehne is quoted in the Dispatch as saying they should keep the historical look “even if it costs more” [Council packet pages 26, 27, 28]

March 8, 2021 – Council votes to spend $6,600 with Reliance Architecture to draw up a “master plan” [Council packet page 10].

August 16, 2021 Dispatch Article – Project now estimated to cost $1,380,000.00 (page 39) – up from $200,000 five months earlier a SEVEN-FOLD INCREASE!!!

October 25, 2021 – Council votes 5-2 to approve$130,570payment to Reliance Architecture to plan the Hostess House “upgrade” – representing roughly 10% of project cost.

January 18, 2022 – Reliance Architecture$8,460for “Predesign”

September 12, 2022 – Reliance Architecture$14,775for “Construction docs”

August 22, 2022 – Reliance Architecture$32,012and$12,312for “Design dev”

October 10, 2022 – Reliance Architecture$10,342for “Construction docs”

October 24, 2022 – City council meeting – project now estimated to cost $1.88 million!

February 27, 2023 – City council meeting packet – lowest bid is RKJ Construction at$2,973,738.00!!!!!

July 21, 2023 – City council dinged for another $38,000 in fees to change the scope of the project and re-bid.

Current total fees for project – $168,570

Total spent thus far before any building or renovation is done: $200,270

Revenue from Hostess House to City: approximately $1,200 between Oct 1, 2019 and September 30, 2020.

Projected revenue for FY 2022/2023: approximately $10,500 (revenues $16,000 and costs of $5,500 anually)

$1,500,000.00 “Wow Factor” Public Meeting Room Will Not Be Used For Big Public Meeting Next Month

To those who pay attention to such things, a public meeting has been announced for June 17th at 6pm so all the whiners and complainers can whine and complain about (1) Community Planning (i.e. the $120,000 consulting contract handed to Halff Associates) and (2) City of Lampasas Budget Input (i.e. how big of a raise will Finley and Monica get this year?)

Here is the punchline: this big, important community meeting will be held in a school cafeteria. Why is this so funny to me? Well, I have a memory longer than three weeks, as it turns out. Let’s rewind quickly to September 25th, 2018 (8 months ago). Finley was busy covering his butt trying to explain to the citizens how $1.5 million dollars was a bargain price for new Council chambers and how a no-bid $95,000 A/V system was the deal of the century.

Part of his cover-his-ass story was that this vanity project was NOT just for City employees and City Council! No, no, no! To use Finley’s own words from the article, the Misti/Finley “wow factor” debacle was ALSO to “allow more public participation in council meetings [and] also will provide a place for various community groups to meet. City Manager Finley deGraffenried said the City Council’s vision is to have a facility that encourages public participation and “that could be seen as a hub” for a variety of meetings, civic activities and community groups.”

I would say a public meeting about the budget and community planning CERTAINLY fits the description of a “civic activity/meeting for a community group”. Pretty much EXACTLY what Finley described in his newspaper puff-piece 8 months ago.

So why not have this important civic meeting in the fancy new $1,500,000.00 Misti Talbert “Wow factor!” vanity project? I’m guessing there is one simple reason: it STILL isn’t completed!!

How far overdue is this vanity project? The article tells us that as well:

Later in the same article, Finley states that ASJ Construction was “50 days into the 120-day project” and that was on September 25th, 2018. Which means there were supposedly about 70 days remaining. December 4th, 2018 would mark 70 days after Finley made his statement.

Clearly the project was not done on December 4th, 2018. Not even close. Seeing as how the City will NOT be holding this important community meeting there on June 17th, that means the ~~debacle~~ project is now SIX MONTHS LATE (in addition to being about $500,000 more than projected).

The ease with which they just decided to have this meeting in a cafeteria and the ability of the cafeteria to hold the huge throngs (ha ha!) of people that will show up begs another question: why do we need a $1.5 million meeting room in the first place if an existing school cafeteria works just fine? A very good question…one I have been asking since last year when this monstrosity was started.

I’ll tell you why….the cafeteria just doesn’t have that “wow factor”, ya big dummy! Luckily we have wise civic leaders like Misti “Drunken Sailor” Talbert to push such huge, bold, wasteful “wow factor” projects through to completion…even if it is $500,000 over budget and 6 months behind!

