Tag: Industrial park

Food Trucks Finally Coming!

Remember when the City paid $38,000 to clear concrete from the Industrial Park? Then they paid their hack attorney JC Brown $7,000 to draw up an agreement for “Phase I” and “Phase II” of Martin’s Rod’s pie-in-the-sky plans for food trucks and a microbrewery and a barber shop and some other ridiculous shit?

Well the food trucks are coming! Just look!

Oh wait. That’s how it looked today. Not a single food truck to be seen almost a YEAR after the agreement was drawn up. I don’t see any boats or RVs stored there either. Just junk (in direct violation of the $7,000 agreement).

I asked the City secretary what is going on over there. It’s getting time to talk about Phase II, since Phase I was such a roaring success! According to her: “there has been no change in anything.” So – property has NOT been purchased. No RVs. No boats. No cigar shop. Just a lot of bullshit….as predicted 18 months ago.

No, the food trucks are HERE:

How about that! They didn’t even need to take $45,000 from the City to do this! Amazing! Using an EXISTING lot to try out this idea. I know Krab Kingz used to go there every now and then…which would draw that fat prick Bruce Haywood out into the fresh air with promises of gallons and gallons of melted butter….

I’m sure the Industrial Park will follow suit any day now….

Industrial Park Agreement – Still a Huge Flop Nine Months Later…

Just checking in again on the Industrial Park agreement – the one the City has shelled out $45,000 for and which has not been followed for a single day in its 8-month existence….

Still no RVs. Still no boats. Still no food trucks. Just junk strewn around in explicit violation of the agreement.

I’m sure that trade school, brewery and barber shop will be built any day now!

All the Big Wigs must be busy wheeling and dealing with the dozens of companies clamoring to get into their OTHER Business Park on Highway 183.

Behold! The Impressive “Phase I” Of Martin Rod & Custom Industrial Park Agreement Comes To An End…

Today is the last day of June.

According to the Industrial Park agreement, terms for Phase II of the project (capital improvements/investments, employment projections, milestones for performance) were due to be completed “on or before June 30th, 2023” – which is today.

I have requested said documents from the City. So I guess I can expect them in, oh, about 12 days?

How did Phase I go? That’s the phase where 50 RVs and/or boats would be stored on City property while zero jobs were created. Remember, the City gave a $38,000 gift to Martin’s when they paid to have concrete removed in order to make the RV and boat storage fairy tale a reality. The City ALSO paid their hack attorney JC Brown about $7,000 to draw up the agreement that has been ignored for the last six months.

So after going $45,000 in the hole (YOUR money, btw), we have THIS to show for it….

I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure that shipping container is neither a boat nor an RV.

I can’t wait to see what Phase II holds! I’m sure the lot will be filled to the brim with food trucks any day now!

City Refuses To Give Answer On $165,000 Sale Of Industrial Park Land To Martin’s Rod & Custom

Did they or didn’t they?

I can see why they don’t want to be “transparent” – if they DID sell the land already, they look like utter chumps. They spent $7,000 on their hack lawyer JC Brown to draw up an agreement that was completely ignored by Martin from the very first day. There WAS no “Phase I” – it was all a bullshit ruse.

If they DIDN’T sell the land and things are still proceeding according to the “plan” then Conklin is a liar and looks like a fool.

Which is it?

So Who Is Lying About Industrial Park? Battle Of The Cigar Shops!

We are coming up on the June “deadline” for “Phase II” of the Industrial Park agreement. You know, that project where Phase I was completely ignored and the details of the agreement (which the City paid their hack lawyer $7,000 to create) were violated non-stop from Day One.

“Don’t you even THINK about a cigar shop!!! WE are doing one!!”

The property has been purchased?!? Whoa there! When did THAT happen? I sure didn’t see anything in the City council minutes about that event. Phase One (the RV and boat storage phase) never even happened yet! Nor has any preparations for “food trucks” or the “training facility” that were talked about. Barber shop? Micro-brewery? Those have never been mentioned again since the Mandy Walsh era. I think we can safely say that will never happen.

So, is Jennifer Conklin (who works across the street at Martin Rod & Custom, according to her Facebook page) lying to scare off the competition? Or did Martin ALREADY buy the land – even though they have done absolutely nothing that was promised so far?

I have asked the City secretary that very question….we await an answer.

Fred G Sanford Would Be Proud

Somebody is getting a deal! Just $100 a month to throw as much shit as you want into “Phase I” of the Industrial Park. Just no boats or RVs allowed! Or food trucks, for that matter.

So “storage for 50 boats and RVs” is now “Sanford and Son open for business!”

So much for that $7,000 agreement ya’ll had drawn up! LOL. I think Martin is playing a game now to see how much shit he can put in there that ISN’T an RV or a boat….just to kick sand in Finley’s face. We are up to: deer feeder, shipping container, two shitty little trailers and an ATV of some sort.

