Tag: LEDC failure

After 20 Years, Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dollars Wasted And Many Lies Told, LEDC To Hire Broker To Fill The Business Pork.

Last night the LEDC had their monthly meeting. They no longer bother to post any packets about the meeting on their website, but according to agenda item VIII:

“Request for possible action regarding draft RFQ (request for quote) for broker representation for Business Park”

So let me get this straight. They’ve spent the last TWENTY YEARS dicking around in every other way imaginable to fill this thing:

#1 – Junkets to California – yes, this really happened. A bunch of council members and hangers-on actually got on a plane and flew to California for a free vacation economic development excursion. Of course, nothing resulted from it.

#2 – the “weekly RFI (requests for information) from the governor’s office.” I think we can safely say after 19 years of “getting weekly RFIs” and having zero tenants to show for it, that this avenue is and was totally useless. I called them on this exact bullshit nine months ago:

The Lie That Keeps On Giving: RFIs

City’s Hack Attorney J.C. Brown Won’t Even Release The NAMES Of The “Many” Companies Making Requests For Information On Business Park

#3 – Blow money on numerous videos, emails, digital ads, print ads, social media, etc. (Neon Cloud, Site Selection and Flyerview) – cost of over $15,000 in one year alone and WELL over $50,000 since inception. Results? Zero tenants.

#4 – Hire yet another Economic Development Director who said it was her “number-one priority” to find tenants when she was grilled by Rhonda Witcher on the radio. That was almost 18 months ago. Cost? Her salary and benefits are enormous. Results? Zero tenants.

Oh, and Stacy Ybarra is long gone after milking the City for about $200k in salary and benefits. She has yet to be replaced.

#5 – Post the Business Pork on all sorts of commercial websites that already exist for this sort of thing. This includes ReSimplifi and Loopnet.com.

According to Loopnet, the Business Pork isn’t even listed on there anymore!

#6 – DRASTICALLY lowered the bar on financial requirements to move into the Business Pork.

LEDC Lowers Bar In Sad Effort To Fill Their Empty $7.3 Million Business Pork. Tosses Out Many Financial Requirements.

So after failing in so many different expensive and spectacular ways over the last 20 years, Finley and the LEDC have come up with the genius idea to hire a commercial broker who “specializes in commercial development.“

This ought to be fun to watch!!

Current number of days the $7.2 million dollar “Business Park” has been completely empty and devoid of tenants: 7,487

Wading Through Mandy Walsh’s Hip-Deep Horse Shit – PART III

Our final piece on the LEDC ‘business park’ boondoggle/money grab. To continue dissecting the Dispatch puff-piece:

“Currently, the city does not own land that could host a large primary employer”

This statement confuses the hell out of me. My first response is “so what?” – why does the City need to own all the land first before it’s sold to any business? We already have real estate agents to facilitate transfer of property from, say, the rancher to the Big Box Store.

Secondly, what the hell do you call the 165-acre albatross around your neck that IS the business park?? Are you picking nits and saying the CITY doesn’t own it, the LEDC does? Again – so what? No idea what this babbling nonsense means here. Neither the City NOR the LEDC should be in the business of land speculation and/or development, because those organizations are completely populated by dunces.

In the grand finale, Finley “Spinley” DeGraffenreid has to parrot the exact same bullshit he has been saying for at LEAST 7 years. Blah, blah, blah…dividends for the local economy. Where have I heard his bullshit before? Oh yes…the LAST time the City begged for a million bucks to “develop” the park and “make it shovel ready” back in 2014. Here are a couple of Finley quotes from the past:

“We’re at a point now that we have to make that property marketable, otherwise it won’t be developed,” – Finley in August 2020 (last week)

The LEDC was “proactive,” deGraffenried said, in acquiring the U.S. 183 property several years ago for a business park. The goal of utility extensions, the city manager said, is to develop the land into a site that can promote economic growth. – June 17, 2014 (WHOOPS!)

“DeGraffenried said the LEDC was bold in its decisions to purchase the business park property and extend utilities to it. The city manager predicted Lampasas will enjoy many “spin-off benefits” throughout the city because of the utility work. ” – Oct 23, 2015 (OOPSIE! Wrong again!)

So it was developed with a million bucks back in 2014 but apparently still isn’t developed and isn’t marketable.

Wait a sec…the land it not marketable? Hold on here. I remember the LEDC spending boat loads of money to market it with videos, pamphlets, brochures, etc. Hold on a minute. Let me check my notes….

Ah yes – here are some expenditures made to “market” the corpse repository ‘business park’ YEARS AGO…so I guess it actually WAS marketable at one point?

Neon Cloud Productions (promotion video of weed patch) – $3,354.86

Zoom Advertising – logos, magazine ad (LOL!), art work, banner art, business cards (yes, all for a ‘Business Park’ that does STILL not exist 6.5 years later) – $2,190

Only Finley and his gang of dipshits would spend $5,500 marketing land that they now claim can’t be marketed.

I guess the business park is like Schrödinger’s cat: it is both developed and undeveloped at the same time. It is also marketable yet unmarketable. It exists in two quantum states?

We end the Dispatch article with the usual coup de grace of bullshit – the “artists rendition” of the business park.

Bullshit pipe dream

The REALITY is the photo I took myself below:

Reality where corpses are dumped

Shovel ready since Q4 2015!! LOL!