Mike Cour – The Original Lampasshole

Eco-Turd Owner Raising Cash?

You’ll recall that last year, Eco-Strong owner Mike Cour was THIS/CLOSE to dumping his entire 199-acre property for around $6 million – or roughly $30,000 per acre.

This is the SAME guy who wanted some free stuff from the LEDC for this Eco-Turd company. I asked him at the time why he needed free land from the taxpayers if he had 200 acres himself?

He didn’t like me asking those questions.

Anyway, the deal fell through and I hear the would-be buyer walked away from a $100k deposit on the place (this is just what I heard – I have not seen any documentation). THEN, the property was re-listed almost immediately at $5 million. Ouch. Immediate 17% haircut!

So close!

Well, looks like Mike is trying to shave off chunks of the property to raise some cash. Not only do you get 11 whole acres, but you get the apparently-failing “Equicare” business and the included buildings with it…

Trying to keep the Eco-Turd afloat until the LEDC throws some free stuff their way? Guess we’ll soon find out!

Eco-Strong Turd Floats Back To Surface in Lampasas County Breaking News.

Back again from the depths of the toilet bowl. The Eco-Strong turd that refuses to be flushed!!

***It’s ‘better for municipalities’ because they are the only ones dumb enough to pay 5x more than a traditional fence***

I have no idea who TJ Wright is. From what I see on-line, he seems like a respected businessman who runs several companies from fencing to pools and other stuff. I don’t know how much of all those are HIS businesses and which are other businesses he just pushes in some kind of reciprocal agreement.

I hope to god he hasn’t put a dime into Eco-Strong because he will likely regret it down the road.

First of all, these fences are priced WILDLY higher than a normal fence. If you ask for a price on Facebook, you will not get an amount posted publicly, because it is outrageous and they know people will shit their pants and never pay that amount.

How outrageous?

Well, a 500-foot fence will cost you about $47,000 if you want it to be six feet tall. That is over $90 PER LINEAR FOOT.

They try to justify this cost by telling us it “lasts a lot longer”. Really? Does it last six times longer? Can you prove that? Are there any of these sitting around that were built ten or twenty years ago that prove this concept?

Or will Mike Cour (the scumbag who runs Eco-Strong) decide to disappear or go bankrupt before your fence turns ten and you need to collect on that warranty?

Eco-Turd uses the same argument to push rubber sidewalks too. But the truth is that there is no evidence at all that the extra cost is made up for by longevity. Just ask some of the cities in California who have been dumb enough to try rubberized sidewalks:

“After years of experiments with different materials and iterations of rubberized sidewalks, the city’s not sure the idea will work. “It has not panned out from a maintenance standpoint as we expected,” says Sylvester Mabry Jr., manager of Street and Fleet Services for the city of Santa Monica. He says the original impetus for investing in rubberized panels was their estimated 7-to-10 year lifespan, which would have calculated out to be cheaper in the long run than the regularly required tear-outs and re-pours of concrete sidewalks.Mabry says many of the rubberized panels lasted just two years, and the city has stopped installing more until they can achieve the desired lifespan.“

You might also want to ask the poor saps who invested in Triton Financial how their associations with Mike Cour turned out.

Clearly TJ has never read here. So for his sake, I’m going to link to some Eco-Strong articles I have written in the past. Feel free to use the search function to find more. Just search for “Eco-Turd” or “Eco-Flex” or “Mike Cour”.

Somebody Has Some ‘Splaining To Do Regarding Eco-Strong, Mike Cour and the ‘Business’ Park Money Pit

Eco-Flex False Press Release – Part II

Eco-Flex Can’t Get Their Stories Straight – PART III

Eco-Flex and Mike Cour – Bonus Part IV

Alan Champagne and Mike Cour Caught Lying Red-Handed – Part I

More Eco-Turd Discrepancies…

Eco-Turd Being Pushed Even Harder By LEDC. I Am About To Blow Them Out Of The Toilet Water…

Has The Eco-Turd Finally Been Buried?

