Sunday, February 16, 2025
It's One of Many
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Tom Thompson's Two Goals in May Election
San Angelo City Councilman Tom Thompson said at the last Council meeting in regard to a $41.7 million Coliseum bond project that will go before voters in May.
Justin, I think there's some key things here that are in the elements of the presentation that the Association does, and I have institutional knowledge working with y'all for ten years, taking this position in 2017 to be on Council, a lot of the goal of that was just for this one decision today.
Thompson went on to ask about skyboxes, suites and meeting rooms. He talked about the foundation which provides scholarships to rodeo/stock show related youth.
There are many positives about the planned Coliseum improvements and voters will decide on the proposed bond.
Voters will also decide on Thompson's replacement and San Angelo's next mayor. Hopefully, Mr. Thompson will highlight any similar goals for his Mayoral candidacy.
As for Thompson's replacement it's John Bariou, once the face of San Angelo economic development, vs. Joe Self, Jr. Thompson took over Marty Self's seat in 2017. Both Marty and Joe Jr. work for Automatic Fire Protection. The amount of business the city did with AFP became an issue for Marty during his time on Council. I imagine there will be significant fire suppression work in the Coliseum renovation, but that will be dealt with at the appropriate time, hopefully.
There's a lot of chess pieces on the move given how hot West Texas is for economic development. San Angelo is in the sweet spot for oil/gas, renewable energy (wind/solar/battery storage) and not far from major crypto/data center activity.
Bariou has a history of doing economic development work on the up and up. That may or may not be wanted by our local powers that be.
Voters will decide many things come May. Although I live in a neighboring county, I look forward to learning more about the candidates and the two bond issues, SAISD and Coliseum expansion/renovation. Twenty five years of living there leaves a mark, mostly the good kind.
Sunday, February 02, 2025
Shelter-PAWS-Best Friends Alliance Latest Move
San Angelo Animal Shelter is full and offering incentives through the Best Friends Animal Society Network of animal welfare organizations for rescue agencies who help rehome dogs.
According to a press release from Concho Valley PAWS, this is an effort to avoid euthanasia.
“Best Friends Animal Society is offering a $150 stipend per dog or $300 per litter of puppies to 501(c)3 organizations that transfer dogs from the San Angelo Animal Shelter for adoption,” said Concho Valley PAWS.
The offer is valid until 40 animals are transferred out or until Feb. 28.This offer comes as City Council seeks advice from an Animal Crisis Task Force, formed in the aftermath of the horrific mauling of a city Animal Control Officer. The official name of the advisory group is Animal Services & Control Task Force. Several area rescues have representatives on that task force. Concho Valley PAWS and BFAS do not have representatives and both are highly skilled in managing the media and public opinion.
Friday, January 31, 2025
City Owes IRS for Profiting on Wastewater Bonds
San Angelo's City Council will consider a report from staff regarding its 2019 Wastewater and Sewer Bonds. The city made more money on investment proceeds from those bonds than is allowed.
Since the bonds were issued in 2019 the city made millions in interest revenue, i.e. they made a greater return on the unused funds than they paid out in the bond's 2% coupon (interest expense to the city).
Investopedia notes:
Tax-exempt municipal bond issuers are subject to strict federal arbitrage compliance rules as a condition of issuance requirements, such as bond covenants. Any computed profits, which are called rebates, must be paid to the federal government. Federal arbitrage rules are designed to prevent issuers of tax-exempt bond debt from obtaining excessive or premature debt and therefore profiting from the investment of bond proceeds in income-generating investments.
Neighborhood and Family Serves Assistant Director Morgan Chegwidden gave overview of proposed improvements to the Animal Shelter
Direction: Consensus of Council was to proceed with the proposed plan of finance as presented.
Monday, January 27, 2025
Texas Wants SpacePorts
Friday, January 24, 2025
San Angelo's Bright PEU Lights
In November 2024 I wrote about private equity's interest in West Texas energy deals. Eight days later Businesswire reported:
Wynnchurch Capital, L.P. (“Wynnchurch”), a leading middle-market private equity firm, announced today that it has acquired Principal Industries, LLC (“Principal” or the “Company”) alongside Principal’s founders, Bryan and Blake Vincent, as well as the management team.
The local company received a $550,000 economic development incentive from the City of San Angelo Development Corporation in 2017. Those funds enabled Principal Industries to move into a vacant building in the city's Industrial Park.
Principal Industries had five funding rounds since its inception and expanded through acquisitions. Principal bought SloanLED in 2022 and the company's website is www.principalsloan.com
The company's acquisition by Wynnchurch Capital, a private equity underwriter (PEU), occurred during a time of increased interest in San Angelo and West Texas, according to Chamber of Commerce VP Michael Looney. He shared this with Development Corporation Council last October.
