industrial pork – The Original Lampasshole

Three Weeks After Deadline Passes, City STILL Silent On Industrial Pork Agreement Violations.

By February 1st of this year, one of three things was supposed to happen regarding the Industrial Park agreement between the City and Martin’s Rod & Custom:

#1 – Martin’s purchase the land for $165,000 – in preparation for “Phase II” of their “agreement.” This included such fantasies as a microbrewery, distillery, barber shop and “other entrepreneurial possibilities.”

#2 – Martin’s was supposed to renegotiate the agreement because they weren’t ready to buy yet. This option seemed most likely to me from the very beginning.

#3 – Martin’s was supposed to provide a detailed “Phase II” plan wherein they explained in detail their plans for the “microbrewery” and “food trucks” and re-negotiate the original deal (i.e. City council would let them off the hook once again).

But according to the City secretary, NONE of these events had transpired as of the deadline passing. In their words, “there are no responsive documents.“

According to City documents [page 28], Stacey Ybarra herself met with Brant Martin on February 9th “regarding the Industrial Park.” What was the meeting about? That’s a secret for now. Last I checked, however, February 9th comes AFTER February 1st – which was the deadline for some action.

Will anything happen, now that the agreement has not only been violated repeatedly by Martin’s Rod but they have also missed the Feb 1st deadline for action? I’m guessing not. Hopefully we get an answer soon.

Martin Punches Finley’s Nuts – Opens Cigar Bar On Square Instead Of Industrial Park (As Promised).

Finley must be starting to feel like someone’s little brother with all the nut shots he’s taken the last few years.

The latest spit in his eye is Martin opening the “cigar bar” over on the square – after two years of stringing the City along with some bullshit about building one in the “Industrial Park”:

Ouch. It wasn’t too long ago that one of Martin’s Minions was on Facebook yammering about how they had bought the property over there at the Industrial Park for the cigar bar…

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

The property in question was the Industrial Park – where many, many horseshit promises have been pedaled for almost two years…and much money has been wasted by the City:

So, Martin demanded the City spend $38,000 to remove concrete for his “RV and Boat Storage” business but a year later, zero RVs and boats have been stored. It still sits empty except for some personal junk. Junk that is in direct violation of the agreement the City spent $7,000 drawing up between Martin and themselves:

Punching Finley in the nuts like that wasn’t enough, though. NOW they decide to just stick their “business” on the square inside of an EXISTING building.

I said all along it made WAY more sense to use an existing vacant space in town (we have many) than to spend big money building a cigar bar. I was proven right once again, because that is exactly what happened.

Finley is a life-long government bureaucrat and parasite who doesn’t understand how the real world works. He has never had skin in the game and has a cushy guaranteed job – so he has no clue what the real business world entails. Which is why his nutsack is constantly being used as a speed bag and his eye socket used as a spittoon by everyone in the private sector.

The whole “scan our QR code and we’ll come meet you” seems like the most convoluted and retarded scheme ever. Not exactly the kind of set-up that indicates they’ll be creating “a bunch of good-paying jobs” as they have promised in the past. Hey, but who cares? The City will pick up the tab.

As always.

Industrial Park Land Was NOT Sold Yet. Jennifer Conklin Lied.

Last week we were treated to this exchange on Facebook when a local citizen mused out loud that he night open a cigar shop….

She says it with such authority! The property has been purchased!!

Only it hasn’t been purchased.

So one of two things is true: Jennifer was either deliberately lying to scare off any “competition,” or she had no clue about anything and just made it up on the spot. A fabrication, if you will.

According to the City, the property has NOT been sold. The original “plan” continues uninterrupted. Of course, the plan has not been followed at all, since there is no RV/Boat storage in operation over there – just some random shit that violates the $7,000 agreement drawn up by the City’s hack lawyer JC Brown.

Don’t forget that Martin Rod and Custom had the taxpayers shell out $38,300 to clean the site up so he could run an RV and boat storage business – but as you can see, that never happened. More tax dollars down the toilet:

In essence, Martin gets a free option to buy the land in the future for $165,000 – but it has NOT happened yet, according to the City secretary.

My advice to Rich Drettwan? Go for it, man! Open that cigar shop NOW and beat them to the punch. God knows there are enough empty buildings in town you could use!

Industrial Park Agreement Shows City Lied to Public Back in October 2022.

Last October, Finley came to City council asking for $38,300 to demolish all the concrete at the 5.6 acre Industrial Park plot (on east 580 across from Martin’s Rod and Custom) and to haul away approximately 420 tons of said concrete.

His reasoning? [see page 71]

Staff has identified the need to remove surplus, excess, damaged, and unusable concrete work at the City’s Industrial Park to make the property more marketable. Council to consider a motion to award contract for concrete removal in the amount of $38,300 to WT Excavation.

I was highly suspicious of this reason at the time. That was the SAME piece of property that was supposedly being negotiated over with Martin Rod & Custom. It made no sense that this was to “make it more marketable” generally when Martin was looking to “make a deal” on that same piece of land specifically.

