Tag: Hostess House

Catherine Groothoff recently rented out the Hostess House.

It did not go well:

The City only just barely took control of the Hostess House a mere 29 months ago! What do you think they are…miracle workers?

Catherine must be new in town or she doesn’t read here. If she DID, she would understand that the numbskulls who run the City can’t be bothered with the little things. They are too busy arguing about how to blow the next million dollars on some hare-brained project – like the Business Pork.

You want them to spend $400 or $500 to fix a sink and get a new microwave? Surely you jest. They are busy planning to spend $1.4 million on the Hostess House “facelift” and “minor repairs”. It will take another year in addition to that $1.4 million. They cannot be bothered to replace a microwave. What fun is that?

I’m sure they DO have people to fix a sink, but they are too busy wasting time and money putting in hose bibs, pipes and a $12,750 water tank for a local moron to grow a couple of squash at the Community Garden!

It’s the same reason they blow almost $200,000 on a “pavilion” but literally 100 feet away at the local pool, they won’t spend any money to hike lifeguard wages to make sure the pool is fully staffed for summer. They’d rather close it an extra day every week.

It’s the same reason the City electric fund is “in trouble” and rates had to be hiked on everyone last November while they simultaneously give out hundreds of thousands of dollars in ‘free’ electrical subsidies to rich developers at Stone Valley, Hidden Oaks and Hillside Acres.

See how it works?

It’s also the reason the water fountains at the 580 Sports Complex have been non-functioning since March 2020. They cannot be bothered with something that tiny. They are too busy deciding if they should waste $1.3 million on a bike path over there that nobody will use.

Now, I’m not sure who to point the finger at…..so I’m just going to go ahead point it squarely at Cathy Kuehne since she is up for election next month and actually has a challenger. She’s also the one who was quoted that they should keep the historical look at Hostess House “even if it costs a little more“.

Cathy Kuehne: great spender of OTHER people’s money since 2018!

I used to call Mayor Talbert a “drunken sailor” for her propensity to blow money like an inebriated seaman on shore leave. She was instrumental in wasting $1.5 million renovating Old City Hall as well as handing out hundreds of thousands in “free money” to developers like Deorald Finney and S2M2. Terrible decisions that the City is still suffering from today.

But TJ Monroe is putting her to shame with some of the latest ridiculous money wasting going on now.

Here is a taste:

HOSTESS HOUSE:

In October 2019, when the City decided to take over the Hostess House, we were told it needed a few “minor repairs” and “minor decorations”. They spent about $6,000 on a new HVAC at that time also. So a normal person might think “eh, they’ll spend eight or nine grand on some stuff and that will be it”.

You’d be wrong. By August 2020, the new estimate was $500,000. [see page 20]

The CURRENT estimate is $1.3 million dollars. That’s $1,300,000.00 on an “event venue” that currently brings in MAYBE $10,000 per year in rental fees after expenses. So it will only take them 130 years to get their money back.

Only true shit head politicians could go from “a couple grand” to “$500,000” to “$1.3 million” and not blink an eye or maybe question if this was even REMOTELY a good use of funds. Clearly nobody learned a single thing from the $1.5 million Old City Hall debacle, because they are about to do the exact same thing AGAIN!

SKATE PARK:

WAY back in July 2020, a local school teacher heard a radio ad for a skate park/outreach center in California and thought “that would be cool!”

No, I am not joking. That is exactly how the whole thing started. Link to entire article is HERE. The name of her non-profit is “Wings of Eagles Outreach”.

Anyhow, we heard the usual nonsense about how this would be a public/private partnership and the usual hints were made that there would be private donations and volunteering…kind of like the “Bike and Hike” trail project that never went anywhere.

Initial skate park costs were said to be around $200,000. That was SO last year, though. NOW the estimate is $400,000 [see page 20] and I can guarantee you the final cost will be far higher.

Seeing as how “Wings of Eagles” had a grand total of $5,824 in their bank account at their last non-profit filing, something tells me they aren’t going to be shelling out hundreds of thousands to make this happen. No, that burden will fall on the taxpayers.

Personally, I think the skate park is a terrible idea. Mike White and Misti Talbert were huge champions of this thing. Time will tell if it was worth it or not.

But the fact remains that we went from “I heard an ad on the radio! Sounds cool” to $200,000 to the current $400,000 tells you all you need to know about how TJ Monroe operates and how little she values tax dollars.