Victory in Colorado: Littleton Voters Say NO to New Wal Mart

My first reaction upon reading this was to laugh. You can find THOUSANDS of sites on the web regarding the “voters” and “community opposition groups” fighting Wal-Mart. You can find many cities and towns that voted against Wal-Mart. But I can provide some other facts: every single Wal-Mart store in America does millions of dollars per year in sales. Wal-Mart, as a company, was so unpopular in 2006 that consumers spent just $345,000,000,000.00 there.

Opinions, editorials, speeches, marches, protests, campaigns and even elections are not the most efficient measure of a community’s view of a store. The absolute be all/end all determination of a community’s opinion of a particular store is to look at the store’s sales. People hate Wal-Mart? Yes, this is true. There are probably quite a few of them. But there are also 130 + million shoppers per week who LIKE Wal-Mart and spend money there. If the people did not want Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart would go out of business.

As for this community vote against a business; why not permit current residents to vote on whether or not blacks, Jews, Mormons or Hispanics can live in their town? If some people can take away the property rights and dreams of a person who wants to run a business, why not let the townsfolk vote on EVERY business and EVERY resident. Have to protect our communities, after all!

The absolute be all/end all determination of a community’s opinion of a particular store is to look at the store’s sales.

Nick’s falderal aside, Wal-Mart’s U.S. same store sales aren’t even keeping up with inflation. Granted, Wal-Mart’s numbers would still look pretty good if Bentonville could stop making so many costly blunders. Fortunately for the anti side, it looks like the Gang that couldn’t shoot straight is to remain in place. (For now, anyway.)

A lot of people still shop at Wal-Mart every week but the number of “conscientious objectors” grows by the day. And the Anti Wal-Mart Movement is really just getting warmed up.

As for this community vote against a business...

Sounds to me like 60% of the residents exercised their freedom of choice. This ‘majority rules’ idea can be pesky, huh, Nick?

Wal-Mart’s Bentonville, Ark., headquarters paid almost all the $91,025...

Just another drop in the buc...um..I mean down the drain!

If some community, for whatever reason, doesn’t want us in there, then we are not interested in going in and creating a fuss.  Wal-Mart wants to go where it is wanted. ~ Sam Walton

Note for Nick the Constitutional imbecile fraud-

GOT DEMOCRACY?

Two Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets are located three miles apart in Overland Park, KS, desirable neigborhoods on the Kansas side of Kansas City.  The WNM shoppers are not from Overland Park, KS.  For the most part the licence plates in the parking lot are from Missouri nine miles away.

The good news is the WNMs are not doing very well in Overland Park, KS shoppers go to the Whole Foods & HyVee across the street and Price Chopper three miles away.

Congratulation to the good people of Littleton, CO for standing up to the city counsel who would vote for a store just to collect $1.5 million in annual tax revenue.  What was the economic cost and loss of quality life style Littleton, CO would have given up by allowing this behemoth retail building next to their park land?

Look at what has happened in Kansas City in the last 30 days in two separate incidents involving big box discount retailers Target Ward Parkway Mall and Target Oak Park Mall. Five people dead in twoseparate incidents.  The purpetrators did not live in the town where the store was located but the victims did.

Wal-Mart may have paid $91,025 for this election, but it’s
own past blunders (too much traffic, too small wages, too
few benefits, people getting hurt in the buildings and out
in the parking lots, people getting locked inside the store
overnight, etc.) cost Wal-Mart this, and probably, other
elections.

“Congratulation to the good people of Littleton, CO for standing up to the city counsel who would vote for a store just to collect $1.5 million in annual tax revenue.”

Hope the taxpayers will be happy making up that $1.5 million in lost tax revenue, 40% will pay more, for the decision of the 60%, lucky them.