Poor Mike Cour. Trying to push fences that cost 5x more than normal in THIS economy! Good luck with that, buddy.

** UPDATE 12/5 **

Ruh roh. Rolling out the discounts already. So that $46,000 fence is now only $32,000? What a deal! I think I’d stick with the old-fashioned kind for about $10,000. Plus, these things are fugly as hell…

I’m seriously wondering if those are Photoshopped. Reminds me of the scene in Fargo where he buries the briefcase with $920,000 in it and looks both ways down the fence line and it just goes on and on for miles. Nobody would possibly pay $90 a foot for a half mile of this shit.

More Thoughts On Eco-Turd…

The more I think about it, the less sense it makes for Alan “private jet” Champagne to ship crumb rubber 2,200 miles to Lampasas just to stamp it into the exact same products he is ALREADY making in Alberta.

Like, why not just use the plant, equipment and labor you ALREADY HAVE up there in the Great White North to make all this shit and then ship THAT finished product 2,200 miles to your fellow weasel Mike Cour here in Lampasas?

The shipping costs should be approximately the same and you save millions by not building a second “manufacturing plant” in Lampasas. It makes no sense, unless…(and this is ALL conjecture on my part – I have no evidence for any of these musings. I’m just using logic and reason here – something lacking at the LEDC)….

#1 – The Alberta plant is about to go bankrupt. Maybe the Eco-Flex turd is about to go bust and Alan is covering it all up by saying he is “moving the headquarters to Texas”. This would maybe allow him to grab MORE free money. Mike Cour sure seemed eager to grab more money for “moving headquarters” back in 2020:

***Desperation is a stinky cologne, Mike***

Maybe all this “free” grant money comes with even more bonus cash if you “move a headquarters”. Who knows? But if the plant in Alberta was about to go tits-up, it would be a clever move to kill two birds with one stone.

#2 – There is some kind of huge tariff/tax on finished goods. Maybe the Canadian or U.S. government taxes the shit out of “finished goods” crossing the border but not so much on “commodity” inputs like crumb rubber. If the tax were big enough on Eco-Turd’s finished goods, it would save them a ton of money to just ship the crumb rubber to the U.S. and “manufacture” their stuff here.

If THAT is the case, then the LEDC should realize Eco-Turd is ALREADY getting a huge financial boost by avoiding these taxes and there is no need to hand them even more “free” stuff at the expense of the Lampasas taxpayer. These idiots will NEVER, EVER employ 200 people, so if THAT is the reason you’re throwing free shit at them, you better rethink your plan.

Reminder For the LEDC: Here Are Some Lies From Eco-Strong…

In case the LEDC forgot how they were lied to, strung along and then asked for a ridiculous $1.85 million by Mike Cour of Eco-Strong, I am here to remind you.

Here are some exchanges I had by email with Cour:

Sept 4, 2020: I asked Mike Cour why he needed to sponge free land off of the LEDC. I pointed out that he owned 200 acres literally right down the street on the SAME ROAD as the Business Pork project – why not use THAT land?

Mike Cour’s answer?

“My property was one of the options but unfortunately does not give us enough space to operate the current business and this new business”.

The “current business” was Equicare, which seems to have failed. Of course, at the same time Mike Cour told me this whopper, he was asking the LEDC for 5 acres of land. FIVE! So out of your 200 acres, you didn’t have a spare five acres to run your Eco-Strong scam?

Bullshit.

I can see from your current pictures on Zillow that there is PLENTY of room to run both. Cour just wanted some free shit. Oh, and $1.75 million so he could buy the equipment and build the building.

Speaking of…he also told me he wasn’t looking for government handouts. From the same email:

“We have not received any funding from anyone, and we intend for this to be a private effort…”

You can’t make a more bald-faced lie than that. Maybe Cour figured I’d never get my hands on his shitty Power Point presentation to the LEDC – and Mayor “Transparency” Talbert did her best to thwart me – but my lawyer prevailed.

