Tag: subsidizing growth

Locals Ask a Very Good Question. The Answer Lies With Misti Talbert’s Handouts To Developers.

In case you missed this discussion on Facebook…

Outstanding observation ladies! You should direct your queries (and anger) towards former mayors and City council members TJ Monroe and Misti Talbert, for starters. Chuck Williamson is also on the list:

I Hope Deorald Finney Invites TJ Monroe and Chuck Williamson Over For The Mansion Warming Party!

Finney asking for and receiving $72,000 worth of FREE electrical hookups in 2019. He got another $33,000 in incentives in addition to that.

City Council Approves Incentives For Subdivision [Dispatch 5/21/19]

What did they do? Well, as I have been ranting about on here for literally FIVE YEARS, they have been handing out taxpayer money to SUBSIDIZE all this growth. They should have been doing the OPPOSITE and charging “impact fees” on every new house. Want to hook your house up to the grid? That will be $2,500 please. Want to hook up to the water/wastewater? That will be another $2,500 please.

You think anyone is going to balk at a $5,000 charge on a $300,000 house? They aren’t. And if they do? Good riddance – that’s how you slow the growth. Then, at the end of the day when you have 500 new “rooftops” as Finley likes to call them, you at least have $2.5 million in your coffers to pay for all the millions of dollars in water/wastewater upgrade costs the City is facing right now.

But Talbert and Monroe DIDN’T do any of that. They did the exact OPPOSITE and handed out money to developers or gave them FREE electrical hookups. Deorald Finney was given a $72,000 gift on his Stone Valley subdivision when Talbert (and council) decided he didn’t have to pay to hook up to the grid.

Don’t forget about the $185,000 in taxpayer money Talbert handed to S2M2 back in 2020 for their ill-fated Brodie Estates development – which is still nowhere near finished.

City Hands Former Council Member “Greasy” Chris Harrison and Developer S2M2 $185,000 In City Funds For Brodie Estates

Where is Misti Talbert now? Don’t worry – she’s only the president of the Lampasas Economic Development Corp. They are the ones with a gigantic empty “Business Pork” they have spent over $7 million dollars on. I’m sure she’ll drive a hard bargain over there, too. Of course, we’ll never know because the LEDC has been lawyering up every time I ask a question about what’s going on over there.

Millions of tax dollars handed out. All so YOU can have more traffic, more people sucking on the water pipe and more people on the grid. Job well done, Misti!!

“The Cost of Growth” – Part III

You’ll recall, the recent Dispatch article about “The Cost of Growth” in Lampasas fails to mention any of the actual costs at all. This series presents the ACTUAL costs to our “growth”. We already covered the millions in tax dollars the LEDC has skimmed over the last 20 years. We also covered the high cost of our “Director of Economic Development” Nerf position currently held by Mandy Walsh.

We also explained why a 21% increase in sales tax receipts might not be the great news the LEDC seems to think it is. Let’s continue into the article further:

According to the Dispatch article: “In addition, residential development has substantially increased in the past three years with five new residential subdivisions underway, along with numerous infill residential developments throughout the city.”

Again, the article fails to mention any COSTS from these developments – and they are fairly large.

Two of those five developments are Stone Valley and Brodie Estates. In both cases, City council voted to hand out tax dollars (or forfeit fees to City coffers) to subsidize these developments.

Stone Valley saw six-figure help in the form of reimbursements and for waiving electrical hookup fees to each of the 67 houses. The waived electrical hookup fees ALONE cost the City $72,000. TJ Monroe and Chuck Williamson even voted in favor of WAIVING all of the building permit fees for developer Deorald Finney! This is the same City that just AGAIN raised electrical rates on the entire town, after promising in February 2021 that the electric fund was healthy.

Brodie Estates developer S2M2 hired FORMER council member Chris Harrison to lobby for money for a drainage pond in THEIR development. Mayor Misti Talbert and council ended up handing them $185,000 from the taxpayers.

Those two developments ALONE were the recipients of roughly THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS in subsidies. Yet Finley, Mandy and the LEDC proudly point to “all the new subdivisions” as evidence they are doing a fine job at “growing” the economy. Once again, these dolts are pumping water from the deep end to the shallow end of the pool.

But there are MORE costs to these developments!

Turns out, there are now water pressure problems in the “upper pressure plane” – which is a fancy way of saying “near the spot that they just dumped five dozen new houses”. The cost just to study the problem and find a solution will be in the tens of thousands of dollars. If more pumps and bigger lines are needed (almost a certainty), expect a lot more money going out the door.

Maybe instead of GIVING these developers hundreds of thousands of dollars to build more houses, they should CHARGE these developers a decent-sized “impact fee” (perhaps $2,500 per house – or 1% of Deorald’s selling price?) for all of these costs that will now be piling up for the rest of us.

Just a thought.

Part IV coming soon…..