FAFO

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In 2021, Kerr County was awarded a $10.2 million windfall from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, which Congress passed that same year to support local governments impacted by the pandemic. Cities and counties were given flexibility to use the money on a variety of expenses, including those related to storm-related infrastructure. Corpus Christi, for example, allocated $15 million of its ARPA funding to “rehabilitate and/or replace aging storm water infrastructure.” Waco’s McLennan County spent $868,000 on low water crossings.


Kerr County did not opt for ARPA to fund flood warning systems despite commissioners discussing such projects nearly two dozen times since 2016. In fact, a survey sent to residents about ARPA spending showed that 42% of the 180 responses wanted to reject the $10 million bonus altogether, largely on political grounds.

“I’m here to ask this court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House,” one resident told commissioners in April 2022, fearing strings were attached to the money.

“We don't want to be bought by the federal government, thank you very much,” another resident told commissioners. “We'd like the federal government to stay out of Kerr County and their money.”

Even Kelly, the Kerr County judge remarked that this “old law partner” – U.S. Sen. John Cornyn – had told him that if the county did not spend the money it would go back to blue states.


“As far as where that money sits for the next year or two, my old law partner John Cornyn tells me that if we send it back it’s going to New Jersey or it’s going to New York or it’s going to … or California,” Kelly said. “And so I don’t know if I’d rather be the custodian of the money until we decide what we have to do with it rather than giving it back to the government to spend it on values that we in Kerr County don’t agree with.”

When it was all said and done, the county approved $7 million in ARPA dollars on a public safety radio communications system for the sheriff’s department and county fire services to meet the community’s needs for the next 10 years, although earlier estimates put that contract at $5 million. Another $1 million went to sheriff’s employees in the form of stipends and raises, and just over $600,000 went towards additional county positions. A new walking path was also created with the ARPA money.
 
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^ the public debate of the use of the money. Caution, exposure to massive amounts of stupid ahead.

 
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You know we had a baby flood a couple weeks ago, a month or so, whatever it was. And I keep hearing these reports of the old, old system, and I know we're not going to deal with that though. Expect that to be gone where the Jones call the Smiths, and the Smiths call Camp Rio Vista, and Rio Vista blah, blah, blah, along down the line. But it's still there and it still works. The thought of our beautiful Kerr County having these damn sirens going off in the middle of night, I'm going to have to start drinking again to put up with y'all.

...

COMMISSIONER MOSER: So we've talked about, you know one of the things we said sirens and we said we don't want sirens, too many many people said they did not want sirens when they had these -- when we had these gatherings. Code Red, and I don't know if Dub wants to chime in on this, but Code Red is the same that's going to get information to a lot of people; not to everybody, okay. One of the things that we'll do is identify a point of contact in all of the camps, we won't communicate with everybody in the camp, but we have a point of contact at the camp so that they can disseminate people within -- to people within the camp, like during the summer when kids are there, or to RV parks. Now, if the RV parks want to have a siren themself when something goes up that's up to them. That's not part of our thing. So getting the information to the public is the end item of this whole thing. The first thing is sense a flood, then communicate that information to the local authorities, to the right authorities, and then for them to have a system by with which to disseminate the information to the public.

...

Mr. Hewitt: Sirens did not seem to get very much support. The thought was that sirens are better for tourists than local residents. The sirens would only be beneficial for someone that's not familiar with the area, and wouldn't know what to do.

The second part of the study contained recommendations for updating the system and sirens were purposely left out even though other areas had implemented them.
...

COMMISSIONER REEVES: And I will say and, Sheriff, you can correct me if I'm off base on this, the camps have had a very good system of letting down river if there's a rise, they're phoning their competitors or colleagues down river and letting them know what happened. It's informal as you said, but it's been a very good system to let them know over time.

SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. The camps and they do, they notify each other, we notify them, they notify -- there's a lot of informal things that really do work real well. It's not totally those unless they try to get them out too quick in trying to beat it. Because this river can come up in a instant, we all know that with the drainage. But it will go down just as quick if they just hold tight with what they've got. But the whole key is just getting people that are traveling up here from somewhere --

COMMISSIONER REEVES: That's my concern is ones that don't live here.

COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's everybody's concern.

JUDGE POLLARD: So this is kind of an offer, or to see if it's accepted by and also agreed to by UGRA and the City.

COMMISSIONER MOSER: Correct.

JUDGE POLLARD: And if they don't then where are we with this?

COMMISSIONER MOSER: If they don't then we just forget the whole project.

