Wal-Mart Watch Daily Clips- June 22nd

• Walmart Wraps PR Review by Adding Three Shops to Roster [Advertising Age]
  After a lengthy agency review for its multimillion-dollar consumer-PR business, Walmart has selected Interpublic Group of Cos.' Golin Harris, WPP's Cohn & Wolfe and Omnicom Group's Porter Novelli, according to industry sources. The three agencies will bid against one another for individual assignments in the retail giant's effort to drive greater cost efficiencies.

• Wintu memorial is healing medicine for Mother Earth and feather people [Anderson Valley Post (Calif.)]
  Even a youthful vandal who was caught in the act of bending and breaking off portions of a bronze statue's headdress couldn't stop the healing of Mother Earth that took place Saturday, June 20, at the southeast corner of the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Anderson.

• Sales tax confusion at new Walmart  [Connect Mid Missouri]
  A viewer concern prompted the KRCG Factfinder team to look into the sales tax rate at the new Walmart in Jefferson City. The viewer wanted to know if he was paying more sales tax at the new location than at the old Walmart on Missouri Blvd.

• Wal-Mart health clinic attempts gets sick, start to fail [WalletPop.com]
  Wal-Mart does pretty much everything well, or at least according to plan. So the news it's backing off the expansion of in-store medical clinics offers up a rare Wal-Mart failure.

• Health-care reform should focus on efficiency [Tennessean]
  We learn a lot from our 41,000 Tennessee associates and the customers we serve every week here and around the country. It's clear from everything they see and hear that this country's health-care system needs comprehensive reform.

• David is Goliath? Wal-Mart's Increasingly Eco Friendliness [Ecommwire.com]
  The battle lines used to be clearly drawn. On one side there were the environmentalists, do-gooders and small business owners that wanted to go the eco friendly way.

• PW manager pick faces to-do list [The Pueblo Chieftain (Colo.)]
  A civil engineer by trade, Byron Glenn will find a lot to work on in Pueblo West. Glenn was selected by the Pueblo West Metropolitan District's board of directors this week as the district's new manager.

• Kroger feasts amid a supermarket famine [Los Angeles Times]
  Anne Marie Sablock said she regularly drives past an Albertsons, a Whole Foods Market and several other supermarkets to shop at the Ralphs on Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach.

• Jonas Brothers Wal-Mart Trip [Popstar]
  The cheesy 80's you can do background music to was a perfect fit for the latest Jonas Brothers YouTube video thanking fans for buying their new album "Lines, Vines and Trying Times."  Imagine this:  you are walking to Wal-Mart with your friends on a nice summer day and all of a sudden Joe, Nick and Kevin Jonas pull up next to you.  Don't pinch yourself; you are not dreaming, you are just in the midst of a Jonas Brothers ritual.

ALL MICHIGAN SUPERCENTERS TO BE SMALLER?

• Canton, MI. "All Wal-Mart Stores Are Going To Be Smaller" [Battlemart Blog]
  A planner from a small town in Michigan says that Wal-Mart is "reining in" the size of its superstores, and turning to smaller, more cost-efficient stores instead. But 'small' to Wal-Mart is still big.

WASHINGTON SITE FIGHT: NORTH KELSEY ANGLING FOR A WAL-MART?

• Monroe shops for big-box store for North Kelsey development [Herald (Wash.)]
  Wal-Mart may be coming to town. Monroe city leaders are talking with a developer about building a big-box store on a former gravel processing site at the intersection of Chainlake Road and N. Kelsey Street.

• Temporary turn lane for Wal-Mart OK'd by city [Times News (Ida.)]
  The city of Twin Falls has set up a temporary left turn on Washington Street North for the eastern entrance of Wal-Mart to alleviate congestion and improve safety. The turn lane might surprise drivers - it was not part of the city's agreement with Wal-Mart, which included the right-in, right-out requirement at the eastern entrance, and didn't come up internally in the city until April.

• Wal-Mart building apparently is close [Daily Times (Va.)]
  Accomack County attorney Mark Taylor told the Accomack County Board of Supervisors Wednesday that he has been working on legal documents related to Wal-Mart and said the retail giant earlier this week put the construction of the Onley store out to bid.