Only 41 more days until “Phase II” commences! Tick tock. Tick tock.

Industrial Park “Contract” Still Being Ignored By Martin’s Rod & Custom.

This is what’s known as ‘leverage.”

As in, “the City has none and Martin’s Rod has it all”

The City is so desperate to get someone in there, they’ll allow complete and utter disregard for the basic rules of the contract they signed. You know, basically the ONLY two rules they had: only boats and RVs allowed to be stored there….NOT trailers.

Makes me wonder why they pay JC Brown thousands upon thousands of tax dollars to draw these agreements up when they are routinely ignored.

I mean, seriously…what is the City going to do? Tell them the deal is off? No way. They’ll sit there and get shit on repeatedly – anything to avoid admitting they can’t get the “Industrial Park” filled and looking foolish publicly.

The same thing will happen at the end of this year when S2M2 doesn’t have their 22 houses built at Brodie Estates. Will the City claw back the $185,000 in taxpayer money that Talbert so generously handed to a private business? Hell no. They’ll pretend it didn’t even happen.

Color me cynical, but I don’t see “Phase II” happening by June 20th when Phase I was a complete flop so far.

Industrial Park Plans Off To Very Slow Start. Plus It Looks Like They Are Already Breaking The Agreement

Well, it was supposed to be storage for “50 RVs and boats” but it looks more like “three shitty trailers”….

Not much progress for a project that supposedly started “on or about January 20th, 2023” according to the agreement.

ALSO according to the agreement:

4.07 (1) Lessee will store ONLY RVs and boats that are fully operational and have/display current State of Texas registrations.

4.07 (3) Lessee shall not store any other equipment, vehicles, items, trash, partial vehicles, TRAILERS or materials on the Leased Premises other than the operational and registered RVs and boats noted in item (1) above.

Oops.

Do I sounds like the little turd in 3rd grade ratting out Timmy for chewing gum? Eh, maybe. But I don’t give a shit. This is about something bigger than the Industrial Park.

It is about the much larger and more expensive Business Pork that they have wasted over $7.1 million dollars and 19 years on. If they cannot get their shit together on this little piddling 5-acre joke that they are giving away for $100 per month and then selling for under market value, then how are they going to get their shit together on the Business Pork?

Answer? They aren’t.

They are going to go around in circles for another year and when they FINALLY get someone in there, it’s going to be such a bad deal for the City and the LEDC and for such a pissant amount of mediocre jobs, that they will NEVER let me see the details for fear of being exposed as the morons they are.

My Drive Around Town Today: Brodie Estates and Industrial Park.

Every now and then I drive around and hit all the hot spots to see what’s going on. Today I hit several – here is my report:

BRODIE ESTATES: There has been ZERO activity over at Brodie Estates in the two months since I last questioned how S2M2 was going to hold up their end of the bargain after grabbing $185,000 from the City almost three years ago. As a reminder, S2M2 agreed to build 22 houses. They are still sitting at only six. So they only have to build a house about every two weeks to meet their goals. I can’t wait to see what happens when they are nowhere near 22 houses at the end of this year. Another black eye for the Talbert administration.

INDUSTRIAL PARK AGREEMENT: Well, Martin Rod is off to a slow start if he hopes to have 50 boats/trailers in his new lot (supplied to him at only $100 per month, courtesy of the City).

We are now at 6% capacity! Only 12 weeks to go before the first milestone must be met on June 30th.

But he DOES have some nifty signs informing us of all the massive investments that are coming! Food trucks (which I’ve been hearing about in this town for at LEAST 6 years and requires nothing but space), dog park (which also requires nothing but space), cigar lounge, and a mechanical vocational school:

Wait a second! What about the distillery/microbrewery? What about the barber shop! If you’re gonna throw a bunch of bullshit up there, why not go hog wild? None of it will ever happen anyways – well, except for maybe the dog park. All you need is a sign out there that says “This is now a dog park”.

Anyone can buy vinyl banners promising the world. Building all this shit and making it a viable business is another story altogether.

They will call this utopia “Xanadu” – and rich dummies will come from all over the world to get a haircut, smoke a stogie and walk their dog. The City will become a famous mecca for food trucks and they will make their initial investment back 100 times over and create dozens, nay, HUNDREDS of “primary jobs” like Dog Park Attendant and Food Truck Worker.

Just kidding. It’s called Patina Alley and right now, it’s in the “vinyl banner of a pipe dream” stage.

But when it’s complete, it’s gonna be AWESOME!

It’s totally gonna be like that artist’s rendition of the LEDC Business Pork that turned out to be so eerily accurate!

