Wal-Mart foes fight development nationwide
Activists in communities from Florida to California oppose giant stores

By Allison Linn
Senior writer
MSNBC
Updated: 1:22 p.m. PT March 14, 2007

Debbie Brinkman didn’t plan on being an anti-Wal-Mart activist. In fact, as a Republican, she felt it was “kind of against my politics to be fighting this.”

But when the Littleton, Colo., resident heard there were plans to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter across from a large and popular park — and within sight of her own front door — she felt she had little choice but to get involved. So Brinkman became one of the early members of Littleton Against Wal-Mart, fighting a store planned for the Denver suburb.

Her story isn’t unusual. Across the country, dozens of community efforts are emerging to block new Wal-Mart development, provoking drawn-out battles that have proven costly and time-consuming for the world's largest retailer and occasionally hindered its expansion plans.
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But in some communities, the campaigns are also provoking internal squabbles, with community members divided over whether to welcome or spurn the big-box developments.

The reasons behind the efforts vary widely. Some activists, like Brinkman, say they don’t oppose Wal-Mart in general — they just don’t think Wal-Mart belongs in that particular spot in their community. Others, like Carole Heerman of Woodland, Wash., worry that a Wal-Mart will hurt the town’s other businesses, including her own. Still others, like Michael Funke of Bend, Ore., oppose Wal-Mart because they think its workers should get better wages and benefits.

Experts say the groups are having an impact. Retail analyst C. Britt Beemer said it may be only a few percent of people who boycott because of the negative publicity, but that could still be meaningful for a company beginning to struggle with potential limits to its domestic growth.

state-by-state Wal-Mart stores
Number of Wal-Mart stores,
as of January 2007
State Stores
Texas 329
Florida 191
California 167
Illinois 137
Ohio 136
Georgia 128
Pennsylvania 119
North Carolina 118
Missouri 117
Tennessee 104
Indiana 95
Alabama 90
New York 87
Virginia 87
Oklahoma 84
Kentucky 82
Louisiana 81
Arkansas 80
Michigan 79
Wisconsin 77
Mississippi 64
South Carolina 63
Arizona 62
Colorado 61
Iowa 56
Kansas 55
Minnesota 52
New Jersey 45
Washington 45
Massachusetts 44
Maryland 41
West Virginia 34
Connecticut 32
New Mexico 31
Oregon 29
Utah 29
Nebraska 27
Nevada 26
New Hampshire 26
Maine 22
Idaho 19
Montana 12
South Dakota 12
Wyoming 10
North Dakota 9
Rhode Island 9
Delaware 8
Hawaii 8
Alaska 7
Vermont 4
Note: Numbers do not include Sam's Clubs, Neighborhood Markets and Distribution Centers.
Source:Walmartfacts.com

By one closely watched measure, same-store sales, Wal-Mart's U.S. growth was anemic last year. Sales at U.S. Wal-Mart stores open at least a year rose a meager 1.9 percent in the company’s latest fiscal year.

That’s not to mention the delays, added legal fees and other obstacles that come when Wal-Mart faces opposition to its development plans — even if the company ultimately succeeds in building the store.

“I’m sure these issues have hurt them all financially,” Beemer said. “In the last few years, it’s gotten to be a bloody mess out there.”

In fact, the Bentonville, Ark.-based company often does succeed in opening its doors despite community outcry. But opponents also have prevailed in efforts to hinder Wal-Mart development in some cities, such as the California communities of Long Beach, San Diego and Turlock, and areas in Florida.

In early March, city council members in Concord, Calif., turned down a project to build a Wal-Mart and other stores in a largely industrial area, citing traffic and environmental concerns. Kevin Loscotoff, Wal-Mart’s senior manager for public affairs in California, said the company is evaluating what to do next. A spokeswoman for the group that opposes the store, Allie Gramm, said she expects the fight to continue.

Company officials in both California and Florida insist the setbacks haven’t hindered the company’s overall growth plans in those states and say they continue to look for ways to draw shoppers from areas where they’ve had trouble building new stores.

In many cases, the battles can drag on for months or even years, proving costly and time-consuming for the opponents as well.

In Bend, Wal-Mart was denied an initial application for a Supercenter and lost subsequent appeals, but opponents expect the fight to continue. Wal-Mart spokeswoman Jennifer Holder said the company plans to submit a new application.

In Littleton, the city council narrowly approved Wal-Mart’s plans, but opponents are gathering signatures for a proposed referendum that would require the council to change its decision or leave it up to voters.

Gray McGinnis, Wal-Mart’s director of public affairs for the mountain region, said the company plans to rally its supporters to turn out in favor of the Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart officials paint many of the battles as representing niche groups with specific agendas, such as those fighting to unionize Wal-Mart workers or get the company to pay its workers more and offer better benefits.

Some community organizers have accepted money from union labor groups and other anti-Wal-Mart interests, such as grocers who stand to lose business from Wal-Mart competition. Still, many communities also say they received substantial backing from individual members of their communities, and note that individual citizens have devoted hours of volunteer time to the cause.

In Littleton, for example, Brinkman said the group received money from a local food workers union but also did plenty of independent fund-raising.
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“There’s not one of us that hasn’t written a substantial amount of personal checks to cover the cost of this fight,” she said.

She insists the community group is concerned about local impact, not someone else's national agenda.

Gramm, who helped oppose Wal-Mart in Concord, Calif., said many volunteers stayed up late into the night for a city council meeting, only to get up early the next morning to commute to their jobs.

"People thought that we were paid people who do this, and we’re not," she said.

However, there are some larger organizations that have had a hand in many Wal-Mart disputes. Those include ACORN, which represents low- and middle-income families and was involved in a failed Chicago effort. The Florida-based activist group WARN, which is a coalition of labor unions, environmentalists and others, said it is or has been involved in 26 Wal-Mart disputes.

In many towns, anti-Wal-Mart groups hasten to point out that they aren’t necessarily against development, or even other chain stores. Some Wal-Mart opponents say they regularly shop at its main competitor, Target. Others favor wholesale club operator Costco, which is known for paying above-average retail wages. Both cater to a higher-end clientele.

“Costco has been an example for us of what we would like Wal-Mart to do,” said Funke, of Bend.

Regardless of the ideology behind the fight, the actual dispute often comes down to whether the project will create untenable traffic concerns, increase police expenses or cause environmental harm — areas where experts say they often see the best practical chance of fighting Wal-Mart development.

“Wherever it’s a problem getting them to be accountable around corporate citizenship in the community, we’ll look for whatever handles are available,” said Wade Rathke, chief organizer for ACORN, which says its primary goal is to work for things like higher wages.

Funke, a longtime labor organizer who helped lead the charge in Bend, said he personally opposes Wal-Mart for ideological reasons but insists he wouldn’t have taken on the retailer’s development effort if he hadn’t seen a groundswell of community support. When 150 people showed up for a meeting, he felt he could fight for what he believes in and also respect the town’s wishes.

Still, Funke said he quickly dropped efforts in neighboring Redmond, Ore., after sensing there was little broad opposition to a planned Wal-Mart there. A Wal-Mart Supercenter is currently under construction.

Other organizers have started tweaking their approach based on community response.