Turns out he had ALREADY asked them for 5 acres AND $1.75 million in cash:

Yeah – a totally private effort. Except for that measly $1.85 million in taxpayer funds.

Even after Cour made the LEDC look like gullible, bungling imbeciles, they STILL have him on their list of “possible Business Pork prospects”. That should tell you how desperate the LEDC is to get SOMEONE…ANYONE into that goat pasture so they can say it was all worth it.

I’ll get to Alan Champagne (CEO of Eco-Flex) next…

Eco-Strong STILL Hanging Around Looking For Handout – Despite Owner Selling His Own Land For $5.95 Million

Mike Cour and Eco-Strong are the turds that just won’t get buried. For some reason, the idiots at the LEDC think this scumbag is a legit prospect and cannot wait to hand the taxpayers’ money to him – despite the fact he is selling HIS OWN 199.93 acres for $5.95 million. The property he is selling is literally RIGHT DOWN THE ROAD from the Business Pork project (he is at 15500 S Hwy 183):

***Note the “Equicare” signage – despite Zillow trying to hide address***

Just to recap:

#1 For the last few years, Mike Cour owned 199 acres literally right down the street from the LEDC Business Pork. He runs what appears to be a failing “Equine care” facility there.

#2 That is MUCH more acreage than the Business Pork land (199 acres versus 150 acres). Yet back in 2020, he didn’t want to use his OWN land for his genius business idea of turning old tires into other other garbage (Eco-Strong).

#3 Instead, Mike Cour and”Eco-Strong” tried to grab $1.85 MILLION in taxpayer funds back in 2020 – INCLUDING five acres of land in the “business park”!! Here is a screen shot from his shitty Power Point packet he gave to the LEDC:

So the guy sitting on 200 acres and a supposedly “can’t miss, brilliant business idea” went with his hat in hand to try and bilk the LEDC out of 5 acres of land AND another $1.75 million to basically pay for the entire thing for him.

Wow – what a deal! The taxpayers take all the risk, and if it pays off, scumbag Mike Cour gets the payout!

As a reminder, Mike Cour was ALSO previously tangled up in Triton Financial a few years back. Triton was sued for fraud and Mike Cour is listed as a defendant:

***Triton was a Ponzi scheme that blew up.***

Sounds like a GREAT guy to get in business with!

So Mike Cour is about to pocket almost $6 million for selling his land on Highway 183 for nearly $30,000 per acre, and he is STILL slutting around the LEDC and angling for some kind of hand out? That’s how it looks from the latest LEDC packet (see page 11)

Eco-Strong has supposedly rented that brand new warehouse over on Pecan Street just south of Brown’s Feed:

I just happened to be over there the other day and took a few photos. It’s definitely the Eco-Turd product out back there:

**I predict that the second part of Cour’s scam is to sell this “green” bullshit to moron cities like Austin who are flush with federal money to “save the environment”.**

According to the LEDC packets, Eco-Strong is “temporarily manufacturing and shipping from their warehouse on Pecan Street“. I can tell you that at least half of that statement is complete horseshit. There is ZERO manufacturing going on there. The inside of the warehouse doesn’t even look complete yet.

Also funny that Eco-Turd hasn’t changed their official “headquarters” address yet on ANY of their Internet sites:

My SUSPICION (and this is not fact, just my guess) is this: Cour will pocket that money he made from the land sale (minus any liens he has on it), he will then rent this warehouse for a year to look “legit”, and at the end of the year when the Business Pork is supposed to be JUST getting finished, he will AGAIN go to the LEDC and try to get a bunch of free shit – including FREE LAND just down the street from his OWN LAND that he just sold for $29,900 per acre!

My opinion is that the ludicrous overpriced-land boom has bailed this asshole out of his crappy Equicare biz and allowed him some breathing room while he tries to scam the LEDC again. Again, this is my opinion – not fact. Only time well tell if I’m correct.

It also proves AGAIN that the best move the LEDC could have made is to sell their shitty 150 acres for around $4.5 million and be done with it. After all, that’s what EVERYONE around here with any big chunks of land is doing right now: just sticking it up the ass of these morons dumb enough to pay $30k per acre.