What made sense to ME was that Martin demanded the City pay $38,300 to fix it up for him before he would agree to anything. But Finley presented this in a deceptive way – neglecting to inform us this was essentially a gift to Martin Rod and Custom:

Is Finley Getting Nut-Punched Yet Again?

As I wrote at the time:

BUT here’s the rub: if the agreement has been sitting on the desk of and “in the possession” of Mr. Martin and his attorney for the last seven months, then why is the City suddenly unilaterally spending almost $40,000 to “make it more marketable”?

Or did we not get the entire truth? Is the truth maybe “Martin demanded we pay to have to concrete removed or he won’t go forward”? If that is the case, then THAT should have been mentioned at the City council meeting.

… maybe Martin demanded the concrete be removed (at great expense to the taxpayer) and the City lied and said they did it to “make it more marketable” – and conveniently omitted the part about who was actually demanding it be done.

Turns out I was right. This is directly from the newly-released details of the agreement:

ARTICLE IX: City’s Contribution

9.01 – “City agrees to provide and pay for the initial clearing of the property.”

Also in ARTICLE VIII: ACTIONS PRECEDENT TO PHASE II

8.02 – “City commences clearing of concrete structures at the site, leveling with road base material”

So the taxpayer paid to “make it more marketable”, all right. But not more marketable for the CITY in terms of finding a tenant! It was to make it more marketable for MARTIN’s ROD & CUSTOM when they start their “PHASE I” of the agreement – which involves Martin getting paid by people to store their boats and RVs there. Finley just left that part out.

City Makes Atrocious “Deal” With Martin Custom & Rod. Taxpayers Heavily Screwed.

Well, I can see why they wanted to keep this a secret. The “deal” also revealed yet another lie by the City last fall…but we’ll get to that later.

I am still going through this and have submitted some questions to the City manager to make sure I understand the details of this “deal” and will report by this weekend. But it looks like lose/lose for the taxpayer and win/win for Martin Custom & Rod. No surprises there.

Meanwhile, here is the EASY way to solve the math problem from yesterday. A couple guys I know who I consider smart made it WAY too complicated and tried to bring algebra into it. Remember, this is a FIFTH-GRADE math question, according to Reddit. Only a little logic and simple division need be applies.

On the second day, the kid reads 1/8 of the book. On the third day, he read 1/4 of the book – which we convert to 2/8 immediately to make all the denominators the same. Ergo, he read 3/8 of the book on day two and three.

THEREFORE, he had to have read 5/8 of the book on the first day – and we know that is 30 pages. Ergo, 30 pages = 5/8 of the book. How do we determine how many pages represents 1/8? What number divides 5 times into 30? Answer? The number 6. Therefore, 6 pages represents 1/8 of the book.

The book is therefore 48 pages (1/8 = 6 so 6×8 is 48)

I know “Doctor” Chane Rascoe has been crowing recently about how awesome our schools are. I wonder if I showed this to every 5th grader in Lampasas ISD, how many would get it right. My over/under is 10%.

“Not Yet Finalized”

Memorandum:

For the 15th month straight, the agreement between the City of Lampasas and Martin’s Rod and Custom for the “Industrial Park” is “not yet finalized”.

It begs the age-old question: if an agreement sits on a desk forever and is never finalized, is it actually an agreement?

When does it cease to be an agreement-in-waiting and become another failed pipe dream of the LEDC? Will they ever admit the deal fell through or are they all running a secret pool to see how many months in a row I’ll ask for this fucking thing?

Anyways – looks like THAT was $38,000 wasted! Nobody knows how to piss money away like the City of Lampasas.

City Gets Plowed By Martin’s Rod.

To be discussed at Monday’s council meeting [see page 71]:

Staff has identified the need to remove surplus, excess, damaged, and unusable concrete work at the City’s Industrial Park to make the property more marketable. Council to consider a motion to award contract for concrete removal in the amount of$38,300to WT Excavation.

But…but…but…Martin’s Rod & Custom was gonna buy that! RV and boat storage! Distilleries! Barber shops! Cigar lounges! Twenty jobs! $30 an hour!

So can we FINALLY now drop the ridiculous pretense that Martin’s Rod and Custom is going to do ANY of that bullshit? I’ve been saying that for nearly a year, but I guess this kind of seals it. You don’t need to waste nearly $40k to “make it more marketable” if the Martin Custom fairy tale was going to come true.

I wonder how much money the City wasted on their attorney J.C. Brown drawing up “an agreement” last year. The very same agreement that the City secretary has told me is “in the hands of Martin’s Rod lawyers” for the last 6 months.

I wonder how many other “dead bodies” will come floating to the surface now that Mandy Walsh has resigned.

I also wonder why the City would waste 40 large on this cement abomination when they just spent ANOTHER $2.7 million on the Business Pork project to create three “marketable” tracts that are pretty much EXACTLY THE SAME SIZE as the ‘Industrial Park” parcel.

You think MAYBE you’d want to fill at least ONE spot in your $7.1 million Business Pork monstrosity BEFORE you go pissing away $38,000 on the “Industrial Park” of almost exactly the same size?

How many empty industrial parks can you waste money on at the same time? I guess we’re about to find out.