Texas Site Fight: Wal-Mart Meets with Southside Residents

Wal-Mart meets with Southside residents [Corpus Christi Caller-Times]

Increased traffic problems topped the list of residents’ concerns at an open house for a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter on the city’s Southside.

Security and safety concerns also were among comments from the more than 350 residents who attended the meeting at Second Baptist Church, 6701 S. Staples, on Thursday.

“People will do what they have to do to avoid the traffic on Staples, and I don’t want my kids to be in danger when they are playing in the yard,” said Charles Deason, who lives in the Barkley Grove subdivision.

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Posted by Jason Korta on Friday, May 25 | 0 comments | Permalink

Pennsylvania Site Fight: Wal-Mart Withdraws

Wal-Mart Pulls out of Spring Township Proposal [WFMZ-TV (Allentown, PN)]

Wal-Mart may have to start shopping for a new location in Berks County. After nearly two years of back and forth between citizens and the retail giant, some in Spring Township got the answer they were waiting for.

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Posted by Jason Korta on Friday, May 25 | 0 comments | Permalink

North Carolina Site Fight: Morganton Wal-Mart Hearing Delayed

Morganton Wal-Mart hearing delayed [The Charlotte Observer]

Morganton residents will have to wait a bit longer to learn the fate of a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter at N.C. 181 and Independence Boulevard, near Freedom High School: At the retailing giant’s request, the City Council plans to postpone a decision on the store, originally scheduled for June 4.

At a well-attended May 10 planning and zoning commission meeting, all 15 public speakers opposed the 176,311-square-foot store, primarily citing concerns about safety, traffic and quality of life.

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Posted by Jason Korta on Friday, May 25 | 0 comments | Permalink

Florida Site Fight: Wal-Mart Should Let Light Shine on Wetlands

Wal-Mart should let light shine on wetlands [Editorial: St. Petersburg Times]

Wal-Mart has always claimed that it can be trusted to be a good neighbor and asset to the community of Tarpon Springs. Message to Wal-Mart: If you want to be trusted, don’t act like you’ve got something to hide.

Wal-Mart ought to help its neighbors resolve a concern they have about wetlands on the acreage where the retailer plans to build a new supercenter. Instead, Wal-Mart has declined to allow access to the property.

Civic activists and Wal-Mart opponents have kept a close eye on plans for the supercenter and, to their credit, have uncovered several problems that have resulted in delays and site plan changes. So city commissioners listened when those activists called attention to a discrepancy in Wal-Mart’s account of the wetlands acreage on the environmentally sensitive site along the Anclote River.

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Posted by Jason Korta on Friday, May 25 | 0 comments | Permalink

Pajaro, CA. After Losing Once, Is Wal-Mart Back Again?

On April 20, 2006, Sprawl- Busters reported that citizens in Pajaro,California were celebrating the announcement by Wal-Mart that they won’t be building a proposed superstore in Pajaro. The opposition group, called Pajaro Primero (Pajaro First) had vowed to fight the store to the bitter end. A Wal-Mart spokesman told a gathering at the Rotary Club that the giant retailer was folding its tent. Wal-Mart said they planned to build a store in nearby Marina and said “we have no plans for this area.”

The spokesman said Wal-Mart prefers to establish “regional stores,” and that Pajaro was off the map now. That was a little over a year ago. But this week, the citizen’s group has contacted Sprawl-Busters. “Pajaro Primero is getting organized again,” they write. “Wal-Mart and the property owners (The Miller Family Trust) are going forward on an Environmental Impact Report for a 178,000 s.f. retail site on San Juan Road in Pajaro. We will be again reaching out to the community to try to stop this supercenter from coming in and destroying our local businesses.”
According to the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Wal-Mart is denying any interest in Pajaro. “We do not have an application for a project there. We do not have a contract for land use,” a Wal-Mart spokesman said. “We’re always looking for the best way to serve our customers, but we don’t have any pending project.” Wal-Mart’s denial is pretty much standard operating protocol---but the owners of the land have admitted to the newspaper that they have a project on the front burner. Karen and Clint Miller and Monterey County officials are working on an environmental review for a proposed 178,000 s.f. store on 17 acres along San Juan Road. “The Millers keep saying Wal-Mart isn’t in the picture, but they won’t disclose the tenant,” said John Rowe, president of Pajaro Primero! One developer working with the Millers said the couple wants to get its project approved before looking for tenants. Translation: they don’t want to use the “W”
word and get the community up in arms again. The developer implied that announcing a Wal-Mart would be “politically incorrect.” When the first Wal-Mart project reared its head on a larger, 90 acre parcel, Monterey County supervisors would not allow building past the town’s existing redevelopment boundary, which meant most of the acreage was off limits, and the project had to be reduced, which forced Wal-Mart to move on.