While I love the idea of libtarded Austinites getting face-raped at these prices, I detest the idea of those same libtards overrunning this town.

The final irony will be when Cour’s 200 acres is chopped into a 400-house subdivision, thus giving us the exact same pile of houses that Talbert says was a bad way to go with the Business Pork land in the first place.

Irony and stupidity abound. Mike Cour and the LEDC are right smack in the middle of all of it.

More to come on Mike Cour and Alan Champagne and and all their lies.

Alan Champagne and Mike Cour Caught Lying Red-Handed – Part I

When I started asking a few questions about Eco-Flex and Eco-Strong and their weird press releases last year, CEO Alan Champagne could not keep his stories straight.

Eco-Flex Can’t Get Their Stories Straight

His big whopper of a lie was that the joke of a press release I saw about breaking ground in Lampasas on June 2nd was actually sent out in February BEFORE Covid hit. I knew this was bullshit. Now I have proof:

Oh! Lookie there! In an email dated May 7th, good old Mike Cour is still working on his press release – which will hit “around Monday”. Monday would be May 11th. VERY close to the May 12th date I insisted was the ACTUAL release date.

Alan Champagne lied last September and told me:

“The press release was issued late February , I dont feel I have to explain myself. With the boarder closure which was supposed to be temporary and now will probably be closed to the end of this year. This is a private company which is not using any government funds or such.”

[It’s spelled BORDER you absolute moron]

Oops. Guess it wasn’t issued in February after all….was it, scum bag?

Also, the BORDER closure did NOT prevent Alan Champagne from traveling here to Texas to make his pitch (a lie he told Mandy Walsh over and over). The REALITY is he could have come for business if he wanted to. Canada and U.S. only closed their BORDER for NON-ESSENTIAL movement. This is from a press release on 3/21/20:

The border remains open for essential travel, which includes the transportation of goodsand travel for work, in order to not hamper trade and the supply chains between the two countries.

It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the REAL reason Alan Champagne couldn’t come here is that (1) he has an ankle monitor on for being a serial bullshit artist in Canada OR (2) he knew this project was a giant pile of feces and couldn’t get through the pitch with a straight face.

His THIRD lie in just that one paragraph is “this is a private company which is not using any government funds or such”. Mike Cour ALSO repeated the exact same lie to me in a separate email, saying “we intend for this to be a private effort.”

Uh huh. That wasn’t my accusation, Alan. You might not CURRENTLY be scamming any government funds in Canada, but my accusation is that you were LOOKING to grab some free stuff down here in Lampasas and screw over our local government and LEDC. I was right about that too!

When I FINALLY got my hands on the pathetic Eco-Flex/Eco-Strong pitch that looks like an 8th grader did it, I got to see what they were REALLY asking for from the LEDC and the City:

***How can Lampasas help? Just hand us $1.85 million dollars, suckers!!***

Yeah. We don’t want anything! Totally private effort! Oh, besides the five acres of free land AND another ONE POINT SEVEN FIVE MILLION DOLLARS to build a plant! Besides that, we’ll handle everything!

Are you fucking kidding me?? This moron reminds me of Jerry Lundegaard in the movie Fargo trying to get his rich father-in-law to hand him cash in this classic scene:

“He’s saying we put in all the money and HE collects if it pays off!” [50 second mark]

I’m guessing Mandy and the LEDC were ready to hand over the land. Why not? They have 152 acres of it sitting there. They were also prepared to waste another $1.9 million on “Phase I” (really Phase II) construction. This is on TOP of the million they blew running water and electricity to the site in 2015.

But handing these retards $1.75 million?? That was a bridge too far. Only TJ Monroe would OK a ridiculous waste of money like that, and thankfully she’s not in charge. It’s my belief that Eco-Turd asking for such a ludicrous amount of money is what ultimately blew up the deal. I also think Mandy was starting to suspect this guy was a shit bag for other reasons and was maybe stringing her along. We’ll get to that in Part II.

