[Vision2020] Goodnight Goody, Goodnight Ridge

Sun Mar 5 00:31:19 PST 2006

More rhetoric from BJ Swanson.

  Take this line for example:

  "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?"

 Sorry BJ. I am afraid you are confusing the  Gillette Mach 3 with the Gillettee Mach 3 "turbo" which has a different  color handle and lasts longer. Both of which are cheaper at your local  Wal-Mart. 

 A Wal-Mart is significantly cheaper than even a  local discount store like Winco. For example, Hefty Serve and Store  plates 22 count $2.00 at Wal-Mart. At Winco, $2.78 but 20 count. Aleve  Pain medication, $12.48 for 200 count. Winco $20 if you buy 2 100  bottles, they do not have 200.

  Heinz Tomato Ketchup 36 oz, $1.78 at Wal_Mart, $2.12 at Winco.

  3 bars of Irish Spring soap, 75 cents. The same three bars at Winco, over $2.

  12 Pack of any Pepsi or Coke, $3 at Wal-Mart $3.78 at Winco. Safeway $4.50

  I could not find one item that was sold at both Winco and Walmart where Wal-Mart was not at least 15% cheaper.

  On average I save 20% off a price of an item IF I can find it at  Wal_Mart. I would save $1000 a year on groceries alone plus they would  bag my groceries for me and take my debit card. $1000 a year probably  ain't worth the trips for BJ Swanson with her salary. But for me and  many college students that is a huge chunk of cash we can use toward  the dental care she helped cut from the UI health insurance program.

  The Diet Coke, Heinz Ketchup, and Aleve I buy at Wal-Mart is the EXACT same product I buy at Safeway, Winco, and ShopKo. 

  Many businesses are taking your money and ripping you off OR have a  lousy business model if they are selling the same product for a price  25% higher than Wal_mart. Our local businesses do NOT pay workers more  than Wal_mart. 
 A Super Wal-Mart would not only force prices lower  for everyone, which benefits us all, but it also would supply us with  more goods that Moscow is not providing that so many of us leave town  to get. Not to mention the added benefits of being able to shop in  Moscow outside the hours of 11AM to 4 PM. 

  _DJA

"B. J. Swanson" <bjswan at moscow.com> wrote:              v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}                      st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }                              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

    -----------------------------------------------

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    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 tow!
 n 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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