WARN, which stands for WalMart Alliance for Reform Now, counts victories including a Wal-Mart site in St. Petersburg, Fla., in which the company eventually withdrew its plans.

But at another site in Sarasota, Fla., Rick Smith, Florida director for WARN, said his group is working with community members who want the bargains a Wal-Mart will bring. In that case, Smith said the group is pushing for Wal-Mart to provide things like better wages.

Eric Brewer, director of public affairs for Wal-Mart’s southeast operations, says the company withdrew from the St. Petersburg site because it couldn’t resolve traffic concerns.

“WARN’s involvement, while eye-catching, wasn’t the basis for our withdrawal of that application,” he said.Brewer said citizens do have legitimate concerns when a Wal-Mart comes to town, such as how it will look and how traffic will be affected. But he accuses WARN of “just out-and-out attack using full-time campaigners,” instead of truly trying to meet a community’s needs.

Still, Brewer concedes that efforts by WARN and others have proved time-consuming and costly for the company’s Florida operations.

“We have certainly hit our targets of growth, but we have had to match their efforts (with) our own,” he said.
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In some communities, citizens have been divided over whether to welcome or spurn Wal-Mart.

When a developer purchased a closed-down Kmart building in coastal Marina, Calif., many local residents expected the property would be used for a cluster of shops meant to appeal to tourists and visitors. Some were outraged when the developers disclosed that they had struck a deal with Wal-Mart.

“Visitors come to Marina for the natural beauty and the outdoor recreation opportunities. They don’t come to Marina to shop at Wal-Mart,” said Steve Zmak of Citizens Against Wal-Mart in Marina.

Still, Zmak said that his group faced opposition from others locals who remembered when the town was much worse-off financially and felt they should welcome any development. Some older residents on fixed incomes were eager for the bargains.

“We found that there’s sort of a division in Marina,” Zmak said.

In the end, the city approved the Wal-Mart, and it opened in November. Zmak has now turned his attention to trying to prevent Wal-Mart from expanding to a larger Supercenter.

Similarly, in the small town of Woodland, Wash., opponents argue that a proposed Supercenter on the north end of town will snarl traffic in an already congested area, potentially backing up access to a nearby industrial district. A traffic mess could prove devastating to a local trucking business and manufacturing operations that rely on easy highway access.

“I don’t know why you should trade one business for another,” Darlene Johnson, president of Woodland Truck Line Inc., said at a daylong public meeting this year about the proposed Wal-Mart.

Opponents in Woodland also say the Wal-Mart will hurt longstanding efforts to revitalize the small downtown, and worry that the combination of big trucks and Wal-Mart traffic will prove dangerous when a proposed high school is built nearby.

But others complained that they currently have to drive as far as 20 miles to get things like kids’ sports uniforms, and said their cash-strapped families could use the bargain prices.“Why not let Wal-Mart come in, and those who don’t want to shop there can go somewhere else that they like?” resident Shirley James asked.

Holder, the Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said the company has operated Wal-Marts near schools elsewhere in the country, and argued the benefits Wal-Mart would bring to Woodland would outweigh any potential harm to direct competitors.

A decision on Wal-Mart’s Woodland plans is expected later this month.
© 2007 MSNBC Interactive

Posted on Thu, Sep. 14, 2006
City extends time frame to force Wal-Mart out

By Tom Lochner
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

Almost four months after the Hercules City Council authorized the use of eminent domain to seize a tract owned by retail giant Wal-Mart, the other shoe is yet to drop.
The city has not gone to court to force Wal-Mart to sell it the land and likely will not for at least another month, if at all.
The council recently amended its redevelopment plan to solidify the Hercules Redevelopment Agency's power to acquire property by eminent domain. On Tuesday, the council approved a second reading of an ordinance that confirms that power and extends it for another 12 years in the redevelopment area that includes the Wal-Mart tract.
The tract is the 171/4-acre future Bayside Marketplace off John Muir Parkway about halfway between San Pablo Avenue and San Pablo Bay.
City Attorney Mick Cabral called the extension "nothing more than a technical adjustment."
On May 23, the council threw down the gauntlet, unanimously approving a takeover of the Wal-Mart tract by eminent domain.
Technically a "resolution of necessity," the council action allowed the Hercules Redevelopment Agency to start an eminent domain action without a further council vote within six months, by Nov. 22.
The ordinance approved Tuesday will go into effect 30 days later on Oct. 12 -- just more than a month before the authority granted by the council in May expires.
Wal-Mart bought the site in fall 2005 from the Lewis Group, which earlier had filed and subsequently withdrew, an application for a store of up to 167,700 square feet. Wal-Mart came back in December with a proposal for a 142,000-square-foot store but withdrew it in February after a city staff report found it inconsistent with a 2003 development agreement with Lewis that called for a neighborhood shopping center with a store of up to 64,000 square feet.
In March, the city offered to buy the property for an undisclosed sum, but Wal-Mart declined. Around April 1, Wal-Mart applied to build a 99,000-square-foot store with a grocery.
Opponents said a big-box store would generate too much traffic and clash with Hercules' New Urbanism-type, pedestrian-friendly vision for the area. Saying Wal-Mart insists on playing by its own rules, opponents urged the city to seize the lot.
Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Loscotoff has said the 64,000-square-foot figure was just a loose guideline in an initial plan and that Wal-Mart's latest application was in substantial conformity with the 2003 development agreement.
After the council's vote in May, Wal-Mart did not say how it would respond other than that it would explore its legal options. Loscotoff could not be reached Wednesday. A spokeswoman at Wal-Mart headquarters said only Loscotoff could comment on the matter.
Hercules spokeswoman Doreen Mathews said Wednesday that she knew of no recent negotiations between the city and Wal-Mart.
Reach Tom Lochner at 510-262-2760 or tlochner@cctimes.com.

LATimes EDITORIAL
Wal-Mart's Sister Act
Retail giant tries to scrub its reputation with a nun.

July 23, 2006

BEDEVILED BY CRITICS OF ITS labor practices and by sluggish sales, Wal-Mart 
announced last week that it has hired Harriet Hentges, a former executive 
director of the League of Women Voters and vice president of the United 
States Institute for Peace, to reach out to its enemies. But Hentges, who 
once worked as a mediator in Bosnia, isn't your average conflict-resolving 
do-gooder. She's also a former nun.

Wal-Mart is downplaying Hentges' religious past, but it's hard to imagine 
that her 14 years as a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet had 
nothing to do with her hiring. Like errant schoolchildren, boards of 
directors find few apparitions more terrifying than an angry nun. That's 
because nuns and other clergy have led much of the socially conscious 
shareholder activism of the last 30 years.

Sister Patricia Daly made headlines in 1998 when she questioned then-Chief 
Executive Officer Jack Welch on General Electric's environmental practices, 
goading him until he lost his cool. She's still a fixture at shareholder 
meetings. Institutional Shareholder Services reports that this year, 
religious investors were primary filers of 25% of social-issue related 
shareholder resolutions (including three of the nine resolutions filed 
against Wal-Mart), and they're involved in many more as co-filers. People of 
the cloth have special moral authority, shareholder advocates say, and can 
often command respect and attention from executives that others rarely 
receive.