Alan Champagne – CEO of Eco-Flex – is a Lying Sack of Shit

Oh, the things you find in 800 pages of crap the City hands you, eh?

It only cost me about $350 and 30% of the pages they handed me were useless crap I never requested. But one thing we DID find was TWO huge smoking guns. The first one proves Alan Champagne (CEO of Eco-Flex) is a lying sack of shit.

The second one proves Mike Cour is also a liar. No big surprises there, but I always love to find proof in black and white emails that the guys who seem like shady bullshit artists trying to scam some tax dollars ARE actually just that.

This 800-page pile of paper does not shed any light on WHY the LEDC/Ec0-Turd partnership fell apart. Probably because they used a black magic marker to black out some of the interesting stuff and keep it away from my prying eyes. But there is enough there for me to make a good guess.

Photo evidence tomorrow! Stay tuned!

Has The Eco-Turd Finally Been Buried?

Like a guilty cat burying a stringy and malnourished turd under the sand, so doth the LEDC quietly and unceremoniously dump Eco-Strong as a “business park prospect”.

Cat Poops In The Litter Stock Photo, Picture And Royalty Free Image. Image 27975898.

Well, it took a looong time, but there are FINALLY some new LEDC minutes on the City website. Specifically, the minutes from the Feb 24th meeting.

Hey…just because they didn’t meet in December (which is normal) or January (which is not) doesn’t mean they aren’t hard at work!!

Anyways, it looks like the sad and sorry Eco-Strong “business prospect” turd might finally be buried. Even after paying Impact DataSource a bunch of money to paint Eco-Turd in a flattering light, they must have realized that Mike Cour was just too full of shit even for THEM to spin the story in a positive light.

So now it looks like they are back to square one. I would like to think my tireless exposing of Mike Cour and Eco-Strong had something to do with this. Don’t worry Mike, I have zero doubt you will try and run your scam again in another town. Best of luck!

According to the LEDC minutes from Feb 24th:

“Mandy Walsh (Economic Development ‘Director’) discussed with the board the options of the Business Park. One being the possibility of applying for the standard EDA grant contingent on a business prospect. Second option is to request an updated loan proposal from Bancorp South to fund development of Phase I”

Looks to me like they no longer have any “business prospects” for their ~~goat pasture~~ ‘business’ park. Which means Eco-Turd must have been flushed down the toilet. Finally.

[That would be the “standard EDA grant” that Langford was supposed to have done WAY BACK on July 31, 2020. I’m guessing that in order to complete the grant, they needed to show they had a viable business prospect. Despite SIX YEARS of trying, they STILL don’t have one]

Oh, they tried mightily to polish the Eco-Turd and pin their hopes on Mike Cour – but that was a sorry joke. I have detailed Eco-Strong HERE and HERE and HERE.

Also, it is NOT “Phase I” as they continually lie about in public. Phase I was actually back in 2015 when they pissed away over a million bucks to make the ‘business’ park ‘shovel ready’. That was a lie then and it still is today:

*Hey! There’s TJ Monroe smiling about another one of her many screw-ups! I hear she’s running for mayor now! Yipeeee!!*

So – now they are mulling the options between finding another “business prospect” to hand a bunch of free shit to in exchange for dubious promises of growth. OR they go back to the bank and try to borrow the money to put themselves even deeper in the hole in this idiotic project.

[Let’s NOT forget, they have already handed Pope Eckermann about $70,000 to draw up plans for “Phase I” (really Phase II) and they STILL don’t have any idea how they are going to pay for it! Classic! Spend $70,000 on plans you might never be able to use]

I suggest a third option, which I have suggested for about 8 years now: sell the piece of shit and get out of the entire thing. It is and was a doomed project. Putting the likes of TJ Monroe and Cathy Kuehne in charge of millions of tax dollars for “economic development” is a recipe for disaster.

