California Site Fight: Wake Up, Ceres!
We can do better than Wal-Mart [The Modesto (Calif.) Bee]
Wake up, Ceres politicians and citizens! Wal-Mart likes developing in small towns because it gets what it wants without much opposition.
The promises to keep the existing store, the creation of jobs and the proposed tax revenue do not provide the rosy benefits they appear to.
Forget what you think you know about Wal-Mart and consider the less-publicized facts surrounding the chain. There are many allegations against Wal-Mart.
Here are a few:
* Willfully violating the federal Robinson-Patman Act, which enables Wal-Mart to sell at lower prices than the actual cost of the goods at the expense of its local competitors.
* Reducing land values and increasing welfare costs.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, September 06 | 0 comments | Permalink
New Report Calls Wal-Mart Environmental Initiatives “Smoke and Mirrors”
A new report jointing published by 23 organizations across the country calls on Wal-Mart to reframe its sustainability efforts so that workers, the environment and communities are all respected. The report examines several specific areas where Wal-Mart falls short of its claim of environmental-friendliness. Areas of focus include Wal-Mart’s organics, seafood, wood sourcing, product packaging, dangerous toys, contributions to global warming, energy use, and waste quantities. The report goes on to incorporate workers’ rights and community impact analyses, retaining a wholistic view of Wal-Mart’s business model overall. From the introduction:
Nearly two years ago, Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott announced a bold initiative to turn the world’s largest company green. A long-anticipated fi rst progress report on these sustainability goals is expected to be released soon. In advance of the company’s report, 23 environmental, farm, labor, and other civil society groups have offered their own critiques of Wal-Mart’s approach to
sustainability.Some of these critiques focus on specific Wal-Mart commitments and offer recommendations for change. Others argue that even if Wal-Mart achieved all of its stated goals, the company’s
business model makes it inherently unsustainable. All of them remind us of what’s at stake by demonstrating Wal-Mart’s huge and often devastating impacts on real people and places in the
United States and around the world.
Click here to download the full report from the Big Box Collaborative.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, September 06 | 2 comments | Permalink
Wailuku, HI. Law to Limit Superstores in Paradise Under Review
There’s trouble in paradise for the likes of Wal-Mart and Target. For most Americans, Hawaii conjures up beautiful beaches and far-away paradise. But the paradise in Hawaii now comes with Home Depots and Wal-Marts.
On the island of Maui, they want to change all that. The Maui News reported recently that the Maui County Council Planning Committee has taken an initial step on legislation that would amend the county’s zoning laws to prohibit large discount retailers. The committee recommended that a bill to prohibit superstores in Maui County should be forwarded to the three county planning commissions for review as well as to the Hana Advisory Committee, the Maui Planning Commission and the Maui County Cultural Resources Commission. Council Chairman Riki Hokama introduced the bill when he became aware that other counties in the state are working on similar legislation. The Kaua’i County Council in May, 2007 approved a law prohibiting retail or wholesale store larger than 75,000 s.f. Kaua’i is the first in the state to implement a ban on large stores. “I don’t have a problem being considered a protector, if that’s what it takes to protect local people and the economy,” Hokama explained after discussing how big-box stores such as Target and Wal-Mart try to dominate the regional trade area.
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Posted by Al Norman on Thursday, September 06 | 0 comments | Permalink
Easy Steps for Overcoming Local Opposition
We couldn’t resist this sly commentary on big box development’s approach to fighting local opposition to their stores. This op-ed columnist from the LA Times makes crushing citizens’ groups sound so easy!
How to build whatever you want [Los Angeles Times]
Progress without strategy is regress. Time and again a new Wal-Mart or airport runway that would enable investors to make as much money as they want or consumers to travel twice as often from here to there is stalled by the Taliban mentalities of local resistance. Fortunately for America and its future, a formula exists whose careful application seldom fails. It deserves to be better known. Here it is.
Delay announcing your development for as long as possible. Never underestimate the element of surprise. This is not merely a matter of catching your opponents off-guard. Most people have an entrenched fatalism, as evidenced by the number of lottery tickets they buy. To give the appearance of a fait accompli is to take on the authority of fate. It was bound to happen. Whatcha gonna do?