This is the use and parlaying of private investment, private equity, on the projects we have in process or those that we are aspiring to have in process. This serves as an accoutrement to half cent sales tax dollars. We're finding that private equity is very hungry for positions within tertiary markets, like San Angelo, and oftentimes they don't necessarily want to share any market positions with municipalities, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
VP Looney noted:
We are well into discussions with the development of speculative buildings within the Business Park. That goes along with several private equity investment companies we are working with.
His "value proposition" close included:
Access to private equity relationshipsI sought public information on PE backed speculative building development in the Industrial Park on 11-6-24. The city asked for an exception from the Texas Attorney General's Office. The AG will determine what information the city has to release on 2-17-25.
Thursday, January 23, 2025
Is Stargate Coming to San Angelo?
Capital Brief reported:
Trump said the new company (Stargate) will invest US$500 billion in AI infrastructure, creating over 100,000 jobs, in what he called "the largest AI infrastructure project by far in history, and it's all taking place right here in America".
(Oracle's Larry) Ellison said 10 data centres are under construction in Texas, with 10 more planned.
The first Texas AI data center is the Lancium site in Abilene, originally developed for bitcoin mining. Hanwha Solutions was an early backer of the project which leveraged our plentiful supply of renewable energy. The Lancium Project shifted to Artificial Intelligence in a deal with Crusoe Energy Systems. It's now part of Stargate.
West Texas is hot for energy projects to support AI and its voracious power needs. The Concho Valley has both solar and wind energy generation. San Angelo will soon have a battery storage facility on 28th Street. The Zeppelin Energy Storage project is private equity backed. City Council provided a $2.65 million tax break for Peregrine Energy (consent agenda - 9-3-24) before saying it had no funds to keep retiree health insurance benefits static (regular agenda - 11-5-24).
The project will provide virtually no jobs, normally a requirement for economic development incentives.
Council proved to the big money boys it can play, i.e. help them achieve their investment hurdle rate. Could San Angelo be in Stargate's sights? OpenAI CEO Sam Altman noted:AI is a little bit different from other kinds of software in that it requires massive amounts of infrastructure, power, computer chips, data centers, and we need to build that here and we need to be able to have the best AI infrastructure in the world to be able to lead with the technology and the capabilities.
Stargate investment will be directed toward constructing data centers to support AI development, according to the announcement. Already, there are data centers under construction in Texas, with the first one located in Abilene, Oracle's Ellison said at the press conference.
The goal is to construct 10 data centers initially, with plans to expand to 20 locations of about half a million square feet each, he added.City Council approved the annexation of 1,200 acres north of town. The land is city owned.
Friday, January 17, 2025
Which City of San Angelo Animal Group?
City Manager Daniel Valenzuela provided an update on the Animal Services Task Force and is hoping to finalize the task force and schedule the first meeting within the next week
- Judge Allen Gilbert
- Assistant Police Chief Adam Scott
- Dr. Catie Morris
- Heather Hegwood
- Kris McGuffin
- Sharon Halfmann
- Mary Golder
- Kim Spooner
- Mark Lack
Friday, January 10, 2025
Interim Neighborhood & Family Services Leadership
Tuesday, January 07, 2025
Animal Crisis Taskforce Update
Mayor Brenda Gunter asked for a rapid formation of the Animal Services Taskforce and production of recommendations on 12-3-24. She set a 45 day turnaround expectation.
City Manager Daniel Valenzuela offered an update in today's public comment. He is close to naming the nine people to serve on the taskforce and listed a number of goals for the group.
- reduce the free roaming dog population
- reduce citizen dog bites
- increase spay/neuter rates
- manage shelter capacity
- encourage responsible pet ownership
- create and enforce policies and ordinances
- foster collaboration with animal rescue groups
That list sounds like the daily job of Animal Services. What happened over the last seven years that caused these problems to grow exponentially and put many citizens at risk?
Shelter Chief Morgan Chegwidden began her role in June 2017 and may soon rise to Director of Neighborhood and Family Services, given Bob Salas' announced retirement.
It would be an odd note in the middle of the taskforce if one accountable person got to avoid examination by virtue of promotion.
Update 1-17-25: Concho Valley Homepage ran a story on the "new Animal Services Advisory Committee" which met yesterday. The piece seemed to confuse the ASAC with Daniel's new Animal Taskforce. CVH interviewed Animal Shelter Director Morgan Chegwidden who has traditionally not involved the ASAC in anything strategic, keeping in the "meet Texas state law" box. A citizen could easily be confused as to which group is doing what after watching the news story. A major clue for anyone watching the actual meeting was that members had to pull monthly shelter numbers from the consent agenda to discuss them. Another clue is Morgan never mentioned Daniel's taskforce, who is on it, the taskforce's aim and how it differs from the ASAC. Chegwidden also failed to give an update on shelter facility renovations, a project Council approved financing almost two years ago.