[Vision2020] Goodnight Goody, Goodnight Ridge

[Jeff Harkins]

BJ,

Several times now, you have mentioned that you 
believe in free markets, but on a level playing field.

Frankly, I have not been able to glean from your 
posts what you mean by that phrase, "level 
playing field" as it applies to business and economics.

Since you have invoked a sports metaphor, perhaps 
you could shed some insight as to how you invoke 
level playing field by answering some "level 
field" questions as it relates to sports.

1. Do you favor a salary cap for professional baseball teams?
2. Do you think that all major league players 
should receive the same pay (all pitchers paid 
the same, all catchers paid the same or even all 
players paid the same) or do you think that 
professional players should be paid according to their abilities?
3. Do you think Title 9 is an appropriate way to 
level the sports opportunities for female school athletes?
4. Do you believe that professional sports teams 
should all use the "relegation" approach for 
assuring an appropriate level of competition 
between teams (this is used by most European 
soccer leagues - if you are consistently at the 
bottom of your league, you get demoted to a lower level division)?
5. Do you think that handicapping horses is the 
best way to assure a level playing field in horse racing?
6. Do you think that all sports events should be 
played in "neutral playing sites" to help deal with the "home field advantage"?
7. Do you think that Olympic athletes should be 
handicapped to give everyone a better chance to win?

I am serious about this - your answers will be of 
great assistance in understanding your posts and 
provide us with a means of finding common ground.