In some ways, hiring a former nun is a ludicrously blatant public relations 
move. Wal-Mart, which has already been mocked for setting up seminars to 
"help" local businesses near its superstores, is now tapping into the nun 
network to gain credibility with the socially conscious set.

But siccing the sisters with one of their own is also brilliant. Perhaps now 
when a nun makes much of Wal-Mart executives' compensation, Hentges will be 
able to draw from her own store of moral authority and remind the critic 
that Wal-Mart is taking measures to improve health insurance for its 
employees. When a reverend complains about sweatshops, she'll be able to 
counter, credibly, with testimony of new "green" truck fleets. It's the same 
approach Nike took when it hired former U.N. ambassador and civil rights 
leader Andrew Young to report on conditions in its operations in Vietnam. 
(Young, incidentally, now works for Wal-Mart.)

Maybe some good can even come of it. To that, at least, we say: Amen.

Posted on Sun, May. 28, 2006

Hercules thinks outside the big-box

City changes image by using eminent domain to thwart Wal-Mart

By Tom Lochner

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

Hercules bends dynamics of usual eminent domain

Hercules once had a reputation as a city that never saw a development it didn't like. But as Wal-Mart has learned in the past few months, times have changed. Today, this city of about 24,000 residents stands as a national symbol of small-town audacity after its City Council unanimously agreed to invoke eminent domain to take over a tract where the world's largest retailer applied to build a store.

The David-versus-Goliath quality of the showdown has drawn the attention of the national media and created a public relations quandary for Wal-Mart, which in commercials has portrayed itself as a good employer and welcome friend to the communities where it builds stores. Resident Jeffra Cook, a member of the group Friends of Hercules that led a grass-roots revolt against the store proposal, greeted the council's display of steel as "a welcome experience." With continued vigilance of the citizenry, said Cook, who has had her differences with the council in the past, "the hope is (that) no longer is anything so easily rubber-stamped here." Steve Kirby of Friends of Hercules set the tone early at a public hearing Tuesday, calling on the council to "throw the bums (Wal-Mart) out."

Wal-Mart's foray into Hercules actually began quite auspiciously. Two years ago, three council members and the city manager went on a tour of several Northern California Wal-Mart stores with a vice president of the Lewis Group, the previous owner of Wal-Mart's Hercules tract. Afterward, Councilman Ed Balico said he had seen nothing of the "social challenges" for which Wal-Mart is often criticized. "I saw working people, regular people, people who wanted to buy," Balico said in April 2004. But residents quickly made it clear they did not want a Wal-Mart near the Hercules waterfront. Hercules' erstwhile pro-development reputation grew out of a frantic residential building boom that lasted from the late 1970s into the 1990s. Subdivision after subdivision of single-family houses blanketed the hills surrounding what was then one of California's fastest-growing cities. The city transformed from a company town of fewer than 100 people to a suburb of about 17,000 in about a decade and a half.

On the waterfront, meanwhile, the Pacific Refining Co. refinery represented the bulk of Hercules' sales tax base while other cities such as neighboring Pinole built shopping centers. Development slowed in the 1990s, and was down to a trickle by 2000. Pacific Refining closed in the late 1990s, leaving a sales-tax revenue gap the city is struggling to fill. The 880-home, upscale Victoria-by-the-Bay subdivision occupies the site today.

In 2000, Hercules officials conducted a series of neighborhood planning sessions to forge a vision for the vast undeveloped area near the waterfront south and west of North Shore Business Park. It culminated in the Hercules Waterfront Plan and the Central Hercules Plan. The plans favor pedestrian-friendly development: live-work studios; houses with car access via back alleys; upscale boutiques and restaurants; a Capitol Corridor train station; a ferry terminal. In short, they want to make Hercules a "destination." Hercules' vision has been likened to a 21st century version of Main Street, Smalltown USA, with a taste of New England. Articles in national magazines hailed Hercules as a pioneer of the "New Urbanism."

"The citizens spoke," said Community Development Director Steve Lawton. "They said they wanted a high quality of life; not a lot of traffic; and nice places to eat." That vision does not include a big-box store, most residents say. Wal-Mart's tract is 171/4 acres about midway between San Pablo Avenue and the Bay. A 2003 development agreement with Lewis limits store size there to 64,000 square feet; Wal-Mart's latest scaled-down application calls for 99,000. It was the third application, counting one that Lewis made on Wal-Mart's behalf. "Three strikes and you're out," Kirby said at Tuesday's public hearing.

After about two hours of impassioned testimony, most of it in opposition to Wal-Mart, the council authorized the Hercules Redevelopment Agency to acquire forcibly the retail giant's property at the fair-market value to eliminate blight and to ensure the fulfillment of the redevelopment plan for the area. Wal-Mart has estimated the value at $13.2 million. Wal-Mart attorney Edward Burg called Tuesday's unanimous council action "unprecedented." Hours before Tuesday's meeting, a company spokesman had said the Hercules community widely supports a Wal-Mart store.

But few people spoke in favor of Wal-Mart at the council meeting, excerpts of which were widely broadcast. Backers included a Wal-Mart employee from Richmond and several residents who said they enjoyed shopping at Wal-Mart for its prices and quality. The fight to keep Wal-Mart out of Hercules is rooted in an earlier struggle over a proposed development of more than 500 homes, a hotel, offices and stores in undeveloped Franklin Canyon at the easternmost tip of Hercules.

It spawned an opponents group, Friends of Franklin Canyon, that included Cook and Kirby. The group eventually sponsored a ballot initiative to restrict most land uses in the Franklin Canyon area to agriculture and recreation. The initiative passed by a wide margin in 2004. After the election, the group evolved into Friends of Hercules. What began as a local tug-of-war over a piece of real estate now has taken on a more global dimension. Tuesday's meeting produced more comments about Wal-Mart's business tactics and employee relations than about the trellises, tiles and trees in its most recent, downsized Hercules design.

One speaker said Wal-Mart wants to build in Hercules solely to monopolize retail in the area. Eventually, he warned, Wal-Mart could replace the store with a warehouse, leaving Hercules with no sales tax revenue while Wal-Mart steers shoppers to another of its stores now under construction at Hilltop mall in nearby Richmond. Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said the planned Hercules store was uniquely tailored to Hercules and intended as a neighborhood shopping center, not a regional one. Most residents, however, said a Wal-Mart would draw in unwanted traffic from out of town.

Mayor Trevor Evans-Young said council members had been advised by the city attorney not to comment on the Wal-Mart matter. He allowed, however, that he is not thrilled about the national attention. "We're just a quiet town, trying to complete our redevelopment project," Evans-Young said. Cook and Kirby believe people power had much to do with the council's willingness to condemn Wal-Mart's property on Tuesday. "When a citizenry has been vocal as this one has," Cook said, "I don't see how a council can ignore it."

ARTICLES CULLED FROM THE WEB

From the S.F. Chronicle: Hercules raises stakes in Wal-Mart standoff City may try eminent domain to take land.

