Octopi Executives appear to be quietly lobbying Waunakee Village Board members to continue tax incentives despite Octopi’s recent sale to the multinational beverage holding company, Asahi Group Holdings, Ltd.
“Cause shawty know what she want
Jamie Foxx
But she don’t wanna seem like she easy”
(or developers, singing about Waunakee, probably)
The Village of Waunakee, over the course of the last half decade plus, has provided a dramatic amount of tax-incrementalized financing to the development of Octopi Brewing, LLC, located in the Waunakee business park off Hogan Road. Given the dramatic local investment in the spot, it’s odd that the local media has barely reported on the sale of Octopi to Asahi Group Holdings, Ltd. of Japan early last month. Specific terms of sale have not been publicly disclosed. Asahi has publicly noted the property was purchased to develop North American distribution of its current Japanese beer product line.
Given that local media appears relatively uninterested in reporting on the sale, it should surprise no one that there is literally zero coverage of the private lobbying of Village officials that Octopi has been engaging in over the course of the last month. Multiple sources have confirmed that Mr. Isaac Showaki has held closed-door meetings with most, if not all, members of the Waunakee Village Board of Trustees. These private meetings have been held in advance of today’s Village Board meeting, which has publicly noticed the aspirational title for a “Presentation by Isaac Showaki on Asahi/Octopi Future Growth Plans in Waunakee and Introduction to Asahi“. With many aspects of government, the meetings available to the public are at times conducted after understandings have already been reached. It remains to be seen how Village officials will react to Mr. Showaki’s public presentation, nor how Waunakee will exercise its rights under the current TIF agreement, if at all.
In private meetings with Village Board members, sources communicated that it was disclosed that Octopi was sold to Asahi with the hope that the Village would not enforce the current TIF agreement with Octopi and terminate the TIF/TID early, and that it would effectively transfer the TIF to new owners. In short, Showaki and Asahi will presumably ask the Village to decline to enforce claw-back provisions in the TIF agreement with Waunakee, and ask that the Village continue to provide the TIF/TID to the new owners.
It is not clear how waiving protections in the TIF agreement would benefit anyone but Octopi’s owners, old or new.
Given the mere title of their presentation, Mr. Showaki and representatives from Asahi will likely tell the Village Board (in public) that continuing the TIF is necessary to create future investments in the Octopi/Asahi property in Waunakee, the implicit threat being that investment in the property may not continue if the Village doesn’t authorize Octopi/Asahi to draw on money from the TID increment for its own internal improvements.
This may come as a surprise to local residents, who are likely in the dark concerning the agreements between Waunakee and Octopi. Most community members certainly are unaware that the Village has agreed to pay up to “$1,190,000” to a developer for internal improvements, effectively to defray costs, increase a business’s profitability, or to pay off its own lender. See Section 8.c. of the Development Agreement linked in this article. The local media hardly covers Waunakee’s aggressive use of tax-incrementalized financing, nominally designed to incentivize development that would not happen “but for” the government assistance conferred through complex agreements between developers and municipalities. In short, TIF are tax breaks only available in Waunakee to developers who can convince gormless and ignorant local elected officials that they won’t invest otherwise. How many voters realize that several current elected officials actually voted to effectively cut a blank check to businesses for their own internal growth? Do they know which elected officials lobbied against it?
From the Village’s website regarding TIF
Each project should demonstrate sufficient need for financial assistance. In accordance with State law, the Village will not provide TIF assistance unless the proponent can demonstrate that “but for” the use of TIF, the project could not proceed as proposed. The burden is on the requesting party to prove that the proposed project would not be feasible without Village assistance.
Waunakee’s legal team drafted the TIF agreement which authorizes the Village to claw back TIF funding in the event the TIF-supported properties were sold, the idea being that the agreement for development was between a developer and the Village to grow and sustain the local tax base, not to help a business dress up and twerk for a global corporate investor. In short, the Village extracted a promised investment. What Village elected officials are being asked to do is effectively to :
1) presumably continue to ignore that the tax breaks weren’t really needed to develop;
2) hold that the TIF should be continued;
3) pretend that the TIF wasn’t merely to make a business more marketable; and
4) continue to make TIF available to new owners, despite their own investment in the property being based on building a North American distribution center, not for the tax assistance provided at a mere municipal level.
Once again, Waunakee is left to decisions made by elected official(s) who are demonstrably illiterate on million dollar issues. You get what you vote for, and the cost to giving developers whatever they want could cost local taxpayers those same millions. I have no objection to a business doing whatever it can to make a profit. No fault to Octopi/Asahi for fighting for a great deal. Scorn and derision should be reserved for elected officials picking corporations over community, and connected developers over local longtime residents.
Waunakee & Friends 