[Vision2020] Walmart
keely emerinemix
kjajmix1 at msn.com
Thu Jan 12 19:22:29 PST 2006
Donovan, no one is talking about closing the Wal-Mart that you already
enjoy. It's here. Buy your stuff and be happy. The issue is a new Super
Wal-Mart, one of a potential triumverate of Bentonville Beasts on the
Palouse. That some of us argue that it's too much, and that some of us
choose not to shop there, is not unreasonable, malicious, stupid or even
physics-defying. I have a heartfelt concern for the economically
disadvantaged, and you do as well. We demonstrate it in different ways, but
I would no more accuse you of hating the poor because you welcome an entity
that I think does them harm than I would accuse you of being a puppy-kicking
Commie. Those of us who oppose a Supercenter aren't trying to close the
Wal-Mart that's here, nor are we trying to force you to shop only at places
we deem acceptable. We just think that Wal-Mart is not representative of
the best social, economic, and community justice practices possible, and I
wish it weren't so difficult for you to accept that people who disgree with
you aren't inherently malicious.
For the record, you're not a puppy-kicking Commie and neither am I. Fair
enough?
keely
From: Donovan Arnold <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>
To: Bruce and Jean Livingston <jeanlivingston at turbonet.com>,
vision2020 at moscow.com, Jeff Harkins <jeffh at moscow.com>
CC: jweber at ci.moscow.id.us, blambert at ci.moscow.id.us,
nchaney at ci.moscow.id.us, john dickinson <JohnDickinson at moscow.com>,
linda pall <lpall at moscow.com>, bstout at ci.moscow.id.us
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Walmart
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:02:34 -0800 (PST)
I for one am confused by Bruce's letter because it seems to defy
physics, basic economics, not to mention fairness to the poor and average
Moscow residents.
For example,
"We should do so by requiring Wal-Mart (or any such large retailer that
wishes to come here) to cover all of its "external" costs, those costs that
are more typically dumped on the community Wal-Mart "serves," such as the
increased demands on police protection, water consumption, traffic and
related infrastructure changes, sewer expenses, uninsured medical expenses
(that will be borne by Gritman), lighting poluution, etc."
First, isn't external costs why businesses pay property taxes? How do we
assess this supposed traffic increase caused by a Wal-Mart? It would seem
to me that two Wal-Marts (one being out of Moscow) instead of one would
reduce traffic in Moscow because those in Pullman and the surrounding area
would not come to town. But if it is "pulling traffic" to one side of town,
is it not at the same time reducing traffic some place else? Or is there
magically more cars? One stop shopping would also seem to reduce traffic.
Should it not be equally rewarded for reducing traffic problems elsewhere
and pollution?
If Wal-Mart, or any other business, is responsible for who is put on
Medicaid and Medicare, should it not also be rewarded for getting people
off the programs or preventing them from going on?
Another comment that baffles me is:
"the community may be bearing other costs that are not factored into the
simple buy-sell relationship with the consumers that you describe."
Why would this statement not be true for any business?
"Another angle that I have not seen discussed is on another of your
favorite issues: consumer choice. I fear that a Super Wal-Mart will reduce
that choice, not only by the gloom and doom tales of a shuttered Main
Street, but by the simpler difference that Wal-Mart's preemptive, predatory
opening of a Supercenter is seemingly designed to keep out other
retailers."
Why should poor Moscow residents be forced to pay for the same goods and
services at a higher rate to secure a lower rate for increased choices of
the wealthier residents? If wealthier residents what to pay high prices for
greater selection, let them. But it is unfair to attempt to force poorer
residents to pay for the personal preferences of the wealthier residents.
"Among those benefits imposed on/extracted from any such new retailer
ought to be: a living wage,"
Enforcing higher minimum wages will result in inflation, hurting banks,
social security recipients, and those living on fixed income or retired;
societies most vulnerable. The better tactic, is to keep the cost of living
and inflation low in Moscow for the basics of life, such as housing,
groceries, medicine, clothing, and basic goods. The best way to accomplish
this is through free competition in a capitalistic market, and reduced or
no taxes on housing, groceries, medicine, clothing, and basic needed goods.
It might be true that Wal-Mart is able to offer lower prices and access
to goods and services to the poor and financially limited by passing costs
on the taxpayer. But I say so what? Why shouldn't those that make 80K a
year be paying a little more so a waitress can afford a DVD player to watch
a Disney movie with her son? Or a poor woman able to buy a microwave to
heat her tea at night? I say it is high time that those that make a great
deal of money subsidize the lifestyle of the poorer and middle class rather
than the other way around for a change.