Posted on Tue, Apr. 04, 2006
Wal-Mart scales down plans for store
HERCULES: Council rejected its first proposal in February, but company counters with 99,000-square-foot facility
By Tom Lochner
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

Wal-Mart has applied to build a scaled-down store in Hercules just two months after a plan for a bigger store fizzled.
The new plan calls for a 99,000-square-foot store with a full-service grocery. It would be part of a complex with almost 162,000 square feet of indoor retail space at the 17-acre, future Bayside Marketplace off John Muir Parkway about halfway between San Pablo Avenue and San Pablo Bay.
"We've addressed all of the issues that the city staff raised earlier in the year," Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said. "We believe this is a great project, which conforms and exceeds what the city's expectations are."
In December, Wal-Mart applied to build a 142,000-square-foot store. In early February, the company withdrew the application after a city staff report recommended the Planning Commission deny approval.
The report found Wal-Mart's plan inconsistent with a 2003 development agreement that called for a neighborhood shopping center with the largest store limited to 64,000 square feet.
Wal-Mart says its plan is consistent with the 2003 agreement by virtue of a provision that calls for up to 167,700 square feet of retail space for Bayside Marketplace.
On March 14, the City Council approved an undisclosed offer to buy the property from Wal-Mart.
Loscotoff could not say Monday whether Wal-Mart has formally rejected the city's offer.
"I don't know if we've necessarily responded," he said. "I don't know to what extent there are conversations at this stage. I know that our goal is to bring this neighborhood shopping center to our customers in Hercules."
City Manager Mike Sakamoto was not available for comment Monday.
Opponents have said that any kind of Wal-Mart store is antithetical to the notion of a neighborhood shopping center.
Wal-Mart has said that its earlier plan for a 142,000-square-foot store enjoyed wide community support. On Monday, Loscotff said, "We have heard and continue to hear from residents that are very supportive."
Steve Kirby of Friends of Hercules, a grass-roots group dedicated to resident participation and openness in government., said a 99,000-square-foot store still does not conform to the 64,000-square-foot limit of the 2003 agreement. But size is not his only issue.
"There are all the other issues, social and economic," he said. "You may think you can save a few bucks by shopping at Wal-Mart, but let's look at the hidden cost."
Members of the group have accused Wal-Mart of paying low wages and scrimping on benefits, forcing employees to depend on taxpayer-financed social and medical services. Others say the company exploits workers, especially women, in low-wage foreign countries such as China that supply its merchandise.
Wal-Mart has said the accusations are untrue and that it offers well-paying jobs with good benefits and good advancement opportunities, particularly for women, minorities and seniors.
Reach Tom Lochner at tlochner@cctimes.com.

Posted on West County Times Tue, Mar. 14, 2006
Hercules to make bid for Wal-Mart property
HERCULES - The Hercules City Council has authorized City Manager Mike Sakamoto to make an offer to Wal-Mart for a 17-acre property the retail giant owns near the waterfront.
Mayor Trevor Evans-Young said the amount of the offer is confidential. The council discussed it in closed session prior to the open session of Tuesday night's council meeting.
The city last month commissioned an appraisal of the Wal-Mart tract, which is part of the future Bayside Marketplace and is situated along John Muir Parkway about midway between San Pablo Avenue and San Pablo Bay.
In December, Wal-Mart applied to build a 142,000-square-foot store at the site. It withdrew the application in early February after a city staff report recommended the Planning Commission deny approval. The staff report found Wal-Mart's plan inconsistent with a 2003 development agreement that called for a neighborhood shopping center with the largest store limited to 64,000 square feet.
Wal-Mart left open the possibility it would reapply. After the company withdrew the application, spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said Wal-Mart was "still committed to going forward."
Loscotoff said Wal-Mart's proposal enjoyed widespread community support, but no one spoke in favor of it at a Feb. 6 Hercules Planning Commission meeting that drew some 70 opponents, about a dozen of whom spoke against Wal-Mart and its plan.
Loscotoff could not be reached late Tuesday. No one could be reached at Wal-Mart's Arkansas corporate headquarters.

--Tom Lochner

Posted on Sat, Feb. 11, 2006
City looks into land owned by Wal-Mart
By Tom Lochner
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

Hercules is exploring acquiring land owned by Wal-Mart near the city's waterfront, where the retail giant planned to build a store.
Hercules City Manager Mike Sakamoto said Friday the city's appraiser wrote Wal-Mart a letter earlier this week, but the city has not received any response.
Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said Friday he is aware Wal-Mart has received a letter from an appraiser but could not comment further.
In December, Wal-Mart applied to build a 142,000-square-foot store at the future Bayside Marketplace, which it acquired from a developer in the fall. The 17-acre property is along John Muir Parkway about midway between San Pablo Avenue and San Pablo Bay.
A vocal group of opponents has opposed Wal-Mart's plan for a variety of reasons, both local and global.
A city staff report earlier this month found Wal-Mart's plan inconsistent with a 2003 development agreement that called for a neighborhood shopping center with the largest store limited to 64,000 square feet. Wal-Mart withdrew its application last week but left open the possibility it would reapply.
Last week, after withdrawal of the application, Loscotoff said Wal-Mart was still committed to going forward.
Some Wal-Mart opponents have urged the city to invoke eminent domain to acquire the property. Sakamoto said that although eminent domain is on a city's menu of options, any talk of it now would be premature.
"The City Council is reviewing its options with regards to acquiring the property" and is considering "different steps," Sakamoto said.

Posted on Thu, Feb. 09, 2006
Residents voice Wal-Mart concerns
By Tom Lochner
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

About 70 residents denounced Wal-Mart at a Planning Commission meeting Monday, even after the retail giant took itself off the agenda by pulling its plan for a store near the waterfront -- at least for now.
Residents described Wal-Mart as an economic predator that strip mines communities for their retail dollars, leaving the carcasses of neighborhood businesses in its wake. Going global, they blasted Wal-Mart's labor practices nationwide and abroad in addition to warning of traffic and blight in their town.
A former resident of Romania said Wal-Mart supports communism as a large-scale dealer of Chinese goods manufactured by "slave labor." Another speaker urged the city to invoke eminent domain to take Wal-Mart's property and market it to a friendlier retailer.
Last week Wal-Mart withdrew an application for a 142,000-square-foot store at Bayside Marketplace after a city staff report found the plan inconsistent with a 2003 development agreement that calls for a 64,000-square-foot store.
Commissioner Patrick Tang noted Monday that Wal-Mart has not said whether it will reapply. Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said Tuesday the company is "absolutely still committed to going forward."
"We do continue to receive a tremendous amount of support from the community," Loscotoff said. But it was not evident at Monday's meeting, where no one spoke in favor of Wal-Mart during a public comment period.
Resident B. Jackson said Wal-Mart is "unscrupulous in their approach to dealing with communities" and urged officials to resist the siren song of sales tax revenue.
"All money is not good money," Jackson said. He and others predicted a local glut of Wal-Mart stores -- there are stores in Martinez and Vallejo; another is planned in Richmond. As a result, several residents said, some stores would close or be relegated to warehousing or other uses that do not generate sales taxes.
Resident Phil Simmons said Wal-Mart could leave the property fallow for years waiting for its resale value to go up.
"Let's look at eminent domain," he urged.
Several residents said Wal-Mart pays low wages and scrimps on benefits, forcing employees to depend on taxpayer-financed social and medical services. Another said Wal-Mart discriminates against women in hiring.
Wal-Mart consistently has rejected such accusations, saying it offers well-paying jobs with good benefits and good opportunities for advancement, in particular for women, minorities and seniors.
Resident Liviu Tomutsa said Wal-Mart is "a huge outlet for Chinese merchandise" and therefore supports an "oppressive Communist country." China's low-cost merchandise factories facilitate slavery, he said, and he chastised China for its mass incarceration of followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.
Several calls to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco were not returned.
Loscotoff referred questions about the company's relationship with communism to Wal-Mart headquarters in Arkansas. Officials there referred inquiries to the corporate communications and international corporate affairs departments, but no one called back.