JUDGE POLLARD: Just dead in the water.

COMMISSIONER MOSER: Dead in the water, right. It's dead in the water.

COMMISSIONER REEVES: Question --

COMMISSIONER MOSER: Or the pun for the Flood Warning System.

JUDGE POLLARD: Dead in the water.
 
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These shitheads are going to blame anyone but their abuser till long after everyone they know is dead and buried. I guess the upside is thei rlife expectancy is probably going to crash.
Sadly, there are millions of people out there who could have someone point a gun at them, have Joe Biden step between them and the person with gun, then have Trump come over, take the gun from the person holding it, push Biden aside, and shoot the person who was targeted by the gun, and believe Trump when he tells them it’s Joe Biden’s fault.
 

These shitheads are going to blame anyone but their abuser till long after everyone they know is dead and buried. I guess the upside is thei rlife expectancy is probably going to crash.
Of course they will never assign any blame to Trump.
 



COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You know we had a baby flood a couple weeks ago, a month or so, whatever it was. And I keep hearing these reports of the old, old system, and I know we're not going to deal with that though. Expect that to be gone where the Jones call the Smiths, and the Smiths call Camp Rio Vista, and Rio Vista blah, blah, blah, along down the line. But it's still there and it still works. The thought of our beautiful Kerr County having these damn sirens going off in the middle of night, I'm going to have to start drinking again to put up with y'all.

...

COMMISSIONER MOSER: So we've talked about, you know one of the things we said sirens and we said we don't want sirens, too many many people said they did not want sirens when they had these -- when we had these gatherings. Code Red, and I don't know if Dub wants to chime in on this, but Code Red is the same that's going to get information to a lot of people; not to everybody, okay. One of the things that we'll do is identify a point of contact in all of the camps, we won't communicate with everybody in the camp, but we have a point of contact at the camp so that they can disseminate people within -- to people within the camp, like during the summer when kids are there, or to RV parks. Now, if the RV parks want to have a siren themself when something goes up that's up to them. That's not part of our thing. So getting the information to the public is the end item of this whole thing. The first thing is sense a flood, then communicate that information to the local authorities, to the right authorities, and then for them to have a system by with which to disseminate the information to the public.

...

Mr. Hewitt: Sirens did not seem to get very much support. The thought was that sirens are better for tourists than local residents. The sirens would only be beneficial for someone that's not familiar with the area, and wouldn't know what to do.

The second part of the study contained recommendations for updating the system and sirens were purposely left out even though other areas had implemented them.
...

COMMISSIONER REEVES: And I will say and, Sheriff, you can correct me if I'm off base on this, the camps have had a very good system of letting down river if there's a rise, they're phoning their competitors or colleagues down river and letting them know what happened. It's informal as you said, but it's been a very good system to let them know over time.

SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. The camps and they do, they notify each other, we notify them, they notify -- there's a lot of informal things that really do work real well. It's not totally those unless they try to get them out too quick in trying to beat it. Because this river can come up in a instant, we all know that with the drainage. But it will go down just as quick if they just hold tight with what they've got. But the whole key is just getting people that are traveling up here from somewhere --

COMMISSIONER REEVES: That's my concern is ones that don't live here.

COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's everybody's concern.

JUDGE POLLARD: So this is kind of an offer, or to see if it's accepted by and also agreed to by UGRA and the City.

COMMISSIONER MOSER: Correct.

JUDGE POLLARD: And if they don't then where are we with this?

COMMISSIONER MOSER: If they don't then we just forget the whole project.

JUDGE POLLARD: Just dead in the water.

COMMISSIONER MOSER: Dead in the water, right. It's dead in the water.

COMMISSIONER REEVES: Question --

COMMISSIONER MOSER: Or the pun for the Flood Warning System.

JUDGE POLLARD: Dead in the water.

Why yes Commissioner Baldwin, we wouldn't want to interrupt your beauty sleep for something as selfish a possibly saving someone else's life.
 



COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You know we had a baby flood a couple weeks ago, a month or so, whatever it was. And I keep hearing these reports of the old, old system, and I know we're not going to deal with that though. Expect that to be gone where the Jones call the Smiths, and the Smiths call Camp Rio Vista, and Rio Vista blah, blah, blah, along down the line. But it's still there and it still works. The thought of our beautiful Kerr County having these damn sirens going off in the middle of night, I'm going to have to start drinking again to put up with y'all.

...