...lost tax revenue

Or maybe they would have lost their park land and the pie-in-the-sky tax revenues. Just ask Cathredral Park, CA:

Elected officials in Cathedral City, Calif., gave Wal-Mart $1.8 million in tax rebates 10 years ago. Last year, when the city finally began getting its full $800,000 in annual sales taxes from the two stores, Wal-Mart decided to close them in 2005 and build a new supercenter in nearby Palm Desert. Cathedral City officials learned Wal-Mart was moving out after reading about it in the newspaper—at a time when the city already had a $3 million deficit. ~ PBS

What is the economic cost to moving in low income residents? Yet, you can’t prevent this. What is the loss of quality of life in a community that permits ghetto housing projects?

I used to work in many different areas. In one area, the residents were mostly middle class. These people had purchased their homes in the 1950’s and 1960’s. They were seniors, for the most part. Then, the government decided to build a housing project right in the middle of their neghborhood. The county decided that homes were not appraised at a high enough tax value. Now, seniors were being taxed on $120,000 in value for a house that, thanks to the projects, they could not sell for $40,000.

What happened to their quality of life?

If we can’t prevent the lower forms of human scum from moving into our neighborhoods, why should a wealthy area like Littleton be permitted to ban a store?

Let the Wal-Mart open and see if people shop there. You see, people try to keep this from happening because they know what the result will be. Just like the liberal “Fairness Doctrine”, these people want to take away your choice. Why? Because, given a choice, people will choose Wal-Mart, just as they’ve overwhelmingly chosen conservative talk radio over Air America (out of business).

Let the Wal-Mart open and see if people shop there.

That’s all well and good, Nick, but it doesn’t happen to be the choice the citizens of Littleton wanted to make.

I’m amused by this new ‘choice’ talking point.  It’s as full of holes as the ‘Wal-Mart as the Champion of Capitalism” was.

If you’re a Wal-Mart shopper your choice is limited by Bentonville’s vendor list. If you buy books, movies, magazines, or music at Wal-Mart, your choice is limited by their censorship policies.

It’s easy to be in favor of individual choice as long as people choose what you want them to, huh, Nick?

Ken, what heck are you talking about?  You make an accusation that choices for Walmart shoppers are “limited by Bentonville’s vendor list” but if you limit the existance of a Walmart store the choices for all shoppers become even more reduced, and probalby more expensive by the “vendor’s list” of just those stores. 

The big (and extremely obvious) difference is that a Walmart shopper can stop shopping them at any time.  With your logic shoppers would completely lose that option.  Why in the world would you want to limit the shopper’s choices?

What Nick favors is greater choices… you on the other hand have an extremely anti-consumer mentality.

Ken V,

“Elected officials in Cathedral City, Calif., gave Wal-Mart $1.8 million in tax rebates 10 years ago. Last year, when the city finally began getting its full $800,000 in annual sales taxes from the two stores, Wal-Mart decided to close them in 2005 and build a new supercenter in nearby Palm Desert. Cathedral City officials learned Wal-Mart was moving out after reading about it in the newspaper—at a time when the city already had a $3 million deficit. ~ PBS”

Just another example of spinning a story to fit your needs!!  A closer look, exposes that Wal-Mart was given a $1.8 million tax rebate over a 10 year period or $180 thousand a year.  Then, it is noted that when they were ready to get their FULL amount of $800 thousand a year, Wal-Mart decided to close the stores!!  What this fails to mention, is during that 10 year period, the city must have been getting about $620 thousand a year in taxes after the rebate was deducted!!  You made it sound like the city got ‘Nothing’ from the deal!!  What would the town’s deficit have been without Wal-mart there, maybe $9.2 million ($620 thousand X 10 years = $6.2 million +$3 million = $9.2 million)!!

“If you’re a Wal-Mart shopper your choice is limited by Bentonville’s vendor list. If you buy books, movies, magazines, or music at Wal-Mart, your choice is limited by their censorship policies.”

You should be glad that Wal-Mart doesn’t provide EVERYTHING, that way, other businesses can compete by supplying what Wal-Mart doesn’t!!  That is what CHOICE is all about!!

