When the city council met this last tuesday to discuss the anti-Wal-mart ordinance, Wal-Mart had stationed a court reporter in the chambers to provide ammunition for a future lawsuit. That must have freaked them out: http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/local_government/story/12386234p-13242582c.html
Bravo to the city council for standing up to them. I plan to write a letter to my councilperson, Robert Fong. To find out who yours is and write him/her: http://www.cityofsacramento.org/council/
I have more stuff to post but if will have to wait for now, I got brains to stain!
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5 comments:
classic line:Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said the ordinance harms consumer choice and is anti-competitive.
I understand where you're coming from with that last comment on the other post, Heather. That was my first reaction, too, as a result of years of being annoyed with the vision of the city council for a downtown that probably wouldn't contain me or my friends. However, Wal-Mart is the worst and I like the mall the way it is. I hope they fail to come up with anything to add to it and it just continues on as a moderately successful mall. It seems to have plenty of shoppers. I think it's going OK, it's just not the Galleria or Arden Fair, which is fine. I think having a court reporter there is an intimidation tactic and that Wal-Mart is a bully that is used to getting its way.
Yeah, the court reporter move was really lame. I like the mall the way it is too, but the stupid city council won't be happy until it is like the Galleria or something. The Turlock situation is really interesting. I hope their ordinance stands up.
Heather
Sometimes, there are more important things than consumer choice and competition. Like morals, ethics, traffic management, quality of life. Doesn't it bug you that communities have their sovereignty undermined by some dumbass greedy bastards from Arkansas?
Yeah, me too.
A couple of things:
The ordinance does not ban Wal-Mart or any "big-box" retailer from locating in the City. It is an "interim" ordinance to require a Special Use Permit for any retail store larger than 90,000 square feet, which would be repealed once permanent changes to zoning and the General Plan revisions are completed. Also, any warehouse/bulk merchandising facility (i.e. Costco, etc) is not covered by the interim ordinance.
Not surprising that Wal-Mart is using scare tactics & prepping for lawsuits. And even in places with ordinances where big-box stores are banned outright, Wal-Mart has taken some development projects to ballot-box initiatives to override some legal constraints. They lost the initiative in Inglewood (see http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/07/news/fortune500/walmart_inglewood/), but the pattern will repeat itself doubtlessly...
-Erik
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