Duluth, GA. Wal-Mart Complains City Played “Politics” With Them
A Wal-Mart lawyer had the nerve this week to charge local political maneuvering in a case where the retailer brought in a former Governor to take their side. On July 1, 2007, Sprawl-Busters reported that citizens in Duluth, Georgia were up in arms about a proposed 176,305 s.f. Wal-Mart supercenter on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard. Wal-Mart proposed a super store in a general commercial (C-2) zone. The 24 hour supercenter would be located about 4 miles from another one in Duluth, and this one would be smack in the middle of several neighborhoods. On July 30th, the City Council unanimously voted to create a 6-month moratorium on “big box” construction projects — anything larger than 75,000 square feet. This week, opponents pushed Wal-Mart further back into its hole, when the Duluth Zoning Board of Appeals unanimously agreed that a former city official —- interim planning director Shelley Stiebling — exceeded her authority when she approved changes to the retail giant’s building plans on her own instead of deferring a decision to the board of appeals. “I think she exceeded her authority,” said one ZBA member. Wal-Mart had asked for variances on the pitch of their roof, and on some building materials on the “skin” of the store. This is a procedural victory that will delay processing of Wal-Mart’s proposal, because the retailer must now reapply for the variances. “I’m just disappointed,” a company spokesman complained to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “ I think it’s a case of politics instead of the law being followed.” Duluth City Hall was packed 3 nights ago for the ZBA meeting. The citizen’s group, Smart Growth Gwinnett, vowed to keep fighting the superstore plan. Wal-Mart’s lawyer tried to argue that the residents who were challenging Planning Director Stiebling’s ruling, did not have legal “standing” to be heard---even though the city’s building ordinance says that anyone has the right to appeal variances. “In order to be aggrieved,” Wal-Mart’s lawyer testified, “a person must demonstrate that his property will suffer special damages because of the decision. The rule is designed to prevent individuals from taking on a cause.”
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Topics: Zoning Regulations
Posted by Al Norman on Monday, October 29, 2007 | Permalink
Johnson City, NY. Citizens Mull Appeal Of Village Decision to OK Wal-Mart.
On September 25, 2007, Sprawl-Busters reported that a developer called Newman Development, based in Vestal, New York, wanted to build a 130,720 s.f. Wal-Mart supercenter in Johnson City, New York, on the site of the former Endicott Johnson Ranger Paracord site in the village. Newman Development has been trying to redevelop this property as a retail center for 14 years, the company claims. The Johnson market area already has a larger Wal-Mart supercenter in Vestal, which is only a five minute drive from Johnson. A citizen’s group, the Coalition for Positive Revitalization for Johnson City, has been fighting the proposal. The village board had to give Newman a special permit to use industrial land for retail, and then the village planning board had to approve the site plan. This week, despite community opposition, the planning board did just that---unanimously. “The process up until now has been very thorough and exhaustive, say nothing of exhausting,” Newman’s attorney told Channel 10 News. “We’re pleased to get this final vote of approval from the village planning board.” Now Newman hopes to begin construction this spring, and says building the store will take about a year. But the Coalition for Positive Revitalization for Johnson City is mulling over a possible appeal. Here’s a front line report sent to Sprawl-Busters from one of the leaders of the Coalition: “The Johnson City Mayor and Board of trustees voted on a resolution, Oct 16th, to issue a special permit to allow Wal-Mart to build and do business in an industrial zone. The public comment period, prior to this vote, was cut short. The Mayor asked that only new information and arguments be presented. Those who spoke with valid concerns and questions were not given any concrete answers. Our feeling is that there was much bias from the start of this proposal and it continued throughout. Although residents voiced genuine concerns regarding public safety, flood issues and economic concerns---we never have to date received any concrete, straightforward answers. The Mayor and Board have refused to do any additional, unbiased studies on our behalf. Pro Wal-Mart residents were escorted by the Rochester PR firm, Public Strategy Group, employees. Wal-Mart hired this firm to underhandedly promote the yes side and influence our media. My personal meeting with the Mayor made me walk away feeling that he cared more about Wal-Mart’s interests than his constituents.”
