Wal-Mart Tops Ohio List of Medicaid Recipients
As the weakening economy takes its toll on state budgets across the country, a new study from Policy Matters Ohio shows that Wal-Mart employees top the state’s list of Medicaid recipients.
Researchers found that an average of 13,141 Wal-Mart employees and their children were on the state-sponsored medical plan, more than any other private employer in Ohio.
Wal-Mart’s company health plan remains out of reach for many of its employees, and Medicaid is often the only affordable option for low-earning workers. The company’s failure to provide adequate health insurance for its 1.4 million U.S. employees isn’t just an unfortunate company policy - it’s something that affects taxpayers across the country.
Public pays health care for private workers [Beacon Journal (Ohio)]
Thousands of workers across Ohio labor for a paycheck, but still lack health benefits from their employer for themselves or their children.
Instead, they rely on Medicaid — a program funded with state and federal tax dollars — to pay for their medical care.
Researchers with the nonpartisan think tank Policy Matters Ohio estimate in a new report that the state spent $111.5 million last year to cover Medicaid costs for more than 111,000 workers and their dependents from the 50 companies with the highest Medicaid enrollment.
The federal government’s estimated share of the cost totaled $182 million.
‘’Right now, we’re in a very tight budget,’’ said Piet van Lier, the study’s author and a senior researcher at Policy Matters Ohio. ‘’Medicaid is a very big expense — not only for Ohio, but for other states — and here’s a substantial benefit going to employers.’’
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, September 02 | 55 comments | Permalink
Santa Rosa, CA. Judges Sides with Wal-Mart Opponents
Proposed Roseland Wal-Mart hits snag [Press Democrat (Calif.)]
A Sonoma County judge has sided with opponents of a proposed Wal-Mart in Santa Rosa, tentatively ruling that the environmental study for the proposed store is flawed.
Superior Court Judge Robert Boyd said the analysis of parking and noise for the Wal-Mart in southwest Santa Rosa is “especially problematic.”
Boyd’s ruling is not final, and on Friday he gave attorneys on both sides another chance to present arguments before he completes his decision.
After hearing from opponents of the store and attorneys for both Wal-Mart and the city of Santa Rosa, Boyd said he would take the matter under submission.
He noted the environmental document for the store makes it “hard for the public to determine what is being proposed.”
It was not immediately clear what impact Boyd’s ruling would have if it becomes final.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, September 02 | 0 comments | Permalink
Barstow, CA. Suit Over Distribution Center Progresses
Attorney sues Barstow over Wal-Mart distribution site plans [The Press-Enterprise (Calif.)]
An Upland lawyer has sued the city of Barstow, alleging the City Council erred when it approved an environmental impact report regarding a planned Wal-Mart distribution center.
That report was prepared inadequately and failed to take into full account all of the environmental problems the proposed logistics facility could create for the city, according to attorney Cory J. Briggs.
The lawsuit, which was filed Aug. 8 in the Barstow division of San Bernardino Superior Court, also alleges that city officials have failed to respond to public complaints about their environmental report, a possible violation of the California Environmental Quality Act.
City Council members approved the report July 21.
That $60 million facility, which would serve Wal-Mart Supercenters, could create up to 700 jobs within two to three years of its opening, Wal-Mart officials said.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, September 02 | 0 comments | Permalink
High Springs, FL. Wal-Mart Looking for a Green Light
Wal-Mart is set to receive the final nod of approval needed from the state for a local supercenter, a representative from the Florida Department of Transportation said.
The state has finalized their approval for a permit for a Wal-Mart in the city of Alachua and will issue a notice of intent to the business sometime this week, Gina Busscher with the FDOT said.
After receiving the notice of intent, Wal-Mart must then gain several approvals from the city of Alachua.
A notice of intent is issued by the FDOT as a placeholder for the actual final permit that will be issued after Wal-Mart gains all necessary permits from the city of Alachua, Busscher said. The notice of intent is valid for one year.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, September 02 | 0 comments | Permalink
Barstow, CA. City Sued Over Wal-Mart Distribution Center
On July 23, 2008, Sprawl-Busters reported that the city council in Barstow, California, had approved an enormous Wal-Mart distribution center.Wal-Mart already has 7 distribution centers in California. Barstow is located in the Inland Empire North region of San Bernardino County, midway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The city, with a population close to 25,000, says it has “all the major conveniences of small town living with the resources of major metropolitan areas only a short drive away.” The city describes itself as a major transportation corridor with more than 60 million people in 19 million vehicles traveling through Barstow each year. Barstow also has 20 Wal-Mart stores within 100 miles, and, the Barstow distribution center would become a hub for as many as 100 of the retailer’s stores, the brain of the retailer’s logistics system.
Wal-Mart currently has 112 distribution centers in the U.S., including than 40 Regional Distribution Centers. Each of these regional DC’s is over 1 million square feet in size---that’s roughly 20 football fields, or the size of 5 mammoth superstores under one roof. They operate 24/7 to keep Wal-Mart’s tractors and trailers rolling. Each facility has five miles of conveyor belts funneling 9,000 different lines of merchandise into trucks, with more than 8,000 drivers pounding out 850 million miles per year on public roadways. The typical DC supports between 75 and 100 stores within a 250-mile radius. Whatever small town living remains in Barstow will soon come to an end. The city council gave Wal-Mart a green light to build a mammoth DC in Barstow. The Council voted unanimously to approve a 1,078,000 s.f. food distribution center on 143 acres of open land.