Cities can keep out big storesCourt upholds law in Turlock designed to block Wal-Mart
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, April 6, 2006

Cities can outlaw big-box superstores in order to prevent the collapse of local businesses and resulting urban blight, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday in a case that sets a statewide precedent for ordinances aimed at retail giant Wal-Mart.

Upholding a 2004 ordinance in the city of Turlock (Stanislaus County) that was backed by neighborhood supermarkets and labor unions, the Court of Appeal in Fresno said the city legally used its power to "control and organize development within its boundaries.''

The court also rejected Wal-Mart's argument that the city had failed to study the environmental effect of banning huge one-stop stores, which included a proliferation of smaller outlets, accompanied by increased traffic and pollution, according to the company. The court said those impacts were speculative and could be addressed if such stores were ever proposed.

The ruling, the first by a California appellate court on the issue, was delivered against a backdrop of legal and political conflict over Wal-Mart's efforts to establish a California network of discount supercenters -- stores that exceed 100,000 square feet and contain full-size groceries.

Local businesses fear ruinous competition from the world's largest retailer. Unions have been struggling for years, without success, to gain a foothold at Wal-Mart, and worry that the new stores would displace union-represented businesses or pressure them to cut wages.

"The decision will help provide a template for other communities which are considering regulating discount superstores,'' said Rick Jarvis, a lawyer for the city of Turlock.

Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said the city's opposition is "unfortunate, because it goes against customer demand.'' He also said the ruling "weakens the state's environmental statutes'' and fails to recognize the environmental benefits of allowing customers to make fewer trips to buy what they need.

Simley said the company has not decided whether to appeal. Wal-Mart has also sued Turlock in federal court, claiming the ordinance unconstitutionally discriminates against one type of store and interferes with interstate commerce.

The Arkansas company has opened supercenters in seven California communities in the past two years, including Gilroy and Stockton, Simley said. He said about 20 cities and counties in Northern California have passed ordinances seeking to limit or block the stores.

Locally, San Francisco, Oakland and Martinez have measures excluding such stores. Contra Costa County supervisors enacted a ban in 2003, covering unincorporated areas, but it was repealed by voters in an April 2004 referendum in which Wal-Mart spent more than $1 million. After that vote, Alameda County supervisors rescinded a similar ordinance, under threat of a lawsuit. They passed a new measure last month requiring big-box retailers to describe the impact of new stores on the local economy and give details of employees' pay and benefits.

Turlock, which has a Wal-Mart store, considered plans for a supercenter in 2003, but the proposal stirred business and labor opposition that led to passage of the ordinance in January 2004.

It did not name Wal-Mart, but prohibited any retail store larger than 100,000 feet that devoted more than 5 percent of its space to non-taxable items such as groceries. The City Council said the purpose was to preserve neighborhood shopping centers, anchored by local supermarkets.

In Wednesday's ruling, which upheld a Superior Court judge's decision, the appeals court said the city acted with a legal purpose, even if its action had an anti-competitive impact.

"While zoning ordinances may not legitimately be used to control economic competition, they may be used to address the urban/suburban decay that can be its effect,'' said Justice Betty Dawson in the 3-0 ruling.

E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.

Wal-Mart to Build Stores in Struggling Areas
By Abigail Goldman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
3:37 PM PDT, April 4, 2006

Wal-Mart — which has faced opposition to open stores in several urban areas, including Inglewood — said today it will build 50 outlets in neighborhoods with high crime or unemployment rates.
At the construction site of a new store on Chicago's West Side, Wal-Mart Chief Executive Lee Scott announced that the Windy City's first Wal-Mart also will anchor the first of 10 "Wal-Mart Jobs and Opportunity Zones," a program that will give money and advice to small businesses, suppliers and community groups in the areas around the stores.
"We see that we can be better for local communities than we have been in the past if we are willing to stretch our resources," Scott said from the Chicago site on a conference call with reporters. "We believe it's going to be something that is good for both of us."
The world's largest retailer, with 3,800 stores and 1.3 million employees in the United States, increasingly has looked to urban areas along the West Coast, the East Coast and in Chicago for its next wave of growth, particularly as sales at existing stores have slowed.
But those same regions also have stronger ties with organized labor and community activists opposed to the nonunion employer for what they say are paltry wages, inadequate health benefits and disregard for local businesses that can't compete with Wal-Mart's rock-bottom prices.
In a statement, Paul Blank, campaign director for the union-backed group WakeUpWalMart.com, said today's announcement failed to address any of those more serious issues.
"In the face of a faltering public image, Wal-Mart seems determined to launch almost daily public relations stunts that speak loudly about change, but fall terribly short," Blank said.
Wal-Mart said it will announce in the coming months locations for the opportunity zones and the new stores, which will be built over the next two years.
In addition to economically challenged areas, the company said possible locations could include environmentally contaminated sites, malls in need of revitalization, and vacant buildings — a problem Wal-Mart has been accused of creating as it closes and relocates dozens of stores each year.
The new stores will create 15,000 to 20,000 jobs and more than $100 million in state and local taxes, Wal-Mart said. Those being built this year are included in the company's previously announced plans for 335 to 370 new U.S. stores in 2006, Scott said.
The opportunity zone program, Wal-Mart said, is aimed at helping small businesses "capitalize on the benefits of having a Wal-Mart store in their community."
To that end, Wal-Mart will donate $500,000 to local chambers of commerce, many in minority areas, for programs such as website development and business improvement seminars.
Wal-Mart also will launch "Working With Wal-Mart" programs to help local minority and women-owned companies learn how to do business with Wal-Mart and produce a yearly "Wal-Mart Trends Report" to share with the small business community, the company said.
Store managers in the new zones will identify up to 20 local businesses per year, which will be featured in local newspaper ads and in free radio ads to be broadcast on Wal-Mart's in-store network.
In addition to being turned away in an Inglewood referendum, Wal-Mart has suffered setbacks in the Queens section of New York and in its first attempt to build in Chicago.