Old City Hall “Wow Factor” Debacle Keeps Adding Up

The new pile of City Council packets brought more checks written for the Old City Hall Misty Talbert “Wow Factor” Vanity Project! ASJ Construction and Azbell Electronics will be throwing a huge party this Christmas. Hope Misti and Finley are invited! Here are some of the sums spent on the ~~debacle~~ project. This is by no means exhaustive. I’m sure I missed some stuff.

JNW Architects (the ones who bungled all kinds of things over the years – April 13, 2015): $56,020 over 5 payments between 2015 and 2017. It may be higher, but some of the checks are for “consulting” and it’s hard to say they were for the OCH debacle.

Azbell Electronics: $94,674 (this is for some TVs and microphones for City Council to use). Mind you, this system could have been had for $34,000 from Broadcast Works – but the money tree out back was bursting with cash, so why not spend it?? OVERPAY of $60,000.

RKJ Construction: $128,400 on an elevator (Austin Elevator bid $96,500 for this part of the project, but Council-genius Harrison wanted to “keep it local” and yank an extra $32,000 off the money tree out back). Well done! OVERPAY of $32,000 (elevator STILL not installed).

RKJ Construction: $13,500 to demolish interior of OCH and remove debris. This is the only contract I’ve seen that seems like a fair price. Go figure.

$12,780 for 100 stackable chairs. Monica purchased these FOUR YEARS AGO ($127 per chair) despite City Council meetings rarely exceeding 30 people. Where are the chairs now? Who knows. OVERPAY of $7,000.

$15,558 on other furnishings.

$8,055 for even MORE furnishings (Amazon Capital Services – page 18)

$7,313 for curbing and a pad for generator.

$5,596 for “geotechnical engineering study” – sounds like kissing the ring of Pope Eckermann.

ASJ Construction: Tons of checks here since they are the main contractor. Checks in the amount of: $134,692 $143,336 $211,435 $166,301 $153,458 $42,069 $45,162 $45,714 $45,514 $26,000 $14,732… and we aren’t done yet!!

The capper? ASJ also just billed the city $11,310 for “reception desk – city hall“. Did we just pay over eleven thousand dollars for a $&*%(^* desk??? I think we did. WOW Factor!! OVERPAY $6000

$60,000 for a fire suppression system – no idea who sells and installs this. Fire Department?

$7,500 for “phone” and “fiber patch”

Roughly $12,000 to remove bats from the building.

$45,194 to re-roof a roof that I’m pretty sure JNW Architects said was
“structurally sound” three years earlier (Oct 2016 JNW was paid $18,500 for “structural analysis and provide documentation” of said analysis).

Tonight they will discuss spending $27,850 to “improve parking lot conditions behind City Hall”.

What does it all add up to? A LOT. I remember the good old days (circa 2015) when the Grayson/White/Toups crew didn’t even want to spend $400k on this. Look at them now – around $1,500,000.00 and counting! Well done!!

Timeline and Questions for Azbell $100,000.00 A/V Rip-off – PART I (Birth of a Bad Idea)

OK – so, I have spent about 48 hours reading through every single page of every city council minutes since January 1, 2013 (first available online) to try and piece together this Azbell debacle. That means I have probably spent about 45 more hours than city council has spent on this to date.

Here is a synopsis timeline and my comments in bracketed italics. I know some parts may make eyes glaze over, but PLEASE read it through – you will be shocked. The incompetence is stunning. I have also broken all this into six separate blog posts, so as to be digested easier.

Late 2013 and early 2014: City council gets a bug up their butt about needing new chambers. I have no idea why new chambers were supposedly needed, but approximately $350,000 was earmarked for the project. They hire an architect [JNW Architect at a cost of $35,000] and intermittently argue at council meetings over the rest of the year about whether this is a good use of funds.

AUGUST 24, 2014: Monica Wright returns to City Council with three bids for an audio/visual system [yes, this seems very premature since there aren’t even any plans yet, but this is par for the course…]

Broadcast Works $33,983.00
Azbell $41,184.00
Whitlock $54,411.36

Monica then recommends they go with Broadcast Works. Then-councilman Chris Toups moves to award the contract, and then-councilwoman (and current mayor) MISTI TALBERT seconds this motion. It is then unanimously approved (Mike White is present at this meeting and approves).

All well and good. Three bids were gotten, the lowest one wins, and the matter is settled. Or is it? [Why are they getting bids on an AV system before anything else is even decided on or planned out? It would be like, oh I don’t know, buying $13,000 worth of chairs before you even had a blueprint….]

MARCH 30, 2015: Special minutes show that two bids came in for the new council chambers project.