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Topics: Site Fights & Local Ordinances | Zoning Regulations
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, October 26, 2007 | Permalink
New York, NY. Wal-Mart Cuts Projected Growth In Half
It turns out that Wal-Mart is its own worst enemy. The retailer has been eating itself for years---and now has to protect itself---from itself. In a dramatic sign that Wal-Mart is finally feeling the financial impact from years of cannibalizing its own sales, the world’s most voracious retailer told Wall Street analysts this week that the company is slamming the brakes on new store construction. In 2005, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott told reporters that America had room for 4,000 more Wal-Marts---almost double their current store count. Instead of the 280 new superstores a year promised in 2005, Wal-Mart is now rolling back to 170 stores. Founder Sam Walton often bragged of his company’s saturation strategy. “We became our own competition,” Walton wrote. But over time, Wal-Mart got to be too good at competing with itself, and now is paying the price. B y jamming huge superstores less than four miles from each other, the company has weakened its own same stores sales growth—a key economic indicator in retailing. In 1987, Wal-Mart’s “comparative store” sales increase---from stores open at least a year---was 13%. Ten years later, it had plummeted to 4%. Last June, at its annual shareholder’s meeting, Wal-Mart abruptly announced that during its 2008 fiscal year, it wouldopen between 190 and 200 new stores in the United States. Any of the 18,000 stockholders present---if they happened to open the company’s 2007 Annual Report in their lap---would have read that Wal-Mart’s future expansion plans called for “265 to 270 new supercenters.” In just a matter of weeks, Wal-Mart executives had backed off the “Management’s Discussion” in their Annual Report, and instead sliced back expansion plans by 26%.
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Posted by Al Norman on Thursday, October 25, 2007 | Permalink
Tarpon Springs, FL. Wal-Mart Still Battling Two Years, Eight Months Later
With clear sailing, a Wal-Mart permitting process can be done in three months or less. But in many communities, local citizens groups have slowed Wal-Mart’s progress to a turtle’s pace. Take Tarpon Springs, Florida, where Wal-Mart knew they had to move out the gopher tortoises on a site they chose to build on. But they found out they also had to move out a bunch of citizens who stood in their way. On January 19, 2005 the Tarpon Springs Board of Commissioners voted 3 to 2 to approve an enormous Wal-Mart development on the Anclote River. The site plan included a 24 hour SuperCenter on nearly 24 acres, with a 1,000 space parking lot, tire and lube center and an out parcel for a restaurant or retail store, plus 6 acres for residential or office development. By one vote, the most contentious battle in the history of Tarpon Springs was launched, that has now stretched out over two years and eight months. A citizens group called the Friends of the Anclote River has been swimming upstream against this project from the very outset. A group called the Concerned Citizens of Tarpon Springs took the city to court for approving the supercenter project. In March of 2006 a three judge panel in the 6th. Circuit Court for Pinellas County ruled against the Concerned Citizens of Tarpon Springs, and the group, running out of funds, had to end their legal challenge. But Wal-Mart was involved in a legal challenge to the site plan from shortly after the site plan was approved until May 7, 2007, when the court granted summary judgment on a lawsuit brought by a citizen abutter against Wal-Mart and the City. But the battle did not end in court. This week, the Friends sent Sprawl-Busters a press release that Wal-Mart is coming back in on October 26th with a revised site plan. “The City of Tarpon Springs’ Technical Review Committee (TRC) will consider a revised Site Plan submitted by Wal-Mart for a Supercenter on the Anclote River,” the Friends write.
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Topics: Environment | Lawsuits | Organizing
Posted by Al Norman on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 | Permalink
Wall Street Journal: Wal-Mart and Ernst & Young Get Cozy
According to today’s The Wall Street Journal, documents filed in a North Carolina tax case may have gotten Wal-Mart into some big time trouble. At the very least, they outline Ernst & Young’s contributions to Wal-Mart’s state-tax minimization efforts.
The case, Wal-Mart Stores East v. E. Norris Tolson, Secretary of Revenue of the State of North Carolina, was filed by Wal-Mart in 2006. Wal-Mart filed seeking a refund of over $30 million it was assessed by the North Carolina Department of Revenue for its use of a “captive REIT” tax strategy. This term has been tossed around in the media for some time now, so just to recap: In Wal-Mart’s case, the company set up its own real-estate investment trust, or REIT, in Delaware, then in effect paid billions of dollars in rent to itself which was subsequently deducted from its state taxes in about 25 states. As The Wall Street Journal documented earlier this year, such a strategy has served to save Wal-Mart hundreds of millions in state taxes nationwide.
