Some site fights bubble and brew for years before erupting. Others seem to just appear overnight, and explode spontaneously. The controversy in Brooklyn is definitely one of the latter.
Brooklyn is a small town of 7,900 in Northeast Connecticut - the “quiet corner” of the state. Residents were stunned on October 22nd when they were informed on WINY radio that a Wal-Mart supercenter was coming to town, and further shocked when First Selectman Robert Engle told residents that the 158,000 square foot project on Route 6 was a ‘done deal.’ Unfortunately, Wal-Mart and Mr. Engle forgot to ask town residents what they thought.
Residents all over Brooklyn were shocked, and have been speaking out about the project and flooding city meetings over the issue.
Local resident Jeff Arends told the Norwich Bulletin:
“I was devastated when I heard that Wal-Mart wanted to come to Brooklyn. I think Wal-Mart is going to destroy our small businesses. It’s just going to drive a stake into them.”
A reader from Brooklyn wrote in to us:
It is has recently been divulged that town officials have quietly been making plans to accommodate the construction of a 24 hour Wal-Mart Super Center on Route 6 in our little agricultural town. Residents were shocked to hear this news as there has been very little public information about such a radical change to our neighborhood. We feel that this project – a 150,000 to 200,000 square foot building is out of portion to the size of Brooklyn with its 7,800 residents. We’ve formed a grassroots group called Brooklyn For Sensible Growth.
Check out the group’s website here - it seems very well organized.
Wal-Mart just formally submitted its application to build a store, but the city still must fully approve it - and there’s still time for residents to speak out against it.
TAKE ACTION NOW!
Send an email to First Selectman Robert Engle and Sherry Soucy - Chairwoman of the Inland Wetlands Commission, which holds a meeting over the Wal-Mart project on December 9th.
Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
Nov06
Look Out, Sweden!
Wal-Mart’s latest conquest:
Wal-Mart eyes Sweden [The Local (Sweden)]
US retailing giant Wal-Mart is in talks about opening a store in Sundsvall in northern Sweden, officials from the city report.
“Wal-Mart is interested in establishing a test-store in northern Europe, and if they do it will be Sundvall’s Östra Birsta shopping area,” said Gerhard Larsson, a former governor of Västernorrland and one of those involved in the discussions, to the Dagens Handel newspaper.
A spokesperson from Wal-Mart declined to confirm or deny the report.
“We are always looking to establish in new areas. But we don’t comment on where or how,” Wal-Mart’s Kevin Gardner told the newspaper.
Should plans for the store move forward, Sweden’s first Wal-Mart store would beside an Ikea store and an Ica Maxi supermarket.
The negotiations come several years after the creation of a partnership between communities in Västernorrland and the town of Madison, Mississippi in the United States.
During a visit to the US, officials from the Sundsvall business community met with their Madison counterparts, which included representatives from Wal-Mart.
Officials from Sundsvall hope now that the partnership will bear fruit which can help the new retailing area gain traction.
“One can assume that in order to further develop, Birsta needs to have some kind of really exciting customer magnet which hasn’t previously been established in Sundsvall,” said one official to Dagens Handel.
Posted by Research Team | Permalink
The biggest oil company in the world and the biggest retailer in the world are loving life as the economy sinks.
Wal-Mart stock has risen 20% since the start of the fiscal year. Exxon Mobile just posted the largest quarterly earnings in American history- to the tune of 14.83 billion dollars. The recession has done wonders for both companies; the volatile price of oil, puts Exxon Mobile in the position to capitalize on futures from supply-wary market analysts, while Wal-Mart continues to post double-digit profits because of the high number of price-conscious consumers who are forced to trade down - even if it’s against their will.
Many more-upscale retailers, such as Target, are not doing quite as well during the recession. BusinessWeek reports that looking at the most recent quarter over the past year, Wal-Mart’s same store sales are up 5% while Target’s are down 0.4% and K-Mart’s are down 5.6%.
But these days are numbered. Wal-Mart knows that the recession won’t last forever. This week, they unveiled plans to focus more on renovating existing stores next year than opening new stores. Wal-Mart realizes that when the economy turns up again, many of its new customers will want to shop elsewhere - and they’re trying to stop it. The question is: will it work?