San Francisco Chronicle
HERCULES Wal-Mart not good fit, study says
Conclusion differs from report cited by retail giant
Patrick Hoge, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, January 6, 2006

Wal-Mart wants to build a store in the booming East Bay town of Hercules, but critics there say the giant discount retailer would be too lowbrow for upscale locals.
On Thursday, opponents publicized an economic impact analysis that said Wal-Mart serves shoppers with a typical annual income of less than $50,000 -- far less than the nearly $90,000 average in Hercules.
"They (the stores) don't have to be totally upscale, but we need some better things," said opponent Tom Petersen, a psychologist who lives in an area of million-dollar plus homes called Victoria by the Bay.
In May, Wal-Mart proposed building a 17-acre shopping center anchored by one of its general merchandise stores at the intersection of John Muir Parkway and Alfred Nobel Drive, where another developer previously received approval for a neighborhood-serving shopping center.
In support of its plan, the company gave the city a report by CB Richard Ellis, a global real estate services firm that said a Wal-Mart would fit well in Hercules and would capture a significant amount of money that city residents now spend elsewhere.
Petersen and other members of the group Friends of Hercules held a news conference Thursday to publicize a peer review of the Wal-Mart study commissioned by the city that came to dramatically different conclusions. Attending were Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia and Frank Zisman, president of the city's Chamber of Commerce.
Produced by Strategic Economics of Berkeley, the peer review predicted that a Wal-Mart would not serve the needs of local residents, as the city's general plan requires, but would instead draw from surrounding cities, which have lower incomes.
It also said the types of shops that typically come with a Wal-Mart would negatively affect other retail developments planned nearby along the city's undeveloped waterfront.
"The disparity between those retailers seeking co-tenancy with Wal-Mart and retailers complementary to a quality neighborhood and community shopping center is vast," the report states. "The presence of a Wal-Mart could serve as a 'barrier' to those customers seeking a higher-end, more specialized type of retail that would be offered in the Waterfront District."
Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said Thursday that he had not seen the Strategic Economics report and could not comment on it.
"What we have here is competing reports," he said. Hundreds of people have expressed support for the Wal-Mart plan since it was unveiled, he said.
"They want to be able choose where they spend their hard-earned dollars," he said.
The proposed store would be on the edge of several new upscale neighborhoods that have received widespread recognition as examples of "new urbanism," an approach to city planning that emphasizes density and use by pedestrians.
Strategic Economics noted that the nearby Bayside and Promenade residential communities feature "New England village" style homes and suggested that surrounding retail development should have a compatible "themed identity."
The City Council already approved a shopping center on the site in 2003 that was supposed to be a "neighborhood" commercial and retail shopping center with uses such as a grocery store, drugstore and other commercial space including two restaurant pads.
But in 2004, the Lewis Group of Sacramento, which owned the land, wanted to change the project so that a Wal-Mart would take up most of the space.
Then last fall, around the time Strategic Economics was finishing its report, the Lewis Group withdrew its development application and sold the land to Wal-Mart.
The city Planning Commission is scheduled to hold a hearing on Wal-Mart's proposal on Feb. 6. City officials have indicated that they will recommend the commission certify that the project will not have a negative environmental impact, including economically.
 

<http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-walmart17jan17,0,7192868.story?coll=la-
home-headlines&track=morenews>
From the Los Angeles Times 
Wal-Mart Pulls the Plug on Valley Site
By Steve Hymon
Times Staff Writer

January 17, 2006

Retail behemoth Wal-Mart has dropped its plans to open a store in Northridge 
after deciding it did not want to conduct a lengthy environmental impact report 
demanded by neighbors and city officials.

Arkansas-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has been trying for a year to open a store 
in an existing building at Nordhoff Street and Tampa Avenue. Officials said that 
an environmental study for the more than 150,000-square-foot store in the San 
Fernando Valley would have been too costly and would have delayed the project by 
at least several months. 

"The time it took to do the environmental impact report added to the time it 
would take to start construction and the economics of maintaining the land while 
going through this process was a factor," said Kevin McCall, spokesman for 
Wal-Mart in Southern California. 

Two other Wal-Mart stores, in West Hills and Porter Ranch, are within several 
miles of the site. McCall said the purpose of the new store was to alleviate 
long lines at those two locations.

But the plan met with strong resistance from nearby residents and Los Angeles 
City Councilman Greig Smith, whose 12th District includes Northridge. 

Wal-Mart "explained to me through their intermediary that as they analyzed this 
further, it wasn't worth it for them to go forward," Smith said. "It was 
surprising. I thought it was a foregone conclusion."

Residents and activists, who sometimes sparred with Smith over his commitment to 
opposing the project, applauded the retailer's decision. 

"I'm not surprised that we won, I'm just surprised that Wal-Mart went this 
fast," said Jim Alger, president of the Northridge West Neighborhood Council. 
"This is what I think it came down to: The environment impact report had to 
include alternative uses for the property that have a less significant impact on 
the community."

Wal-Mart has had its share of success in Southern California, operating five 
stores in Los Angeles. But increasingly it has run into opposition from 
communities whose concerns about the company include its salary and benefit 
plans for employees and its effect on local businesses.

The Northridge project was unusual because Wal-Mart was moving into an existing 
building already zoned for large retail purposes. Also, Wal-Mart was not 
proposing to turn the store into a so-called supercenter, which sells groceries. 

But the new store would have been surrounded by other businesses. Northridge 
Fashion Center is across the street and restaurants and retail strip centers 
abound.

That, combined with the store's location at an already busy intersection, was 
apparently the tipping point.

"I'm very pro-business, but for me, it was the wrong business in the wrong 
place" because of traffic, Smith said. 

One city report suggested that a Wal-Mart store would have put an extra 5,000 
cars on nearby streets each day. 

McCall, the Wal-Mart spokesman, said his company would continue to seek 
potential sites in Los Angeles. 

"We are always looking on how to best serve the community," he said. "We believe 
the Valley is a wonderful opportunity for retail, and we're always looking." 

December 23, 2005

Jury Rules Wal-Mart Must Pay $172 Million Over Meal Breaks

By LISA ALCALAY KLUG
 NY Times Published: December 23, 2005
BERKELEY, Calif., Dec. 22 - A California jury on Thursday ordered Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, to pay $172 million in damages for failing to provide meal breaks to nearly 116,000 hourly workers as required under state law.
The verdict came after a trial that lasted more than three months in a class-action suit filed at Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland.
The suit, filed on behalf of employees of Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores in California, argued that the chain violated state law more than eight million times from Jan. 1, 2001, to May 6, 2005, said the plaintiffs' lawyer, Jessica Grant of the Furth Firm of San Francisco.
California law requires that employers provide a meal break of 30 minutes for every five hours on the clock, Ms. Grant said. If the break is shorter than that, provided late or not at all, the employer must pay an hour's pay, she said.
"What happened here is that Wal-Mart didn't make a single payment for 2001 and 2002 and only started paying in 2003 after we asked for permission to go forward as a class action," Ms. Grant said.
Responding to the verdict, Wal-Mart issued a statement saying that it planned to appeal, that the decision was unique to California and that it had no bearing on any other state. Wal-Mart is facing similar cases in about 40 other states, Ms. Grant said.
The jury ordered the company to pay $57 million in general damages and $115 million in punitive damages. "It sends a very strong message to Wal-Mart that it is not acceptable to work employees 7, 8, 9, 10 hours a day without meal breaks," Ms. Grant said.
A work law expert, Gillian Lester, a visiting professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, said: "This in an important verdict. I agree with the plaintiff's attorneys that this is going to be an influential decision." In its statement, Wal-Mart said it had "acknowledged it had compliance issues when the statute became effective in 2001."
"Wal-Mart has since taken steps to ensure all associates receive their meal periods, including adopting new technology that sends alerts to cashiers when it is time for their meal breaks," the statement read. "The system will automatically shut down registers if the cashier does not respond."

