Denison, IA. Planning Commission Approves Wal-Mart’s Request
Wal-Mart annexation request passes board [Southwest Iowa News]
Denison’s Planning Commission voted Monday noon to approve Wal-Mart’s request for voluntary annexation of property located immediately north and west of the city limits.
The planning commission’s approval sends Wal-Mart’s annexation request along the trail of other steps to complete.Wal-Mart is requesting voluntary annexation of two parcels of property located north of Fareway and the Region XII bus barn on Avenue C. Those properties are owned by Bradley J. and Juliann E. Nelson, and by Donna Ahart and Shirley Ahart. (A legal description of the property is included with this article.)
The main entrance to the new Wal-Mart store would be accessed by traveling north on Arrowhead Drive.
Ryan Horn, senior manager of public affairs for Wal-Mart, told the Denison Bulletin in a telephone interview Monday afternoon that the Denison Wal-Mart Supercenter is in the early stages of the planning process.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, October 30 | 0 comments | Permalink
Du Quoin, IL. Nearing Wal-Mart Saturation
Is Wal-Mart Competing With Itself in So. Illinois? [Du Quoin Evening Call (Ill.)]
fear that customers from Elkville, Vergennes and Ava that routinely travel the aisles of the Du Quoin store will head for Murphysboro. Why? The new store on Rt. 13 east of Murphysboro has a food liner. The old Murphysboro store didn’t.
It’s the same fear that set in when the new Wal-Mart Super Center in West City opened, pulling business from the Mulkeytown and Christopher areas out of the Du Quoin store.
The Du Quoin store has seen some attrition in its employment, which peaked at 200 shortly after it opened in 1999.
It is also the profit center for the City of Du Quoin’s sales tax revenue. The most recent treasurer’s report shows the city had sales tax income of $1,190,676 as of the end of September. That is down $14,288 from the same nine-month period a year ago.
Roderick Scott, a media spokesman in Wal-Mart’s Bentonville, Ark. office said Wal-Mart doesn’t compete against itself and the Southern Illinois stores are reasonably spaced.
He said the new Murphysboro store was built “to provide better service to our customers.”
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, October 29 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart expands in area with three new supercenters
Wal-Mart expands in area with three new supercenters [Toledo Free Press (Ohio)]
As Wal-Mart opens three newly renovated stores into supercenters in the Toledo area, the retailer is also looking for a location on the north side of the city, possibly the former Northtowne Mall site, for another hypermarket.
Wal-Mart will hold grand openings for the newly converted supercenters on West Central Avenue and Glendale Avenue in November. The supercenter on Navarre Avenue in Oregon celebrated its grand opening Oct. 17.The opening of the three supercenters will create an additional 150 jobs per store. Each supercenter employs about 350 people, so Wal-Mart has about 1,100 employees in the Toledo area that includes the store at Spring Meadows in Holland, said Dan Moore, marketing manager for Wal-Mart’s Northwest Ohio market.
Wal-Mart will open another supercenter on U.S. 25 in Perrysburg during the first quarter of 2008. The company currently operates 10 locations in its Northwest Ohio market, including stores in Bowling Green, Bryan, Fremont, Napoleon and Wauseon.
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Posted by Michael Mignano on Friday, October 26 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart Buys its Way into the Hearts of Politicians in Key States
Learn more about Wal-Mart’s political influence and other methods the company employs to roll back its taxes.
Wal-Mart Courts State Politicos [BusinessWeek]
Wal-Mart Stores has been sharply increasing political contributions in states where it is trying to cut its corporate tax bill. That’s according to data just released from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group based in Helena, Mont.
Over the past four election cycles, the retailing giant has ratcheted up contributions in nine states that are key to its operations: Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Its political contributions in those states rose from $139,822 in the 2000 election cycle to $879,441 in the 2006 election cycle, according to the institute. Wal-Mart’s efforts to reduce its corporate taxes in those states have come to light as a result of a lawsuit that the attorney general of North Carolina filed against the company to challenge its tax-cutting strategies.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, October 26 | 27 comments | Permalink
Cleveland, OH. Wal-Mart Poised to Change Local Business
Big-box retailing in Cleveland is about to get much, much bigger.