• Tarpon considering whether to cancel Wal-Mart development pact [The Sun Coast Times (Fla.)]
  City commissioners learned the Wal-Mart issue will not go away anytime soon. Tuesday night commissioners considered whether to initiate a process to cancel its development agreement with the retailer, noting its proposal to build a 200,000-square foot Supercenter has remained dormant with an expired building permit.
• Tarpon Springs, FL. After Four Years, Wal-Mart Refuses To Give Up The Fight [Battlemart Blog]
  Since 2005, Sprawl-Busters has written a dozen stories about the never-ending battle against Wal-Mart in Tarpon Springs, Florida. On November 22, 2008, Sprawl-Busters reported that Wal-Mart opponents in Tarpon Springs, Florida were celebrating a major victory over the retailer.

• Referendum challenges Cave Creek Walmart [Arizona Republic]
  Members of a Cave Creek political action committee will begin gathering signatures this week on a referendum challenging Walmart. PRIZE, or "Protect Residential Integrity Zoning and Environment," is trying to overturn a Cave Creek Town Council decision this week to modify the town's General Plan in favor of Walmart. The retailer is planning a scaled-down supercenter on 20 acres of company-owned property southeast of Carefree Highway and Cave Creek Road.
• Cave Creek, AZ. Opponents Gather Signatures To Put Wal-Mart On The Ballot [Battlemart Blog]
  On April 7, 2009 Sprawl-Busters reported that Cave Creek, Arizona has 10 Wal-Marts within 20 miles, half of which are superstores. There are two giant superstores just 12 and 13 miles away in Phoenix.

• Wal-Mart welcome in employment field ruled by government [Chicago Business]
  Government employers dominate our local economy. The biggest is the federal government, with 78,000 full-time employees. According to Crain's list of Chicago's largest employers (Jan. 5), five of the top six are government employers: Besides the feds, No. 2 is Chicago Public Schools, No. 3 is the city of Chicago, No. 5 is Cook County and No. 6 is the state of Illinois.

• Brooklyn Wal-Mart decision expected Tuesday [Norwich Bulletin (Conn.)]
  Wal-Mart announced plans to build a supercenter in Brooklyn on a Tuesday in October. The application to the town's Inland Wetlands Commission for an 162,000-square-foot, 24-hour store on Route 6 at Brickyard Road triggered a nine-month approval process that has dominated discussion and has been the focus of contentious meetings on the store's approval.

• Bigger Wal-Mart gets council OK [Miami Herald (Fla.)]
  Given today's atrophic economy, the promise of more jobs has trumped compatibility issues for a majority of the West Kendall Community Council.

• West Kendall, FL. Wal-Mart Store Expansion Squeaks By With One Vote [Battlemart Blog]
  On May 11, 2009, Sprawl-Busters narrated the case of West Kendall, Florida, a suburb of Miami-Dade County. The West Kendall Community Council took up a request from Wal-Mart Stores East to expand its discount store #1680 located at SW 88th Street.
  

• East Bonita residents join forces and gain clout on tough issues [Naples Daily News]
  Commercial zoning, a touchy issue near I-75, originally brought the communities together. Worthington residents cut their teeth fighting a proposed Wal-Mart in 2006 and 2007, and they gradually brought the other communities into the fold as each homeowners association found its footing. Today, some committee members believe they can play a role in greater local issues, and they mentioned working to resolve problems at Manna Christian, long a thorn in the county's side, as well as pushing the city to embrace higher quality design standards. 

• East Reporters' Notebook [Dallas Morning News]
  Questions that arose during a neighborhood meeting on Thursday night sounded much the same as in other communities. There were concerns about traffic, truck noise, home values, a downturn in quality of life, safety and losses to smaller businesses nearby. Neighbors have set up a Web site, http://www.friscofirst.org, and are holding an informational meeting on June 24 to mobilize. 

• City overhauling, merging regulations for zoning, roads and subdivisions [Wyoming Tribune Eagle]
  Under the new codes, businesses would be cohabitate with housing. But a business would be limited by scale rather than type. This would prevent a big box store such as Wal-Mart from going up near housing, urban planner Brandon Cammarata said.

Posted by Research Team on Monday, June 22, 2009

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