COMMISSIONER MOSER: So we've talked about, you know one of the things we said sirens and we said we don't want sirens, too many many people said they did not want sirens when they had these -- when we had these gatherings. Code Red, and I don't know if Dub wants to chime in on this, but Code Red is the same that's going to get information to a lot of people; not to everybody, okay. One of the things that we'll do is identify a point of contact in all of the camps, we won't communicate with everybody in the camp, but we have a point of contact at the camp so that they can disseminate people within -- to people within the camp, like during the summer when kids are there, or to RV parks. Now, if the RV parks want to have a siren themself when something goes up that's up to them. That's not part of our thing. So getting the information to the public is the end item of this whole thing. The first thing is sense a flood, then communicate that information to the local authorities, to the right authorities, and then for them to have a system by with which to disseminate the information to the public.

...

Mr. Hewitt: Sirens did not seem to get very much support. The thought was that sirens are better for tourists than local residents. The sirens would only be beneficial for someone that's not familiar with the area, and wouldn't know what to do.

The second part of the study contained recommendations for updating the system and sirens were purposely left out even though other areas had implemented them.
...

COMMISSIONER REEVES: And I will say and, Sheriff, you can correct me if I'm off base on this, the camps have had a very good system of letting down river if there's a rise, they're phoning their competitors or colleagues down river and letting them know what happened. It's informal as you said, but it's been a very good system to let them know over time.

SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. The camps and they do, they notify each other, we notify them, they notify -- there's a lot of informal things that really do work real well. It's not totally those unless they try to get them out too quick in trying to beat it. Because this river can come up in a instant, we all know that with the drainage. But it will go down just as quick if they just hold tight with what they've got. But the whole key is just getting people that are traveling up here from somewhere --

COMMISSIONER REEVES: That's my concern is ones that don't live here.

COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's everybody's concern.

JUDGE POLLARD: So this is kind of an offer, or to see if it's accepted by and also agreed to by UGRA and the City.

COMMISSIONER MOSER: Correct.

JUDGE POLLARD: And if they don't then where are we with this?

COMMISSIONER MOSER: If they don't then we just forget the whole project.

JUDGE POLLARD: Just dead in the water.

COMMISSIONER MOSER: Dead in the water, right. It's dead in the water.

COMMISSIONER REEVES: Question --

COMMISSIONER MOSER: Or the pun for the Flood Warning System.

JUDGE POLLARD: Dead in the water.

Dead in the Water would make an excellent title to a documentary about this example of conservative priorities.
 
I'm sure I'm not the only one who's stood in line behind the person paying for food with their SNAP card, talking on their brand new iPhone, dressed 10x better than me and then getting into a car significantly nicer than mine.
I've stood behind several paying with SNAP over the years. The overwhelming majority are battling multiple kids and they are working their hardest not to overspend their benefits. Most have two carts, one for SNAP covered foods and one for the stuff not covered by SNAP so they don't get things mixed up. They are pitiful and doing what looks to me to be to be the best they can.
If you're 50 years old working hourly pay with no savings.
(Accidentally cut off the last part of your post, TM. My bad on that) There are a bunch of folks in very rural parts of NC and other states that fit this quote exactly. And play the lottery at least weekly and many times daily hoping for the big windfall. I overheard a conversation between 2 girls years ago at the school I was working in at the time. They were talking about weekend plans, and one of the girls said, "me and my dad are going to Chesnee tonight and to buy lottery tickets and get my dad some beer" (prior to the NC lottery...). This family was absolutely dirt poor, single dad raising a daughter, but was hoping to win big!

I've worked in schools for a long time. If you want to see poor, go to a rural elementary school and hang out for a while. There are always kids that "have" in any school, but it's very easy to pick out the kids that don't have a thing, and those kids are absolutely pitiful. And their parents are the same, but most give absolutely everything they have for their kids to have a chance. And there isn't an end in site for many of these families - generation poverty rules in rural America, and many of these parents aren't FA in the least, but they sure are FO.
 
I've stood behind several paying with SNAP over the years. The overwhelming majority are battling multiple kids and they are working their hardest not to overspend their benefits. Most have two carts, one for SNAP covered foods and one for the stuff not covered by SNAP so they don't get things mixed up. They are pitiful and doing what looks to me to be to be the best they can.

(Accidentally cut off the last part of your post, TM. My bad on that) There are a bunch of folks in very rural parts of NC and other states that fit this quote exactly. And play the lottery at least weekly and many times daily hoping for the big windfall. I overheard a conversation between 2 girls years ago at the school I was working in at the time. They were talking about weekend plans, and one of the girls said, "me and my dad are going to Chesnee tonight and to buy lottery tickets and get my dad some beer" (prior to the NC lottery...). This family was absolutely dirt poor, single dad raising a daughter, but was hoping to win big!