At 08:50 AM 3/4/2006, you wrote:
>Excellent, Bruce!  If I didn’t know better, I’d 
>think you were a rational economist in disguise!
>
>I believe in the free market too, but on a level 
>playing field.  If my addition is correct, there 
>are proposals for 1.7 million square feet of new 
>retail in Moscow and Pullman including the 
>Moscow Wal-Mart complex, the corridor and 
>Wal-Mart in Pullman.  Is this a little 
>much?  It’s easy to say “whatever the market 
>will bear.”  But in this case, the destruction 
>of smaller businesses before the market “rights 
>itself” is not good business and effectively 
>kills communities.  Others will say that the 
>smaller, local businesses must learn to compete 
>with Wal-Mart.  That is extremely difficult when 
>a Wal-Mart Supercenter carries 60,000 items, 
>many made in China in sweatshops that are 
>illegal here.  A typical Costco carries 4,000 items.
>
>Bruce mentions buying razors at 
>Wal-Mart.  Compare the Gillette Mach 3 razors 
>purchased at Wal-Mart with those purchased at 
>non-Wal-Mart stores.  Notice the color is 
>different even though the name is the 
>same?  Notice the Wal-Mart Mach 3 doesn’t last 
>nearly as long as those purchased from Costco, 
>Rite-Aid, Hodgins, Marketime?  Ever wonder why 
>Snapper lawn mowers are never sold at 
>Wal-Mart?  Because Snapper refused to lower its 
>quality (and price) to Wal-Mart standards.
>
>B. J. Swanson
>
>-----------------------------------------------
>
>
>----------
>From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com 
>[mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Bruce and Jean Livingston
>Sent: Saturday, March 04, 2006 6:24 AM
>To: Donovan Arnold; Vision 2020
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Goodnight Goody, Goodnight Ridge
>
>I imagine someone telling Dave he can't expand 
>Paradise Ridge CDs, and I don't like it.  But 
>the obvious analogy to Wal-Mart that you are 
>trying to make is not a clean one, in my 
>opinion, Donovan, though I do agree with some of what you write.
>
>First, I wouldn't be the least bit concerned 
>about people telling me where they thought I 
>should shop.  I kept buying grapes, even though 
>the Farm Workers were trying to organize a 
>boycott.  I listen to the reasons for not 
>shopping at Wal-Mart, and I agree with some of 
>them, but I still shop at Wal-Mart on rare 
>occasions.  I try to patronize other places, and 
>I always try Tri-State or Spence's, first, 
>because I think it is important to patronize 
>local businesses to help assure that more money 
>stays in the community.  But I admit it, my 
>razor blades come from Wal-Mart when I don't have a Costco run in the offing.
>
>People may still shop at Wal-Mart, as they could 
>at any other store that is operating here.  I 
>don't begrudge others the opportunity to shop at 
>Wal-Mart, and I agree with the free market 
>advocates and the need for business 
>opportunities in our community, and so I agree 
>with the right to expand when it comports with good planning and the law.
>
>But if Dave were in the mood to expand Paradise 
>Ridge, by buying up one of his neighbors on 
>Third Street in the heart of downtown, where 
>retail sales are the dominant and preferred 
>activity according to our zoning code and 
>comprehensive plan, anybody arguing against that 
>expansion would have worthless arguments, and 
>the expansion would be approved.  That is where 
>your analogy falls apart, unless you were 
>contemplating plunking the CD store in an area 
>where it was not allowed -- in which case I 
>would likely not support that location despite my affection for the business.
>
>I think that what many fail to recognize is that 
>there are too kinds of Wal-Mart opponents out 
>there in our community right now:  those who 
>abhor Wal-Mart and would deny its entry 
>anywhere, and those who question the planning 
>that went into this particular expansion 
>effort.  I am on record as being in the latter 
>category.  If I can find the reasons that I 
>submitted to the P&Z public hearing, I will forward them to the list.
>
>Briefly, I believe that the proposed extensive 
>commercial motor business designation of the 
>Thompson property is poor planning.  Such 
>developments should have occurred between 
>downtown and the state line, as the 
>comprehensive plan dictated, had not the lack of 
>vision by prior councils allowed most of that 
>property along A street to become apartments, 
>contrary to the comprehensive plan.  Such a plan 
>would still allow us to shop and draw us through 
>downtown, making it more likely that our lovely 
>downtown is a convenient stop along the 
>way.  There is still opportunity for expanded 
>commercial development in the area from behind 
>the mall to the state line, as was proposed at 
>the same council meeting last June  when the 
>Thompson project first surfaced.  Equally and 
>maybe more important given greater availability, 
>there is a much more obvious existing site than 
>the Thompson property for such extensive 
>commercial developments at the north and south 
>ends of town along Highway 95, a far better 
>traffic corridor.  The Thompson property ought, 
>in my opinion, to be primarily residential (as 
>it was designated in the comp plan until a bad 
>planning decision by the prior council last 
>June) and not destroy the ambience of the 
>existing owners to the east and across the 
>street on Ridge.  Finally, we ought to be saving 
>the west end of the Thompson property for future 
>expansion of higher paying businesses than a 
>shopping center; we ought to allow Alturas that 
>room to expand, while fostering a pro-business 
>attitude and encouraging businesses that pay at 
>least living wages to locate here.
>
>Now at the risk of being a little windy here, 
>and if you are not already snoozing, there is a 
>third category of Wal-Mart opponent, in my 
>opinion and of which I am also a member, and it 
>relates to limited opportunities for shopping in 
>Moscow, the almighty mantra of "market 
>choice."  I mentioned this on the list a while 
>back and it engendered little discussion.  I 
>expected to hear a rebuttal from Jeff Harkins 
>who is the most fervent free marketer on the 
>list and my compatriot on the LEDC, and he  said 
>he was working on it, but I seem to have missed it.
>
>The "more market choice" category that I just 
>mentioned might at first blush appear to support 
>letting anyone expand and enter, and see what 
>happens, the classic laissez faire free market 
>approach.  But what I am contemplating is something different.
>
>It seems to me that we are a very small 
>community with a relatively limited amount of 
>disposable income to spend in (and therefore 
>support) the local stores of all 
>types.  Wal-Mart offers one kind of shopping 
>venue, and a Super Wal-Mart would admittedly 
>offer more  (if perhaps of the same lower 
>quality) and the most significant addition might 
>be food.  There is already a Wal-Mart 
>here.  There are four grocery stores, the Co-op 
>on the high end, Winco on the low end (offering 
>similar pricing to Wal-Mart from what I 
>understand) and Rosauer's and Safeway in 
>between.  There will soon be a Super Wal-Mart a 
>mere ten miles away in Pullman.
>
>The market choice that I am talking about is 
>more choices for us.  Why a Wal-Mart which we 
>already have?  Why not something else, so our 
>consumer choices are enhanced more than by the 
>expansion of the existing low-end product line 
>at Wal-Mart?  Why not have our city and economic 
>development and business supporters work on 
>attracting an alternative to Wal-Mart, so that 
>our limited choices are not so likely to become 
>primarily Wal-Mart?  Why not work harder to 
>attract something more interesting and 
>beneficial to consumer choice?  Why let Wal-Mart 
>pre-empt the market and fill it up in the 
>predatory fashion that it appears to be 
>following with two supercenters within 10 
>miles?  Why are we only talking about the 
>choices that the entrepreneurs choose to offer 
>and not the choices that we consumers would like 
>to see?  We could work toward educating other 
>entrepreneurs and attracting them instead, and 
>if we put in place rules that applied to all and 
>some chose to play where Wal-Mart didn't, why 
>wouldn't we be better off by having more varied choices?
>
>Perhaps most significant to my "more consumer 
>choices" angle, why let a 200,000 square foot 
>store come in and soak up the available dollars 
>in this very small community and make it less 
>likely for other more varied folks to enter our 
>market?  Why isn't 100,000 square feet enough in 
>this little community?  A size cap would allow 
>us more choices.  I have a good friend on the 
>Chamber Board (who would probably prefer to 
>remain nameless) and he likes to talk about how 
>students often have the most disposable dollars 
>to spend, despite their low income, and that we 
>ought to be able to market Moscow and interest 
>someone other than Wal-Mart to enter our 
>community.  If we are to have big boxes in our 
>community, why not be pro-active and get us more 
>real choice for Moscow's consumers, rather than 
>more of the Wal-Mart we already have?
>
>Several of my MCA Board buddies who oppose 
>Wal-Mart and big boxes in general characterize 
>this as the "pig in silk pajamas" argument, 
>because I do believe that large stores ought to 
>be allowed, but play nice and look nice, whereas 
>these others oppose them on general 
>principles.  I don't want large stores to just 
>make the "great big sucking noise" Ross Perot 
>once described, though he was talking about jobs 
>going to Mexico and I am talking about more of 
>our dollars going to Bentonville Arkansas.  If 
>we are to have out-of-town chains, I would much 
>prefer to have a Costco that pays living wages 
>than a Wal-Mart that does not, even if lots of 
>those dollars spent go to Seattle.
>
>Lest someone misconstrue this, I don't believe 
>we can choose one retailer over the other on the 
>whim of the Council.  We need rules that are 
>applied fairly to all retailers and then we need 
>to apply the rules fairly, but I do believe we 
>can encourage better and more varied consumer 
>choices through thoughtful legislating and 
>pro-active and creative economic development efforts.
>
>Putting a halt to an ill-conceived project buys 
>us the time to do things better the next time, 
>to have a good plan in place, and to be ready 
>for things instead of just reacting to the next 
>request on a developer's wish list.
>
>Bruce Livingston
>
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