Tag: transparency

LEDC Requested Impact Study For Secret Biz Pork Prospect. Study Is Completed. Will They Allow Taxpayer Peons To See Results?

So the LEDC requested a study on the economic impact of their secret Business Park prospect (very likely Eco-Strong or Eco-Flex – depending on how they have structured themselves after the last fiasco).

They must have done this a while ago because the study is apparently complete. They went back to Impact Data Source. Remember them?

November 2020: City REFUSES Transparency on LEDC Economic Impact Study Paid For With City Funds

They are essentially a company that takes City money and then goal-seeks an outcome, in my opinion. A rubber stamp. I have requested a copy of this “impact study” to see what ludicrous assumptions it makes. I can all but guarantee you that JC Brown will deny me this information and it will ONCE AGAIN be up to the Texas Attorney General to decide if I get it.

What was all that crap Talbert blabbered about “transparency” before? Oh yeah…

“I feel like (City) staff and Council oughta be tasked with being accountable to answer on the spot…and…uh…I would be comfortable doing that….that’s transparency at its finest…is…you know…we don’t put off a question, we answer it on the spot” – current LEDC President Misti Talbert as mayor in 2020

Sure you do!

Reminder: the LAST time around, Eco-Flex Alan Champagne told two massive lies. One about when his fake press release was written and another about not using any government funds:

“The press release was issued late February, I  don’t 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.”

He then asked for $1.850 MILLION from the City of Lampasas.

He was denied, of course. I wonder what they’ll get THIS time around!

Miss Walsh…Tear Down This Wall

The LEDC will be meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) at the $1.5 million dollar Jack Calvert/Misti Talbert/Finley deGraffenreid Vanity Goldfish Bowl for their monthly pow-wow. We will finally get to see the minutes from the Feb 19th meeting, at least.

Will they EVER record their meeting audio and/or video using the City’s $96,000 A/V system that City council already uses twice a month? Will they make citizens sign up for some crappy third-party teleconferencing site like Zoom? Will they allow us to even SET FOOT in the $1.5 million building we paid for ever again?

How about it, Mandy? Finley? Misti? You have a very important agenda item this week: namely agenda item V: presentation by Mike Cour, who is apparently opening a tire recycling business in Lampasas, according to British industry magazines. He met with you all back in September 2019 as well. We’d all love to know what incentives and free stuff you are thinking of tossing his way.

The gauntlet is thrown: open up your meetings to the plebes and use the $96,000 no-bid A/V system that is sitting right there unused. Or would you rather keep more stuff hidden from prying eyes??

Lampasas Kinda Rhymes With “Half-Ass It” – Which is What Finley and The Seven Goldfish Do!

There was a brief moment in time where an effort was made at transparency in City government. Just look below! They actually posted proposed budgets on-line so the peons could look through them at their leisure and have their eyes goggle at the outrageous wasteful spending. Three years in a row and then a random year for the 2016-2017 budget:

I don’t see the latest 2019-2020 budget there, do you? OR the year before….or the year before….

Of course, nobody has bothered to post that stuff in YEARS. We just half-ass it here. No need to sweat stupid details like posting the proposed city budget when you can instead make grandiose “transparency” plans like squandering $95,000.00 on a no-bid audio/visual system with lots of bells and whistles and cameras promising to record all City Council meetings for “transparency” sake. (A system which was paid for almost a YEAR ago and was supposed to launch six months ago but which STILL sits unused in the new Council chambers in the STILL unopened $1,500,000.00 Old City Hall renovation).

No, no, little peon taxpayer. They aren’t going to use the convenient website we pay $5,000 per year to maintain and which Monica Wright is supposed to update. Instead we will demand you show up in person at the school cafeteria at 7pm on a Monday night and sit through hours of Bruce Haywood pontificating on the new Burger King. THAT’s the Lampasas Way!