HEARING PLANNED IN MULDOON, AK

Wal-Mart attracts renewed support for Muldoon store [Anchorage Daily News (Alaska)]

Wal-Mart heads into a public hearing early next month on a planned East Anchorage project with a fresh, one-sided vote of support from the Northeast Community Council. But some council members say a company effort to rally supporters of the project to a recent meeting might have tilted the vote.

Skewed or not, the 25-8 vote of the community council backed the company’s latest plan for a Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club at Muldoon and DeBarr roads—a backing the company aggressively sought. A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said in an e-mail to reporters after the vote that the company was “very proud” to have the council’s recommendation.

Council members, however, say last week’s meeting included an unusual number of Wal-Mart employees. Further, some voting in favor of the plan regretted that a more elaborate development plan that included additional landscaping and traffic amenities was no longer on the table.

“I didn’t like this plan nearly as much as the one that had been negotiated in the past,” said former council president Peggy Robinson, who was among the 25. “I had the feeling there were others who felt the same way.”

PROJECT ON SMALLER SITE

The controversial project has roiled emotions in East Anchorage for years, ever since the company first proposed building next door to the Fred Meyer that now dominates the intersection. A court decision earlier this year tossed out the Anchorage Assembly’s rezoning that would have allowed the more elaborate development, and the company, rather than go through the rezoning process again, has proposed squeezing its project onto a smaller site that won’t require rezoning.

The 29-acre site plan, however, on July 7 is due to go before the city Planning and Zoning Commission, which will review project details. A public hearing will be held at the same meeting.

In a recent “Hello from Wal-Mart” flier mailed to East Anchorage homes, the company asked residents whether they backed the project and whether they would be willing to speak at a public hearing, write a letter to the editor or send an e-mail to city officials backing the store. The mailer included drawings of the proposed stores with text that said they will employ more than 500 when they open and both “will offer a greater selection of items to help folks save money and live better.”

Jennifer Spall, a Wal-Mart senior manager, said 11,000 fliers went out, about 500 have come back, and responses have been running better than 3 to 1 in favor of the stores. She said the company sends out the same type of information for just about every project it undertakes.

Spall said Wal-Mart has about 60 employees who live in the area of the proposed new store. “We let everybody in all of our stores know what was going on,” she said of the Wal-Mart turnout at the community council meeting. “Anytime we’re building anything we explain to the associates what’s going on, the processes. And if they want to go on their own time, they do.”

For their part, Northeast Community Council members differed in opinions whether the flier helped with turnout at the recent council meeting. Robinson suspects they worked, to some degree, as intended. “Wal-Mart got much more organized this time around,” she said.

“The flier certainly caused or helped to encourage a lot of people who don’t usually come to community council meetings to come. I’ve always known a lot of people who do support Wal-Mart don’t come to the community council meetings.”

MULDOON LIGHT AN ISSUE

But current council president Mary Pedlow said she was unsure whether the mailers, which started showing up only days before the meeting, got out in time to influence balloting. Pedlow said she feels the community council tally was more a reflection of the large number of Wal-Mart employees who showed up.

“They had quite a showing of their employees,” she said. “There was a lot more people there than for a usual council meeting.”

Those attending a community council meeting can vote as long as they sign in with an address within the council’s district, Pedlow said. And people are taken at their word that they give an accurate address.

Spall, who attended the meeting, said “three or four people” there mentioned they had seen the flier.

Wal-Mart’s current plans have dumped a park, a 200-foot green buffer separating homes from the store, a wide, landscaped boulevard through the site and a plaza that were included in its previous proposal.

The plans would also eliminate the traffic light on Muldoon Road at the driveway to the Fred Meyer on the east side of that store. A traffic light would be placed farther north on Muldoon at a new driveway providing access to the Wal-Mart.

Melinda Merrill, a spokeswoman for Fred Meyer in Portland, Ore., said her company opposes moving the light. The change will make it more difficult for customers trying to access Fred Meyer. She said the company likely will send somebody to the Planning and Zoning hearing to speak against the change.