“What is the economic cost to moving in low income residents? Yet, you can’t prevent this. What is the loss of quality of life in a community that permits ghetto housing projects?”
Nick in the WalMart ghetto defense-

“If we can’t prevent the lower forms of human scum from moving into our neighborhoods, why should a wealthy area like Littleton be permitted to ban a store?”
Nick describing WalMart associates-

Somewhere between a loss of moral conscience and the evasion of billions in welfare subsidies for WalMart (by way of the impoverishment ‘low wage’ dump them on state health care and welfare programs model) you will find Nick and the other WalMart worship slobs making excuses for team Bentonville getting its ass kicked in Littleton.

RDS spins a poor speculation for the taxpayer suckers. WalMart takes huge subsidies and a community usually finds out much later well after the fact. Do we need to look at all the subsidies the WalMart scam took down in Colorado or think that only $1.8 million was the bottom line.

WalMart/Bentonville- When we lose we still need to lie. Because the more people know about us the more people will hate us. It is our main dynamic of ‘choice’.

SDV,

“RDS spins a poor speculation for the taxpayer suckers. WalMart takes huge subsidies and a community usually finds out much later well after the fact.”

And, yet, every year, Wal-Mart builds more and more stores and hires more and more employees, are you saying that ALL these people are STUPID, compared to you?  And, to top it off, many communities allow Wal-Mart to build 2nd and 3rd stores as well, they must really be stupid to get stung not once, not twice, but three times, right?  Oh yeah, I forgot, you are a prophet and the master of cutting and pasting the same old things over and over and over again, hoping that if you do it often enough, some people like RUSS, will believe it!!

RDS-

Was that an attempt at evading WalMart subsidies nd the taxpayers suckers finding out about the real cost of having a WalMart impoverishment and welfare system in their area.

Quoting sources and documenting facts about the WalMart scam upon Americans still seems make ‘you’ nervous RDS. Try then to think of it as the only reason I do it.

“Oh yeah, I forgot, you are a prophet and the master of cutting and pasting the same old things over and over and over again, hoping that if you do it often enough, some people like RUSS, will believe it!!”
RDS imbecile translation for please stop posting embarrassing items about WalMart-

You really mean ‘some people’ like voters in Littleton Colorado don’t you-

As for WalMart in Littleton-

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it.”
Mark Twain

SDV,

“Was that an attempt at evading WalMart subsidies nd the taxpayers suckers finding out about the real cost of having a WalMart impoverishment and welfare system in their area.”

No, it was an attempt to show that you think everyone who disagrees with you, is an imbecile or at the very least stupid!!  “Taxpayer suckers”, says that you think taxpayers are so stupid, they have to find out from YOU, how stupid they really are!!

“hoping that if you do it often enough, some people like RUSS, will believe it!!”
RDS imbecile translation for please stop posting embarrassing items about WalMart-

You really mean ‘some people’ like voters in Littleton Colorado don’t you-”

This is a little arrogant, isn’t it, claiming that YOU persuaded the people of Littleton, Colorado to listen to YOU, by your posts?

SDV,

“You really mean ‘some people’ like voters in Littleton Colorado don’t you-”

Then, how do you explain this:

““We’re going to reassess and hopefully come up with a project that works for us and all of Littleton,” he said.

Phair said the campaign made it clear that many residents wanted a Wal-Mart in Littleton, but he could not say whether Wal-Mart would consider other options for the same site or look elsewhere in the city.”

Sounds like the good people of Littleton, just didn’t like the site, next to the park, but still want Wal-Mart to come in!!  You had better tell those people again, how stupid they are!!

