LEDC – Page 5 – The Original Lampasshole

LEDC Grant Numbers Don’t Add Up. Is Grant Program Even Legal??

As usual with the LEDC, the rules, regulations, mission statements and math never seem to add up.

Recently, Mandy Walsh told us that the LEDC would be giving out “grants” (free money) to local businesses who were closed down because of the Wuhan virus. She claims they are able to do this by “authority of the EDC under Sec. 505.103, Texas Local Government Code” [page 5].

Great. So if you go LOOK UP Section 505.103 in the Texas Local Government Code, you get this:

“A Type B corporation may spend not more than 10 percent of the corporate revenues for promotional purposes.”

That is literally all it says. OK – fine.

Unfortunately, Mandy has said this program will hand out $100,000 in free money, presumably for “promotional purposes” since that is what Sec 505.103 says. The LEDC “corporate revenues” (sales taxes they skim from the citizens) are roughly $300,000 (according to their last available Form 990 Part VIII Section 12 = $309,746)

By my math, 10% of $309,746 is $30,974 NOT $100,000.

So, what say you Jo-Christy Brown?? Is this legal or what?? Sure doesn’t look like it. But I’m not a high-priced City attorney either….just a tax cow to be milked.

LEDC Trying To Buy Your Love and Distract From Millions Wasted Elsewhere

The LEDC is clearly trying to improve their image by handing out up to $100,000 in grants (free money) to local businesses hurt by the Wuhan virus forced closings. They will do this in chunks of up to a $3,000 maximum per business. You can see the details HERE [page 4 and 5].

It makes sense that they do this. After all, it would look pretty awful for Mandy Walsh to cost the taxpayers her usual $101,285 in salary [page 82] and benefits as LEDC ‘Director’ for doing nothing while the peons who pay her salary are suffering. The LEDC skims about $300,000 a year in sales taxes to play with on their pet projects….so I guess they figure they better throw a few crumbs to the unwashed masses. Otherwise, people might start taking notice of their mammoth waste.

Roughly $4 MILLION tax dollars skimmed in 18 years (2019 estimate at $300,000)

So, between the LEDC skim of $300,000 PLUS Mandy’s salary/benefits of over $101,000 PLUS all the ridiculous conventions she goes to (like the TML nonsense) – we are approaching maybe $420,000 PER YEAR being squandered.

Now, as much as I prefer some actual taxpayers getting a sliver of their taxes handed back to them, I would MUCH prefer the LEDC didn’t exist in the first place. They have wasted MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of dollars over the years with pretty much nothing to show for it.

So NOW they are going to assemble a special blue-ribbon panel (see video below) to decide who gets some $1000 or $3000 bones thrown to them. Who comprises this august group which will decide who gets some candy? Well, a lot of the same names you hear all the time: TJ Monroe (LOL)…Finley deGraffenreid…Mandy Walsh…Misti Talbert.

I picture something like this – from Revenge of the Nerds. The nerds are the poor business owners groveling to TJ and Mandy for some crumbs. Mandy Walsh is Stan Gable laughing at you saps! Kneel gentlemen!!

Delana Toups Three Year Anniversary Of Being Wrong About Business Park

Three years ago today, then-candidate for City council Delana Toups made the following horribly inaccurate statement to The Lampasas Dispatch hoping to justify the millions wasted on this ~~corpse repository~~ ‘business park’ which still sits as an empty weed patch today:

“Ms. Toups said she wants to continue to provide infrastructure to develop the business park — which she said [her opponent ‘Greasy’ Chris] Harrison spoke against publicly. 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

On the ‘verge’? As in Detroit Lions are on the ‘verge’ of winning the Superbowl? Or I am on the ‘verge’ of having ripped, six-pack abs and becoming fluent in Icelandic? That kind of ‘verge’?

I’m not sure that phrase means what she thinks it means. Here is the definition.

My only question: since you were all so wrong about this 3-5 years ago, what makes you think continuing to spend millions will ever be correct? I’m willing to bet another three years will pass and we will STILL be ‘on the verge’ of large corporations entering the ‘business park’.

City Council Special Session Tonight at 5:30pm – ** Updated As We Go!!

I’ll be live updating again. Can’t wait to hear all the details of Mandy’s ‘free LEDC money’ proposal!

5:35pm – Council being fashionably late. A whopping 14 people are waiting on-line to watch. About the same as last live-stream. Good thing you built that $1.5 million vanity project to hold 100 citizens. LOL. Can’t even get more than 14 to watch the easy way. SAD!