COMMUNITIES RESIST

Sacramento Bee/Mitchell Brooks
Retail giant backs off

Wal-Mart withdraws its application for Elk Grove supercenter.

Bowing to public pressure, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and developer Angelo G. Tsakopoulos announced Wednesday afternoon they are withdrawing their application with the city of Elk Grove to build a supercenter at Sheldon and Power Inn roads.Their decision comes after three months of intense public protest over the proposed site, which many area residents said was inappropriate because it is in a predominantly residential neighborhood.

"It got too hot for them," said Councilman Jim Cooper, one of two council members to come out publicly against the proposal. Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said the corporation remains interested in Elk Grove.

Tsakopoulos said he will now look for a grocery store to move into the site but said he didn't know how long it would take to find an interested tenant.Tsakopoulos, of Tsakopoulos Investments and the nephew of Angelo K. Tsakopoulos, said he was disappointed the application was being withdrawn, but he said he made the decision because he felt it would be better than drawing the city of Elk Grove into a protracted, bitter fight.

Though both he and Loscotoff maintained that the project site was zoned appropriately for a Wal-Mart supercenter, Tsakopoulos said that "sometimes, the smart thing to do is shake hands and walk away."

The withdrawal comes two days after a San Joaquin County judge ruled the city of Lodi's approval of a supercenter is invalid because the environmental impact report did not take into account energy consumption and the impact of other nearby Wal-Mart stores.

Wal-Mart, headquartered in Bentonville, Ark., has 1.6 million employees and 6,100 stores worldwide, including 1,700 U.S. supercenters. Only a handful of the supercenters are in California, including one in Stockton. Supercenters are proposed for West Sacramento and Galt, and stores are being built in Antelope and Roseville.

Store proposals by Wal-Mart have generated community outcry nationally, often focusing on the company's business practices and their effects on other retailers. Earlier this year, residents in a Dallas neighborhood battled a supercenter proposal and a Palm Springs group fought the opening of a supercenter there for nearly two years.

Many times, Wal-Mart wins the battles. In November, the Dallas City Council voted overwhelmingly in favor of the project, according to the Dallas Morning News, and the Palm Springs supercenter opened in October.

Opposition began brewing against the Elk Grove proposal almost immediately after Tsakopoulos and Wal-Mart announced the project in mid-September, but focused on the location, not business practices. Residents formed a group called Elk Grove Coalition Advocating Proper Planning, or EGCAPP, which circulated a petition calling for Wal-Mart to drop the site.

"It (would have been) an example of poor planning, the worst planning," said Lupe Arroyo, who lives just west of the site.

Cooper and Councilwoman Sophia Scherman spoke out against the site. The three other council members said they would wait for an environmental impact report before deciding.

Comments after Wednesday's announcement indicate some of those council members weren't pleased with the project, either. "This is probably not the best location," said Councilman Mike Leary, who lives within a half-mile of the site.

"As the community opposition mounted, it became obvious there might be concerns," said Councilman Rick Soares. Mayor Dan Briggs declined to comment, saying the issue was moot.

Betsy Fiske, spokeswoman for Lodi First, has been fighting the Wal-Mart supercenter proposal in Lodi, 22 miles south of Elk Grove, for more than a year. She said there is a Wal-Mart near the proposed site and the Stockton supercenter is a 15-minute drive from her home.

Lodi First's fight included a 2004 initiative that would have restricted the construction of large commercial buildings. That initiative failed with less than 50 percent of the vote, Fiske said. The group then hired Steve Herum, an attorney who had success in Southern California blocking other Wal-Mart supercenters.

Wal-Mart and the city of Lodi can redo the environmental report or appeal the decision of San Joaquin Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Humphrey. It was not clear Wednesday how the company and the city will respond.

Loscotoff said the company's decision to pull out of the Elk Grove site shows Wal-Mart's willingness to be a good neighbor.

"In meeting and talking with a number of community leaders, elected officials and local residents, we came to that decision (to withdraw). We've always been committed to local communities and having a positive relationship with them," Loscotoff said. "Our company is really stepping up and doing the right thing."

Elected officials, Tsakopoulos and Loscotoff all said the decision to withdraw the application was made over the course of the last several days.

Steve Detrick, leader of EGCAPP, said the organization does not oppose the idea of a second Wal-Mart in Elk Grove, but will be vigilant. "We will be watching where they will be proposing as we would for any project," he said. Councilman Cooper said Wednesday he is opposed to any supercenter coming to town.

"To me, all this was just a shot across the bow," Cooper said of Wal-Mart's application and subsequent withdrawal. "Wal-Mart, they've turned the ship. But this isn't over by any means."

About the writer:
The Bee's Brian Joseph can be reached at (916) 478-2653 or bjoseph@sacbee.com. Bee staff writer Elizabeth Hume contributed to this report.

September 10th 2005 

By Tom Lochner
WEST CONTRA COSTA TIMES

A Hercules Wal-Mart is off the drawing board -- at least for now.
Lewis Operating Corp., the owner of the future Bayside Marketplace site, pulled its Wal-Mart plan in a letter sent Wednesday to Hercules Community Development Director Steve Lawton. But a Wal-Mart spokesman said the retailer still wants to proceed.
Wal-Mart had applied to build a 140,000-square-foot store plus a 20,000-square-foot garden center on the 17-acre Bayside tract along a planned John Muir Parkway extension about midway between San Pablo Avenue and San Pablo Bay.
The application raised the ire of some residents who argued, among other things, that a big-box store would generate too much traffic and thus clash with the small shops and walkable neighborhoods envisioned in the New Town Center and Waterfront plans. They want the city to hold Lewis to the terms of a development agreement that calls for a retail center with a 64,000-square-foot grocery store, 18,000-square-foot drug store and other stores.
"Regrettably, Lewis is not in the position to move forward with public hearings at this time and as such withdraws the ... application," the company's vice president Phil Rodriguez wrote. "Please remove our project from the upcoming Design Review Committee agenda."
City Manager Mike Sakamoto was out of the office Thursday, said the city's public information officer, Doreen Mathews. Lawton was not available for comment. Mathews said she could not say whether Lewis is abandoning the idea of a Wal-Mart altogether or just strategically retreating for the time being. Lewis' development agreement with the city runs to the end of this year, she said.
Rodriguez did not return phone calls to his Sacramento office Thursday. A Lewis employee said all the executives who might speak to the issue were out of the office.
Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said he had not spoken to anyone at Lewis on Thursday.
"I can't speak for them," Loscotoff said. But, he continued, "This is the site that we've targeted to serve our customers in Hercules, and we're still excited about it."
Lewis' announcement "doesn't change our intention to go forward with the site at all," Loscotoff said. "Nothing has changed with our plans."
Steve Kirby of the group Friends of Hercules said he hopes Lewis will go back to the original plan for a grocery store and drug store or something else that fits with the city's plan for the area.
"By doing that, they can attract businesses now," Kirby said. "Businesses weren't going to come in if they thought Wal-Mart is coming."
Wal-Mart has disputed that view, arguing it acts as an anchor for other businesses that thrive by virtue of their proximity to it.
Kirby said he has seen pictures of Lewis projects in other cities that would fit nicely into Hercules.
"If Wal-Mart is off the table and they're willing to go back to their original plan, then the whole area will be much more successful," Kirby said. "All the businesses can then succeed. That'll make us happy."