Wal-Mart Wins Big During Downturn [BusinessWeek]
These are heady times for Wal-Mart (WMT). The Bentonville (Ark.) retailer has been enjoying double-digit profit growth and strong sales as bargain hunters crowd its aisles. Its stock is up about 20% since the start of the year. And shoppers like Sal Garcia of Downey, Calif., are joining the growing ranks of loyal customers. “Look,” says Garcia, 52, putting the last of 10 shopping bags into the trunk of his Lexus, “all that for $54!”
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Luke West | Permalink
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Stacie Lock Temple, 202.557.7482 or 202.739.1020; Al Norman, 978.502.3794
Date: Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Wal-Mart Watch and Sprawl-Busters Declare Victory as Wal-Mart Slows Growth
Americans across the country are defeating Wal-Mart’s super-sized plans for their communities in record numbers
Washington, D.C. - Wal-Mart Watch and Sprawl-Busters today declared a victory as Wal-Mart announced plans to slow its growth in the U.S. and focus its business on existing stores. While the company claims a weak economy is the reason for reducing capital expenditures, Wal-Mart Watch and Sprawl-Busters also cite increasing opposition from local communities – which have fought and defeated Wal-Mart plans in record numbers this year – as another impetus for the change.
From big cities to rural townships, communities across the country have rejected Wal-Mart. Chicago may have been the most high profile defeat for Wal-Mart when in May of this year the city ended talks with the company once and for all after it refused to budge on its low-wage, low-benefit policy for employees.
In Monsey, New York, a local orthodox Jewish population made national headlines when they fought and defeated a proposed Wal-Mart to preserve their local business and small-town way of life. Only a week ago, Cordova, Tennessee rejected a controversial Wal-Mart plan after hundreds of residents spoke out against the traffic and other problems that the store would bring to their community.
Sprawl-Busters, an organization led by Al Norman, the nation’s leading guru on fighting Wal-Mart, estimates that three out of every five new Wal-Marts run into forceful citizen opposition. Sprawl-Busters has counted over 80 Wal-Mart projects that have either been defeated by citizens or abandoned by the company since February 1, 2008, the highest annual number of lost projects in the history of Wal-Mart.
“Wal-Mart has built far too many stores already, and is cannibalizing its own sales,” said Sprawl-Busters’ Al Norman. “Communities across the country are standing up to – and winning – against Wal-Mart and its high-priced lawyers. Ten years ago, Wal-Mart was waltzing in anywhere it wanted, but not anymore.”
On Tuesday, Wal-Mart not only announced plans to slow growth, but also to grow with smaller stores. The company’s new Marketside stores, recently launched in Phoenix, Arizona, are about one tenth the size of a supercenter and – perhaps intentionally - don’t include any mention of the Wal-Mart name. The company said it plans to open 166 new U.S. stores in fiscal year 2009 and between 125 and 144 in fiscal year 2010. Those numbers, while still high, are significantly down from several years ago when the company was opening over 300 new stores a year.
“That Wal-Mart was forced to slow growth and focus on its current stores should be celebrated as a small victory for communities across the country,” said Wal-Mart Watch Executive Director David Nassar. “This will be a good time for America to catch its breath and start to have a conversation about whether the low-wage, low-benefit Wal-Mart model is really the type of economic growth the country needs.”
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Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
Apparently, the highly-publicized annual Wal-Mart analyst’s meeting served a purpose other than announcing that Wal-Mart plans to: scale-down domestic expansion, improve existing stores, and embark on foreign conquest. They also announced a new venture from Sam’s Club, slated to debut in Houston next year. It is a new club-format store, geared toward Hispanics, creatively titled: Más Club ("More Club” in Spanish. They could name every Sam’s this, no?).
The clubs will feature an expanded selection of Hispanic foods and products produced in Mexico and Latin America. The Houston Chronicle reports that the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia, has estimated that the Hispanic population will account for 1.2 trillion dollars of spending power by 2012 - and Sam’s Club wants a piece of the action.
The store looks to drape itself Hispanic culture, featuring a cafe that sells ‘fresh’ tortillas (sounds delicious) and branding itself in the red, green and white of Mexican flag. Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Sam’s Club is quoted in Reuters:
“Our objective is to create an additional shopping choice that provides currently unavailable value for families, restaurant owners, convenience stores and more...”
McMillon chose not to discuss Mas Club’s suppliers. Given that it will be carrying mostly Hispanic products, “Mas Club” might actually break a new Wal-Mart record for percentage of products not made in the U.S. But Latin American suppliers beware. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is notorious for bullying down their suppliers to sell products at a price they can barely afford (Vlasic, Levis).