Just remember TJ Monroe’s colossally terrible prediction about the ~~weed patch~~ ‘business’ park almost SIX YEARS AGO to the day:

“Mrs. Monroe noted the Lampasas Economic Development Corp. is working with the business park south of town on U.S. Highway 183, and she said she hopes the site will attract good employers to Lampasas. [Council member TJ Monroe] – April 14, 2015

For some other hilariously wrong predictions, you can click on this link and read them all.

City Forced To Turn Over LEDC ‘Business’ Park Prospect Impact Study

Well, score one for the taxpayer and the little guy.

Despite JC Brown and Finley’s best efforts to stymie me, the “impact study” the City had conducted for Eco-Strong as a viable candidate to be a “business” park tenant is now in my hands.

I think this is the first time the Attorney General has sided with me. The score may be something like 4-1 in favor of City attorney JC Brown and Mayor “Transparency” Talbert, but that’s ok. It’s nice to finally win one.

I started perusing the docs yesterday and I can already say, it looks like a whole lot of numbers pulled from asses. I will post more detailed analysis over the next week or so, but there are a few tidbits below. I figured the taxpayers of Lampasas would like to know what their City is considering getting into:

[If you need to brush up on Eco-Strong, please start HERE]

They are proposing the following:

“A 35,000 square foot facility that will recycle 500,000+ tires per MONTH”.

By my math, that is 16,600 tires EVERY SINGLE DAY moving through the “business park”. Sounds like absolute horseshit to me. Assume you had a truck big enough to carry 1000 tires at a time (a random guess by me). That means a truck pulling in there every hour between 5am and 10pm. Every single day. Forever.

I don’t buy that shit for a minute.

“The firm will initially have 30 workers – the initial average annual salaries of these workers will be $33,000”

Wow. Those are some high-paying, high-tech jobs there, Mandy! Shoveling tire crumbs into a furnace, or however they do it, for about $16/hr. I think I’d rather work my way up at Wal-Mart to $16 in a year or two, but that’s me.

Has anybody given a moment’s thought to JUST the massive amount of traffic required to transport 500,000 tires worth of material into and then back out of the property every month? The pollution?

I doubt it.

There is much, much more. We’ll be back soon with all of it.

Eco-Flex and Mike Cour – Bonus Part IV

Hopefully, you are all caught up on our little saga through the first three parts. We ended Part III with CEO Alan Champagne threatening to take his ball and go home. Then Mike Cour popped up in my email (finally!) and he was none too happy!

Emails below – Lampasshole in blue. Mike Cour in red:

(9/3/20) You are talking negatively about a group of people that are trying to improve on a community not rip it off. I would be more then happy to meet you in person right this minute and answer any questions you have. We are already operating so you don’t have your facts straight. So before you head down a path of trying to tear a great thing down and saying things you should not, I highly recommend you take me up on my offer to meet with me. I think you will like what I have to say and agree with everything we are trying to accomplish.

I responded the same day – miffed about the “don’t have your facts straight” since I had done a ton of homework on this AND emailed Mike HIMSELF and gotten no response:

No need to “meet right this minute” – I emailed you three days ago with questions and got no response. The LEDC has also not been helpful at all.

Talking negatively? I asked a bunch of questions about a company that is appearing in front of the LEDC – the LEDC is funded by tax dollars – a hell of a lot of them. Therefore, it’s not AT ALL out of line for taxpaying citizens to be concerned about how those tax dollars might be spent. Wouldn’t you agree?

I used Buffalo NY as an example of a city that was duped and ripped off by Elon Musk and his “green” pie in the sky. I never made that accusation about you. I stated only that my interest in you was due to seeing OTHER cities ripped off. He asked what my interest was and I told him.

When I see press releases splattered all over the Internet about a June 2nd ground breaking and I know for a FACT that is complete nonsense, then I think it behooves me to ask some questions about exactly what the hell is going on and who is fabricating the nonsense.

I have asked Finley AND the LEDC what exactly the “presentation” was by Mike Cour and Eco-Strong and have gotten no answers. They say there are no arrangements with you. I emailed you directly and got no answers. Hopefully, you can understand why that would make my antennae go up with suspicion. I have watched this local government piss away MILLIONS with nothing to show for it. My concern is that not happen once again.

