{"id":13284,"date":"2012-11-26T13:22:28","date_gmt":"2012-11-26T20:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=13284"},"modified":"2012-11-26T12:30:55","modified_gmt":"2012-11-26T19:30:55","slug":"aberdeen-idaho-anxious-about-simplot-closure-and-personal-property-tax-repeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/11\/26\/aberdeen-idaho-anxious-about-simplot-closure-and-personal-property-tax-repeal\/","title":{"rendered":"Aberdeen, Idaho Anxious About Simplot Closure And Personal Property Tax Repeal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_13296\"  class=\"wp-caption module image left\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Aberdeen's mayor, Morgan Anderson, at a local American Legion Auxiliary event earlier this year \" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/files\/2012\/11\/11-26-Anderson.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13296\" title=\"Mayor Anderson, Aberdeen\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/files\/2012\/11\/11-26-Anderson-300x205.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"205\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/files\/2012\/11\/11-26-Anderson-300x205.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/files\/2012\/11\/11-26-Anderson-620x425.jpg 620w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/files\/2012\/11\/11-26-Anderson.jpg 1751w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Vicki Gamble \/ Editor, Aberdeen Times<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Aberdeen&#39;s mayor, Morgan Anderson, at a local American Legion Auxiliary event earlier this year<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Tomorrow, Gov. C.L. &#8220;Butch&#8221; Otter and a half-dozen state officials will visit a small eastern Idaho town of fewer than 2,000 people.\u00a0 That town \u2013 Aberdeen \u2013 will be Idaho\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/gov.idaho.gov\/ourgov\/capital.html\">Capital <del><\/del>for a Day<\/a>.\u00a0 Mayor Morgan Anderson says he hopes to use some of the time to explain to state leaders why he&#8217;s concerned for his town&#8217;s very survival.<\/p>\n<p><em>StateImpact<\/em> first wrote about Aberdeen just over a year ago, when J.R. Simplot Company <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/simplot-will-cut-hundreds-of-jobs-by-opening-new-plant\/\" target=\"_blank\">announced plans to close three of its existing potato processing plants<\/a> and replace them with a new facility in Caldwell.\u00a0 Simplot touts the new plant&#8217;s efficiency, but one result of the closures will be the loss of more than 500 jobs.\u00a0 Nearly 300 of those employees report to work in Aberdeen, and many live in the town.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/in-rural-idaho-the-recession-changes-one-towns-fate\/\">In Rural Idaho, the Recession Changes One Town&#8217;s Fate<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/simplot-will-cut-hundreds-of-jobs-by-opening-new-plant\/\">Simplot Will Cut Hundreds of Jobs by Opening New Plant<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/files\/2011\/09\/9-29-Unemployment-Benefits-Post-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/topic\/unemployment\/\">Tracking Idaho&#8217;s Unemployment Rate<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n<p>Mayor Anderson has called Aberdeen home for almost all of his 78 years.\u00a0 He&#8217;s concerned about what the closure will mean for local people and the town&#8217;s tax base.<em>\u00a0 <\/em>He expects 25 families might be forced to leave.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There\u2019s no other place here in town to go,&#8221; he says.\u00a0 &#8220;So if they had to find other employment, they would have to move out. So that\u2019s 25 houses that could be sitting idle.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Anderson says efforts to find a buyer for the Simplot plant, expected to close in 2014, have been complicated by the fact that the company won&#8217;t sell its facility to any other potato processor.\u00a0 Company spokesman David Cuoio does not confirm or refute whether the company has such a prohibition in place.\u00a0 &#8220;We have nothing to say at this time,&#8221; he says<em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Apart from his worry about the plant closure, Anderson is concerned about something else he\u2019s been hearing lately: that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.idahostatesman.com\/2012\/06\/12\/2151576\/otter-sides-with-business-lobby.html\" target=\"_blank\">state lawmakers aim to do away with the personal property tax<\/a>.\u00a0 Those dollars go to local taxing districts, like Aberdeen, and Anderson says his town would have a hard time coping without that revenue.<\/p>\n<p>Anderson and other town officials hope for strong public turnout while the governor is in town.\u00a0 As the mayor puts it, it\u2019s Aberdeen\u2019s chance to talk to the people at the head of the table.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tomorrow, Gov. C.L. &#8220;Butch&#8221; Otter and a half-dozen state officials will visit a small eastern Idaho town of fewer than 2,000 people.\u00a0 That town \u2013 Aberdeen \u2013 will be Idaho\u2019s Capital for a Day.\u00a0 Mayor Morgan Anderson says he hopes to use some of the time to explain to state leaders why he&#8217;s concerned for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":13296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[233,107,74],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13284"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13299,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13284\/revisions\/13299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}