Yipee! Yay! They approved the skatepark! This will turn all kids in town into high-achieving children who never get into trouble or turn to drugs. They will develop confidence in themselves as they learn the half-pipe. They will all excel in school and master calculus at an early age! It is the greatest thing since sliced bread!
Tons of people from ALL AROUND will come here for the skate park and spend tons of money at restaurants and antique stores! It will even rake in more sales tax dollars than the giant metal LTX sign in the City square!!
Well, that’s what I hear on Facebook anyways.
What I DIDN’T hear on Facebook was the final cost of this debacle. As you recall, this thing went from $200,000 (yes it did, Finley!) to $300,000 to $470,000 over the course of 16 months.
A skatepark that is a great idea at $250,000 is a very stupid idea at $800,000, for instance.
It’s a shame that LEDC prez Misti Talbert stole that $971,000 from the City back in February, or we might not be worried about the cost of this.
Oh, and don’t forget that ACM Ryan Ward (who makes over $150,000 per year in salary and benefits) is banging the drum VERY loudly for huge raises for every government employee this year.…And he wants them NOW…like, starting next month! That’s a 3% hit now and a lot more later this year, during the budget process.
I wonder if his boss Finley deGraffenreid (salary and benefits of over $200,000) will get a raise too! The poor guy hasn’t gotten anything since that 15% increase (bi-weekly paycheck went from $5,000 to $5,769) he got in 2020 during the ‘pandemic’. You don’t REALLY expect him to survive on $12,500 every month, do you? (Plus free gas and phone and healthcare and 2-1 matching pension contributions by the taxpayer).
That’s the ‘pandemic’ where the government ruined the livelihoods of many, many people. I’ll bet you $100 that not a SINGLE CITY EMPLOYEE missed a SINGLE PAYCHECK during that entire year.
Any takers? That’s called “job security” and it’s something most gov employees take for granted.
Let’s take a look at his current paychecks, shall we?
No worries! Even though we are very likely entering a bad recession right now, they can just shake the money tree out back to pay for all this stuff.