Ten years ago, poor Kathi Masonheimer was the “Economic Development Director,” and by my math, Talbert and Monroe were sitting on the board. Here is what they told the Lampasas Dispatch at that time [original article HERE]:
Here we are, ten years later. The SAME dipshits are running the LEDC. I’m guessing the debt service payments are MUCH higher than $12,500 per month now, since they’ve blown another three million or so since then.
Annual revenue over the last ten years? ZERO dollars. Number of tenants? ZERO.
So any time you start to actually BELIEVE the bullshit they spew, go back and read this article again. That’ll bring you back to reality.
I’m not sure what the LEDC chumps paid for the “Perryman Group” economic projections back in 2007 [page 130], but I’m sure it was WAY more than the $0.00 the projections ended up being worth.
First is the cost projection. As you can see, the geniuses at Perryman figured it at about $2.7 million dollars….
Actual cost as of today? Over $7.2 million and counting.
But what about the BENEFITS? Well, Perryman has an answer there too:
Wow! A new job is created for every $350 in outlays? I thought that was a typo for sure, and the number had to be more like $35,000 in outlays. Nope. It’s $350 – which means that we should have created over 20,000 jobs for the $7.2 million spent.
Actual jobs created? ZERO.
As you can see, Perryman predicted 9,800 jobs, but that was with a $2.7 million cost ($2.7 million divided by their bullshit $350 per job number = 7,700 jobs). Since the REAL cost is now $7.2 million, we should have gotten about 20,000 jobs instead. That 9,800 jobs number is so absurd on it’s face, somebody at the LEDC should have laughed at them and demanded their money back. Of course, nobody did. They nodded their heads and swallowed the bullshit whole.
Perryman also told the LEDC that all that Biz Pork money created would “help defray the costs of public services and other infrastructure.” In fact, the Business Pork has had the OPPOSITE effect.
LEDC President Misti Talbert literally stood in front of City council and begged for (and got) $971,000 in Covid-relief funds that the CITY could have used for just about ANYTHING ELSE! Including public services and infrastructure! The Biz Pork didn’t defray SHIT! In fact, it pilfered money that could have been used elsewhere! How’s that for irony??
Talbert and the LEDC pilfered $971,000 over 18 months ago.
Are you starting to see the depth of the bullshit going on at the Business Pork project? Why I rail on it over and over and over again? Why it’s the biggest ripoff ever pulled over on the taxpayers? Are you starting to see the incredible amount of incompetence and stupidity on display by the LEDC over the last 20 years?!?!
Every single promise, projection and assurance has been 100% complete and utter bullshit for OVER TWENTY YEARS.
We saw Herb Pearce ask a few tough questions in Part I. He continued with more questions after asking for a list of these supposed “prospects” and being told by Mandy “those are confidential”.
19:19 mark: Herb asks “We’ve had this land for about 20 years? Why are we just now coming around to this right now?”
Ouch! Herb is rightly wondering “wtf have you guys been doing for the last 17 years with millions of dollars??“
This is where it gets hilarious.Mandy is not used to being grilled like this. She is used to being rubber-stamped by her girlfriends sitting on council. Since 2017 when Mandy started as ED Director, she has had her good buddies Misti Talbert, Delena Toups and Cathy Kuehne sitting up on the dais as Mayor and councilmembers.
In other words, no hard questions at all. Actually, no questions of any kind, really. Ever.
[Misti ALSO sat on the LEDC board at the exact same time she was mayor. So why would she EVER question anything the LEDC does? She’d be impugning her own actions!]
Why would they? They are all good buddies outside the confines of City council. Call it the “Good Old Girls” network. They used to travel every October to the Texas Municipal League convention (on the City’s dime) and have a grand old time.
Goofing around on teeter-totters, dressing up as snowmen, and of course, singing karaoke together several years in a row.
Council members fraternizing with the very employee they oversee ALWAYS leads to conflicts of interest. We have it in spades with the LEDC and City council.
[I get that this is a small town and it’s hard not to know a lot of people, but I never saw Talbert, Kuehne and Toups attend any “lawn maintenance” seminars with Jose the guy who mows the fields at 580 Sports Complex. Just saying!]
But that has all changed now. Talbert and Toups are gone and in their place sits Pearce and Morris – and they want some answers!
After Herb asked this question, Mandy was like a deer in the headlights. There was a VERY long pause (go to 19:24 mark) before she turned around to look behind her into the peanut gallery for some help from SOMEONE..ANYONE. I mean, it was REALLY uncomfortable. I’ve watched it a dozen times.
Here is the screenshot:
Help!!