Video cuts in at 5:35pm, looks like meeting was already underway – nice job guys! Finley in the middle of a dissertation.

5:40pm – down to 12 people watching on-line. A citizen has called in. Can’t hear shit through the $96,000 A/V system, however. No idea what he’s rambling about. Mike White says they will probably have to pull from reserves this year to balance the budget. I’d say that’s most definitely true.

5:47pm – I will say, it IS nice to hear council argue over a proposal instead of rubber stamping something 7-0, as they usually do. Misti making her case that SHE (and council) shut down the businesses and therefor SHE (and council) have to pay something back. I don’t entirely disagree with that logic, except you should have let things open back up already. Two weeks is one thing. Two months is another. Let the damn businesses OPEN BACK UP, as I’ve argued before.

I love watching Randy Clark frustrate the rest of City council with his million questions. Just saying. He’s probably a nice guy but seems like he doesn’t know where he is most of the time.

5:52pm – this is devolving into quite a mess. Bottom line is you will NEVER make an electric utility payout plan that will make everyone happy. Somebody (probably many somebodies) will get hosed badly. It’s a no-win situation. Holy shit! There are 16 people watching! I’m guessing half are readers here at Lampasshole.com

5:54pm – TJ Monroe is yammering now. She still hasn’t learned how to talk into her $250 microphone, so it is all unintelligible. No great loss – she’s usually wrong on every issue. Up to 18 people watching this circus! Oops – there’s the 7-0 rubber stamp – a unanimous vote to implement some kind of two-tiered utility relief thingy. No idea what the wording is.

6:00pm – discussing waiving credit card fees for people paying their utilities. Very stupid idea. People can still pay other ways – the City incurs the cost from the credit card companies and those will not be waived. City will eat roughly $5,600 a month if they waive these fees. Council getting carried away with the giving spirit (*cough Kuehne cough*). Easy to do when they money isn’t yours! We’re at 22 people watching. Holy shit. Delana Toups arguing the correct side of the CC fee waiver. Hell hath frozen over.

Randy Clark back muddying the water with circular questions once again! BAHAHAHAHAHA. I’d go nuts if I had to sit on council with this guy. You guys REALLY need to turn on comments on YouTube. I think you’d get WAY more people if we could make jokes about all this shit in real-time.

6:07pm – I can’t believe they are wasting this much time on waiving CC fees. They should NOT be waived. If only they spent this much time worrying about $96,000 no-bid A/V systems and $180,000 no-bid bathrooms. CC fee waiver is voted upon…goes down 3-4 as it should. TJ Monroe on the wrong side of that too. Shocker. Kuehne and Randy Clark join her on wrong side…but to be fair, I’m not sure Randy knows what planet he is on.

6:10pm – discussing re-opening the golf course. DO IT!!! Jesus. Van Berry (golf course head honcho) arguing his case. Van and Ricky Roy (from my impression in the minutes over the years) are two of the few City employees with their heads NOT buried in their ass. Love to see a Berry/Roy ticket running for City Mayor and VP for life. Hell yeah. Van has clearly put a ton of thought into this – already figured out the flags, the rakes and water fountains. You City council bozos need to put Van Berry in charge of the entire City.

Aahhhhh shit. Randy Clark in there asking silly questions again. I think I’m going to call him “The Speed Bump” because he completely slows down every discussion.

6:15pm – golf course will reopen (unanimous vote). YAY! Now Finley is talking about telephone poles. Excuse me while I refill my vodka and take a shit. This might be a while. Twenty people watching online.

6:20pm – Holy Christ. Misti discussing changing her “closed forever” order when it comes to the Chinese virus. She is making a TON of sense. She even said “personal responsibility” when it comes to protecting your own health. Good for her. Perhaps I’ve been to hard on her. She is running this meeting like a boss. Finley is falling in line too. Wow. I am fairly shocked. Great job guys!!!!

My YouTube feed has frozen up. Pretty sure Mandy Walsh is supposed to make her case for the $3,000 handouts from the LEDC. Still waiting….

UPDATE Tuesday morning- well, it appears Mandy and her LEDC proposal were jammed into that first couple minutes of the meeting that did not get shown on live-stream. It is on the audio version, which can be found HERE. I’ll cover this in a later post.