Though the loophole could be lawful in several states, one key, it appears, to its lawfulness is the purpose behind the use of the tax strategy. The Wisconsin Department of Revenue, for example, is alleging Wal-Mart owes over $17 million and possibly more in back taxes because of its use of the REIT, claiming the strategy is being used simply to avoid taxes thereby disallowing use of the deduction. On the contrary, Wal-Mart’s creation of the REIT, according to Wal-Mart’s spokeswoman Tara Stewart, was intended not to avoid paying taxes but instead “as part of a larger company-wide restructuring to more effectively and efficiently manage our business, including our ever-growing real-estate portfolio.”
That is all well and good, except that Wal-Mart now appears to be contradicting itself with every excuse it mutters in defense of these tax strategies. According to The Wall Street Journal, in a May 2001 letter from Wal-Mart Senior Director for Income Tax Wyman Atwell to accounting firms, Wal-Mart opened with the following:
Wal-Mart is requesting your proposal(s) for professional tax advice and related implementation services in connection with minimization of state income taxes in the following states: Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania.
Wal-Mart eventually hired Ernst & Young to devise tax strategies in at least four of those states - Arizona, California, Michigan and Texas - the same accounting firm that had initially set up its nationwide captive REIT strategy. According to documents filed in the North Carolina case, Ernst & Young delivered to Wal-Mart what the WSJ refers to as a “37-page proposal laying out a smorgasbord of 27 potential tax strategies” revealing Wal-Mart’s one primary purpose: “cutting its state income taxes.”
Lawmakers, enforcement officials, and U.S. Senate investigators have already shown a keen interest in tax shelters after Ernst & Young and KPMG were taken to the woodshed for their promotion of abusive tax shelters...and now its Wal-Mart’s turn to feel the heat. And the fact that meetings between Ernst & Young experts and Wal-Mart executives took place at Wal-Mart’s Bentonville headquarters inside what was referred to as the “Tax Shelter Room?”
Well, that’s just taxalicious icing on the cake.
So come, and lets jump down Wal-Mart’s tax avoidance rabbit hole with that saucy dirt-digging publication known as The Wall Street Journal:
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 | Permalink
Hilo, HI. Cap On Superstores Size To Be Refiled
Is Hawaii’s Big Island becoming a Big Box paradise? There are five counties in the state of Hawaii, and big box controversy has boiled over on at least three of them. The latest is Hawaii County. On September 5, 2007, Sprawl-Busters reported that on the island of Maui, Hawaii, the Maui County Council Planning Committee had taken an initial step on legislation that would amend the county’s zoning laws to prohibit large discount retailers. The committee recommended that a bill to prohibit superstores in Maui County should be forwarded to the three county planning commissions for review as well as to the Hana Advisory Committee, the Maui Planning Commission and the Maui County Cultural Resources Commission. The Council’s Chairman introduced the bill when he became aware that other counties in the state were working on similar legislation. In Kaua’i County, the Council in May, 2007 approved a law prohibiting retail or wholesale store larger than 75,000 s.f. Kaua’i was the first in the state to implement a ban on large stores. In Hilo, in Hawaii county, the County Council recently rejected a “big box” ordinance. According to the Associated Press, the idea of restricting superstores has created “divided opinions” on the Big Island. Hawaii County Council Chairman Peter Hoffmann has told reporters that he will file a new bill soon that would ban all “big box” stores on the island. There are already 7 big box stores on the Big Island which will be “grandfathered” in even if a new law is passed: two Wal-Marts, two Home Depots, a Lowe’s, Kmart and a Costco. Most of the anti big box sentiment has focused on Wal-Mart. “Unfortunately, they’re the whipping boy,” Chairman Hoffmann told the AP. Hoffmann’s first proposal would have prohibited superstores larger than 90,000 s.f. that have more than 20,000 s.f. for groceries and more than 25,000 items. But several council members pointed out that those limits could easily be avoided, and the bill would be unenforceable. But Councilors were more swayed by public testimony that favored “customer choice.” Ironically, stores like Wal-Mart reduce customer choice by thinning out the marketplace of smaller competitors. “I don’t think government should tell you where to spend that disposable income,” one Councilman said, forgetting that this is a zoning debate, not a ‘shopper’s rights’ issue. Wal-Mart has been approved by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to build a store on their property, but many Native Hawaiians have protested that Home Lands property should not be used for commercial purposes.
