Tag: LEDC lies

City Finally Admits There Are “No Responsive Documents.” LEDC Lied.

Well, they waited until 4:46pm on a Friday (a day after the deadline) but finally caved in and admitted the LEDC lied. From the City secretary:

“The City and LEDC have searched, and as you were previously advised by email from me on June 28, 2023, responsive documents to that particular EDC Matrix entry do not exist, at this time.“

Thank you for your interest in the City and LEDC.

So the line that says “jobs announced” and is filled in with “20 – 35 jobs” and $700,000 in capital investment was made up out of thin air, apparently. The “responsive documents” they supposedly used to come up with that “20 to 35 jobs” DO NOT EXIST.

So – where did you get that “jobs announced” number? I don’t know. There are “no responsive documents” and we made that shit up. OR they have nothing but an oral agreement from their secret business pork prospect. But the fact remains, there is nothing agreed to in writing, since there are “no responsive documents” according to the City.

Most likely Stacey Ybarra did this. LEDC President Misti Talbert gets paid nothing for her position and is likely not smart enough to make a spreadsheet like that. Ybarra, on the other hand, gets paid over $100k in salary and benefits and needs to look like she’s keeping busy to justify that ridiculous salary.

Next up: an Open Records Request for the line that says “Announcements/project wins: 1” which looks like yet more bragging about jobs that nobody has put down on paper yet!

City of Lampasas Now In Violation Of Public Information Act. They Must REALLY Be Painted Into a Corner.

Such a simple request: the LEDC has PUBLICLY bragged about “20 to 35 jobs” being ‘announced’ – not to mention $700,000 in “capital investment.” I filed an Open Records Request asking the name of the company back on June 28th (as well as several times weeks earlier in an “unofficial” capacity).

That’s it. Just a name. Not details of any deals. Not trade secrets. Not proprietary information. Just spit out the name of the company that YOU brought up PUBLICALY in order to brag and make yourselves look like you were doing something amazing by creating all these jobs.

Boy has that backfired.

You think maybe Stacey Ybarra or Misti Talbert or whoever it was who invented the idiotic “Economic Development Matrix” wishes they had just kept their mouths shut?

Because now somebody has been trapped in a lie. Either the LEDC or the hack attorney JC Brown. Only a matter of time before we find out which. My money is on the LEDC but I sure hope it is JC Brown because that would be a HUGE professional embarrassment for her: lying to the Attorney General of Texas about there being “no agreements or contracts.”

The City has 10 business days to respond or to request an attorney general ruling. That deadline was yesterday. They have done neither. I’ll now be filing a complaint with the Open Records Division of the Texas Attorney General’s office.

I hate to call out a City council member publicly but I am left no choice in making a thorough retelling of what happened: I also informed Zac Morris (who is second in command over there as Mayor Pro Tem) by email over a week ago that the City was ignoring requests and playing games. He didn’t bother to answer either.

Not a good look.

Anyways, I would suggest the City do a little research on recent cases involving citizens suing Texas municipalities. Maybe ask themselves if they want to go down this road and waste even MORE tax dollars on this nonsense. Because I’ll never, ever stop until I get the answer.

Texas Lawsuits Set New Precedent on Public Information Law Requests

Mandy Walsh Lies Again. City Council Sagely Nods Their Heads

If I had a dollar for every time Mandy Walsh stood before council and lied, I’d have enough money to buy a pre-fab bathroom for Campbell Park!

As usual, the $6 million corpse repository ‘business’ park was the source of her fabrications.

If you go to the 1:21:10 mark of the latest City council video, you will hear her utter her usual nonsense:

“This is an effort to obviously increase our tax base here in Lampasas. So many businesses are looking to relocate…even local businesses looking to expand…this provides land for us to now use…ummm…for those businesses that are looking.“

Lies, lies and more lies.

First of all, the land has been there for 17 years and has been “shovel-ready” for almost 7 years now. Yet no takers! So your rubbish about “this provides us land to now use” is complete bullshit.

Which businesses are looking to locate? City council actually actually asked this question once, and it led to a hilarious “deer in the headlights” response from Mandy. Mandy told us the names of all these businesses are super secret and we aren’t allowed to know that.

Yeah, ok.

If that were true and you have “so many businesses” clamoring to use your land, you could have used that fact to apply for a “standard EDA grant“. But you didn’t…so there aren’t. Either that or you are deliberately passing on tons of ‘free’ government money.

Of course, Mandy and her predecessors at the LEDC have been telling this SAME LIE for over seven years now.

Local businesses looking to expand? I don’t think so. Name one. You ALREADY have a 5.6 acre “industrial park” sitting over there on 580 E that has been a vacant eyesore for YEARS. If you can’t fill a 5.6 acre “business park”, how are you going to fill the 165-acre one? You aren’t.

Also, we DID have a local business that was looking to expand a few years back. City council told them to fuck off. No, I’m not kidding. I already wrote about how the City told Anijimoto to take a hike five years ago when they wanted to expand and create 200 more jobs:

Mandy Walsh Begs Ajinomoto To Back ‘Business Park’. Ajinomoto Offered City 200 New Jobs AND $300,000 Back In 2016. City Declined!!

Oops. Everyone forgets about that, don’t they?

So, to recap:

The LEDC has been skimming millions for 23 years and have nothing to show for it. They have wasted millions on the business park, and have nothing to show for it.

There are “so many businesses” looking to get into the park, but Mandy can’t name one. There are so many local businesses looking to expand, but she can’t name one. There is SO much demand for 5 acre plots from all the secret prospects, but simultaneously the 5.6 acre “industrial” park has sat empty for YEARS.

A REAL company in town offering hundreds of REAL jobs (not pie-in-the-sky bullshit 7 years from now) was told to go fuck themselves. The ONE “prospect” that Mandy and the LEDC wasted a YEAR “negotiating” with (Mike Cour and Eco-Strong) turned out to be a scam artist and scum bag who tried to scam them out of $1.85 million dollars for a tire recycling plant and the deal then promptly fell apart.

Does that about cover it??