LEDC Operating In Complete Secrecy

Where to start with the utter lack of transparency on the part of the Lampasas Economic Dunces Club? Let’s look at their track record so far this year. Remember, this is a group that handles HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars annually and has wasted millions on a ‘business park’ boondoggle that has gone nowhere.

LEDC is supposed to meet once a month – on the third Wednesday. Meetings are supposed to be open to the public and minutes are supposed to be TAKEN AND POSTED so the taxpayers (the ones FINANCING these idiots) have a clue what is going on. Here is a list of the minutes for far for the year 2020:

Impressive! Here we are on April 19th – and FOUR meetings should be archived. Instead we have ONE from three months ago. How did this happen?

The February meeting DID take place, but apparently the minutes are off limits. I specifically asked the City secretary for a copy of those minutes and was told “the minutes of the February 19 [meeting] were not on the agenda, so the minutes were not considered and the reason they are not on the website“

So the minutes for the FEBRUARY 19th MEETING will not be posted until May 20th. Lovely.

They didn’t bother having a meeting in March. That is also typical. They usually skip one meeting a year, at the very least.

The April 15th meeting was (as always) held in the $1.5 million Jack Calvert Fishbowl Vanity Project. That is the SAME place City council holds their meetings and live-streams to the citizens. It was not open to the public, but the LEDC couldn’t be bothered to use the $96,000 A/V system there to stream or at LEAST record audio like City council does. Instead, these dummies decided the citizens would have to go through the arduous process of registering to view the meeting on Zoom – a very well-known piece of junk that only a dunce would sign up for.

Incredible: the City ALREADY PAID FOR a $96,000 A/V system to record audio and video of meetings….but the LEDC can’t be bothered with that. Instead they want the taxpayers to dick around with a third-party, piece of crap teleconferencing site. There is absolutely no reason for this. I asked Finley two months ago during our face-to-face why the LEDC doesn’t use the $96,000 A/V system that is sitting right there in the meeting room. He had no answer. He didn’t know.

I was also told point-blank by the City secretary that “there is no recording” of the April meeting. Lovely again! I sure hope somebody at least took some minutes. Otherwise, they might be in violation of their charter.

So, we have ZERO idea what is going on with the LEDC as they prepare to hand out $3,000 checks to random businesses in town to “help them out” of the Chinese virus mess [page 3 agenda].

Luckily, LEDC will be having a meeting with City council on Monday the 20th (tomorrow) and that WILL be live-streamed and recorded. Nice of somebody to let the taxpayers know what is going on. But if you ask me, having Mandy Walsh and other City employees and bureaucrats in charge of handing out tens of thousands of tax dollars to random businesses is a recipe for disaster.

Also: “The LEDC review committee is the sole and final authority in determining eligibility for funding.“[page 5] LOL. Gotta love it. I’m wondering if there will be PUBLIC RECORDS of WHO gets HOW MUCH money. There better damn well be, or this is just a random and arbitrary slush fund run by City bozos and bureaucrats.

I’m also wondering if handing out $3,000 checks to businesses of THEIR arbitrary choosing is even legal. They claim “authority of the EDC under Sec. 505.103, Texas Local Government Code” [page 5]. So, of course I went and looked that up. Here it is:

“A Type B corporation may spend not more than 10 percent of the corporate revenues for promotional purposes.”

First of all, how is this ‘promotional purposes’? It’s a giveaway, plain and simple. Secondly, if I am not mistaken, the LEDC skims about $300,000 in sales tax revenue per year for their little slush fund – so that would mean a max payout of $30,000 for this little program….or ten whole businesses.

Wonder how they will pick those ten lucky recipients out of hundreds. Will people who were nice to Mandy get first dibs? Maybe someone on the LEDC has a brother-in-law and HE will get first dibs. Who knows. All the more reason to drop this idea and simply disband the entire silly LEDC and let people KEEP WHAT THEY EARN themselves instead of begging City bureaucrats for some crumbs back.

Socialism Alert! LEDC Now Worried About ‘Affordable Housing” – And Allowed To Waste Money On It.

The deeper I dig into the Lampasas Economic Dunces Club, the worse it looks. On January 15th, they posted their most recent “Incentive Guidelines and Principles” [page 7] in their monthly meeting packet.

What is in there should alarm all fiscally responsible, hard-working taxpayers. The “gimme free shit” crowd and the trailer trash with five kids they can’t afford will love it, however.