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Topics: legislation | Zoning Regulations
Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 | Permalink
Oxford, NC. Wal-Mart’s Superstore Plans “On the Shelf”
There are 5 Wal-Marts within 25 miles of Oxford, North Carolina, including three supercenters, and one discount store right in Oxford. The supercenter in Henderson is less than 9 miles away. So the area is already saturated with Wal-Marts. The Herald Sun newspaper reports that a cluster of approved Wal-Mart supercenters are now on ice, despite the warm weather in the Research Triangle region. The newspaper claims that the store pullbacks trace back to Wal-Mart’s sudden announcement last June that it was scaling back the number of new supercenters by more than 25%, and expecting at least 80 stores in the review process for 2007 to be pushed back until 2008. Two supercenters in southern Durham and now frozen. The Durham store planned for MLK Jr. Parkway has approval to file for building permits. “It’s on the shelf, waiting to go,” he said. Supercenters proposed for Butner, Oxford and Creedmoor are also up in the air. Original plans for these stores were to have them open by August of 2008, but now that is not going to happen. Local officials in all three communities have approved the stores, but Wal-Mart has not committed to any timetable. “Due to the change in number of stores we cannot, in good faith, give accurate timelines on these projects at present,” a Wal-Mart spokesman admitted.
The Mayor of Butner told the newspaper, “What I had heard was that they were going to review each of them individually before they started building any more.” Oxford’s Mayor Al Woodlief told the paper he is confident Wal-Mart will build in Oxford—but Wal-Mart has never given him a timeline. Many residents in his small community are just as happy, because they have expressed concerns that Wal-Mart will have an adverse impact on the city’s quaint, picturesque downtown. The Mayor said he recently asked Granville County’s Economic Development Director Leon Turner what Wal-Mart’s plans were. “And he said that they, rather than going in locations where they weren’t, they were going in locations were they were,” the Mayor said. In other words, if you have a Wal-Mart discount store in your town, it will soon be history, as Wal-Mart replaces it, or expands it into a supercenter.
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Topics: Community Impact | Economic/Small Business | Workers Rights & Wages | Zoning Regulations
Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 | Permalink
Davie, FL. Wal-Mart Files Second Lawsuit After Town Rejection
Wal-Mart has more lawsuits than men’s suits. The retailer proposed to build a 24/7 superstore on 36 acres of land in Davie, Florida. The project was vigorously opposed by residents of the Rolling Hills Lake Estates, and Pine Island Bay. In July of 2006, Wal-Mart couldn’t muster a single vote when their project came before the Davie Town Council. The retailer’s plans for a 202,853 s.f. superstore were slam-dunked on a 4-0 vote. Council members ruled that the store would destroy local businesses and create too much of a disruption for nearby residents. Wal-Mart’s argument hinged on a legal settlement from 17 years ago that allowed larger stores than the town now permits. Not willing to respect the wishes of local officials, Wal-Mart filed a lawsuit in Broward Circuit Court in October of 2006, charging that council members wrongly denied their plan. On March 21, 2007, Sprawl-Busters reported that a Broward County, Florida judge gave residents in Davie, Florida a victory, siding with the town. But Wal-Mart appealed that circuit court decision in March, 2007, and last week filed a second lawsuit on the federal level. Wal-Mart went to federal court to try to get a judge to enforce the 1989 legal settlement between the town and the property’s former owner. Wal-Mart now owns the property, and is trying to use the 1989 agreement to allow them to build. “We’re basically asking a court to enforce the agreement we had with the town of Davie, so the town will do what it promised to do,” a Wal-Mart spokesman told the Miami Herald. The town’s lawyer says the 1989 settlement with a former owner does not transfer to Wal-Mart, and that the retailer is just “shopping around’’ for another judge. I guess they didn’t like the result they got in the state Circuit Court,” the town’s attorney said. Now Davie taxpayers have to ante up more money to defend themselves against a second Wal-Mart lawsuit. The town has to respond to the federal lawsuit by October 26th.
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Topics: Economic/Small Business | Traffic/Sprawl
Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 | Permalink
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