I've been meaning to comment on the recent announcement in the Gonzales Cannon (I'm assuming the Inquirer also announced it) Mrs McMinn is running for re-election as our district attorney.
She throws all these facts about how she's gotten rid of all these back logged cases. My question is how many of them did she do NOTHING about? How many did she just dismiss and called them closed?
Mrs McMinn has been tough of drug users, I'll give her that, but she has refused to prosecute in ANY county anything of a political nature. She's afraid to take on the tough cases that truly impact you and I as citizens. If there is even a hint that there is a politician or a government agency involved she cringes and avoids it like the plague. Even the police officers just shake their heads when it comes to Mrs McMinn.
Her office has repeatedly lost paperwork filed by the department, and heaven forbid you actually need them to respond back to you, because that won't happen, especially not in writing.
So as a typical politician she's used the old adage "statistics lie and liars use statistics" for her campaign slogan. Don't let her babbling on about what she did fool you in not seeing what she hasn't done, especially for those counties outside of Caldwell.
She didn't prosecute our mayor when in her own words she felt there were issues, how long did Mr. Grant go and only when news media pelted her for it did anything get done there, but again, there were no penalties for violations of terms, she refused to hear several other cases of fraud in Gonzales County, and continues to live in her fantasy world.
I hope we'll all remember what Mrs McMinn DIDN'T do for us when they go to the poles next year.
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
$575,000
I saw a comment on my last post about the $575,000 that the city spent at the last city council meeting. Yes, they voted for $575,000, but in reality $400,000 of that was budgeted money that GEDC had put for the expansion at Victoria College. The additional $175,000 was unbudgeted.
Now it is my understanding that out of the old Quality parking lot/buildings, the college only gets the first building, nothing more. I don't know if it's on a perpetual lease, or we've given it to them or what, but I know they have full use of the building.
If I understand correctly the additional lots are hoping to be sold by the city to recoup some of their money and who knows, maybe even make a penny or two on that money. I guess that the cities GEDC or GADC could try to use it as dangling carrot to some new business that wanted to start up in town too, though I've not heard anything mentioned along those lines from anyone in the city.
Now we've spent $100,000s on items I don't understand. Things that are totally unnecessary (like the weather station at the airport) and things that are just wasteful (like approving the 5 minute video for $20,000+ - that did eventually go away, but not without serious issues being brought to light first). But there are things that I do believe we need to spend some money on.
Should they have been budgeted first? Yes, but in this case it was totally unforeseen, and we have to make allowances for these, much like the fire departments extra expenditures.
But as I was starting to say, there are something that we need in this town. And I'd like to say that Victoria College is just for our kids, so that they would have a chance, so they could have a career, so that we as a community would stop living at the lowest of standards, and be able to give our kids a better chance. But what I'm finding out is it's not just for our kids. I know a lot of 30+ year old people attending VC trying to better themselves. Right now most of them are in the medical fields, but there are others doing other things over there too, taking vocational classes, so they aren't making minimum wages.
When families in this community start lifting themselves up off the minimum wage job scale, the entire community benefits! Victoria College is the best hope 90% of our community has to EVER lift themselves above that level. It's an affordable way for local kids out of high school have to get their feet wet in the real world of studies, and not be paying $1500/hr for school. But more importantly VC offers vocational studies that our high schools should be providing, so that people can study to be a nurse, a welder, a truck driver, and a mechanic. If you have one of these skills you will ALWAYS have a job! It may not be the job you want, but you will always have a job. That's not something a majority of our youth or even older can say in Gonzales.
Do I wish there was a better way to come up with the $175,000? You bet. I wish one of our local businesses (or several of them) would of created an endowment for that purpose. But considering the options of building a new building (which was bid out at FAR more than the $575,000), or not have these classes, I think our council and GEDC did a great job - not something I say all the time.
I know originally they wanted over a $1,000,000 for that lot, they negotiated it down to 1/2. I know that it will clean up an eye sore on highway 90a. I know those who come out of that class will be ready to go to work making decent money. Win, win win.
I also know that we have a potential to win even more if the additional lots are sold to businesses that could produce additional jobs and value to our community.
Was it perfect? Nope. But it was a great expenditure of $175,000 from our council, and the $400,000 from GEDC.
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
Now it is my understanding that out of the old Quality parking lot/buildings, the college only gets the first building, nothing more. I don't know if it's on a perpetual lease, or we've given it to them or what, but I know they have full use of the building.
If I understand correctly the additional lots are hoping to be sold by the city to recoup some of their money and who knows, maybe even make a penny or two on that money. I guess that the cities GEDC or GADC could try to use it as dangling carrot to some new business that wanted to start up in town too, though I've not heard anything mentioned along those lines from anyone in the city.
Now we've spent $100,000s on items I don't understand. Things that are totally unnecessary (like the weather station at the airport) and things that are just wasteful (like approving the 5 minute video for $20,000+ - that did eventually go away, but not without serious issues being brought to light first). But there are things that I do believe we need to spend some money on.
Should they have been budgeted first? Yes, but in this case it was totally unforeseen, and we have to make allowances for these, much like the fire departments extra expenditures.
But as I was starting to say, there are something that we need in this town. And I'd like to say that Victoria College is just for our kids, so that they would have a chance, so they could have a career, so that we as a community would stop living at the lowest of standards, and be able to give our kids a better chance. But what I'm finding out is it's not just for our kids. I know a lot of 30+ year old people attending VC trying to better themselves. Right now most of them are in the medical fields, but there are others doing other things over there too, taking vocational classes, so they aren't making minimum wages.
When families in this community start lifting themselves up off the minimum wage job scale, the entire community benefits! Victoria College is the best hope 90% of our community has to EVER lift themselves above that level. It's an affordable way for local kids out of high school have to get their feet wet in the real world of studies, and not be paying $1500/hr for school. But more importantly VC offers vocational studies that our high schools should be providing, so that people can study to be a nurse, a welder, a truck driver, and a mechanic. If you have one of these skills you will ALWAYS have a job! It may not be the job you want, but you will always have a job. That's not something a majority of our youth or even older can say in Gonzales.
Do I wish there was a better way to come up with the $175,000? You bet. I wish one of our local businesses (or several of them) would of created an endowment for that purpose. But considering the options of building a new building (which was bid out at FAR more than the $575,000), or not have these classes, I think our council and GEDC did a great job - not something I say all the time.
I know originally they wanted over a $1,000,000 for that lot, they negotiated it down to 1/2. I know that it will clean up an eye sore on highway 90a. I know those who come out of that class will be ready to go to work making decent money. Win, win win.
I also know that we have a potential to win even more if the additional lots are sold to businesses that could produce additional jobs and value to our community.
Was it perfect? Nope. But it was a great expenditure of $175,000 from our council, and the $400,000 from GEDC.
God Bless,
Dennis Nesser
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