Tag: vanity project

Yet Another City Promise Turns Out To Be A Lie

From today’s Dispatch:

In another upcoming event, the city will hold a town hall meeting April 6 to discuss recycling, a potential landscape/tree policy and a potential requirement for a form survey for new construction projects. The town hall meeting will be at 6 p.m. at the former Lampasas Middle School cafeteria on Western Avenue.

It is bad enough The Goldfish are putting something as asinine as curbside recycling up for a town hall meeting, where every uninformed dummy in town (like THIS ONE) can clamor for an expensive and useless service. What is WORSE, is that they are holding it in a freaking cafeteria!!

I remember when Spinley and the Seven Goldfish tried to justify their $1.5 million City Hall vanity project by saying the following in the Lampasas Dispatch (and I quote!):

The new City Hall and Council chambers would “allow more public participation in council meetings [and] also will provide a place for various community groups to meet. City Manager Finley deGraffenried said the City Council’s vision is to have a facility that encourages public participation and “that could be seen as a hub” for a variety of meetings, civic activities and community groups.

I would say a town hall meeting to let morons clamor for ‘free stuff’ fits Finley’s description of “a variety of meetings, civic activities and community groups”.

I ranted about this LAST MAY when the City was having meetings at the same cafeteria. Of course, that’s because the $1.5 million boondoggle STILL wasn’t done yet.

Well, it’s done now! They have held Council meetings there for MONTHS. I guess the fancy $1.5 million vanity project is NOT for the community who paid for it after all. It’s just for the Big Wigs. The important politicians and City workers don’t want the filthy masses dirtying up their $12,750 worth of chairs.

I also wonder why the LEDC doesn’t hold their meetings there and use the $96,000 audio/visual system just like City council does. After all, the LEDC handles (I should say ‘mishandles’) hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. The taxpayer has a right to know EVERYTHING that is being discussed in those meetings – not just the short crib notes that show up in the printed minutes.

I asked Finley this very question last month when I met him at City Hall. I did not get an answer.

Yet Another deGraffenreid Lie Exposed.

Wow. How many lies is this now?? I’ve lost count. Someday in the future I’ll have to dedicate a post to all of Spinley’s bullshit over the last year and a half. Today we’ll stick to just the Old City Hall rehab lie.

I have called out Elmo Finley more than a few times about repeatedly telling his favorite fairy-tale to the newspapers. The one where the Old City Hall rehab cost “‘only’ $1.02 million (plus a $125,000 elevator)” [see: Dispatch 11/1/19, page 11, column 2]

(Actually, the elevator was $128,400, but that is just picking nits).

I have maintained all along the true cost was well over $1,500,000.00

Well, we now know I was right yet again. Note the amount listed in official City documents posted this weekend [page 34]:

It’s that big number on the top: $1,463,577. Which is pretty damn close to $1.5 million. Does that number include the $128,400 for the elevator that Spinley always loves to add on separately for some weird reason? Who knows. But we can probably assume they didn’t count stuff like paying $229,000 for the exact same building they sold for $75,000 two years earlier.

Same goes for the $12,780 they spent on a ridiculously large amount of stacking chairs that will never be used.

Bureaucratic knuckleheads like Finley and Monica might not count that as “real” money, but I do. It’s ALL part of this boondoggle.

Add it all up and you can easily make a case for more like $1.6 million wasted on that vanity project. A very far cry from Finley’s oft-repeated lie of $1.02 million.

Quote Of The Year Winner: Misti Talbert

I just have to record this for later reference down the line. In today’s Dispatch, Mayor Misti Talbert made the following observation about wasting over $1,500,000.00 on a vanity project (new City council chambers and building renovation) she championed from start to finish:

“This has been a lot [of money]… but I think it’s been worth it,” Talbert said. “I think if you sit here for just a minute, you’re going to realize this is very worth it.”

I’m sure for The Seven Goldfish, it is very worth it. They get to sit in their fancy chambers surrounded by toys for about 4 hours a month. For the other 6,993 of us suckers citizens, probably not so much.

Although I guess if I sneaked into every single one of the 2,000 houses in Lampasas, stole $750 from every single one of them, didn’t get caught, then sat in my living room “for just a minute” ogling the $1,500,000.00 pile of loot I will get to enjoy at everyone else’s expense, then I would probably say the same thing.

Wow! Factor Vanity Project Just Keeps Going, And Going, And Going….

The current delay for the $1.5 million Vanity Project? The elevator, of course! As I had speculated all along. This is the Energizer Bunny of construction projects, apparently. Let’s look at the string of missed deadlines for this disaster:

November 14, 2016: Finley “Spinley” deGraffenried brings bids to Council on elevator equipment and installation.  Bids were:

  1. Austin Elevator Co $96,605
  2. Trojan Elevator Co $206,909
  3. RKJ Construction $119,532

“Greasy” Chris Harrison moves to accept bid from RKJ – not the lowest bid – because “they are local and have done previous work for the city”.  Seconded by Mike White and passes unanimously.