MW Hail Construction: $778,502
RKJ Construction $793,379

OOPS!!! These numbers are more than DOUBLE what they have budgeted!!

Council members stare, mouth agape and eyes boggling, and ask why it’s so much money? They also asked why the bids were not broken down more. Then deGraffenreid said he met with city attorney JC Brown, and she suggested NOT to meet with the contractors so there would be no hint of favoritism. She suggested the bids be rejected and scope of services revised – she would then meet with the contractors and find out why bids were so high.

Jennifer Walker (JNW Architects) said she and city manager Finley will meet and try to figure this out. She could not answer what drove the bid so high because the bids were not by component or broken down [Duuuhh…don’t ask me! I’m just the $35,000 architect!]

April 13, 2015: This is where things really go off the rails and the sh*t hits the fan and fingers get pointed. This is a good one, so read it all!

Apparently the big cost overrun is related to the base pad. If they take out the base pad, and have the city build it, they can save $100,000 – but many contractors won’t build on a pad built by the city [liability, I’m guessing] and city crews do not have experience building pads. Not to mention, it will take them away from their city jobs AND the project is STILL at least $250,000 over budget. Mike White [to his credit] says he does not like the idea of the City crews building the pad.

Mayor Grayson, and council members Toups and White stated they do not feel comfortable constructing a building if it will cost $700,000 [YAY! Fiscal sanity for a brief moment]

[This should have been the end of this disaster. They wanted something…they budgeted X dollars…the bids were twice that…so they can’t do it. End of story. Who kept this train wreck going? Who acted like 4-year-olds and said “I want I want I want I want”?]

Mayor Pro Tem Wanda Biershwale, Council members TJ Monroe, Chuck Williamson and Misti Talbert stated they would like to see new bids.

[Toups, White and Grayson clearly saw that this was a disaster-in-the-making and pushed against. More than a few times, Toups stated the city had better uses for this money. Monroe, Williamson, Talbert and Biershwale kept this disaster alive another day. Biershwale is now gone but the others STILL sit on council and Talbert is mayor].

So…who bungled this so badly? Finley’s name pops up a few times in the following discussion of “why is the cost double what we budgeted?”. Some ‘answers’ were fleshed out:

It is then stated that the City has already incurred the following expenses for this debacle:

$28,338 on furnishings [yes, they were buying furniture before they even had a plan done – including $12,780 on 100 stacking chairs, because “we needed to spend our year end funds”]

$33,983 for AV bid [this is the Broadcast Works bid from above, and the minutes EXPLICITLY use the words ‘expenses INCURRED‘ – so did they already hand Broadcast Works $33,983? Nothing would surprise me with this group]

$35,000 to JNW Architect, the geniuses in charge who didn’t think to get a cost analysis done first. Total clowns.

$7,313 for curbing and a pad for a generator

$5,596 for Geotechnical engineering survey

With $100,000 already burned in this dumpster fire, Council goes looking for an explanation and maybe an ass or two to kick….and more than a few fingers are pointed at Finley. To wit:

Council asks why the cost is double and why wasn’t a cost analysis done? Now Finley does a bit of backpedaling, as the minutes state “the budgeted amount was suggested by Finley as just ‘a starting point for planning’ [ah yes…we can’t stick to a budget, so we’ll say it was just a starting point].

Furthermore, JNW Architect “did not do a cost analysis because it was not part of their contract with the city” – sounds like Finley bungling, since I’m guessing he wrote the contract (?). Pretty big screw-up for a City Manager who has been doing this for at least 7 years.

Also, JNW Architect “designed the building by what the city wanted and not by what was budgeted” – say what??? This is a MASSIVE screw-up on either Finley’s part or the part of JNW. This is a HUGE miscommunication at best. Downright extreme incompetence at worst.

Was anyone taken to the woodshed over this? Did heads roll? Of course not. This is City Government and par for the course. So now Council decides they have three options going forward:

Terminate agreements and end project [this is what should have happened].
Change to a metal building to maybe reduce costs.
Re-budget and cough up the money to “keep the WOW! factor the city deserves” [yes, they ACTUALLY SAID THAT…it is in the minutes. Some of the people in charge of millions of dollars are making decisions on based on “wow” factors. Presumably as in “WOW, they are a bunch of morons to get ripped-off like that” or maybe “WOW! They must let the mentally retarded hold the purse strings in that city”]

Well…we all know they chose the worst option. I will continue in Part II later today or tomorrow.