Bruce has his preferences for shopping. I have mine. My neighbor has
hers. But what gives anybody else the right to force their shopping
preferences on others? I do not like seafood, what gives me the right
to prevent others from buying and enjoying it, or the right to prevent two
law abiding citizens from engaging in a mutual transaction of property?
Does the 14th amendment have no meaning inside the Moscow city limits?
Take Care,
Donovan J Arnold
"Jeff,
I agree with what you say about the simplicity of your cash register
model -- consumers must want it because they are spending money there --
but I think you are leaving something out.
Sure, consumers may support Wal-Mart with their dollars, but the
community may be bearing other costs that are not factored into the simple
buy-sell relationship with the consumers that you describe. Local
taxpayers have a different relationship with Wal-Mart, as does our local
non-profit hospital and the citizens who have to navigate through the
increased traffic generated by a Supercenter. The affected economic and
other relationships of all community members, not just the shoppers, ought
to be equally significant to our decision on whether and on what terms to
recruit Wal-Mart.
We ought to protect those other relationships through a Big Box
ordinance. We should do so by requiring Wal-Mart (or any such large
retailer that wishes to come here) to cover all of its "external" costs,
those costs that are more typically dumped on the community Wal-Mart
"serves," such as the increased demands on police protection, water
consumption, traffic and related infrastructure changes, sewer expenses,
uninsured medical expenses (that will be borne by Gritman), lighting
poluution, etc.
Nor are all retailers equal. The costs to the community of having a
particular retailer are not the same.
In Butch Alford's talk to the LEDC today, he answered a Walter Steed
question, something about "Valley Vision" (Lewiston-Clarkson's equivalent
to the LEDC) and its experience with (and the desirability/value of) big
box retail to the community, by noting that all retailers are not the same
and that Costco pays very well -- real living wages -- and is an extremely
generous member of the Valley community. I believe he was pointedly
distinguishing between Wal-Mart and Costco, in that instance, as two
entirely different quality citizens. The "citizenship" factors of our
corporate big box retailers are not measured merely by the transactions at
the cash register. The various other factors that result from their entry
in our community should all be part of the package of issues that our
community considers and pursues, by requiring more from any big box
retailer that seeks to open a new store in town than that they simply pay
their property taxes.
Now, I do not support drafting a law peculiar to Wal-Mart, even
though I find its practices, as I understand them, offensive. But it seems
to me that we as a community ought to write our laws in a way that we get
retailers who are willing to meet our reasonable but high standards.
Frankly, given the seeming desirability of our community, we ought to be
able to extract some real benefit to the community in return for the right
to locate here and saddle us with traffic congestion, etc. Among those
benefits imposed on/extracted from any such new retailer ought to be: a
living wage, for example; and substantially more green space in the 1000
space parking lot to avoid polluting Paradise Creek while also enabling
better water recharge of the limited aquifer; as well as architectural and
lighting design standards; guarantees not to leave buildings vacant; etc.
etc.
Another angle that I have not seen discussed is on another of your
favorite issues: consumer choice. I fear that a Super Wal-Mart will reduce
that choice, not only by the gloom and doom tales of a shuttered Main
Street, but by the simpler difference that Wal-Mart's preemptive, predatory
opening of a Supercenter is seemingly designed to keep out other retailers.
Isn't consumer choice enabled by doing our best to "hire", ok,
attract, better citizen, retailing neighbors than Wal-Mart, an admittedly
"naughty," law-violating, discriminatory corporate behemoth? We have a
Wal-Mart. Isn't consumer choice greater if we retain the Wal-Mart we have
and encourage a different choice to locate here? And if that new store,
while offering a different product line, is a better citizen of the
community and foists fewer external costs on the community, are we not
better off? We have a relatively small population, and why wouldn't we
want to encourage someone else in the retail industry who (unlike Wal-Mart,
if the literature is true) is willing to pay living wages, if we choose to
make that part of the ground rules to play here, for example?
Everyone seems to assume that we will lose our Wal-Mart to Pullman,
which I think is absurd. We already HAVE a Wal-Mart, which is a point
that Steve Cooke left out of his presentation the other night at the MCA
forum on the economic benefits of Wal-Mart. Apparently, the powers that be
in Benton Arkansas are making so much money on their 90,000 sq. ft. store
in Moscow, Idaho that they feel the upgrade to a 228,000 sq. ft. store here
is a wise decision in their economic interest. I have to believe that if
they decide not to meet our requirements under a Big Box ordinance, and
therefore choose not to expand, that they will still retain their
"grandfathered" and profitable current store, rather than abdicate the
market.
