Wal-Mart Buys San Diego

[MindPilot]

It’s clear now who is running San Diego.

Wal-Mart needed only 8 weeks and maybe thirty thousand dollars to scare the daylights out of the City Council in San Diego. One local official in San Diego, California called it a “dark day for democracy.”

In December of 2010, the City Council voted to override a veto by the Mayor of a zoning ordinance that requires certain big box stores over 90,000 square feet to study their impact on the local economy, on wages, and on traffic. It was a watered down ordinance at best — but there was one “citizen” who didn’t appreciate the City Council vote. Wal-Mart began portraying the ordinance as an outright ban on superstores, and the corporation hired professional signature collectors to put the issue on the San Diego ballot. Wal-Mart knew that San Diego could not financially afford to hold a referendum, so all the folks in Bentonville had to do was throw a head fake. It worked.

Cash-strapped San Diego would have to swallow hard to come up with the $3.4 million cost of a referendum. Wal-Mart put the City Council neatly in a box. The City Council voted 7-1 to rescind the ordinance — not because they had a change of heart — but because fighting Wal-Mart was not worth millions of dollars to the Council.

http://obrag.org/?p=31979

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It was fun watching Wal-Mart pretending to be about "consumer choice" and "serving the less affluent communities". :puke:

[begin_within]

1. Nothing new for San Diego, really.

As long as I've lived here (28 years) and I'm sure well beforehand as well, from the history I've read, San Diego public policy has almost always been dictated by the business community. Decisions made on public policies have almost always favored private interests over the public interest. It's one of the most corrupt cities in the country, in my opinion. So this is just another in a decades-long string of public policy decisions made in favor of business and against the public interest...

[aquart]

3. Walmart destroys business communities.

You'd think they'd know that. Megalomart strikes again.

[Lint Head]

2. Because fascist corporations like Walmart are posing a individuals with individual rights.

This is exactly why corporations should not be considered individual constitutionally protected citizens.
The people should be protected FROM the fascist corporations power. Business 101 says, corporations are fascist by nature.
The boss is a fascist dictator within the corporate guidelines. Those guidelines are tempered by the limits on individual constitutionally protected rights at the benevolence of the boss.

[RKP5637]

4. +1000 +++ n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. When it happened yesterday I went, there goes

the good union jobs in San Diego.. the few that still exist.

But hey, we can all buy cheap crap!

:sarcasm:

[WCGreen]

6. Recommended...

This tactic is the worst example of power following money.

[Urban Prairie]

All your city are belong to us. n/t

[hunter]

7. Since when has San Diego not been for sale???

Geez. The U.S. Navy, Wal-Mart, crooked real estate developers, and anyone else with $$$.

Remember former San Diego mayor and California Governor Pete Wilson? What did he say? "San Diego: America's easiest city." (Or something like that...)

[Safetykitten]

9. Really. The place is a bastion of wacky politics and crazy fundamentalists.

[TheMadMonk]

8. And now that the precedent has been set other big box stores will...

...follow. And behind them will come commercial realestate developers of all stripes.

How many "planning applications" will now come with the not so veiled threat. "We already have the signatures."


The truly amazing thing here is that it's taken this long for them to find this particular way to abuse the Californian Ballot System.


Seems to me that the obvious fix would to be to collect the signatures that forces to the ballot a law which makes the cost of such "private initiative" ballots incumbent upon those bringing them. Or at the very least, requires the petitioners to pick up the tab if the initiative fails.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. That is the reason I stopped signing any and all

petitions. The system is broken

[bluestate10]

11. Don't shop at Walmart, or any affiliate. Problem solved, I'm moving on. nt.

[MindPilot]

17. That doesn't solve anything.

Funny thing, I don't shop at Wal-Mart either. In fact, many people I know have never set foot inside a Wal-Mart, yet there are still Wal-Marts running roughshod over local governments and the business community.

Glad to know that you're movin' on though.