While the first store is to serve as a prototype, The Northwest Arkansas Morning News said McMillon is ”pumped” about the new chain, which will also feature gas stations…
Posted by Luke West | Permalink
Lee Scott and Eduardo Castro-Wright have spent the past two days in New York City, detailing Wal-Mart’s business plan to financial analysts. There’s a lot to run down here, but the big (and good) news: less new Wal-Marts. The company is continuing to cut down on capital expenditures and build less stores, focusing instead on remodeling and driving up sales at its current stores.
As a result, capital expenditures will come in at $5.8 billion to $6.4 billion for fiscal 2009 and $6.3 billion to $6.8 billion in fiscal 2010. That’s down from the $9.1 billion the company had in capital expenditures in its last fiscal year.
The Wall Street Journal tells us what that means in terms of store numbers.
Mr. Castro-Wright also said the discount retailer plans to open 142 to 157 new U.S. stores in the fiscal year ending January 2010, down from an earlier projection of 165.
150 stores is still a heck of a lot, but any decrease is a good thing. Remember that growth in 2008 had dropped from 2007, and that only several years ago Wal-Mart was opening 300+ new stores a year.
Some other tidbits from the analyst meeting below the jump-
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
It’s a sobering business, is Wal-Mart Watching. Monitoring Wal-Mart’s slow creep on the world economy can often be a bit gloomy, so it’s important to know when to take pause and celebrate. Today is one of those days.
One of the nation’s most visible site fights just ended last night, and it ended in defeat for Wal-Mart. And even better yet, it happened in Cordova, Tennesse (just outside Memphis) - and right in Wal-Mart’s backyard.
The Memphis Commercial Appeal tells us:
After about a year of fighting a tide of angry neighbors and cautious Memphis and Shelby County planners, Wal-Mart has abandoned its quest to put a “supercenter” store at Macon and Houston Levee roads.
“We’re done. We’re not going to build a store here,” Wal-Mart spokesman Dennis Alpert said just after the Shelby County Commission voted 10-3 Monday evening to reverse the Land Use Control Board’s July approval of the project.
Al Norman tells us that the plan is not 100% “fully dead,” and Wal-Mart still has a chance to appeal. But Wal-Mart says it’s done in Cordova, and the chances of it jumping through all of the hoops to push through another store plan are minuscule.
Congrats, Cordova!
Shelby County Commission rejects Wal-Mart Supercenter [Memphis Commercial Appeal]:
After about a year of fighting a tide of angry neighbors and cautious Memphis and Shelby County planners, Wal-Mart has abandoned its quest to put a “supercenter” store at Macon and Houston Levee roads.
“We’re done. We’re not going to build a store here,” Wal-Mart spokesman Dennis Alpert said just after the Shelby County Commission voted 10-3 Monday evening to reverse the Land Use Control Board’s July approval of the project.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
AP ran a story this weekend about Wal-Mart’s expansion into China’s hinterlands. The story reveals how in China, Wal-Mart is being forced to change how it does business.
First, it has welcomed Chinese organized labor into their stores to represent its workers. Wal-Mart’s opposition to unions in North America is so strong that just last week Wal-Mart chose to close a Tire and Lube Express in Quebec rather than accept a union contract in that shop.
Second, it is being forced to grow faster in China than the infrastructure it needs for support is developing. As Emek Basker, a University of Missouri economics professor points out in the piece, Wal-Mart had a conscious policy in the United States to only open stores that were within a day’s drive of a distribution center. Facing pressure from French giant, Carrefour, and possibly the demands of the Chinese government, Wal-Mart is being forced to abandon that policy in China. In addition to a less convenient distribution network, add a less developed Chinese infrastructure of highways. Now pile on top greater pressure to localize store purchases and that gives you the third way Wal-Mart has been forced to do things differently in China: buy local.
As Dean Xu, professor of strategy and international business at the University of Hong Kong, points out in the article, Wal-Mart will have to source many goods from local suppliers, potentially raising quality issues. “If there is one incident, it can ruin your company’s reputation,” Xu said.
And we know that Wal-Mart’s inability to “go local” is part of the reason it failed in South Korea and Germany and is performing poorly in Japan.
China is so much larger than any of those three countries and therefore the problems associated with going local are larger too. If Wal-Mart succeeds (and it’s a very big “if” - the last we heard, Wal-Mart China still wasn’t profitable), it will become a very different from what we see today. And it certainly won’t look anything like company that Sam Walton passed down to his children.
