Amy’s Kitchen and who gets the credit for reeling it in
Recent campaign ads have sparked some debate with local community leaders; the issue – who is taking credit for bringing Amy’s Kitchen into Pocatello.
Mayor Brian Blad said recent campaign ads run by incumbent candidate Senator Roy Lacey have upset local community leaders, since they feel Lacey is claiming full ownership over bringing the company into the community.
(You can view Lacey’s ad here)
Blad said Lacey’s recent Facebook post dated Oct. 29 reads, “Good news. At 10am there will be an announcement that Amy’s Kitchen is taking over the Heinz plant. On conversation with Director of Commerce last night he said (Amy’s) would not have come without the tax incentive bill that me and Donna Pence wrote. He said that the bragging rights for the 1,000 jobs belonged to me. Can I pat myself on the back? You betcha.”
But Blad said this isn’t true, and feels the credit should go to the City of Pocatello, the Bannock County Commissioners, John Regetz and the crew from Bannock Development Corporation, and the Idaho Department. of Commerce Director Jeff Sayer, to say the least.
“I think anybody that takes credit for this and says, ‘I did this, I brought these jobs,’ and when it becomes ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ then that becomes problematic,” Blad said.
But Lacey said he’s not trying to take full credit, but just wants people to know the company would not have moved in without the legislation to provide that tax incentive.
“I am not taking credit for the whole thing, I never have, and I never said anything in the campaign that isn’t absolutely truthful,” Lacey pointed out.
Lacey said he placed a call to Sayer the night before he ran the ad and got the OK from the department director.
“He said to me, ‘Roy, your bill sealed the deal. It would have not worked without it. You have the bragging rights for the next six days.'”
When Blad re-posted Lacey’s Facebook post, Sayer’s comment under it confirmed he spoke with Lacey.
“I told him there were 1,000 jobs coming in the announcement but did not discuss the name of the company,” Sayer wrote. “He’s made that connection somewhere else. As to the incentive he has always taken credit for ‘starting’ the TRI (tax reimbursement incentive) with an earlier bill that was actually set aside because the TRI did a lot more than his. …”
Lacey did help co-author a bill in 2012 called the Agriculture Added Bill, but it fell flat, so Lacey said he went back and reworked it into what it is today – the tax reimbursement incentive bill.
In an email, Lacey described the process of how the bill came to what it is today:
“During the summer of 2012, Rep. Donna Pence and I had an idea and began the work. As most of Idaho’s agriculture production is shipped out of state for processing and as agriculture is Idaho’s largest product we titled the bill ‘Agriculture Value Added’ and proceeded to write the bill. We then took it to the agriculture community for them to review and solicit their support (which was unanimous). The proposed bill was then sent to Legislative Services to craft it into the correct language and be sure all statues were correct. From there we submitted it to the Tax Commission for review and made a few changes to satisfy their needs. Then it went to the director of commerce for his review and we did get his support. All of this took about four months. It was then submitted to the Tax and Revenue Committee in the House, and we were granted a committee hearing on the legislation. There were some questions regarding the definition about who may be eligible, so we took it back to the drawing board. As it was late in the session, we decided to hold it until January 2013.
“We then worked with a tax attorney to make some clarifications, took it back to the tax commission, the agriculture community and then to the Tax and Revenue Committee. When the Tax and Revenue Committee asked for a review by the Tax Commission, a new commissioner had some questions, such as what is an agriculture product, how much does a company need to use to be included, etc. Additionally, the question came up regarding why only to the agriculture community and not open it to everyone.
“Representative Pence and I met with Director Jeff Sayer, who had been working with Marc Warbis of the governor’s office, and we did open it up to everyone and changed the rebate from capital expenditures to a tax rebate system that is similar to a law from Utah. When it came time to present the bill, we suggested that our largest critic be asked to carry the bill so we would not need to continually fight that battle. After all, we are not in it for the glory, but for the good of Idaho. Director Sayer asked the person to carry the bill, and he did and it passed. Rep. Pence and I are listed amongst the many sponsors, which is a move to take away the partisan nature of the Tax and Revenue Committee.”
But Rep. Kelley Packer (R-McCammon) said it was Sayer who rewrote the new bill into what it is, and Lacey was just one of 47 co-sponsors of the bill.
(A link to that page can be found here.)
In the end, it was everyone who had a hand in bringing the company into the community: the state lawmakers who drafted legislation to attract the company with a tax reimbursement and the local lawmakers along with local development groups to use that piece of legislation to negotiate with the company.
Blad said the factory is expected to be up and running by December.
