Most suckers (I mean taxpayers!) see city council wasting money and just figure they can’t fight City Hall. They don’t have the time or the energy. They have real jobs, after all. Jobs that require them to get up at the crack of dawn and weld, or pour concrete or work the ranch in 100-degree heat.
Or maybe they don’t want everyone to get mad at them for pointing out the emperor has no clothes…they don’t want to be a jerk for making a big stink when money is clearly being wasted on idiotic ideas by city government.
For instance, they might not want to be seen as a jerk for pointing out we are spending ONE MILLION DOLLARS to RENOVATE City Hall.
(That’s $1,000,000.00 to RENOVATE an existing structure)
Or maybe they feel stupid and don’t want to be considered mean for calling out city council and IT Director Monica Wright for wasting ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND TAX DOLLARS on an audio/visual system for council chambers.
Yes…you read that right. City council and IT Director Monica Wright think it’s perfectly normal to flush $100,000.00 down a toilet for some TVs and microphones in city council chambers.
Well, one sucker has had enough. Me. I’ll be the Original Lampasshole. I’ll channel your rage. I’ll tell you the truth. I’ll get yelled at by city council and moron government employees. I’ll spend hours of my own time dogging these clowns about every penny they fritter away.
This website was started out of rage over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS being wasted on an audio/visual system for city council. But there are MANY more instances of waste, fraud and abuse. Please check back often to see the latest ways you, dear reader, as being screwed by a bunch of lazy, overpaid, government buffoons.
Azbell Electronics Charging Lampasas an Arm and a Leg!!!
As reported by the Lampasas Dispatch, city council has recently approved a nearly ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR EXPENDITURE on an A/V system for council chambers.
How is this possible? I wondered the same thing. After all, you can buy a HOUSE for that kind of money. How can a few microphones and speakers cost this much?
I contacted several council members and gave them a chance to explain the inexplicable. The verdict?
“Well, what can you do? Government always gets screwed”, they told me.
“It seemed about $20,000 too high to me”
“Yeah, it’s a boatload of money”, said another.
Seriously?? Sounds like they’re REALLY trying hard to save money, doesn’t it?
I asked how many companies bid on the job. Do you know what IT Director Monica Wright told me? They don’t need other bids. One bid will suffice: Azbell Electronics – who does a lot of military work out at Fort Hood. I’ll let you in on a secret you probably already know: companies who deal with the military are used to wildly overcharging them and having zero oversight.
ONE BID? For a ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR job?
I asked city council for the bid sheet. Guess what the VERY FIRST item on the sheet is? They are going to get FOUR 70-inch BIG SCREEN TVs at a cost of $2,150 each. Yes, you read that correctly. City council, which meets twice a month in the tiny little town of Lampasas, needs FOUR 70-inch BIG SCREEN TVs in their chambers….and they are willing to pay $8,600.00 of your tax dollars for that luxury.
I don’t have a 70-inch TV…do you, dear reader? They didn’t even exist until a few years ago. Gee…how the heck did city council get along for the last 10 or 20 years without this extremely vital equipment???
Furthermore, a 30-second search on the Internet found a Vizio 70-inch TV for sale at $900. Therefore, Azbell Electronics is charging $2,150 for a TV that could be had for $900. And they are doing it FOUR TIMES. That’s $8,600 in TVs just for starters. ARE YOU INSANE????
Since city council didn’t seem to care about this colossal waste of money, I emailed IT Director Monica Wright about this immediately. I asked for a meeting to talk about this. Maybe give her a chance to explain the inexplicable. Do you know what she said? She copied and pasted a couple sentences from the bid sheet! She couldn’t even be bothered to write a response telling me to buzz off!!
“While I understand your concerns as a taxpayer, I assure that all purchasing policies and state local guidelines were met and with best value kept in mind. If you would like to address City Council on the matter, please feel free to speak at one of our City Council meetings that is held on the 2nd and 4th Monday of each month at 7pm.”
This response was COPIED and PASTED straight from the bid sheet. Not even an original response! Monica Wright, the city IT Director who appears to make over $100,000 per year in salary, pension and benefits, essentially told me she can’t be bothered to meet with the chumps who pay her salary. Guess she’s super, duper busy working those government hours! Must be nice to land a cushy government job and apparently make $100,000.00 in salary, benefits and pension in a town where the average salary is around $24,000 and over 21% live below the poverty line. Very nice indeed! And air conditioned, to boot! Where do I sign up??
SO….here we are. City council will do nothing. City IT Director Monica Wright thinks this is all quite normal. She can’t be bothered to lower herself to meet with the peons like me…or to pick up a phone and get another bid on a ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLAR A/V system. What is a squeaky wheel to do??
The average citizen would just give up. Not me. I told these buffoons I will be starting a blog JUST TO EXPOSE THEM. I will also be filing several Freedom of Information Act letters requesting details on the profligate spending in the Information Systems Department of Lampasas.
More to come soon…..
The Original Lampasshole
