Salmon Creek, WA. County Wallops Wal-Mart Plans

County wallops Wal-Mart plans [Columbian (Wash.)]

County commissioners lined up to give frowny-faces to Wal-Mart on Wednesday, tossing out a developer’s plans for a possible store site in Salmon Creek.

Each of the three commissioners found problems, which ranged from storm runoff to traffic safety to the proper certification by a traffic engineer .

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said she saw an anti-Wal-Mart bias in the ruling, which may be appealed to Clark County Superior Court.

The plans had twice been green-lighted by county planners and a county hearings examiner.

Foes of the proposed development at Northeast 134th Street just west of 27th Avenue, who have spent two years in a legal fight against it, were gleeful.

“We kicked their asses!” said Bridget Schwarz, a leader in the Fairgrounds Neighborhood Association and an anti-Wal-Mart activist.

Commissioner Betty Sue Morris said evidence surrounding the developer’s plans to pipe stormwater through a neighboring set of condominiums had changed too drastically since the county’s initial review.

As Morris, a Democrat who rarely opposes developments, said she would therefore vote to reject the plan, one audience member let out an audible gasp.

Morris added that she’d never seen a more dangerous truck exit than one planned to open onto Rockwell Road, southwest of the site.

“We’re gonna have trucks, we’re gonna have cars,” Morris said. “It is just absolutely unsafe.”

Commissioner Steve Stuart echoed Morris’ concerns and added that he was troubled by a development engineer’s failure to put an official stamp on his traffic report.

“We put the submission criteria in there for a reason,” he said. “It should never have been considered technically complete.”

For his part, Commissioner Marc Boldt had opened the meeting by saying he saw no insurmountable problems with the developer’s stormwater plans.

“Our staff feels that it can be corrected,” he said. “We have to rely on the staff.”

After Morris and Stuart had spoken, Boldt added that he had decided to reject the development on the other grounds they’d cited.

Echoes of 1997 case

Jennifer Holder, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said the company was “extremely disappointed” and had not yet decided whether to appeal the ruling.

“It’s just when Wal-Mart’s name was tossed into the mix that it became a controversy,” she said.

Holder quoted county hearings examiner Daniel Kearns, who wrote in his earlier opinion that he had “seldom seen a more complete and detailed accounting of stormwater, transportation, geotechnical and other issues associated with a commercial development.”

Wal-Mart, which is the nation’s biggest retailer, grocer, toy seller and private employer, is trying to serve its customers, Holder added.

“It’s a great location,” she said.

Holder’s comments raised memories of a similar case in 1997, when commissioners rejected the county’s first Wal-Mart on East Mill Plain Boulevard only to reverse themselves under threat of a lawsuit alleging bias.

The same lawyer, John McCullough of Seattle, is even working on the case.

Dennis Johnson, a member of the neighborhood association, said he opposed the proposal not because of his own thoughts on Wal-Mart, but because he worried about local traffic.

“The fact that it’s Wal-Mart doesn’t bother me,” he said.

A recent change in the county’s building rules could make it slightly easier for developers to find a different use for the site.

Last week, commissioners lifted a ban on new building plans in the Salmon Creek area. That would clear the way for someone to suggest a different - and potentially less traffic-intensive - proposal.

Schwarz said the store’s opponents are convinced that a court appeal is on the way, but that Wal-Mart might be wary after seeing a wave of new stores rejected in California.

“They’re starting to find out that this is not Midwest America, where they can come in and take over the town,” she said.

John Karpinski, the neighborhood association’s lawyer, praised the three commissioners.

“They stood up for the community,” he said. “It’s obvious that they looked at this from a very technical point of view.”