I encourage us all to think how best we might write a Big Box
ordinance that will deal with the costs of these new stores which seemingly
wish to locate here.
And until we have a big box ordinance "with teeth" in place, unlike
the emergency ordinance under which Wal-Mart seeks to play, I suggest to
our City Council that you deny the necessary re-zone at this time, because
it is not in our long term interest to allow such a significant new
addition to our community under a vague, rushed, and temporary, "emergency
big box ordinance" that Wal-Mart with its huge economic power can litigate
to death until we cave to the expense of litigation and let it have its
way. I think the existence of an unsatisfactory regulatory mechanism for
the desired use, along with avoidance of litigation of an ambiguous
emergency ordinance is reason enough to deny the re-zone.
And frankly, I don't understand why we would cut-off from expansion
our Alturas technology park. Alturas was built at our expense for the
attraction of living wage jobs. Why should we limit its potential
expansion and simultaneously hand that infrastructure to a new Big Box,
especially one that is a less than stellar corporate citizen, when the
obvious place for Big Box zoning in our community is along Hwy 95, to the
south of town near JJ's?
Bruce Livingston
Bruce and Jean Livingston <jeanlivingston at turbonet.com> wrote:
Jeff,
I agree with what you say about the simplicity of your cash register
model -- consumers must want it because they are spending money there --
but I think you are leaving something out.
Sure, consumers may support Wal-Mart with their dollars, but the
community may be bearing other costs that are not factored into the simple
buy-sell relationship with the consumers that you describe. Local
taxpayers have a different relationship with Wal-Mart, as does our local
non-profit hospital and the citizens who have to navigate through the
increased traffic generated by a Supercenter. The affected economic and
other relationships of all community members, not just the shoppers, ought
to be equally significant to our decision on whether and on what terms to
recruit Wal-Mart.
We ought to protect those other relationships through a Big Box
ordinance. We should do so by requiring Wal-Mart (or any such large
retailer that wishes to come here) to cover all of its "external" costs,
those costs that are more typically dumped on the community Wal-Mart
"serves," such as the increased demands on police protection, water
consumption, traffic and related infrastructure changes, sewer expenses,
uninsured medical expenses (that will be borne by Gritman), lighting
poluution, etc.
Nor are all retailers equal. The costs to the community of having a
particular retailer are not the same.
In Butch Alford's talk to the LEDC today, he answered a Walter Steed
question, something about "Valley Vision" (Lewiston-Clarkson's equivalent
to the LEDC) and its experience with (and the desirability/value of) big
box retail to the community, by noting that all retailers are not the same
and that Costco pays very well -- real living wages -- and is an extremely
generous member of the Valley community. I believe he was pointedly
distinguishing between Wal-Mart and Costco, in that instance, as two
entirely different quality citizens. The "citizenship" factors of our
corporate big box retailers are not measured merely by the transactions at
the cash register. The various other factors that result from their entry
in our community should all be part of the package of issues that our
community considers and pursues, by requiring more from any big box
retailer that seeks to open a new store in town than that they simply pay
their property taxes.
Now, I do not support drafting a law peculiar to Wal-Mart, even though
I find its practices, as I understand them, offensive. But it seems to me
that we as a community ought to write our laws in a way that we get
retailers who are willing to meet our reasonable but high standards.
Frankly, given the seeming desirability of our community, we ought to be
able to extract some real benefit to the community in return for the right
to locate here and saddle us with traffic congestion, etc. Among those
benefits imposed on/extracted from any such new retailer ought to be: a
living wage, for example; and substantially more green space in the 1000
space parking lot to avoid polluting Paradise Creek while also enabling
better water recharge of the limited aquifer; as well as architectural and
lighting design standards; guarantees not to leave buildings vacant; etc.
etc.
Another angle that I have not seen discussed is on another of your
favorite issues: consumer choice. I fear that a Super Wal-Mart will reduce
that choice, not only by the gloom and doom tales of a shuttered Main
Street, but by the simpler difference that Wal-Mart's preemptive, predatory
opening of a Supercenter is seemingly designed to keep out other retailers.
Isn't consumer choice enabled by doing our best to "hire", ok, attract,
better citizen, retailing neighbors than Wal-Mart, an admittedly "naughty,"
law-violating, discriminatory corporate behemoth? We have a Wal-Mart.