Posted by David Nassar, Executive Director | Permalink
Wal-Mart’s outlook in China has been looking grim - from rumors that the Chinese operation has been profitless for the last 12 years and that its “market share has retreated in defeat” to public outrage and employee protests. An article from today’s People’s Net adds even more doubt to the retailers future in China:
An official from Haikou revealed at a press conference that Wal-Mart would be postponing its entrance into Haikou. The reason is that Wal-Mart’s own investment plan has changed. As for when Wal-Mart could enter Haikou, city officials said Wal-Mart is still making a great effort, but that currently Wal-Mart is unable to enter the market.
Wal-Mart unable to perform? Sounds familiar.
Posted by Michael Mignano | Permalink
For our readers in the Big Apple, beware. According to Reuters, “Starting this week in New York City, the retailer will put up a temporary store in Times Square and have a truck roving around the city to celebrate the launch of AC/DC’s new album.”
NYC has of course, always firmly rejected the idea of Wal-Mart in the city. Last year, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott famously told N.Y. Times “I don’t care if we are ever here.”
But over the past year, Wal-Mart seems to have gotten little bored with the country life and is jonesin’ again for some city kicks. It didn’t go very well in Chicago, but they’re still at it in D.C. - and it looks like they’re getting their wish in New York - if for only a bit.
(That is, unless loyal Gotham City Wal-Mart fighters make it...uncomfortable)
But the NYC stunt isn’t the only interesting angle to the AC/DC story. Remember that AC/DC signed the exlusive Wal-Mart deal as a way of bypassing iTunes. Check out this gem from lead singer Brian Roberts:
“Maybe I’m just being old-fashioned, but this itunes, God bless ‘em, it’s going to kill music if they’re not careful,” going on to add: “It’s a...monster, this thing,” he said. “It just worries me. And I’m sure they’re just doing it all in the interest of making as much...cash as possible.”
Which store is he talking about again? If a slew of censored and exclusive Garth Brooks and Eagles albums is the way to save the music industry...maybe we’ll just all need to start listening to more books on tapes instead.
Posted by Media Team | Permalink
Can one word be the difference between a Wal-Mart and no Wal-Mart? In Estero, FL, that might be the case.
For years, Wal-Mart has had a loosely planned project in Estero on U.S. 41 and Estero Parkway. The project, however, has always been tied to the long-planned widening of U.S. 41 to 6 lanes. Wal-Mart is fighting hard to reclassify the project to a “super-concurrency” from just a “concurrency” - which currently prevents Wal-Mart from breaking ground until until the road project begins.
Al Norman at Battlemart runs down the laundry list of reasons locals are opposing the project, which would be detrimental to all of Estero’s long-held smart-growth plans
From the sounds of the city planners, moving up the Wal-Mart might jeopardize the timeline of the much-needed widening project. This on top of the serious traffic concerns of a putting in a Wal-Mart before the road is widened (Wal-Mart is planning to commission a new study which “changes the parameters” and magically reverses the conclusion that this would be a traffic nightmare.)
The road project already requires the city to donate several acres of a historic estate, and the proposed Wal-Mart site is only about 1000 feet away from the Koreshan Park Historic Site, which is a preserved unique 19th-century colony.
Like almost anywhere else in Florida - there is no shortage of Wal-Mart stores around Estero, with 8 in the Fort Myers area, and another 6 around Naples. Estero doesn’t need another one - all the signs are pointing to no for this new Wal-Mart.
TAKE ACTION NOW!
Email all five members of the Lee County Commission and tell them to say no Wal-Mart once and for all.
Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
After getting shut down in U.S., Wal-Mart looks to lock up the other 2/3 of the continent by getting a bank permit in Canada.
Saturday, Wal-Mart posted its mandatory public notice of its official bank application to the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. The bank would theoretically be based in Mississauga, Ontario, but there’s no real timeline yet or any indication if the same opposition that rose quickly in the U.S. to block Wal-Mart’s bank will arise in Canada.
So what does it all really mean?
Several analysts have said so far that Wal-Mart’s entry in banking wouldn’t pose a huge threat to the Canadian banking establishment - in the near future, at least. Wal-Mart Stores already offer financial services like money transfers and cash withdrawals, but a banking license would allow the company to greatly expand what it offers. Spokesman Kevin Groh cited credit cards as an immediate first step for Wal-Mart, but also listed as possibilities “savings accounts, loans, mortgages, RSPs, GICs...”