[haele]

12. Walmart was able to get a foot in because of the lack of affordable housing coupled with

a declining wage base was killing businesses in low income areas. Between the high rate of forclosures and the city management and their developer cronies raking in the big bucks focusing on high-end housing rather than affordable housing, the complaint was that none of the supermarkets were willing to stay in most of the low-income areas, leaving large, poor neighborhoods without access to fresh, affordable produce within bus or walking distance or the decent paying jobs that those supermarkets used to provide. Yes, there were lots of little bodegas, convenience stores, and a few IGA's, but most of the big union stores, the Ralphs, Vons, and Albertsons, all pulled out. They just weren't making enough revenue on the boutique items to keep the stores open.
Wal-Mart kept pushing "we'll provide the jobs, we'll provide affordable produce that can support the community"
And a few members of the city council, along with most of the churches in those communities, bought their line.

Now, we'll watch community development dollars end up in Bentonville pockets. And they've got no one to blame but themselves.

Well, there are those developers...
At least 14 large (100+ unit) condo complexes of $400K+ high end apartments over the past seven years built downtown, most around only half bought. And dozens more in "upscale, gentrified" areas like Hillcrest or University city.
That same timeframe, only about three mid-sized (40 - 60 unit)affordable housing (usually townhouse) developments built downtown and I think two, three more in some of the poorer neighborhoods around Spring Valley and College.

But they did manage to build or upgrade about five homeless shelter complexes for families, so I suppose they're just admitting that they want to keep the streets as clean as possible.

Haele

[ProgressiveProfessor]

14. Affordable housing in San Diego or any other major CA city does not exist

With Brown pulling the plugs on RDAs, there will be even harder to get some

[Liberal_in_LA]

13. Heard a radio report this morning about Walmart getting ready to move into NYC

what struck me was the calm, arrogance of the Walmart marketing guy... Walmart feels it can do whatever it wants

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

15. Walmart CAN do whatever it wants. Money talks.

Neighborhood businesses walk.

:hi:

[Liberal_in_LA]

18. unfortunately... :-(

[MindPilot]

16. Walmart PAC donated to vote-flippers’ favored charities

Walmart’s political action committee, San Diego Consumers for Choice, donated to charities supported by San Diego City Council members Todd Gloria and Tony Young, who on Tuesday changed their vote and repealed an ordinance opposed by the mega-corporation.

-snip-

Initially Young and Gloria voted to require that any retailer wishing to build a store 90,000 square feet or larger in San Diego first study the potential economic and environmental impact on the surrounding community. After Walmart produced enough signatures to force an election on the ordinance, Young and Gloria voted with five other councilmembers on Tuesday to repeal it, citing the cost—roughly $2.5 million—of holding the election.

-snip-

To be clear, we are not alleging that Young, Gloria or Alvarez were influenced by these donations—knowing the city council members and their reputations, we doubt they were. However, we cannot help but note that the donations were made with campaign funds, while Walmart has other vehicles for philanthropy. The contributions may have been an attempt by Walmart to improve its public profile in the community or to access or influence the city council members directly or through their supporters and causes. Of course, the PAC could have been giving purely out of the goodness of its heart, but the fact remains the donations went to these groups specifically rather than other worthy non-profit organizations.

-snip-

UPDATE 4:24 PM:

Young just called and unequivocally denied knowing anything about the donation.

“I didn’t talk to them about any specific person or organization that they would ever give money to–not one time,” Young tells Citybeat. “I would never do that. I didn’t want to get caught up in that kind of shit. I definitely did not go there and I have no idea who they gave money to.”

Young was surprised to learn from CityBeat that Walmart’s PAC—as opposed to its foundation—donated the money, but says he wouldn’t put it past Walmart’s lobbyists.

“You saw that they are pretty aggressive when it comes to stuff like that,” he said.

http://lastblogonearth.com/2011/02/04/walmart-pac-donated-to-vote-flippers-favored-charities/