Today's listings of Recent bankruptcy filings in Minneapolis and St. Paul in the Star Tribune is lead by this item:
Baja Sol Cantina EP LLC, Anoka; filed Jan. 3, 14-40026; Chap. 11; assets, $0; liabilities, $6,328,821. Michael Wigley, chief manager.
The restaurant, once part of the expansive franchise dreams of failed burrito baron and former Republican Party of Minnesota Tony Sutton, has been closed since 2010.
Wigley's name will be familiar to many readers as the founder of the Taxpayers League. In a 2008 feature about The 10 most powerful Minnesota Republicans, City Pages reported:
. . . Wigley made his millions in construction. He's chairman, president, and CEO of Great Plains Companies, Inc. He has degrees fromStanford and Harvard. And he's got a monomaniacal fix on his issue: taxes. Specifically, eliminating them. And he's a walk-the-walk man: He's donated $95,500 of his own money to the Taxpayers League over the years.
When state government hits a wall over one tax issue or another, you will probably find Wigley in a corner somewhere smirking. But it's not just about muscle. The league doubles as a research center, issuing talking points to fuel the tax debate. Sure, says Weber, "Wigley pisses a lot of people off—but that's his job." Weber observes that Minnesotans—liberals and conservatives alike—occasionally lock arms on tax issues. "And in a liberal political climate, in areas where we do have some common ground, there needs to be somebody to organize around it."
And organize Wigley does. Relentlessly. He's called for the resignation of a state Republican speaker of the House. In recent months, he's called on Chamber of Commerce members to revoke their membership.
"He's been able to mobilize an extraordinary amount of money for anti-tax campaigns," says Steven Schier, a professor of political science at Carleton. "That voice didn't exist in Minnesota politics before him. He made a material difference in Minnesota politics." . . .
Perhaps he ought have avoided investing in Sutton's Turkey Farm. In early September 2013, Bluestem broke the news that Tony & Bridget Sutton file burrito bankruptcy; Mrs. Sutton filed for divorce 5 months ago.
hWhen those hired by the likes of Wigley and Sutton to serve as lobbyists or legislators start blittering away about how we should run government like a family or a business . . .we might ask just what they mean by that.
Photo: A train wreck, via Phoenix Woman's Tough Times at Tony Sutton’s Turkey Farm at FDL.
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Somehow it wouldn't surprise me if the amount of money Wigley's poured into failed businesses and his fight to avoid taking up his part of the social contract would add up to a lot less than, say, the amount of taxes he'd have paid from the time he'd started his War on the Social Contract up to now.
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | Jan 13, 2014 at 09:33 PM