The consensus, at least as of now, appears to be that Wal-Mart’s focus is still retail-based: rather than targeting the Canadian banking sector, it’s targeting other retailers by using the new offerings to pull in more customers and squeeze more dollars out existing store customers. (Wal-Mart Canada Andrew Pelletier said that the company doesn’t plan to open up traditional bank branches “for the foreseeable future”...)
As Wal-Mart tries to furiously expand and eat more market share in Canada, this is an edge it seems desperate for.
The Holy Grail for Wal-Mart, of course, is a bank in U.S. They’ll no doubt try again, but for now Wal-Mart will have to settle on our neighbors to the South and (they hope) North.
Wal-Mart Canadian Unit Seeks to Offer Bank Services [Bloomberg News]:
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s biggest retailer, applied to the Canadian government for official bank status that would allow it to expand financial services in the country.
Wal-Mart’s Canadian unit has applied to the minister of finance to establish a bank under the name Wal-Mart Canada Bank and, in French, La Banque Wal-Mart du Canada, according to a notice posted Sept. 13 on the Canadian government’s Web site.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
An article today from Reuters brings news that Wal-Mart is looking to expand its presence in Southeast Asia. Wal-Mart has come to rely more and more on its international stores for sales growth, and expanding into Southeast Asia is only one part of the company’s international expansion plan. From Reuters via the International Herald Tribune:
Wal-Mart Stores, the world’s biggest retailer, is considering its first stores in Southeast Asia and expects to approach 10 percent growth in international sales to $100 billion this fiscal year despite a global economic slowdown.
This is not, however, Wal-Mart’s first venture in Southeast Asia. The company’s first effort in the region was a partnership with Indonesia’s powerful Lippo Group. In 1995, Wal-Mart and Lippo worked together to open stores in Jakarta. As the New York Times reported:
The 180,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter, planned for Lippo Village, a Jakarta mall owned by the Lippo Group, will be the first in Indonesia. Wal-Mart, which is based here, said it would provide expertise and management services for the store, which Lippo will own. By the time the store opens, Wal-Mart will have stores in Indonesia, Hong Kong and China, company officials said.
The partnership failed. Less than three years later, after opening two stores in Jakarta, Wal-Mart announced that it was abandoning the project. From BusinessWeek:
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. confirmed on Wednesday, Feb. 25, that it’s trying to end a franchise agreement with a unit of Indonesia’s powerful Lippo Group. The partners operate two stores in Jakarta under the Wal-Mart banner. About 13 U.S. expatriates, who supported the store operations, have left Indonesia, a Wal-Mart spokesman says.
Even before the Lippo debacle, Wal-Mart partnered with Thai company Charown Pokphand Group. That partnership was also a failure, and ended after less than a year. Will Wal-Mart’s most recent efforts to build in Southeast Asia prove different than its previous attempts?
Wal-Mart sees potential growth in Southeast Asia [Reuters via International Herald Tribune]
Posted by Research Team | Permalink
We’ll be extremely busy this weekend relaxing and celebrating the valiant efforts of American workers, so in the meantime - a brief round up of the week’s Wal-Mart blogs.
DEADLY BASSINETS SOLD AT WAL-MART
Wal-Mart Still Selling Dangerous Cribs [WakeUpWal-Mart.com Blog]
Wal-Mart has long been plagued with recalls of dangerous products, and it has often been implicated in taking too little action about such products. Now it seems Wal-Mart is still selling a dangerous crib that is responsible for two deaths.
Here is the story yesterday at Consumeraffairs.com. I hope Wal-Mart (mentioned in this story) and other retailers have stopped selling these products, since being notified of the imminent hazard warning. And I assure readers, if SFCA’s defense somehow prevails in court, that the Congress will be quick with a technical correction to the new law.
After the jump, Wal-Mart’s local food, more on the company’s mandatory meetings and the new Marketside stores.
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt | Permalink
The Financial Times brings news that the Building Dept. of the City of Mesa, AZ. has posted on its website some of the first photos of Wal-Mart’s new “Marketside” stores. The stores signal a departure for Wal-Mart, as they are significantly smaller than the retailer’s traditional format and designed to compete head-to-head with UK retailer Tesco’s “Fresh and Easy” markets.