A nice article regarding Costco subsidies:

http://www.ocregister.com/commentary/greenhut/greenhut62302.shtml

and Costco subsidies:

<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m5072/is_10_22/ai_63795168>

and Costco subsidies:

“Costco alone has received $30 million in redevelopment subsidies just in Orange County. Statewide estimates range up to $300 million in total agency handouts for the giant retailer”.

and Costco subsidies:

“Costco played Morgan Hill against Gilroy for the highest public subsidy, finally settling for $1.4 million in tax hand-outs from Gilroy. “They played us against someone else to get a better deal,” said Planning Director William Faus (San Jose Mercury-News, August 6, 2002).”

and Costco subsidies:

“Even churches are targets of eminent domain. The Cypress Redevelopment Agency voted to seize Cottonwood Christian Center’s property for a new Costco. The subsequent legal fight has just begun, prompting a Wall Street Journal editorial “First Church of Costco” (May 30, 2002).”

and Costco subsidies:

“In Febuary 2000, the Lancaster Redevelopment Agency condemned a 99 Cents Only Store solely to acquire the land for a Costco. Dave Gold, CEO of 99 Cents Only Stores Corp. (80 locations statewide) counter-sued for violation of his 5th Amendment property rights. “We don’t want compensation. We just want to stay where we are,” Gold told the agency.”

and Costco subsidies:

“Boyce adds that Costco, like most other big boxes, follows “a business model that typically involves getting tax subsidies or redevelopment monies from the municipalities.” Thanks in considerable part to the legacy of Proposition 13, cities are “starved for sales tax revenue,” Boyce observes. “They’ll prostitute themselves for sales tax revenues even if the total economic impact of the project is negative.”

and Costco subsidies:

http://ggrgpc.com/pubs/bulldozers.html

and Costco subsidies:

and Costco subsidies:

Costco’s Corporate Welfare

Law: Spring 2003
Author: Dana Berliner
Published by: The Heartland Institute
Published in: Intellectual Ammunition
Publication date: April 2003

With 400 stores worldwide, millions of members, and $38 billion in revenues last year, Costco is one of the nation’s largest retailers. Costco grew thanks to America’s free-market system and constitutionally enshrined respect for private property.

Yet Costco’s management continually tramples the rights of others in order to save itself time and money. Indeed, tracking published reports on the abuse of eminent domain, one finds Costco is the leading beneficiary of this kind of corporate welfare, having taken government-confiscated land three times more often then its next rival. Several examples illustrate Costco’s actions:

Lancaster, California
A federal court found that Costco threatened the city that it would leave unless the city condemned Costco’s neighbor, 99 Cents Only. On June 25, 2001, the court held the only purpose of the condemnation was “to satisfy the private expansion demands of Costco.” Because that is not a public use, the court held the condemnation violated the Constitution.

Port Chester, New York
The village condemned several small, locally owned businesses to make way for a shopping center anchored by Costco. The entire shopping center displaced hundreds of apartment residences, one of the largest employers in the village, specialty retail stores, and local restaurants. Costco sits on land that was once shared by a number of successful small businesses run by hard-working immigrants.

Cypress, California
The City of Cypress sought to condemn the Cottonwood Christian Center for a Costco-based retail development that would generate tax revenue, unlike the tax-exempt church facility. The church had carefully assembled, from willing sellers, all the land it needed for its new center. The city and Costco wanted the benefit of that assembly, without doing any of the work. A federal judge has enjoined the condemnation.

In Its Defense

“Perhaps dozens of times,” the company recently admitted in a letter to a shareholder, Costco developed stores on private property taken by local governments through eminent domain.

Costco offers three defenses for using eminent domain.

First, Costco claims, it does not violate the law--cities take property all the time and it is perfectly legal. Of course, this claim is not entirely accurate. Some states have statutes that permit condemnations for “economic development” and then transfers to private parties, but the Constitution always trumps state statutes. That is why two federal courts in the last two years stopped cities from taking land for Costco because the condemnations violated the constitutional requirement that property can be taken only for a “public” use.

Costco also defends its eminent domain policies on the ground that the development projects are sometimes successful, generating tax dollars and jobs for the municipality. Those benefits are, however, beside the point. Any business replacing a home will create more jobs; a larger business replacing a smaller one will certainly create more taxes. If such justifications were valid reasons to allow the forced transfer of land from one private party to another, then no American’s property would be safe from such confiscations at the behest of the politically powerful.