2003 dream they sold us for $7.1 million tax dollars
2023 empty goat pasture and corpse repository

LEDC NON-PROFIT IRS FILINGS: The IRS is WAY behind on posting Form 990 for non-profits. I have been waiting for the 2021 LEDC filing for almost a year now. So, I stopped by Jack Clark’s CPA office and requested a copy. Jack is as nice as can be and was very helpful. I recommend him for ALL of your tax needs!

Anyways, I’m digging through it now. I CAN tell you they skimmed a new record of $422,532 in sales tax off the citizenry that year – crushing the previous record set the year before by 21%.

Where does all the money go?? Well, I’ve covered that before.

This Is The Post Where I Take a Dump On The Industrial Park Agreement.

I asked Finley several clarifying questions about the Industrial Park agreement by email. Of course, he “didn’t have the agreement right in front of [him]”, so I didn’t get an answer to most of it.

Weird, because I only read it a couple times and I think I remember all the major points….and I’m not even a City manager making $200,000 in salary in benefits with an assistant who does all my busy work for me! Nor did I haggle over the minutiae of this deal for well over a year. But that’s just me.

Here is the deal, if you want to take a gander….

Industrial-ParkDownload

Finley must be swamped with all the train wrecks currently going on around him like the disastrous Hostess House bids and the skate park still not being done. Oh well. I’ll give you my synopsis – which is likely 100% correct. I’ll edit this later if Finley says I got something wrong.

#1 – Martin Rod & Custom (MRC) is renting the entire 5.6 acre parcel from the City for only $100 per month. Yes, you read that correctly – $17.50 per acre per month. Or about 1/20th of a penny per square foot. I remember a couple years ago when a farmer friend of mine said she was renting land for $500 per acre per month. Too bad she didn’t have a city government of the other side of HER deal!

Mind you, Martin himself admits he thinks he can rent this space out (boat and RV storage) for $50 per month per boat/RV for 50 boats/RVs and rake in $2,500 per month [see page 23 under Business Description]. I am doubtful he can pull that off, but I will humor him.

Making 25x your cost is not a bad ROI at all. He will make $30,000 per year if he is right – and pay the City $1,200 for the land he is using. At the very LEAST, he will cover his $100 per month with ease. Hell, he could just store his own personal crap there and come out ahead on this. So this is ZERO risk to him. None.

#2 – The City removed the concrete there for $38,300 SPECIFICALLY for MRC. So the City starts off in the hole that amount. The City lied about this in October of last year. This was the first gift.

#3 – The city can change and extend any of the deadlines in the deal, if they want to. So, if we get to June of this year and things are kind of a disaster for MRC, the City can give him more rope to save face when this ridiculous fairy tale fails to materialize (see page 15 – “The City may grant an extension to the deadlines noted herein…).

#4 – Phase I (Martin basically doing nothing but hanging out a shingle that says “park your shit here” and collecting some money) creates ZERO “primary jobs”. If you want a definition of “primary jobs”, see page 7 of the Economic Development Incentive Guidelines and Principles”

So far, we see zero upside for the City here: they spend almost $40,000 to clean up the land, collect $1,200 from MRC for the year and MRC pockets $30,000 for himself – and creates ZERO JOBS…which is supposedly the Prime Directive of Economic Development, as I understand it.

As far as I can tell, this “RV and boat storage” “phase” of the “agreement” may last one year OR it may last two years! A nice option for MRC – and I have no doubt he will take the entire two years. Why wouldn’t he?? That’s $60,000 in his pocket for doing very little. He can push the wild promises of “Phase II” out another year at no cost to himself.

Now the “Agreement” says he needs to “negotiate the terms of Phase II” by June 30th of this year. But remember: the City can change that any time they want. Also, he only needs to “negotiate the terms, including capital improvements and employment projections” – which is STILL all just “pie in the sky” bullshit on paper. We have seen how easy it is to bullshit the City when we watched Eco-Strong and Mike Cour make up mountains of lies and get away with it repeatedly.

#5 – MRC has the right BUT NOT THE OBLIGATION to buy the property for $165,000. This is the second gift. As a former professional derivatives trader myself, I can tell you this is known as a “zero-cost call” or a “free look”. All upside and no downside. The City can only renegotiate the price of the land if MRC takes longer than 18 months to shit or get off the pot. Until then? Free look.

If the real estate market takes off scorching hot again in the next 18 months (which I consider unlikely), MRC can grab the land at a bargain price. On the other hand, if the economy is deeper in the shitter and land prices are too, MRC can walk away from this entire thing, as I understand it.

I see nowhere in this document where he is FORCED to buy the land nor pay any penalty for not doing so. Finley can correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ll be damned if I can see any real penalty for walking away from this whole thing and never doing Phase II as described.

I am guessing that “deals” like this one will be struck for the Business Pork Project too, someday. All upside for a company which puts no skin in the game and all downside for the taxpayers.