Never lose an opportunity to outlast your opponents by outspending them. If there’s a formal approval process, do everything in your power to prolong it. Amend your proposal. Reschedule your testimony. The new paradigm of “let them eat cake” is “let them hold a bake sale”—again and again.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, September 05 | 1 comments | Permalink
CALIFORNIA SITE FIGHT: PROPOSED WAL-MART PROVES DIVISIVE
Anxiously waiting on Wal-Mart [The (Calif.) Press-Enterprise]
The big-box retailer figures prominently in plans for generating tax revenue.
At a time when Wal-Marts are sued and criticized by residents across the country, Wildomar cityhood proponents are opening their arms wide to the Arkansas-based conglomerate.
If built, a Wildomar supercenter could bring in an estimated $500,000 a year in sales-tax revenue, money that could be needed to provide services to the proposed new city. Wildomar residents have been given approval to vote on incorporation as soon as Riverside County supervisors set an election date.
Not all residents are excited about accepting Wal-Mart. A group of neighbors doesn’t want the 240,000-square-foot facility on property along Bundy Canyon Road near Interstate 15. Incorporation critics have called the Wal-Mart a red herring that will never be built because the company may bring supercenters to other Southwest Riverside County communities. “We do not want the community referred to as ‘WaldoMart,’ “ resident Beryl Yasinosky wrote in a letter to George Spiliotis, executive director of Riverside County’s local boundary formation commission.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Tuesday, September 04 | 0 comments | Permalink
CALIFORNIA SITE FIGHT: WAL-MART WOULD HAVE NEGATIVE IMPACT
Wal-Mart Would Have Negative Impact [(Calif.) Daily Bulletin]
I am a member of Ontario Mountain Village Association. We are a group of residents who successfully worked with city staff and officials several years ago to deny a big-box store, Home Depot, from being built on Sixth Street and Mountain Avenue. This cooperative effort resulted in the approval of the Calthorpe plan, also know as the Mountain Village Specific Plan, consisting of a pedestrian-friendly development for Fifth and Mountain.
Needless to say, when we found out that the city was considering another big-box store to be built on Fifth and Mountain, we rallied together again to remind our officials of the agreed-upon plan for a neighborhood-friendly project at that location. Our membership grew, and we collected more than 2,500 signatures opposing this project.
We asked for a new environmental impact report (EIR) and after much debate the city agreed. When we received it last month we found it substantiated all of our concerns.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Monday, August 27 | 0 comments | Permalink
An Unlikely Combination: Farmers’ Markets And Wal-Mart
Farmers’ markets coming to Wal-Mart [KTVB-TV (Idaho)]
When hearing the name Wal-Mart, you might think corporate money and big business, but some Treasure Valley stores are working with local farmers to “take a bite” out of that perception.
Starting today corporate meets local and for the next week you’ll be able to find some of your favorite Idaho-grown fruits and veggies at seven Treasure Valley Wal-Mart stores.
“We’re in the business of pleasing customers, Wal-Mart is and we are too, and that’s what’s driving both of our businesses is - we have to satisfy both of our customers,” said Fred Schreffler, local grower.
Always low prices? --- maybe, but not always local growers, until now.
Through August 30th, seven Wal-Mart stores across the Treasure Valley will be home to farmers markets—and farmers from Idaho will produce all goods sold there.
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Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, August 24 | 0 comments | Permalink
Washington: Medicaid Concerns Could Put ‘Wal-Mart’ Bill Back On The Agenda
This story is from Friday’s News Tribune in Takoma, Washington, but its still an interesting piece. Other states - most notably Maryland - have tried passing bills aimed at forcing large employers to pay health insurance for employees. The Maryland law, called the Maryland Fair Share Bill, passed the legislature only to be struck down in court as being preempted by federal ERISA restrictions.
After a 2006 report showing that nearly one in five Wal-Mart employees in Washington are on Medicaid or the state’s basic health plan, the unions appear to be mobilizing again. Washington’s labor leaders have a powerful voice, especially in a state where Democrats control both the Governor’s Mansion and the Statehouse.
Unions will press ‘Wal-Mart bill’ [The News Tribune]
Washington labor leaders, enjoying big influence in this Democratic-controlled state, vowed Thursday to keep waging war on Wal-Mart as well as work to pass the huge Puget Sound-area roads and rails measure on this fall’s ballot.
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Posted by Corey Himrod on Monday, August 20 | 0 comments | Permalink
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