The approval came with little discussion on July 21, 2008. Wal-Mart brought its employees into Barstow to testify in support of the DC, along with the President of the Barstow Community College, who told the Council to stand by Wal-Mart. “They have been as faithful to us as we need to be to them,” the college president said. The City Council had to continue the hearing in order to respond to a ˜late arriving comment letter’ from the Briggs Law Corporation in opposition to the project. City staff determined in a 25 page letter that the opposition by attorney Briggs was not warranted, and that the project should be approved.
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, September 02 | 0 comments | Permalink
Santa Rosa, CA. Judge Hands Wal-Mart Superstore A Setback
The war over a Wal-Mart superstore in Santa Rosa, California got a little noisier this week. A proposed Wal-Mart superstore has resulted in a lawsuit, not a ribbon-cutting.
This community is used to big box battles, having fought off a Home Depot in 1999 that tried to destroy a mobile home park. According to the Press Democrat newspaper, a judge in Sonoma County Superior Court on August 29th. agreed with anti-Wal-Mart residents that the environmental review done for the southwest Santa Rosa location was flawed. The lawsuit was brought by five Santa Rosa residents in 2007, seeking to overturn the approval of the Wal-Mart in the Roseland neighborhood of the city. During the hearings on the project, residents criticized Wal Mart’s “predatory business and labor practices,” its low pay and employee benefits, and its impact on other businesses in Santa Rosa. Judge Robert Boyd said the study of parking and noise from the project were “especially problematic.”
During the court hearing on August 29th, the city and opponents argued over the number of parking spaces, and the issue of noise impacts on abutting homes. The city said the store was 106,00 s.f., but the documents filed with the project ranged from 210,000 s.f. to 198,000 s.f. “What you’re seeing is a constantly changing project description,” said Attorney William Kopper, the lawyer for the Santa Rosa plaintiffs. According to the newspaper, Attorney Kopper has represented Wal-Mart opponents in at least half a dozen cities in California.
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, September 02 | 0 comments | Permalink
Blacksburg, VA. State’s Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Anti-Wal-Mart Appeal
On May 30, 2007, Sprawl-Busters reported that Wal-Mart had become ensnared in a legal mess in the town of Blacksburg, Virginia. The town of Blacksburg adopted land use ordinance 1450, which limits the size of retail buildings in town to 80,000 s.f. Larger buildings require a special use permit issued by the town council. Wal-Mart clearly wants to ignore laws like ordinance 1450.
Residents told Sprawl-Busters last year that they had succeeded in getting their zoning law passed. “After a marathon 5-hour public hearing,” citizens wrote, “the Blacksburg Town Council passed, by a 7-0 vote, an ordinance that will require a special use permit for any retail over 80,000 square feet. A grassroots effort by Blacksburg United for Responsible Growth (BURG) brought in petitions with over 3,500 signatures supporting the ordinance. This was more than the total number of votes cast in the last, hotly contested, mayoral election. Speakers at the hearing in favor of the ordinance outnumbered those opposed by a ratio of 8 to 1. Almost all of the opposition to the ordinance came from individuals with a direct stake in a development on South Main Street that includes a Wal-Mart Supercenter. The ordinance gives us the breathing room we need to have the thorough study and public discussion of the best way of regulating big box development. We will be looking at ways to strengthen the protections of the new ordinance. In order to circumvent the new law and the will of the town’s residents, the developers of the South Main project sued the town. They asked the circuit court to retroactively award them vested rights to build their supercenter. We are elated at the unequivocal statement that the Town Council has made, but are still focused on winning the case and stopping this project that would be disastrous for the town.”
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Posted by Al Norman on Tuesday, September 02 | 0 comments | Permalink
Phoenix, AZ. After Two Years, Wal-Mart Cancels Lease With Developer
Wal-Mart is ready to build another store in Phoenix, Arizona, but after more than two years of trying, it keeps losing developers.
On April 11, 2008, Sprawl-Busters reported that a developer called The Bunch Company had left a 39,000 s.f. Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market all dressed up with nowhere to go. A planned 80,000 s.f. shopping center in the Ahwatukee neighborhood of Phoenix, near the Desert Foothills Parkway and Chandler Boulevard, was supposed to include a 24 hour Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market---which is the retailer’s “smallest” format store. But in April, it was revealed that The Bunch Company had a bunch of financial problems, and owed its bank $7.2 million, and the city of Phoenix $72,000 in property taxes. That left Wal-Mart nowhere in the neighborhood.
But Wal-Mart said it was ready to roll out its store, as soon as another owner stepped forward. “Nothing has changed from our end, we’re ready to move forward on the project,” a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart told the Foothill News. “It is a good location and a good area to serve.” The Bunch Company had planned to build another 40,000 s.f. of retailing around the Neighborhood Market. The city of Phoenix gave this project a green light in 2007, and Wal-Mart has invested several years into researching the site, according to the newspaper. “We spent extra time with city staff and the community to make sure they were comfortable with what we proposed,” Wal-Mart claimed. But with developers dropping like flies, it could be months, or even years, by the time Wal-Mart gets to Phoenix.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, August 28 | 0 comments | Permalink
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