August 13, 2018: Five days into a 120-day project, ASJ is already asking for another $10,800 for Old City Hall in Change Order #1.  Apparently a bathroom needed to be reconfigured, and “the price of metal went up” [LOL].  [You will notice that 115 days from August 13th would mean a finish date of around December 6th, 2018].

November 16th, 2018: Change order #3 for $16,417 and “City officials now hope the building will be ready for use in early 2019,” according to a Lampasas Dispatch article. [Nice and vague – another 3 month delay]

March 10, 2019: Finley assures City Council that the elevator for the City Hall Boondoggle would “arrive in mid-March” and take a week or two to install.

March 24, 2019: According to Finley and city council packets, “production for elevator equipment has been pushed back two to three weeks”. The arrival time is now “projected for the first or second week of April…and crews will take approximately two to three weeks to install.” [This implies a new finish date of approximately May 5th, 2019]

July 30th, 2019: FOUR MONTHS of minutes have showed ZERO further discussion of Old City Hall renovation and The Seven Goldfish seem to have forgotten it completely, as it never appears on Spinley’s reports or Council minutes/packets. I myself wondered out loud why it wasn’t finished yet, seeing as how the last supposed completion date was back on May 5th. I even publicly speculated it was probably the wildly overpriced elevator.

September 17th, 2019: Six weeks after my musings on why the hell the Vanity Project wasn’t done yet, The Dispatch states today that “although the City manager said he hesitates to predict exactly when the renovation project will conclude, he said the project is “very close” to completion. The City is also waiting on “final elevator adjustments”, whatever that means. Yeah, that’s the same elevator that Spinley assured us was going to be done in March…six months ago.

Just a reminder: City Council COULD have given the elevator bid to Austin Elevators for $96,000 but then-Council-genius Chris Harrison wanted to “keep it local” and give the contract to RKJ Construction for $126,000 (originally $119,000). How’s that working out for you?

Old City Hall “Wow Factor” Debacle Keeps Adding Up

The new pile of City Council packets brought more checks written for the Old City Hall Misty Talbert “Wow Factor” Vanity Project! ASJ Construction and Azbell Electronics will be throwing a huge party this Christmas. Hope Misti and Finley are invited! Here are some of the sums spent on the debacle project. This is by no means exhaustive. I’m sure I missed some stuff.

JNW Architects (the ones who bungled all kinds of things over the years – April 13, 2015): $56,020 over 5 payments between 2015 and 2017. It may be higher, but some of the checks are for “consulting” and it’s hard to say they were for the OCH debacle.

Azbell Electronics: $94,674 (this is for some TVs and microphones for City Council to use). Mind you, this system could have been had for $34,000 from Broadcast Works – but the money tree out back was bursting with cash, so why not spend it?? OVERPAY of $60,000.

RKJ Construction: $128,400 on an elevator (Austin Elevator bid $96,500 for this part of the project, but Council-genius Harrison wanted to “keep it local” and yank an extra $32,000 off the money tree out back). Well done! OVERPAY of $32,000 (elevator STILL not installed).

RKJ Construction: $13,500 to demolish interior of OCH and remove debris. This is the only contract I’ve seen that seems like a fair price. Go figure.

$12,780 for 100 stackable chairs. Monica purchased these FOUR YEARS AGO ($127 per chair) despite City Council meetings rarely exceeding 30 people. Where are the chairs now? Who knows. OVERPAY of $7,000.

$15,558 on other furnishings.

$8,055 for even MORE furnishings (Amazon Capital Services – page 18)

$7,313 for curbing and a pad for generator.

$5,596 for “geotechnical engineering study” – sounds like kissing the ring of Pope Eckermann.

ASJ Construction: Tons of checks here since they are the main contractor. Checks in the amount of: $134,692 $143,336 $211,435 $166,301 $153,458 $42,069 $45,162 $45,714 $45,514 $26,000 $14,732… and we aren’t done yet!!

The capper? ASJ also just billed the city $11,310 for “reception desk – city hall“. Did we just pay over eleven thousand dollars for a $&*%(^* desk??? I think we did. WOW Factor!! OVERPAY $6000

$60,000 for a fire suppression system – no idea who sells and installs this. Fire Department?

$7,500 for “phone” and “fiber patch”

Roughly $12,000 to remove bats from the building.

$45,194 to re-roof a roof that I’m pretty sure JNW Architects said was
“structurally sound” three years earlier (Oct 2016 JNW was paid $18,500 for “structural analysis and provide documentation” of said analysis).

Tonight they will discuss spending $27,850 to “improve parking lot conditions behind City Hall”.

What does it all add up to? A LOT. I remember the good old days (circa 2015) when the Grayson/White/Toups crew didn’t even want to spend $400k on this. Look at them now – around $1,500,000.00 and counting! Well done!!

Another $54,580 to ASJ

A new year….a new change order for City Council to rubber stamp. This time for $54,580. A new roof here…”aesthetic upgrade” there….pretty soon you are talking real money! Don’t worry…just head on out back to the money tree and grab another 50k for the Old City Hall debacle. Plenty more where that came from.

Another unanimous decision (White absent) to torch taxpayer funds on the “wow factor” vanity project that is the hallmark of the Talbert administration.