Marketside’s small format isn’t the only thing that distinguishes the pilot program from other Wal-Mart stores. Marketsides have completely independent design elements and don’t mention the word “Wal-Mart.” From the Financial Times:
The design includes a natural wood finish around the entrance, and deep-purple awnings - the same colour that will be used on the aprons of the staff, and on its website, http://www.marketplace.com. The Marketside name appears in lower case green lettering, with no reference to its parent company.
As Wal-Mart nears the U.S. saturation point for its traditional stores, the company has been forced to evolve into alternate formats. But Marketside’s distinct branding implies the company is worried customers have had enough not only of Supercenters, but of Wal-Mart itself.
Posted by Alex Goldschmidt | Permalink
WAL-MART TO BUILD NEAR PROTECTED CIVIL WAR BATTLEFIELDS?
Wal-Mart and the Wilderness. [Hardtac and Hard Times]
Before I say another word, let me remind you that the Civil War Preservation Trust is NOT a knee-jerk, anti-development group; we do not assume that all developers are bad people, and we do not oppose responsible economic growth. In fact, there are several developers who have worked very closely with us to save battlefield land. We welcome and seek out such partnerships!
Stop Wal-Mart [Rantings Of A Civil War Historian]
There are three major corporations that I absolutely despise. I absolutely and categorically refuse to do business with two of them...The third is the Walton empire. Wal-Mart is notorious for forcing its way into communities and killing off local businesses, whether it’s wanted or not. In many instances, it’s not wanted, but it matters not to Wal-Mart. The latest atrocity by Wal-Mart is probably the most unforgivable of all: it wants to build one of its superstores ON the Wilderness battlefield, regardless of the historical significance of the ground, and regardless of what the community might have to say about it. It MUST be stopped.
CWPT Leads Effort To Stop Wal-Mart At The Wilderness [National Trust For Historic Preservation]
Leading the charge against the Wal-Mart plan are CWPT and the Warrenton-based Piedmont Environmental Council. Their “Wilderness Battlefield Coalition” also includes the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Parks Conservation Association, Friends of the Wilderness, and Friends of the Fredericksburg Area Battlefields. Representatives of all six organizations signed the letter.
Wal-Mart is Wiping Out American History - Literally [La Vida Locavore]
Now Wal-Mart wants to do more than just censoring books and music, putting entire towns’ worth of Moms ‘n Pops out of business, and basically selling America to China to wipe out American culture and history. What could be worse and more un-American than that? Oh, funny you should ask. They want to build a Supercenter on the site of the Civil War Battle of Wilderness.
THE UNIONIZATION OF WAL-MART CANADA
Wal-Mart is not above the law. [Writing On The Wal]
So what did I miss while I was in lovely Southern California? “Gatineau Wal-Mart workers awarded contract: Arbitrator imposes only labour pact for retailing giant in North America” [Yes, I see that Robert has already covered this story, but do you really expect me to leave news like this alone?] My source, The Ottawa Citizen offers the full context:
Wal-Mart: 8 Unionized Employees [Mindful Mission]
“Incompatible?" Really? Paying decent wages and giving decent benefits are “incompatible” with the way you do business? Thanks for reminding me why I have not shopped at Wal-Mart in years.
TOM COUGHLIN RAKES IN THE CASH
Wal-Mart, Coughlin settle [Arkansas Blog]
The Morning News account indicates Judge Jay Finch ordered reporters out of the courtroom on the ground that it was a meeting room where parties were discussing settlement. But the minute the judge and a court reporter sat down to have an agreement entered into the record, I’d think court was in session. Absent a compelling reason not apparent here, the session should have been open.
I’ve been doing this Wal-Mart blogging thing for far too long [Writing On The Wal]
This is my first greatest hits post, devoted to the guy who’s now $6.75 million richer, Tom Coughln. Here’s me from July 19, 2005…
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
Today over at the Huffington Post, retired Army Lt. Colonel Robert Mackey alerted us to what looks to be a major Wal-Mart site fight. The post, “Wal-Mart’s War On America,” tells us how Wal-Mart is looking to build a supercenter near two federally-protected Civil War Battlefields - Wilderness and Chancellorsville, in Central Virginia.
Last month a coalition of groups including the Civil War Preservation Trust, National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Parks Conservation Association, sent a letter to CEO Lee Scott urging Wal-Mart to keep the land supercenter-free. Don’t expect this fight to go away any time soon.