Costco also claims that if it failed to take advantage of eminent domain, it would not be able to compete with other large retailers that also have no scruples about building on land taken from someone else. Certainly Costco is correct that many private businesses are willing to take other people’s land. As the Institute for Justice will document in a soon-to-be published report, hundreds of projects between 1998 and 2002 used or threatened eminent domain for private parties. In total, more than 5,000 properties were taken or threatened. And these numbers significantly underestimate the problem: They come from a survey of news stories, and most condemnations go unreported.

But Costco has an opportunity to do the right thing, to be a leader in honorable business practices as well as retailing profits. Instead of hiding behind excuses, the company should renounce using eminent domain as a way of getting property for its stores. That is exactly what Susan Watson, a 500-share investor in Costco, asked the company to do at its recent shareholders’ meeting. By rejecting this corporate welfare, the company would show its respect for the principles that have made it possible for Costco to succeed--property rights and enforcement of our Constitution.”

Nick-

SanDiego will probably pee his pants when he reads your stuff (after he gets home from his second shift gig at his local Costco).

Seriously, it’s good info that proves none of the big stores are really all that different from each other.

Again, good job, brother.........

Jake

Problems with the CostcoWatch site?

So Costco sells cigarettes and has real estate issues- Stop the presses!!

And since Costco is a socially responsible business model, their subsidies willingly granted by communities ( nobody was holding a gun to their head ) they have this ‘living wage’ and health care benefits model that does not dump their employees onto local welfare systems. Billions in subsidies for WalMart and the Walton wealth magnet.

Oh that’s right this is WalMartWatch and strangely about WalMart. Is that odd or what?

WalMart- We try to improve our reputation by attempting to make others look bad. Public relations aroma therapy as WalMart craps on communities. Just ask imbecile #6 and EllisW (AKA Nick).

Imbecile #7-

Sounds like the good people of Littleton, just didn’t like the site, next to the park, but still want Wal-Mart to come in!!  You had better tell those people again, how stupid they are!!

RDS in
Friday, June 22 at 03:43 PM

Since your having trouble with the 60% of Littleton voters that are restraining WalMart from expansion there, you might try smoking something other than crack to deal with your disavowing of democracy. Your excuse modeling isn’t going very well, as a WalMart propagandist slob that speaks poorly of your abilities again.

WalMart- So Littleton refuses to be taxpayer suckers. What are we going to do now that ‘our war room’ imbecile #7 has called Littleton voters ‘stupid’?

SDV,

“WalMart- We try to improve our reputation by attempting to make others look bad.”

Get real!!  You constantly use Costco to put down Wal-Mart, yet complain when someone uses Wal-Mart to put Costco down!!  When Costco uses the same tactics as Wal-mart, how can you justify praising Costco, just because they pay more?  Is a higher wage rate an excuse for why they should be bypassed when it comes to doing the same things Wal-Mart does?  In other words, is the it okay to hurt people, as long as you help others?  You claim that Wal-Mart hurts taxpayers, well, so does Costco!!

“Since your having trouble with the 60% of Littleton voters that are restraining WalMart from expansion there, you might try smoking something other than crack to deal with your disavowing of democracy.”

Where did you get that from, I was just cutting and pasting some statements from the above article!!  You know what ‘cuttin and pasting’ is, don’t you?

I recently retrieved some files and came across this “oldie but goodie” link, SDV.

All I can say is “what ever happened to Free Enterprise?”, voting on a business coming to town?  Only in America.
I think our Forefathers would turn over in their graves if they new.

“what ever happened to Free Enterprise?”

It became deranged from excessive greed, Dennis, so we had to put it in a democratic straightjacket.

“Capitalism needs to function like a game of tug-of-war. Two opposing sides need to continually struggle for dominance, but at no time can either side be permitted to walk away with the rope.” ~ Pete Holiday

I think most people forget that Littleton has a large Federal prison population. WalMart had probably thought of a way to use them for store personnel to help reduce WalMart’s high cost of labor.