Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Saturday, Aug. 09, 2008

Viewpoint: Wal-Mart proponents must be defeated

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B iased analysis and pie-in-the- sky promises—such as Jerry Clay’s Viewpoint (July 27)—by proponents of a Wal-Mart Supercenter reveal the lack of any supportable facts to bolster their cause or opinions opposing Measure D-08. This ballot measure, before the voters of Atascadero in November, will limit the size of a store to 150,000 square feet and prohibit superstores.

These election-year “opinions” only highlight the inability to produce a single independent study, not paid for by Wal-Mart, that refutes the overwhelming adverse impacts of a Supercenter on local economies and cities. Superstores limit shoppers’ choice, produce no meaningful financial gain to cities and decrease good-paying jobs for residents.

For Atascadero, a superstore would put the nail in the coffin of the downtown development, close locally owned businesses Kmart and one or two nonunion grocery competitors, Food for Less and Spencers. We are for local, sustainable development, not the economic dislocation of superstores. This is why all major cities on the Central Coast and the county itself ban superstores.

Our opinion is based on facts developed from analyzing a substantial body of research compiled at, to name a few: www.bigboxtoolkit.com, www.sprawl-busters.com, www.newrules.org, www.goodjobsfirst.org and www.ilsr.org. Accusations that the community groups, Shield Committee/ Oppose Wal-Mart are union based, in the absence of any credible evidence, is a delusion. Apparently, unabashed pro-Wal-Mart City Council candidate Jerry Clay believes that somehow this Republican “swift-boat” type of labeling will discredit our arguments and somehow justify and defend a Wal-mart Supercenter. His talking-points are right out of Wal- Mart’s playbook.

According to the Wall Street Journal (Aug. 1), Wal-Mart is ramping up its anti-union campaign, worried that a Democratic win in November would assure passage of a bill known as “Employee Free Choice Act” and unionization of its 4,000 U. S. stores.

Wal-Mart has already unionized stores in China and England. In China, the stores have branch offices of the Communist Party. Yet here, Wal-Mart fights unionization. Why? So, its profits, unethical business practices and treatment of its workers can go unchallenged.

But in Minnesota, Wal- Mart got caught breaking labor laws more than 2 million times and was ordered to pay $6.5 million in back pay. Wal-Mart could end up paying $2 billion for these violations. In California, Wal- Mart lost a verdict for $172 million in a 2005 violation over meal breaks. Is this a business we want to work for and have in Atascadero?

Wal-Mart has already hired its “big guns,” Meridian- Pacific and the Sacramento anti-labor law firm of Bell, McAndrews &

Hiltachk to prepare its ballot arguments. The firm “fronted” for Citizens Against Measure R, a group sponsored by and with major funding provided by Wal-Mart, to defeat Lodi, California’s attempt to pass an ordinance that would have permitted the voters to decide on any commercial building more than 125,000 square feet, according to www.sourcewatch.org. Oppose Wal-Mart and the Shield Committee have been locally funded. Wal- Mart and its meanspirited and hypocritical supporters would have us spend nothing to inform the public of the advantages of Measure D-08 for the city and downtown center in November’s election. They would have us funded through bake sales and garage sales, while the richest stateless corporation in the world, Wal-Mart, spends $2.2 million— according to the Center for Responsive Politics —each year in the political arena in the U. S. and abroad, tilting the playing field in their favor at

the expense of hardworking voters. While we will never be able to match what Wal- Mart and others spend, we will be seeking donations and grants from our citizen base as well as organizations, union and nonunion alike, locally and nationally.

Donate to Yes on Measure D-08, Save Atascadero Shield Committee (sponsored by Oppose Wal-Mart), P. O. Box 1524, Atascadero, CA 93423, www.saveatascadero.com For more information, call 461-3710. Save downtown, vote “yes” on Measure D-08.

Tom Comar is the spokesman for the Yes on Measure D-08, Save Atascadero Shield Committee.