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Simple Question -- Where did all the money go? By Getsmart in VENI . . . VIDI . . . VICI February 5, 2012

The Hotel tax and Bootfest will be forever undefined in obscurity, kind of an infinite conundrum.

We have media avenues staffed with people sitting in chairs at select offices equipped with phones, the internet, and a lot of modern technology, and in such rooms where they gather in a bull-pen enviroment they have the ability to discuss any and everything under the sun and stars.

So many stories interconnect and feed each other, and I'm not talking about homemade mums, minority history decade, and such things more interesting than a barrel of monkeys. Simple things. Things that would sell because they are interesting, things perhaps people would really like to read for themselves, and decide for themselves what works and what doesn't. What's right or what's wrong?

So be it. Can't we see it.

I enjoyed Bootfest, but to me it's like hearing about, let's see, the Presidential super bus manufactured in Canada to the tune of 1,000,000 dollars. Great, nice bus, but tell me what about the storage, maintenance, and how much more is really spent flying it around, polishing it, and I wonder how many more millions were spent on it with secret service upgrades, need to know basis kind of things.

Not to compare Bootfest with the Bus, but really they're similar. They're both something somebody wanted, that nobody really needed.

You already know how much the Bus cost.

Bootfest was reported to have cost 70K, but wasn't the promotional side pushing well over a million dollars building this behemoth of littleness.

Yet over and over you see posts about the Bootfest, the hotel tax, and here we stand while others just twitter. But already powers are discussing what to do next, but many would just simply like to know where the money went too.

If I went to an investor to promote the Downtown Porkfest and that a cool 100k was all that it would cost, but then told him we'd need to pump in another 1.4 million dollars more to make a real go of it. I would get laughed out the door.

Would the laughs be as silent as the ones you never heard? Because someone, somewhere, is tipping smooth scotch in approval of this fiasco, and in all likely COV funded someone's scotch cabinet to brook the many impending hard winters ahead.

How does spending 62,000 dollars a month 23 straight times, and the last 70,000 dollar balloon payment caps off the grand finale. We could have bought or own Obama tour bus, I'll get to that. and had 400,000 dollars to move around as needed to fund very important things

It's almost as crazy as a few thousand people counted twice to suddenly equal the sum of 20,000.

But City Council was Booby trapped, and we still don't know who spent what with whom and for how much.

How about a bit of transparency, a few facts, maybe a story that tells these facts. People would like to read something interesting, Please anything --

And to think back, we should have bought a 1,000,000. dollar Presidential replica tour bus, then put it on Facebook -- free, then put it on display, and invited travelars from far and near to see how taxpayer money is spent. What a winner, boy they would come like people flocking to the field of dreams.

We could rent it out to all the special politicians that come to town -- Bill Clinton would have loved it, the field trips at schools, special city council touring dates, trips to Austin to wine and dine decision makers -- Lobbyists to smooth out university takeovers, mobile command center to faciltate deployment of military like vehicles from downtown and SWAT forces, emergency escape vehilcle for mayor and city council in the event of a hurricane, closed session meetings when the chips are down, shuffling film festival dignitaries to and from Austin from their hotels, and driving movers and shakers to special meetings at the Pumphouse; to select ranch owners to park near their feeders for once in a lietime hunts, and if you had built a little building next to the porking lot and had the bus open for tours at 7.50 a head, people couldn't resist what they can't comprehend.

It would have made the news everywhere for being so off the wall, but the fond memory of Bootfest and all the signs on the freeways, and gloss paper ads in Texas Monthly are memories legacies are made of . . . .

As stupid as it sounds, it's brillant, useful. and would play right in hand for gladhandling all the investors that come to town.. Imagine all the deals that could be nailed down in the President's bus, the power would be irresistable to those insatiable visionaries..

And to top it off, the bus is still a better idea than anything else they will come up with !

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