By my calculations, it would take maybe $20,000 extra to bump up wages for lifeguards this summer to a respectable level. Without doing that, the city has zero chance of recruiting from a very tight labor market. That would mean the Hannah pool would be closed for TWO YEARS STRAIGHT.
That’s unacceptable. Letting a huge investment like a pool sit there unused for yet ANOTHER summer is a massive failure of leadership from both City council and our overpaid City manager Finley deGraffenreid.
Don’t tell me there isn’t money in the budget. These clowns ALWAYS have a chunk of money to waste on projects and people who don’t deserve it. Here are a few ways the City was wasted a ton of money on themselves and their chosen buddies:
The City spent $7,500 on a grant application that was never submitted.
Wasted $12,000 on a WHIM – for some PLANS (yes, a piece of paper) for a future bike trail that will likely never be built.
City manager was given a very quiet $10,000 raise from $130,000 to $140,000 last May in the middle of a pandemic when taxpayers were losing their jobs by the millions.
They wasted $96,000 on a NO-BID A/V system for City council chambers They had a bid from Broadcast Works for around $35,000 – instead they went no-bid with Azbell and blew an extra $60,000 right there.
They went with a $128,000 elevator (for City Hall remodel again!) when there was a $96,000 bid on the table from Austin Elevator. That’s ANOTHER $32,000 wasted in the blink of an eye.
They sold a building for $75k then bought it back for $229k – City Hall building AGAIN. That’s $154,000 squandered.
They squandered almost $170,000 on a pre-fab BATHROOM in Campbell Park….yet another no-bid project that could have been done for half of that. That’s about $80,000 wasted.
Mike White managed to find about $40,000 instantly last year to provide “free” electricity to the businesses they forced closed due to Wuhan flu – including paying money to Burger King, which is a major corporation listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Apparently there was just $40,000 laying around unused.
Rich developer Deorald Finney was handed “free” electrical hookups for his houses in Stone Valley a year or two ago – at a cost to the City of about $72,000 in lost fees. Deorald lives in a mansion, by the way. But they had no trouble kissing $72,000 goodbye to “help him out”. TJ Monroe actually voted to give him MORE breaks and wanted to waive all his building permit fees!!! Yes, the same TJ Monroe who is up for election in a few weeks.
Developer S2M2 was handed $185,000 for THEIR housing development after FORMER CITY COUNCIL MEMBER “Greasy” Chris Harrison begged for it.
City council and the LEDC spent $15,000 on three giant metal LTX letters that sit in the town square, supposedly attracting throngs of tourists. LOL.
The City has wasted MILLIONS on the “business park”. Literally millions.
The City spent over ONE POINT FIVE MILLION DOLLARS on the “Old City Hall” renovation, which is used by City council twice a month for approximately 2 hours.
City handed $70,800 to Eckermann Engineering to YET AGAIN “survey” and “engineer” the ‘business’ park in preparation for “Phase I” (actually Phase II) construction for a 165-acre goat pasture that has sat empty for the last 17 years or so. City STILL doesn’t know how they are going to pay to implement these plans they paid $70,800 for. Typical!
Sales tax receipts were so far ahead of projections last year (thanks to stimmy money sloshing around) that Finley suggested giving every warm body on the City payroll a 5% raise. Just not the lifeguards, I guess.
So, as you can see: when it comes to handing out piles of money to their rich developer buddies or to build vanity projects to serve themselves (like the Old City Hall project), there is ALWAYS money to be burned.
But try and pay some local high school kids a reasonable wage so a major investment like a COMMUNITY POOL can open up, and that is just a bridge too far.
What a complete clown show.