I am a huge believer that 99% of the time when the government gets involved in handing out incentives, they end up getting screwed. When governments throw money at “economic development” they end up spending 10x more than the private sector would have had they left it alone in the first place.

I would love to see the presentation you made to LEDC – including what you are asking from the LEDC and what you are promising in return. Feel free to email me all pertinent documents pertaining to land costs, land rental, jobs promises, tax breaks, any other favors the LEDC is doing, etc. I’d be more than happy to look at them.

One simple question I STILL have is this: who agreed to any June 2nd ground breaking and who sent out that information all over the Internet? Where was this supposed ground breaking going to take place? Did the LEDC also know about this June 2nd ground breaking? Because if they did, they have been completely silent about it.

Thanks for any info

Mike responded – and things get REALLY interesting here. Mike mentions another location. I wonder if the LEDC knew about that while they were trying to move mountains to appease Mr Cour?? Very odd. Email below from September 4th:

This project has been over a year of effort to see if there was a demand for the product.

During the last year, we had 6 very large prospective clients that gave us verbal agreements to do business with us. This got us extremely excited and we started the process of finding a manufacturing plant site.

During the process of finding a location, we found many sites that might work for us to build on. My property was one of the options but unfortunately does not give us enough space to operate the current business and this new business.

We did locate land where we could build “near Lampasas” and after meeting with the builder we decided to get started on the project. We issued a press release with a date because we had discussed with the landowner and builder and everything seemed to be in order. Unfortunately, COVID-19 became too much for us and our prospects to break ground, so unfortunately plans have changed.

We have not received any funding from anyone, and we intend for this to be a private effort. (The city of Lampasas has not given us anything or allocated to give us anything. We have spoken to them about different lots in the city that would work for what we are looking to do.)

We have located land in several sites located outside of the city area and in other counties. Until the Covid-19 issue remedies itself, we will continue to look for land to build our plant on. We hope it is in or near Lampasas as my home is there. I genuinely love this city and area. I am hoping to bring jobs and more prosperity to the area.

I appreciate your concern and questions. So much so, I believe you to be someone that we should collaborate with as you have great passion and interest in the community. My name is Mike Cour. I am your neighbor in the Lampasas area and I would very much like to learn more about your thoughts on this Endeavor. Let me know if you would like to meet?

Either way, it has been good to hear from you, it has opened our minds to people’s concerns and that is particularly important to us.

Sincerely, Mike Cour

Seems nice and reasonable except for some of these new details – like they were dealing with another land owner at the exact same time the LEDC was telling City council that Mike Cour wanted to be THEIR tenant. I responded thus:

(9/4/20) Mike, I want to believe this, but there are STILL problems with the timeline and facts:

1) The press release WAS issued in May (NOT Feb as Mr Champagne contends). COVID was in full swing and a lock down had already come and gone (month of April). Ewan Scott of Tyre and Rubber told me DIRECTLY that the press release was issued in May and they published May 12th. Covid didn’t suddenly appear in the few days after the May 12th press release and before the June 2nd “ground breaking” date. So it is hard to see how it took you by surprise. Covid was a full-on panic back in mid-March and the press release was sent out almost two months later.

2) The construction and building trade seems to be the ONLY ONE that was NOT affected much by Covid. They are throwing up houses and commercial buildings all over the place in Lampasas. There have been newspaper articles about it. Deorald Finney has been erecting houses every single day at Stone Valley through this entire “pandemic”. A local resident who is opening “Cherry On Top” ice cream parlor told me they are delayed opening because their contractors are “super busy with all the building going on”. There is a new commercial building over by Wal-Mart that will house a Golden Chick and they have worked on it NON STOP since the beginning of this year. Covid has not stopped ANY of that construction all over town.

So I have a very hard time swallowing the “covid” excuse.

3) You say you located land and had a builder….and that this was NOT the LEDC land. So WHERE exactly was the land? Who owned it?