I've worked in schools for a long time. If you want to see poor, go to a rural elementary school and hang out for a while. There are always kids that "have" in any school, but it's very easy to pick out the kids that don't have a thing, and those kids are absolutely pitiful. And their parents are the same, but most give absolutely everything they have for their kids to have a chance. And there isn't an end in site for many of these families - generation poverty rules in rural America, and many of these parents aren't FA in the least, but they sure are FO.
And these folks are so absorbed with just making it through the day, they have zero time or energy to think about politics or voting. They are among the 36% of eligible voters who don’t vote but would benefit greatly by Dem policies if they did. But the MAGA voter suppression tactics makes it virtually impossible for them to vote even if they were so inclined
 
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I've stood behind several paying with SNAP over the years. The overwhelming majority are battling multiple kids and they are working their hardest not to overspend their benefits. Most have two carts, one for SNAP covered foods and one for the stuff not covered by SNAP so they don't get things mixed up. They are pitiful and doing what looks to me to be to be the best they can.

(Accidentally cut off the last part of your post, TM. My bad on that) There are a bunch of folks in very rural parts of NC and other states that fit this quote exactly. And play the lottery at least weekly and many times daily hoping for the big windfall. I overheard a conversation between 2 girls years ago at the school I was working in at the time. They were talking about weekend plans, and one of the girls said, "me and my dad are going to Chesnee tonight and to buy lottery tickets and get my dad some beer" (prior to the NC lottery...). This family was absolutely dirt poor, single dad raising a daughter, but was hoping to win big!

I've worked in schools for a long time. If you want to see poor, go to a rural elementary school and hang out for a while. There are always kids that "have" in any school, but it's very easy to pick out the kids that don't have a thing, and those kids are absolutely pitiful. And their parents are the same, but most give absolutely everything they have for their kids to have a chance. And there isn't an end in site for many of these families - generation poverty rules in rural America, and many of these parents aren't FA in the least, but they sure are FO.
Which is why I totally abhor property taxes going to just the district you are in. Makes it easier to have districts based on wealth. And for those who whine about their taxes going to pay for other people's children, there are a lot of property owners with no children or no school aged kids paying for your kids education.
 
I've stood behind several paying with SNAP over the years. The overwhelming majority are battling multiple kids and they are working their hardest not to overspend their benefits. Most have two carts, one for SNAP covered foods and one for the stuff not covered by SNAP so they don't get things mixed up. They are pitiful and doing what looks to me to be to be the best they can.

(Accidentally cut off the last part of your post, TM. My bad on that) There are a bunch of folks in very rural parts of NC and other states that fit this quote exactly. And play the lottery at least weekly and many times daily hoping for the big windfall. I overheard a conversation between 2 girls years ago at the school I was working in at the time. They were talking about weekend plans, and one of the girls said, "me and my dad are going to Chesnee tonight and to buy lottery tickets and get my dad some beer" (prior to the NC lottery...). This family was absolutely dirt poor, single dad raising a daughter, but was hoping to win big!

I've worked in schools for a long time. If you want to see poor, go to a rural elementary school and hang out for a while. There are always kids that "have" in any school, but it's very easy to pick out the kids that don't have a thing, and those kids are absolutely pitiful. And their parents are the same, but most give absolutely everything they have for their kids to have a chance. And there isn't an end in site for many of these families - generation poverty rules in rural America, and many of these parents aren't FA in the least, but they sure are FO.
In the rural county I grew up in over 12,000 people - or nearly one-fifth of the entire population - is on SNAP. Cutting that program will be devastating to nearly all of those people.
 
In the rural county I grew up in over 12,000 people - or nearly one-fifth of the entire population - is on SNAP. Cutting that program will be devastating to nearly all of those people.
The sad thing is that Ronald Reagan planted this seed when he campaigned on welfare queens driving Cadillacs to grocery stores to buy steaks with food stamps. Even more sad is that GQPers still believe that cruel bigoted trope today.
 
The sad thing is that Ronald Reagan planted this seed when he campaigned on welfare queens driving Cadillacs to grocery stores to buy steaks with food stamps. Even more sad is that GQPers still believe that cruel bigoted trope today.
Hell, Zen tried to argue that he witnessed this just a few weeks ago, here.

I know several maga's at work and they all have a story of a welfare queen...
 
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