Turns out her good gal pal (and recently elected president of the LEDC – shocker!) Misti Talbert was out in the peanut gallery ready to swoop in and save her, as we’ll see in a few minutes.
But Mandy couldn’t wait that long. First she stammered about how “I’ve only been here since 2017” and then she offered up a non-sequitur about how “we don’t have other land to offer a prospect coming into the City right now” – which has nothing to do with the question Herb asked. She was pretty much stammering nonsense answers – then quickly thought to turn it over to Finley, who is an expert at babbling bullshit:
“Help! Finley?? Wanna step in here and do my job for me??”
Finley dutifully stepped in and glazed over the eyes of council with gems like “leveraging enterprise funds”.
It wasn’t long until Misti charged in from the Peanut Gallery to save the day – and BOY was she talking a million miles a minute! Telling us about “the reality of the situation”.
The “reality” is she told a whopper right off the bat:
21:20 mark: “I’ve been on the EDC board since I think 2014…15…at the time we started revving things back up…at that time, there wasn’t even a director for the EDC, it was just the board…“
[Yes, by all means, let’s start in 2014 – TEN YEARS after you bought the land. We’ll just ignore everything before that, Herb!]
“How could you expect us to get anything done in 17 years with only two million dollars! WE DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A DIRECTOR FOR THE EDC!”
You’d think someone who has been buried like a tick in City government for all these years would know her history. There most certainly WAS an Economic Development Director during that period. Does the name “Kathi Masonheimer” ring a bell?
It should ring a bell. She is listed as “Economic Development Director” over and over in your own LEDC minutes all during that time frame. Go ahead and check for yourselves! Minutes from 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016.
ED Director Masonheimer even assured us publicly that all the money they spent in 2015 was going to do the trick:
“Recent land clearing and development of a road at the business park, Mrs. Masonheimer added, have made the site more attractive to prospective businesses and U.S. 183 passersby.” – Oct 23, 2015
Furthermore, Masonheimer was also telling us that the “business” park was going to be generating lots of money soon – this was back on September 23, 2014:
“The LEDC’s new debt service payment will be about $150,000 a year, Mrs. Masonheimer said. The economic development corporation projects annual revenue of about $250,000, which will leave approximately $100,000 for operating costs after making loan payments. “
Whoops. Another “LEDC projection” pipe dream crashes down. But hey, the LEDC will REALLY be right with their predictions this time! Pinkie swear!!
Misti then stated [21:32 mark] that “Economic development within the City of Lampasas….everybody can look at and see…that is something to be proud of”
Huh? Examples please. Or do we just take your word for it as a self-evident truism? Which “development” are you all responsible for? Burger King? Whattaburger? Schlotskys? The Corner Store? Cefco?
I have news for Misti: all that “development” was going to happen ANYWAYS. – with or without a City bureaucrat on the payroll costing us over $100,000. Large corporations know EXACTLY when to move into an area. It all has to do with population, traffic and demographics – NONE of which are controlled by Mandy Walsh and the LEDC.
In short, the REAL answer to your question, Herb is “Because the LEDC motto is ‘Ready, Shoot, Aim”. Misti is essentially admitting that the LEDC bought that land back in 2004 with NO IDEA what the hell they were gonna do.
They had no idea in 2004 when they bought it. They had no idea in 2014 when they decided to blow another $1.3 million on it. They have no idea NOW as they stand before you asking for ANOTHER $2 million dollars. This is the same group of amateurs that was conned for a YEAR by Mike Cour and his Eco-Strong pipe dream.
In fact – that would be a GREAT question for Mandy and Misti next time they stand before council:
Some (relative) fireworks last night as a City council member actually asked some tough questions of Mandy Clause and the Lampasas Economic Dunces Club (LEDC) about their “business” park. Kudos to Herb Peace for asking some tough questions that former council members like Delena Toups would never ask.
Let’s get to some highlights:
15:20 mark: Mandy says “this project is fully funded by the EDC”. This is not true. You are borrowing $1.5 million and posting future sales tax collections as your “collateral”. Sales tax that would otherwise be going to the CITY and its citizens for services.
15:40 mark: Mandy “We receive RFIs from the governors office on a weekly basis – and they’re all looking for acreage and, currently, as it stands, there is nowhere to put someone…that’s looking for even 2 to 5 acres…we’re having to pass up on some possible prospects because we don’t have the land and we’re not fully developed“
From the way Mandy paints this picture, you’d think the poor, underfunded LEDC was just formed last year and operates on a shoestring budget.
“Everybody wants to come here and set up shop! We’re missing the boat!!”