The LEDC has been claiming you as their only “prospective client” for quite a while now. They are likely pinning their grant application hopes on YOU being in the wings and ready to build. So, it doesn’t make sense to me that in April and May, Mandy Walsh and the LEDC were touting you as their prospect while at the VERY SAME TIME you were actually making plans to build on a different piece of land somewhere else on June 2nd.

So either the LEDC is fabricating a story out of whole cloth about YOU being their prospect or you aren’t being truthful with me.

I’d still like to see the materials you presented to the LEDC back in Sept of 2019 and also this past spring. There must have been pages of information or you wouldn’t have shown up there. LEDC does not record their meetings and all it says is “presentation by Mike Cour” – and no other information. They also switched the meeting time from the usual 5:30pm to noon for the meeting you presented at….and most of us work during the day. I was unable to attend.

I have not accused you of taking a single dime of public money. It would be my preference that a single dime of public money is never used. That includes giving land away at far below market prices. If this is a viable project, then there’s no reason it can’t be done on land other than the ‘business park’ land. I’ve lived here almost 9 years now and if there is one thing I see a lot of around the area, it’s WIDE OPEN land. I can’t believe that LAND is the restricting factor in your project.

I look forward to seeing all the information you actually presented to LEDC last September and also this past spring. Thanks.

I guess Mike didn’t like seeing his entire story dismantled logical brick by logical brick. His next email was his last:

I understand what you are saying. We understand COVID was in full swing, but we were optimistic about the orders still coming through. We know that construction did not seem to slow but for whatever the reason our orders from these major companies got put on pause after our announcement. One of the company’s was in the oil and gas industry. They thought every week for a while that their travel ban would be lifted so they could come see our product. I think you will agree that there is uncertainty in that industry so that is still on pause and that was a multimillion dollar transaction. The others that were on pause are now moving forward and things are starting to happen again. One of our options and probably our best option is building in the Business Park whether we buy it at full value, they give it to us or somewhere in between has not been determined. I have verbally committed to doing what is best for Eco-Strong and the City of Lampasas if we chose to put our facility here. Those are the facts and with that being said.

I will not be sending you any documents.

I’ve offered to discuss this with you and it doesn’t seem to be working for you.

Our goal is to help the environment and operate a thriving, profitable business that provides opportunity for all that come into contact with it.

I am sorry if this has been confusing to you.

If you wish to meet then the offer still stands, otherwise, I have nothing else to say.

Wow. Now he’s mentioning the LEDC possibly “giving us” the land. How nice! A little bit of info accidentally slipped out there, buddy!

I made my final response:

That is fine. I have all the information I need to write my exposé on my blog. I will be using all the facts I have gathered and will be sure to mention your refusal to show any of the documents that you ALREADY supposedly showed at LEDC meetings twice.

Considering you did not answer the question about the other land, I have to assume that was all made up?

[note: he never responded to this]

Which thus means you were tied in all along with the LEDC and not some other mystery land owner. That also means that somehow only YOUR side knew about this June 2nd ground breaking and it was never discussed with the LEDC – because they have never made mention of any such thing.

Something stinks here. Just to let you know, I’ll be attempting to uncover every rock with this thing. I don’t just disappear when I think the local government is about to hose the taxpayer…so I’ll be around for a while making waves.

Thanks for your attempt at an explanation, even if a lot of it was contradictory and doesn’t fit facts from the other players in this little drama. Have a lovely holiday weekend.

From these emails, we learn a few things about Mike Cour: He apparently makes “multimillion dollar transactions” with verbal agreements? His 199 acres he owns himself wasn’t suitable to build on but the 165 acre ‘business’ park is?

Here is another weird nugget: According to their website, Eco-Flex operates a 35,000 square foot facility and employs 50 people there.

So if your other giant 35,000 square foot facility only employs 50 people, how is your proposed 10,000 square foot plant here in Lampasas going to employ “up to 200 people”? Or is that just some more pie in the sky bullshit, Mike?