IN FEAR OF LITIGATION, MOON, PA OFFICIALS SURRENDER TO WAL-MART

Injured Moon Township official says Wal-Mart still a priority [Beaver County Times (Pa.)]

Moon Township Supervisor Michael Hopper hasn’t attended the board’s last two public meetings, participating instead by phone, and he’s failed to return numerous phone calls and e-mails from residents in recent weeks.

All while the board was considering one of the most controversial items on its plate in recent years — the potential development of a Wal-Mart Supercenter at the current West Hills Shopping Center site.

The calls and e-mails from residents picked up, both in number and intensity, after Hopper’s vote Thursday approving Wal-Mart’s preliminary development plans, a reversal from the vote he cast a week earlier when the board shot down Wal-Mart’s plans.

Hopper said there’s a reason he’s been a bit incommunicado.

“I was seriously injured in a bad car accident three weeks ago,” Hopper said.

Hopper suffered a broken nose, a broken sternum, a couple of broken ribs and loss of hearing in his right ear in the June 19 wreck in downtown Pittsburgh, where he swerved to miss an oncoming car and crashed into a utility pole.

Hopper said he spent three days at Pittsburgh’s Mercy Hospital after the accident, before going home and ordered to bedrest.

“It’s going to be another few weeks before I’m up and around again,” Hopper said.

Still, Hopper said he’s stayed on top of the Wal-Mart issue.

Explaining his flip-flop vote, Hopper said he had “grave concerns about the potential magnitude of liability we faced.”

According to Hopper, board solicitor Michael Santicola told supervisors during an executive session after the board’s July 2 meeting that the township and supervisors individually could potentially be on the hook “for the property itself, which Wal-Mart bought for $7 million; for their engineering costs and fees; and even for the potential loss of sales.”

“And apparently there were concerns if our insurance carrier would be willing to cover that liability,” he added.

Hopper said the retail giant will now have an opportunity to amend its plans to comply with various land-development and zoning ordinances it sought variances from. Wal-Mart had sought variances from 11 ordinances, but the board shot down seven of them.

Still, Hopper has concerns about the project, particularly the size of the would-be store. If a store is to be built at all, he thinks a smaller one would be better than a 148,000-square-foot Supercenter.

“We need to have continued dialogue with Wal-Mart,” Hopper said.

But at least for the next few weeks, at least in Hopper’s case, that dialogue will be conducted over the phone.

Posted by Joel Nezianya on Monday, July 14, 2008

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