The Civil War Preservation Trust is urging readers to take action on the issue, and has several ways to do so. More soon on this issue.
Posted by Eric Bull | Permalink
County sides with Wal-Mart [The Daily Triplicate (Calif.)]
The Del Norte County Board of Supervisors decided to move forward Tuesday with Wal-Mart’s expansion into a Supercenter.
Supervisors heard passionate comments on both sides of the issue during a public hearing on an appeal of the county Planning Commission’s decision to certify the Environmental Impact Review for the expansion.
In a 3-1 vote (Supervisor Leslie McNamer was absent), the board denied the appeal.
The appellant, the Crescent Heritage Coalition, still has 30 days to challenge the ruling in court. Its attorney, Paul Hagen, said a legal challenge probably would be filed, which could at least stall the expansion.
The expansion would almost double the size of the current store to include groceries and other merchandise.
Hagen told The Triplicate that there are multiple legal problems with the EIR, which he said should be thrown out or re-evaluated.
Local resident Ron Cole, on behalf of the coalition, appealed the planning commission’s decision. He said at the meeting Tuesday the two main issues that are not fully researched in the EIR are urban decay—basically the effects of business closures—and water runoff into Elk Creek.
“Del Norte residents cannot afford to rely on an inadequate (EIR),” he said, adding that it risks the county’s economic development and environment.
Several people said that Wal-Mart has hurt small businesses since it opened in 1992. Patti Pearcey, the owner of the Bookcomber bookstore downtown, said businesses “went down like dominos.”
“We can’t turn back the clock, but expansion is not necessary,” Pearcey said. “We need to support each other. I haven’t seen local government support us.”
Read the rest of this story ...
Posted by Tony Calero | Permalink
The town of Granite City, Illinois, takes great pride in putting people first. Now its residents are putting people before corporations by rallying against a proposed measure that would allow Wal-Mart to expand.
Recently, the Granite City Planning and Zoning Commission granted Wal-Mart’s request to rezone agricultural land for commercial use. Now, the world’s largest corporation will take the measure to the City Council on August 19th. If it passes, Wal-Mart will be allowed to expand its current store on to agricultural land. To add insult to injury, Granite City taxpayers will help subsidize Wal-Mart’s expansion because the project is located in a Tax Increment Financing District.
Wal-Mart hurts communities in many different ways. One Collinsville, Illinois resident wrote to the Press-Record, saying:
“We had a nice, quiet little store before the supercenter took over. Many, many life-time associates—I am talking 20 plus years—have been cut to part time… We are tired and our spirit is broken, don’t do this to your town. Glen Carbon said no, you can too!”
Granite City’s local businesses will feel the brunt of the expansion, as Wal-Mart edges in on their market share. Citizen action group Granite City First explains Wal-Mart would not provide increased sales tax revenue for the town, but rather would simply transfer existing sales away from local businesses. This is hardly compatible with Granite City’s plan for a revitalized downtown.
Granite City does not need unchecked growth; it needs sustainable development. Help make sure Wal-Mart isn’t allowed to super-size its store in Granite City. Use our simple email tool to write a letter to Mayor Hagnauer and the Granite City Council and tell them to stand up to Wal-Mart:
http://action.walmartwatch.com/granitecity
Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton once wrote, “If a community does not want us there, we will go somewhere else.” On May 8, Granite City First delivered 3,000 letters to City Hall from community members protesting Wal-Mart’s expansion. There can be no clearer sign of a community’s opposition. In communities across America, residents have stood up to Wal-Mart and won. Now it’s Granite City’s turn.
Posted by Media Team | Permalink
Wal-Mart’s conversion put on hold [The Intelligencer (Pa.)]
If you’ve been holding your breath waiting for the Wal-Mart at the Hilltown Crossings to be converted into a supercenter, you might want to start breathing again.
Construction at the Route 309 shopping center won’t begin for another eight to 12 months, said Keith Morris, regional spokesman for the Bentonville, Ark.-based discount stores.
Last July, Hilltown officials gave preliminary approval to the expansion, pending some traffic and internal corrections.
Around the same time, however, Wal-Mart announced it was re-evaluating its expansion strategy, scaling back by more than 25 percent the number of superstores it would be opening this year, according to Associated Press reports.
About 80 of the more than 200 supercenters that had been scheduled to open in 2008 have been pushed until next year. The move dropped Wal-Mart’s capital expenditures by $1.5 billion.
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