Please turn your attention to Page 10: Not all Type B projects are required to create or retain primary jobs. The following projects are NOT required to create or retain primary jobs:”

A long list follows this, and when you get to “E” you see “Affordable housing”.

Say WHAT??? What exactly does ‘affordable housing’ have to do with economic development? Nothing. It is simply a handout. It sounds like something that moron Nancy Pelosi would say: “food stamps are GOOD for the economy because then the people can go spend it and stimulate the economy” (yes, she said this once).

That would be like taking all the money from the HEB cash registers and handing it out to bums in the parking lot so they can go shop inside at HEB. Idiot socialists/libs only look at ONE side of the ledger, ignoring that that same money is stolen from someone else.

“We need more affordable housing” is liberal/socialist talk for “take money from people who earned it and hand it to people who didn’t”. It’s really as simple as that.

The funny thing is that Deorald Finney and his Stone Valley housing development are selling houses now in the $200,000 range. Seeing as how there are plenty of houses on Zillow in the $120,000 to $140,000 range, I would say Mr Finney’s new houses are on the expensive side – and thus NOT affordable. Yet the City essentially handed him $70,000 in tax dollars for his new development.

The City of Lampasas and The Seven Goldfish voted to WAIVE electrical hookup fees for ALL 69 of Deorald’s planned houses. That is over $70,000 in foregone revenue for the City – all so Finney could make an extra 1% on each house.

Tell me this: if Finney had a house listed in Stone Valley and said “you can buy this house for $200,000 with NO electricity OR you can pay $201,150 for the house WITH electricity, how many people would say ‘go ahead and give me the electricity’? All of them – they would GLADLY pay an extra measly $1,150. NOBODY would balk at that extra pocket change to have power in the house. It represents far less than 1% of the price. Therefore, this $70,000 handout to a rich developer was a complete waste and did ZERO for the City coffers, ZERO for ‘development’ and ZERO for ‘affordable housing’.

The very term “affordable housing” is complete nonsense. It’s like a “livable wage”. It cannot be defined as it differs for each individual, therefore success cannot be measured, and therefore the socialist/lib (or LEDC) can always have a job redistributing the wealth as the ‘problem’ can never be solved.

It’s as idiotic as me whining that there are “no affordable Corvettes over at Hoffpauir Chevy” or “there are no affordable private jets around here”. You don’t have a RIGHT to ANY of that stuff.

To the libs and commies and SJW morons: you are NOT entitled to a house/apartment. You are NOT even entitled to an “affordable” house/apartment. If you cannot afford the housing that is in your area, either (1) move to a more affordable area (2) lower your expectations (3) work more hours and/or increase your value as an employee or (4) get a roommate or two…or three. PERIOD.

(Oh, and maybe stop having 4, 5 or 6 kids you cannot afford – since they will likely grow up to be the next generation of parasites asking for the same handouts)

Pretty sure we already have Section 8 housing around town…and those tenants always treat their “free” stuff so well, don’t they? We need Mandy Walsh and the Economic Dunce Club handing out MORE ‘free’ housing like we need colostomy bags on our hips.

If Mandy Walsh or any of the other LEDC geniuses are SO concerned about ‘affordable housing’, I suggest they open their own wallets, buy a house currently on the free market, and go ahead and rent it out at a very low rate. Maybe jam a white trash welfare family with five kids in there. Maybe even let them live there for free! See how that works out for you.

No? Well, if it’s not a good idea with your own money, it ain’t a good idea with mine. Go pound sand.

Eliminate the LEDC. Stop meddling in the free market. Let workers keep what they earn instead of stealing it to hand to someone else.

Lampasas Economic Dunces Club – Wildly Off On Cost Projections (Once Again)

Less than 6 years ago, the Lampasas Economic Dunces Club (LEDC) made projections of costs all the way out to the 2019/2020 year (which happens to be NOW). As is ALWAYS the case, they were completely wrong. Just like they were wrong in 2014 and 2015 about an imminent influx into the ~~corpse repository~~ ‘business’ park.

The point of this exercise is to ONCE AGAIN prove you cannot believe ANY of the asinine promises of the LEDC OR the City government. EVERYTHING ends up costing far more and producing far less benefit than promised. That is the very nature of government – be it federal, state or even little ol’ Lampassy.

Finley is the poster boy for this kind of stuff.

Below is a photo of cost projections posted in the July 2014 LEDC minutes (see page 6).