As of 8 a.m. Wednesday, when a Wal-Mart Supercenter opens for business at Steelyard Commons, the city will have 217,000 more square feet of retail space than it does today.
That’s nearly 90,000 square feet more than either Target or Home Depot, the two big-box stores now reigning over Steelyard.
Many in Cleveland are eager to embrace that expanded reality, believing Wal-Mart’s presence inside the city limits is overdue. But not everyone is thrilled by the chain’s arrival.
“It’s kind of a trade-off,” said James Kastelic, a senior planner with the Cleveland Metroparks who has tracked the city’s retail environment for years. “You want it, but you’re concerned about it.”
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, October 24 | 0 comments | Permalink
Big Box Anxiety [Cleveland (Ohio) Plain-Dealer]
Clevelanders await Wal-Mart Supercenter’s opening with anticipation, anxiety 
Cleveland Supercenter opening elicits both anticipation and anxiety Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Big-box retailing in Cleveland is about to get much, much bigger.As of 8 a.m. Wednesday, when a Wal-Mart Supercenter opens for business at Steelyard Commons, the city will have 217,000 more square feet of retail space than it does today.
That’s nearly 90,000 square feet more than either Target or Home Depot, the two big-box stores now reigning over Steelyard.
Many in Cleveland are eager to embrace that expanded reality, believing Wal-Mart’s presence inside the city limits is overdue. But not everyone is thrilled by the chain’s arrival.
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Posted by Andrew Yonki on Wednesday, October 24 | 0 comments | Permalink
Wal-Mart: America’s Tax Deadbeat
This article originally appeared on the Huffington Post.
A report released this week by the non-profit group Good Jobs First, concludes that Wal-Mart methodically works to lower its taxes by challenging the assessed value of its stores and distribution centers. Just as the company has become legendary for shaking down its vendors---so the retailer shakes down cities and towns for tax rebates.
The nonpartisan research center in Washington, D.C. documented in an earlier study how Wal-Mart has benefited from billions of dollars in public subsidies to build its stores and site infrastructure. Their new analysis, Rolling Back Property Tax Payments, charges that although the financial take is not as large as its public welfare subsidies---Wal-Mart “drains vitally needed funds from communities by regularly challenging the valuation put on its properties by public officials.” According to Philip Mattera, research director of Good Jobs First, “When the company succeeds in one of these challenges, it diminishes the funds available to pay for education, police and fire protection, and other essential services provided by local governments.”
Good Jobs First reviewed a national sample of Wal-Mart stores and all of its distribution centers open as of the beginning of 2005. Wal-Mart has filed assessment challenges at more than one-third of its facilities around the country. At many facilities there have been appeals in multiple years. Overall, Good Jobs First estimates that Wal-Mart filed more than 2,100 property tax challenges nationwide. “These systematic property tax challenges are part of a larger pattern of state and local tax avoidance by Wal-Mart,” Mattera explained.
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, October 16 | 23 comments | Permalink
Food Outbreak [Minn.
Cargill Sued Over Minnesota E. Coli Outbreak 
CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. agribusiness Cargill Inc
is being sued by a Minnesota family whose two children suffered E. coli infections after consuming the company’s frozen ground beef products, the family’s attorney, William Marler, said on Monday. Cargill said it had no comment on the lawsuit at this time, said spokesman Mark Klein.
Earlier this month, Cargill recalled 844,812 lbs of frozen beef patties due to possible E. coli contamination after investigators found four cases of illness linked to meat prepared by Cargill and sold by a division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc
in Minnesota. Symptoms of E. coli 0157:H7 illness—the strain associated with the recall—include potentially severe stomach cramps and diarrhea.
Posted by Andrew Yonki on Tuesday, October 16 | 0 comments | Permalink
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