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Exchange between Maid-Rite CEO and DIA 1

Exchange between Maid-Rite CEO and DIA 2

An amendment offered in the Iowa House has taken the exception for Taylor's Maid-Rite out of a budget bill that would have allowed the restaurant to continue its traditional cooking process.

Though local legislators Rep. Mark Smith, D-Marshalltown, and Rep. Lance Horbach, R-Tama, put together a bipartisan alliance against an amendment offered by Rep. Ralph Watts, R-Adel, the House voted in favor of Watts amendment 48 to 44. That effectively killed the amendment proposed by Sen. Steve Sodders, D-State Center, and pulled that language from the bill. It will need to go back to the Senate for approval.

"This is a policy issue attached to an appropriation bill," Watts said during the floor debate Friday.

Watts did not take a position on whether or not the cooking method Taylor's Maid-Rite uses is safe and, in fact, said there is "zero indication of the existence of a food safety problem."

Horbach asked the members of the House consider why they ran for office in the first place.

"Why did you run for this position? Who did you say you were going to protect before you became politically savvy?" he asked. "Did you say I want to run so the DIA [Department of Inspections and Appeals] can put an 82-year-old family business out of business? Or did you say I am for the little guy who's doing it right?"

Smith had a dialogue with Watts during the debate and asked him a number of questions about the amendment he proposed.

"It sounded like you participated in Marshalltown day and have enjoyed one of the delicious Maid-Rite sandwiches coming from Taylor's. I hope you did not get ill as a result of participating in Marshalltown day and having a Maid-Rite," he said.

Watts acknowledged he had not fallen ill from eating a Taylor's Maid-Rite.

"Taylor's Maid-Rite started operation in Marshalltown in 1928," Smith said. "Can you tell me how many illnesses and incidents of E. coli have been traced back to Taylor's in Marshalltown?"

Watts responded, "There have been none to my knowledge."

Horbach argued the main problem was the state DIA was inserting itself into a corporate squabble and pointed to letters to prove it.

In one letter dated June 9, 2006, Bradley Burt, the president and CEO of the Maid-Rite corporation, addressed a letter to Steve Young, who at that time was the director of the DIA, asking for help.

"Steve, my dilemma is the fact that I am getting my lunch handed to me in a hand basket when our Maid-Rite compliance inspectors visitor our franchisee restaurants, because our franchisees state to us that their local Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals inspectors do not have a problem and are okay with their mixing of raw uncooked beef with finished cooked ready to serve ground beef in the same cooking vessel," Burt wrote.

At one point Dean Lerner, who would later be appointed the new director of the DIA, wrote an e-mail to Burt noting that the DIA was asking for an increase in the fees for inspections.

"Your overt, vocal support for the fee increase to adequately cover the cost of the statutorily required inspections would be very helpful," Lerner wrote in an e-mail dated Jan. 24, 2007 at 5:27 a.m.

Later, Burt wrote back at 9:55 a.m. on the same day, "I support the Department in raising the fee for restaurants to help cover the costs in conducting inspections." Burt also wrote he would be pleased to write a letter of support for Lerner to become the permanent new director of the DIA.

Less than an hour later, Lerner sent an e-mail saying, "I am asking Judy Harrison (in charge of the state's food program) to revisit the issue of cross contamination."

In August of 2007, for the first time in its history of nearly 80 years, Taylor's Maid-Rite was found to be out of compliance with food regulations because of its cooker.

The letter and e-mail exchange between Burt and the directors of the DIA led Horbach to one conclusion: "There's a lot of favors going back and forth at the top, a lot of favors. Their history doesn't deem them [Taylor's Maid-Rite] illegal. They weren't illegal until two people injected politics in the DIA."

Don Taylor Short, one of the co-owners of Taylor's Maid-Rite, said he is disappointed but not discouraged by the decision in the Iowa House. He said the legal fight will continue.

"We want to thank everyone who has shown us support in this," he said. "This is far from over and we are not shutting down. Taylor's will remain open."

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Contact Ken Black at 641-753-6611 or kblack@timesrepublican.com