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Posted by Al Norman on Friday, May 25 | 0 comments | Permalink

Spooner, WI. Residents Say No Public Subsidy for Wal-Mart

On April 28, 2007, Sprawl-Busters reported that Wal-Mart’s plans to build a supercenter in Spooner, Wisconsin had hit a major speed bump. The city, the Wisconsin DOT, and Washburn county officials had sent Wal-Mart a “list of improvements” they wanted for highways and access to the proposed supercenter. The officials told Wal-Mart these improvements are “required to be completed at Wal-Mart’s expense prior to the opening of the proposed Wal-Mart store. Opponents of the Wal-Mart project sent Sprawl-Busters the following update today: “Senior Public Relations manager for Wal-Mart in Wisconsin, Lisa Nelson contacted our local town newspaper this week to finally break the silence. She said Wal-Mart is at a “crossroad” with the plan to build in Spooner. There has been little or no word from Wal-Mart since the Department of Transportation made their requirements, public in April. In a letter sent to the engineering firm Olsson Associates, the DOT outlined all the traffic issues that need to be addressed and explained that the costs of these improvements would have to be paid by Wal-Mart.
This was the first public statement that Wal-Mart---not the taxpayers of Spooner or Washburn County--- would be held accountable for these road improvements attributable to the Wal-Mart store. It has been estimated that the cost could reach 4.8 million dollars. A proposed 153,000 sf. Wal-Mart Supercenter has been slated for a 35 acre parcel of land that is currently owed by Washburn County. In November of 2005, the land sale for $1 million was of course “top secret”, with officials saying only that it involved a Fortune 100 retailer By March of 2006 the Mayor of Spooner admitted the retailer could be “a Wal-Mart Concept”. Finally it was revealed that Wal-Mart wanted to come to Spooner, Wisconsin, population 2600, with two Supercenters 20 minutes away in two directions. The grass-roots citizens group Washburn County First (WCF) formed to get information out to the public about the negative impact this development would have on our small town retailers and the county at large. WCF filed a lawsuit against the county for open meetings violations and against the City Board of Alderman for alleged irregularities in granting a variance for the Supercenter with regard to highway access. The county admitted to one count of the open meeting case and has paid a fine. A judge dismissed the Alderman case based on the meaning of the word “freeway” as written in the city ordinance. WCF has filed an appeal in this case, that is pending.

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Posted by Al Norman on Friday, May 25 | 0 comments | Permalink

R.I. Treasurer Exposes Jacobs Trading Racket

Rhode Island treasurer asks SEC to probe Wal-Mart [Associated Press via International Herald Tribune]

BENTONVILLE, Arkansas: Rhode Island’s state treasurer has asked U.S. regulators to investigate whether Wal-Mart Stores Inc. violated securities laws by not disclosing that the son of the retailer’s chief executive works for a company that does business with Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart said there is no conflict of interest and no requirement under the law for a disclosure. Mona Williams, Wal-Mart’s vice president of corporate communications, said the question is a “non-issue.”

In a letter made public Thursday, Rhode Island General Treasurer Frank T. Caprio asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Wal-Mart. Rhode Island’s state employee pension fund has substantial holdings in Wal-Mart shares through index funds that group large corporations, he said.

Caprio said Eric S. Scott, son of Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott, works for Jacobs Trading Co., which buys unsold furniture from big retailers like Wal-Mart and resells it to smaller discount stores. Caprio said Eric Scott “staffs” the Jacobs Trading office in Arkansas, where Wal-Mart is based.

Caprio argued that SEC rules require publicly traded companies to tell investors if an immediate family member of an executive has a “material interest” in another business’s dealings with that company.

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Posted by Jason Korta on Friday, May 25 | 16 comments | Permalink

American Canyon, CA. Judge Gives Wal-Mart Green Light After Long Fight

Sprawl-Busters first wrote about Wal-Mart’s battle to get into American Canyon, California on July 11, 2004. Now, almost three years later, and a costly court battle, it looks like Wal-Mart has got the approval to build. But is this really a victory? By the time the final court ruling was handed down by Judge Ray Guadagni, the controversial superstore was nearly built---but sitting empty. Opponents of the Wal-Mart made the city and the developer jump through many hoops. Most recently, the city was forced to conduct new traffic and economic studies after the First District Court of Appeal ruled in November that American Canyon violated the California Environmental Quality Act and local regulations when it approved the Wal-Mart project in 2004. In April of 2007, the American Canyon City Council re-approved permits for the 194,000 s.f. building. The city and Wal-Mart argued that they had fulfilled their legal obligations, and they should be allowed to finish their almost-completed store. Attorney Timothy Taylor, representing resident Stacy Su, and the Citizens Against Poor Planning, testified during the two hour hearing, charging that the city’s new studies were still inadequate. Another group, American Canyon Community United for Responsible Growth, had dropped out of the case earlier, and did not participate in the May 14th court hearing. The Judge wanted to know if the city had considered the cumulative impacts of a separate proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter in Vallejo and whether the city was required to address greenhouse gas emissions. The citizens argued that the city did not take into consideration the cumulative economic impacts of the American Canyon proposal plus the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Vallejo. Attorney Taylor also told the judge the city should have studied the effects of the project’s greenhouse gas emissions under a California law passed last year to address global warming impacts. Wal-Mart noted that the empty store it left in Vallejo has now been rented to Home Depot. About a week after the hearing, the Judge ruled in favor of Wal-Mart, ending the long-standing legal battles.