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Hometown Pie seeks tax abatement, expansion funding from New Strawn
Summary
Wanda Chaffain told the council she plans to expand Hometown Pie and asked the city to consider an industrial revenue bond or a 10-year property tax abatement; she reported producing roughly 34,197 pies in 2023 and targeting 37,000-plus this year.
Wanda Chaffain, owner of Hometown Pie, asked the council to consider an industrial revenue bond or a tax abatement to support an expansion of her bakery. Chaffain said the business began in New Strawn in 2018 (about 12,000 pies that year), produced 34,197 pies in 2023 and is targeted to make 37,000-plus pies this year; she said an abatement would help afford construction and make building materials tax-exempt.
City Attorney Philip Wright said he is not bond counsel and cannot provide legal advice on creating a bond or an abatement; he told the council that if they wished to pursue the matter they would need to retain bond counsel. Robert Skipper described how the industrial revenue-bond mechanism in this instance would operate more like a tax abatement and construction sales-tax exemption rather than the city issuing debt, and he said customarily the developer would pay bond-counsel fees.