Now, see a photo of the APPROVED recent budgets – the REALITY 5.5 years later (page 152):

Let’s look at more proof that government and (quasi-governmental groups of economic illiterates) ALWAYS grows faster and spends more than projected.

SALARY: projected $47,530 ACTUAL $71,448 (plus $28,462 in benefits – page 82) 110% higher

PHONE: projected $720 ACTUAL $1,176 (63% higher)

TRAVEL/TRAINING: projected $5,000 ACTUAL $7,500 (50% higher)

ENGINEERING: projected $5,000 ACTUAL $10,000 (100% higher)

PROMOTION/ADVERT: projected $5,000 ACTUAL $7,500 (50% higher)

BUSINESS EXPENSE: projected $1,000 ACTUAL $5,000 (400% higher)

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES: projected $9,000 ACTUAL $7,000 – this may look good as it is $2,000 LOWER than projected. However, if you look at the 2017/2018 year ACTUAL, it was $39,393 versus $9,000 projected!!! OVER FOUR TIMES HIGHER.

The category of “professional services” (which I covered HERE) probably enrages me the most. It is a category which should not exist. Was it legal expense? Engineering? Advertising? No – because those are listed separately. So what ‘professional service’ cost $39,393 yet cannot be listed specifically and requires this vague horseshit catch-all term? Those types of vague categories where tens of thousands go POOF always stink to high heaven.

Perhaps you think I’m unfair to immediately suspect graft? Lest you have forgotten: Their tax filings SPECIFICALLY ask “Does the organization have any ‘conflict of interest’ policy?” – and the LEDC answers NO every year [Part VI section B, 12a].

I think these two photos say it all – they encapsulate what a giant failure the LEDC is and how their ridiculous pipe dreams always fail to come to fruition:

More Money Torched By LEDC – ‘Professional Services’

From 2004 through 2013, the LEDC incinerated over $250,000 of taxpayer money on ‘professional services’ (later labeled ‘contract services in 2012 and 2013). I stopped listing at 2013 because I have already covered 2014 onwards by a records request previously. That’s where Pope Eckermann really had his snout in deep and I didn’t want to double count. For instance, ‘contract services’ was $138,516 in 2015 – which overlaps with the $168,740 I previously showed him scarfing down.

What are ‘professional services’? Who the hell knows. Nice and vague. The IRS Form 990 gives you a LOT of categories into which you can slot your expenses. But LEDC chose to enter their own. Here is a list I made by compiling them by year:

In 2003, they just used the term “other services” which is even MORE vague. It is a whopping $185,794!!! (or over $250,ooo in today’s dollars). I have to think if a quarter of a MILLION dollar line item popped up in the LEDC today and it said “other services” it would seriously raise some eyebrows. Looks like these idiots got away with murder back then.

I mean, this was BEFORE they bought the ~~corpse repository~~ ‘business’ park! These clowns start up a “non-profit” for “economic development” and then have the balls to spend $230,000 on “legal fees”, “admin and overhead” and “other”? Jesus Christ! These are UNELECTED BOZOS making huge sums disappear ($320,000 in today’s dollars!)

That “admin and overhead” number adds up too! It was $18,000 in 2003 ($25,000 in today’s dollars) then jumped to $24,000 in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Finally, it dropped in half to $12,000 from 2007 up until present day….or another $246,000 vanishing into thin air.

Admin and overhead for what, exactly? We already have Mandy Walsh ostensibly running the LEDC for $101,285 in salary and benefits. Soon, the City will create another Nerf job (Development Director) costing the taxpayer another six-figures. Yet the LEDC still needs $12,000 per year for “admin and overhead”? Lovely.

Start adding all these nickels and dimes up and you can see how the LEDC wasted the $4.1 million dollars they have skimmed since 2000.

Well, it’s not entirely wasted. We DO have a 165 acre weed patch with $800k of water/sewer pipes under the dirt. Eckermann is hard at work as we speak spending the latest $100,000 to ‘develop’ this shovel-ready site even more!!

More LEDC Numbers Don’t Add Up…I Am Shocked

Every IRS filing for the Lampasas Economic Development Corporation has some numbers showing how many hours per week the officers ‘worked’. It looks something like this:

There are two problems with this. First of all, there are ZERO hours listed for “any hours for related organizations below dotted line”. I would think Talbert and Monroe would list their City council minutes below there, since their positions on City council are VERY closely related to the LEDC slush fund.