Isn't consumer choice greater if we retain the Wal-Mart we have and
encourage a different choice to locate here? And if that new store, while
offering a different product line, is a better citizen of the community and
foists fewer external costs on the community, are we not better off? We
have a relatively small population, and why wouldn't we want to encourage
someone else in the retail industry who (unlike Wal-Mart, if the literature
is true) is willing to pay living wages, if we choose to make that part of
the ground rules to play here, for example?
Everyone seems to assume that we will lose our Wal-Mart to Pullman,
which I think is absurd. We already HAVE a Wal-Mart, which is a point
that Steve Cooke left out of his presentation the other night at the MCA
forum on the economic benefits of Wal-Mart. Apparently, the powers that be
in Benton Arkansas are making so much money on their 90,000 sq. ft. store
in Moscow, Idaho that they feel the upgrade to a 228,000 sq. ft. store here
is a wise decision in their economic interest. I have to believe that if
they decide not to meet our requirements under a Big Box ordinance, and
therefore choose not to expand, that they will still retain their
"grandfathered" and profitable current store, rather than abdicate the
market.
I encourage us all to think how best we might write a Big Box ordinance
that will deal with the costs of these new stores which seemingly wish to
locate here.
And until we have a big box ordinance "with teeth" in place, unlike the
emergency ordinance under which Wal-Mart seeks to play, I suggest to our
City Council that you deny the necessary re-zone at this time, because it
is not in our long term interest to allow such a significant new addition
to our community under a vague, rushed, and temporary, "emergency big box
ordinance" that Wal-Mart with its huge economic power can litigate to death
until we cave to the expense of litigation and let it have its way. I
think the existence of an unsatisfactory regulatory mechanism for the
desired use, along with avoidance of litigation of an ambiguous emergency
ordinance is reason enough to deny the re-zone.
And frankly, I don't understand why we would cut-off from expansion our
Alturas technology park. Alturas was built at our expense for the
attraction of living wage jobs. Why should we limit its potential
expansion and simultaneously hand that infrastructure to a new Big Box,
especially one that is a less than stellar corporate citizen, when the
obvious place for Big Box zoning in our community is along Hwy 95, to the
south of town near JJ's?
Bruce Livingston
----- Original Message -----
From: Jeff Harkins
To: Shelly ; vision2020 at moscow.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Walmart
Phil, you have a very interesting view of the economics of
retailing/merchandising.
In a free-enterprise, free market economy, businesses survive or die by
counting the votes (spell that dollars!) of their customers. The model is
simple - if you don't like a store don't shop there. If enough customers
shop at a store, it will do well - but you still don't have to go there.
Obviously a lot of people shop at the Moscow Walmart - the store is quite
successful, customers have voted with their dollars and Moscow seems to
have survived the current Walmart Store. I have lived here almost 30 years
now and the shopping in Moscow has never provided as much choice or
diversity. Where is the devastation in this picture?
Why do you think you should be able to dictate where people shop? Sounds
like you are advocating the good old "company store" model where you are
the company.
I wonder how you would feel about Albertson's placing a store here? How
would you feel about Safeway offering gasoline? How would you respond to
Target or Fred Meyer or Walgreens locating here? Would you support a
Lowe's or Home Depot or 84 Lumber? Would you support TriState expanding
their limited food offerings to a full-fledged grocery store?
I am not trying to be argumentative - I am really trying to understand
where you are coming from.
At 11:57 AM 1/11/2006, you wrote:
I know the best way in the world to satisfy the majority, where we are
in a democracy, where the majority rules and the rest of us just grin and
bear it. I think Walmart proposal should be put to the vote of the people
and Walmart should pay for it. Since it will be financially devastating to
our community.
BJ who understands economics has warned everybody of the devastation that
is about to become. If Walmart does what it plans on doing. I have said
similar things. Charts, graphs, factual information also says the same
thing. I think us as the people of Moscow should have the right to vote in
our own death warrant.
-Phil Roderick
_____________________________________________________
List services made available by First Step Internet,
serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
http://www.fsr.net
mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
---------------------------------
_____________________________________________________
List services made available by First Step Internet,
serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
http://www.fsr.net
mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////
_____________________________________________________
List services made available by First Step Internet,
serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
http://www.fsr.net
mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
---------------------------------
Yahoo! Photos
Got holiday prints? See all the ways to get quality prints in your hands
ASAP.
<< image6.jpg >>
_____________________________________________________
List services made available by First Step Internet,
serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
http://www.fsr.net
mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
_________________________________________________________________
Don’t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
More information about the Vision2020
mailing list