The LEDC has only spent 17 years and millions of dollars so far – and you expect them to have a finished product? Especially after they basically said in 2015 “Hey, we have a finished product!”
“Ms. Toups said she wants to continue to provide infrastructure to develop the business park. Ms. Toups said through the Lampasas Economic Development Corp.’s hard work, “we are on the verge of seeing large corporations come in [to the business park]” – April 21, 2017
Guess that was another lie. They sure have a way of piling up when the LEDC starts talking.
Let’s be clear about something else: the “prospects” are not looking for acreage, they are looking for a handout from the taxpayers. Period. There are TONS of acres around here. I see them every day. So let’s cut the shit about “no land available” – what the prospect wants is free or subsidized acreage, courtesy of the taxpayers. Huge difference.
In fact, Mike Cour and Eco-Strong strung Mandy Walsh, Misti Talbert and TJ Monroe along for about a YEAR and THEN said “hey, we need $1.85 million from you to start this thing” – and it promptly fell apart.
Mike Cour, who flat-out lied to my face and said “we aren’t asking for anything from the City”, later asked for $1.85 million, as you can see from his shitty PowerPoint page above
17:15 mark: New councilman Herb Peace asks “do you have a list of names of the people that have contacted you from the governor’s office?“
Bravo Herb! I have been arguing for that info repeatedly for years. They always keep everything a huge secret. Mandy’s answer??
“I have a list of the projects…the names are confidential….until they choose a site and are ready to start building and developing”
BAM. That is absolute bullshit. I don’t care what the “procedure” is, there is ZERO reason to keep the “prospect” a secret until the very last second. The thought of some clever businessman/scam artist going up against Mandy, Misti and TJ Monroe at the “negotiating table” in a secret room makes me nauseous. That is because Misti Talbert, TJ Monroe, and the rest of the LEDC are incapable and incompetent when it comes to vetting a “prospect”.
How do I know that the LEDC is incapable of “negotiating” a “deal” with a prospect? Because their last “prospect” (which they also kept super secret) strung them along for a YEAR before being dumped. Not a single person on the LEDC (all of whom are STILL there) thought to do a cursory Google search on Mike Cour or Eco-Strong.
Let me repeat that: their ONE and ONLY “prospect” they have had for their ‘Business’ Park and who they tried their best to keep secret, was a CON MAN who has been in the paper for CONNING clients out of money!!
Don’t believe me? Check out “Triton Financial in Austin Texas Lawsuits“
We already covered the large amounts of payments (kinda/sorta hidden from easy view) that were made from the LEDC to Eckermann Engineering for the ‘business’ park debacle:
Now we I’ll walk you through a short exercise in logic:
LEDC was making the first installment of those $70,800 in payments to Eckermann “for engineering services of Business Park Phase 1 Roadway and Utility Improvements”back in JUNE of 2019.
It therefore follows that they were making these plans to have Eckermann “engineer” the park even before that – probably in early 2019. But for SURE in April and May of 2019.
Covid-19 was not around back in June of 2019. It hadn’t been released on the world yet and would not happen for another 7 months – therefore, the LEDC and City HAD to already have a plan to pay for this “Phase I” construction, right? Their plan could NOT have been: “hey, let’s grab millions in federal Covid funds next year” because there was no such thing yet.
If they DID have a plan on how to pay for all this back then, then why are they now screaming poor and talking about begging to Uncle Sam for some “Covid relief grants”? Why not go ahead with the original plan on how to pay for the Phase I plans that Eckermann was about to engineer for them (at a cost of $70k)
The LEDC is funded by sales tax receipts and sales tax receipts were UP over 14% last year!! Therefore, the LEDC was not economically injured by Covid. Quite the opposite. Therefore, the original plan from May of 2019 on how the hell to pay for all of this should still be in play – nothing has changed in terms of LEDC funding
If they DID NOT have a plan on how to pay for all of this after Eckmermann banged out his $70,800 master plan papers, then that is basically an admission of monumental incompetence and stupidity on the part of the LEDC and City council. They are basically telling us, “yeah, we wasted $70,800 for a pile of engineering plans, but we have no idea how we are going to fund the ACTUAL construction of those plans.
So which is it, LEDC??
Option one: you had a plan on how to pay for Phase I BEFORE you threw $70,800 at Eckermann – a plan you should still be able to use, since you have not been financially injured.
Option two: you had no idea back in June of 2019 how in the hell you were going to pay for all this and you were just winging it and playing it by ear. You were willing to waste $70,800 on plans that might never even come to fruition.