But even worse is the fact that the hours spent in LEDC meetings (according to their own minutes) do not even REMOTELY match the hours listed on their Form 990 submitted to the IRS.

They have all listed two hours PER WEEK on the IRS form (Millican and Lindeman list 1 hour only) – or 104 hours per YEAR conducting LEDC business.

The problem is, the LEDC minutes contradict this WILDLY. They are off by ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE.

Granted, the IRS filings show the fiscal year numbers (Oct 1 through Sep 30) and the minutes for the LEDC run from Jan 1 through Dec 31….but they both run for 12 months. Even though they do no overlap exactly, they show wildly divergent numbers.

For 2019 (using the LEDC’s own minutes), I show a grand total of 14.75 hours spent in meetings. Yes, you read that correctly. Just over ONE HOUR PER MONTH for an organization sucking down $300,000 of tax dollars per year. Your tax dollars hard at work!

Yup – they only met TEN times in 2019…for an average of 90 minutes each time.

Their IRS filings imply they worked 104 hours per year. Their own minutes indicate they met for 14.75 hours per year.

Now, you might say “well, they only MEET for 14.75 hours per year, but they take a lot of work home on the weekends”. LOL. Sure they do. If you believe that one, I have a Cajun restaurant on Key Avenue to sell you.

More to come…..

OUTRAGEOUS Tidbits From LEDC Non-Profit Filings

We will be doing a DEEP dive on the Lampasas Economic Development Corporation for the next few posts. I have been reviewing ALL of their 501(c)(3) tax filings since inception in 2000. Nearly TWENTY years of shenanigans and obscene money wasting.

Lets start with how much money the LEDC have skimmed off of productive citizens. Their main source of “revenue” is sales tax. Since their formation in the year 2000 through Sept 2018 (the last Form 990 available online) they have skimmed $3,796,974 for this ridiculous slush fund.

Seeing as how the amount of sales tax skimmed has increased every single year for the last 17 years (except 2009), I think it is safe to assume it increased for the 2018/2019 tax year as well. Which means we can safely tack another $300,000 onto that total.

**UPDATED 6/9/21** – Income for 2019 filing was $313,229

Yes, the LEDC is now skimming ~~about~~ OVER $300,000 PER YEAR in sales tax revenue to run their little slush fund.

Let’s call it a nice even FOUR POINT ONE MILLION DOLLARS skimmed.

They purchased their ‘Business Park’ land on Oct 1, 2003 according to the records….for $909,835. They carried it on their books at that exact price until it was marked down on their 2013 tax filings to $817,978 (Schedule D Part VI).

The sudden change fits my other info: that the LEDC paid Herbst Real Estate to do an appraisal in 2012. So it makes sense this new value shows up in the filing date ending Sept 2013.

Only a group of clowns like this could buy land for $909,835 and have it worth 10% LESS ten years later. Did they think to have it appraised BEFORE they bought it? I’d love to know who sold these chumps the land.

The most disturbing and disgusting part about the $4.1 million being skimmed over the last 19 years is that their controls are nonexistent. Their tax filings SPECIFICALLY ask “Does the organization have any ‘conflict of interest’ policy?” – and the LEDC answers NO every year [Part VI section B, 12a].

That means that officers, directors, trustees and key employees are NOT required to disclose interests that could give rise to conflicts.

They also answered NO to “does the organization have and written document retention and destruction policy”.

Pathetic.

Know what else? They immediately spent $43,429 on ‘engineering and surveying’ in 2004 – right after buying the property [Schedule A – part VII]. Wonder who got THAT chunk of cash. Remember, that is 2004 dollars…which is equivalent to $59,000 in today’s dollars.

Kind of makes you wonder why, after $59,000 of surveying, they had to hand Pope Eckermann $168,740 AGAIN between 2014 and 2016. How many times can you engineer/survey the same piece of land??

Look at the other GOBS of money flushed down the toilet: $24,000 on ‘admin and overhead’, $23,408 on ‘miscellaneous’, $20,900 on ‘other services’, $34,240 on ‘professional services’. WTF???? $146,913 vaporized in the blink of an eye! [$200,000 in today’s dollars]

Then let’s get into the LEGAL fees they have wasted…..they blew over FIFTY-ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in 2003 and 2004 alone ($69,000 in today’s dollars!). I’m assuming related to the purchase of the land? What else could it be? Who knows but that is an insane amount of legal fees.

[More coming soon as this is a huge amount of work to dig all these out of the archives]