Toby Shaughnessy’s request for Allen County commissioners to sign off on giving a restaurant he intends to build a tax break wasn’t met with open arms. AS COMPLETION of Allen County’s new hospital draws near, what to do with the current hospital becomes more of a concern.
They won’t decide until next Tuesday’s meeting whether to join Allen Community College, USD 257 and Iola in approving the restaurant’s inclusion in Iola’s Neighborhood Revitalization Program. The program gives participants a 95 percent property tax abatement for five years, with taxes then added in 20 percent increments the next five years.
The county retains 5 percent for administration in collection of taxes.
Shaughnessy and his father, Bob, will build a Sam and Louie’s New York Pizzeria near the east entrance to Walmart. It will be a “full-service, sit-down restaurant,” said Toby Shaughnessy. He expects to have 15-20 employees, many of them high school and college students.
Shaughnessy worked at Papa John’s pizza restaurant while attending Pittsburg State University, where he graduated in 2010, and then managed the restaurant. He think that gives him a leg up with the Iola restaurant, which will open in early fall. He also will receive management training from Sam and Louie’s and have company help with its opening.
Commissioner Dick Works said he had a problem giving Shaughnessy a tax break when two similar restaurants — Pizza Hut and Corleone’s — were nearby, neither of which received an abatement.
Shaughnessy said he had no control over the other restaurants not taking advantage of the revitalization program. Bob Shaughnessy stressed that the county would not be out any tax money that comes its way and eventually would reap tax income when the restaurant started to pay.
“We need to do all we can to help businesses get started,” the elder Shaughnessy added. “We lost 120 homes (to the flood of 2007) and this will pay taxes in the years to come.”
“I’m reluctant for government to pick winners and losers,” said Commissioner Tom Williams, and would rather see a business “succeed or fail on its own merits.”
When fully on tax rolls, Toby Shaughnessy said the restaurant would pay $10,000 to $12,000 a year with current levies, with a little over a third going to the county, based on Iola’s total levy of 175 mills and the county’s at 67 mills.
Though they philosophically weren’t attune to tax abatements for the restaurant, Works and Williams said they had heard no outcries of opposition. Both said they would quiz constituents before next Tuesday for opinions.
“A couple of people have looked at the hospital,” said County Counselor Alan Weber, “but both said they wouldn’t be interested in doing anything until 2014, if at all.”
Meanwhile, he and commissioners agreed the building would have to be maintained once it was vacated, to keep it from slipping into disrepair and be less likely to appeal to a buyer.
Commissioners put off tax abatement decision
