Page 18 - IAR Recyclers News Press March / April 2013

Page 18 Recyclers News Press
Next we met with Senate Majority Leader Mike
Gronstal who invited us into his office on the third
floor of the Capitol behind the senate chamber. A
great story teller, he told us how he pieced together
a car for his daughter using recycled parts and his
negotiations with insurance. He gave a pretty de-
tailed explanation of the property tax relief propos-
als that would be discussed over the course of the
session. Of course, he’s pushing the senate de-
mocrat plan over the governor’s plan and that of the
house republicans. If there’s going to be any com-
mercial property tax relief it will have to be a com-
promise and the three plans are very different from
one another. This session will end when Gronstal,
the Governor and the Speaker of the House
Paulsen strike compromise deals.
We met with House minority leader Kevin
McCarthy who incidentally has quite a few auto re-
cyclers in his district which is the southeast side of
Des Moines. We focused a little more on enforce-
ment issues with him as he once worked in the At-
torney Generals office, Polk County Attorneys office
and because his dad is the Polk County Sheriff. He
understands enforcement.
Our last leadership meeting was with the Speaker
of the House Kraig Paulsen. Majority Leader Linda
Upmeyer couldn’t attend as she was at a memorial
service for a helicopter crew that tragically went
down in her district. She did have her top staffer in
the meeting. We talked about our overhead costs
and how we are put at a competitive disadvantage
where unlicensed salvage buyers are able to pur-
chase salvage vehicles at auction without a license
and our need for better enforcement of current laws
on the books. Jorge Conforme from LKQ did a
great job explaining some of the problems the in-
dustry has faced across the nation from people en-
gaged in illegal transactions and the affect that has
on legitimate operators doing business the right
way. I made the point that our industry is highly
regulated and that enforcement appears more fo-
cused on us, licensed operators, than on those unli-
censed people skirting the law.
We explained to him that our membership is com-
prised of mostly family run businesses that employ
anywhere from five to thirty-five employees, do be-
tween one to five million dollars of business a year
and are generally zoned commercial industrial. We
explained how the industry is technologically ad-
vanced and that our trade is national and some-
times international in scope. We asked that our in-
dustry benefit in any compromise on commercial
property tax relief. Speaker Paulsen listened intently
and gave his prognosis of the session and property
tax relief.
What we didn’t get in any of our meetings was a
promise. I didn’t expect any. We have a very ideo-
logically divided legislature. While our state is one
of the top four in the nation as far as our budget
goes, close to one billion dollar general fund ending
balance and unemployment of less than 5%, those
in power have different approaches to education,
Iowa Automotive Recyclers
HILL DAY 2013