This article can be found on the web at 
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050328&s=featherstone 

Race to the Bottom
by LIZA FEATHERSTONE
[from the March 28, 2005 issue]
"Wal-Mart is working for everyone," read the newspaper ad, which ran in January 
in more than 100 newspapers nationwide, including the Wall Street Journal and 
the New York Times. "Some of our critics are working only for themselves." The 
same day, the company launched walmartfacts.com <http://walmartfacts.com>, a 
website to counter criticism of the kind you may have read in this magazine. 
Along with some misleading information intended to make Wal-Mart's wages and 
benefits sound much better than they are, the new campaign materials feature 
many smiling African-American faces; the website explains, accurately, that 
Wal-Mart is a "leading employer" of Hispanics and African-Americans. 
As Jesse Jackson and other black leaders have pointed out in response to this 
boast, the slave plantation was once a "leading employer" of African-Americans 
as well. But this ad campaign was only the latest salvo in Wal-Mart's fervent 
battle for the goodwill of black America, inspired by the difficulties the 
company is having as it tries to move into urban areas. 
Wal-Mart spent more than $1 million on a PR campaign backing a voter referendum 
to build a Supercenter in Inglewood, California, where the majority of voters 
are people of color, and was decisively defeated last year. The company faces 
continued resistance in Chicago as well, where it has been trying to open stores 
in black neighborhoods. A Wal-Mart on that city's West Side is scheduled to open 
by next February--to the frustration of those who opposed it--while plans for a 
South Side store have been scuttled. Controversy continues to rage about a 
Wal-Mart project in New Orleans, and in late February plans for a New York City 
Wal-Mart were scrapped in the wake of protests by labor, small business and 
neighborhood groups. Much of the opposition to the retailer has been led by 
activists of color. And, of course, since many people of color are poor, 
Wal-Mart depends on them as shoppers and as workers. It's no surprise, then, 
that the company would be eager to appeal to racial minorities. 
If you own a TV, you've probably seen what many of Wal-Mart's critics call its 
"happy black people" ad, which has been airing since 2003, when the Inglewood 
fight heated up. Filmed at a Wal-Mart store in Crenshaw, a Los Angeles 
neighborhood, the ad features smiling African-Americans giving glowing testimony 
to what Wal-Mart has done for the "community." ("Community" in Wal-Mart World 
often seems to mean "black"--on the website, for instance, the word is 
illustrated not by a group of people, as it's commonly understood to mean, but 
by one exuberant, young woman of color, a beneficiary of a Wal-Mart 
scholarship.) In another TV spot, a black woman who works for Wal-Mart raves 
about the "opportunities" she's found working with the company. As the writer 
Earl Ofari Hutchinson has observed, the fact that black women are absent from 
most advertising imagery potentially makes Wal-Mart's campaign that much more 
powerful. The company also takes out ads in black newspapers, especially in 
cities where it faces political opposition, and radio spots during Sunday- 
morning gospel hour. And Wal-Mart celebrates Black History Month, distributing 
free booklets to consumers with inspirational sayings from accomplished 
African-Americans. 
Much like that of the Bush Administration, Wal-Mart's image-making strategy 
includes not only advertising but paying for positive media coverage from black 
journalists. This year the company will begin awarding scholarships to minority 
journalism students at Howard, Columbia and elsewhere--a worthy use of 
Wal-Mart's funds, given that people of color are underrepresented in this 
profession, but a rather transparent move to buy off potential critics. (In an 
unusual twist, the recipients will attend Wal-Mart's annual shareholders' 
meeting, a massive pep rally whose primary purpose is to immerse attendees in 
the company culture.) The company knows what favors its money can buy: Wal-Mart 
underwrites Tavis Smiley's popular television talk show in Los Angeles, and 
Smiley returned the favor last year when, during the heated battle in Inglewood, 
he invited Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott on the air for a fawning interview, taking no 
calls. 
Wal-Mart even gives money to civil rights organizations fighting racism--groups 
like La Raza, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, the Urban League, the 
United Negro College Fund and the NAACP. As with the journalism scholarships, 
this isn't all bad: far better that Wal-Mart's money be used to fight for racial 
equality than to elect Republicans or simply further enrich its own CEO, who at 
nearly $23 million a year makes well over 1,000 times as much as the average 
Wal-Mart worker. Unfortunately, however, taking money from Wal-Mart may 
sometimes compromise organizations politically. In Chicago, the NAACP chapter 
supported Wal-Mart in the political battle over the South Side store; likewise, 
in a recent battle over Wal-Mart in suburban Atlanta, Wal-Mart found the NAACP 
on its side. 
Indeed, the company has become a skillful grassroots player. In both Inglewood 
and Chicago, Wal-Mart gave money to black churches, community groups and 
politicians. Wal-Mart courted Emma Mitts, an African-American alderwoman 
representing Chicago's West Side, and found her easily seduced. Mitts became a 
strident advocate for the retailer. Like many other organizations and 
individuals, she wasn't much of an expense; according to campaign disclosure 
documents filed with the State of Illinois, Wal-Mart rewarded her efforts last 
November with $5,000. (Mitts did not return calls for this article.) 
Many black community activists were appalled that black leaders were so easily 
bought off. "I was ashamed to be black!" says Elce Redmond of the South Austin 
Coalition, a Chicago neighborhood organization, describing how the clergy and 
elites rolled over. "A lot of people have no principles. They will wear the 
dashiki, but always take the green money from a multinational corporation." 
Wal-Mart was deliberate, Redmond observes: "In almost twenty years of 
organizing, I have never seen anything so divisive. If you're going to take 
their money, take it, but don't pretend Wal-Mart is good for the community." 
He's not posturing: Redmond's South Austin Coalition received a check from 
Wal-Mart for a youth center, cashed it and continued to work politically to 
oppose the retailer. 
But the organizing Wal-Mart representatives did, and the arguments they made, 
may have been just as important as any cash they doled out. They talked to 
ministers and community groups about the jobs the company was going to bring, 
and the low prices. "It was just smart," says Renaye Manley, the national field 
representative in the AFL-CIO's Midwest office, which is based in Chicago. "And 
it made our job that much harder." Manley, who is black and from Chicago's South 
Side, thinks Wal-Mart's outreach was more important than its money and that most 
community leaders were not bought off but genuinely convinced: "People just 
wanted to see jobs. These folks have a vision for their communities." James 
Thindwa, a Zimbabwean who heads Chicago's Jobs With Justice, says, "A lot of 
good, decent people bought the argument that any job is better than none." Glen 
Ford and Peter Gamble, writing for The Black Commentator, had a harsher take on 
this "slavish" acceptance of anything corporate America has on offer, chastising 
Chicago's black politicians for failing "to address Black community development 
as an issue of democracy." 
Most destructively, Thindwa says--and other Chicago activists agree--"Wal-Mart 
played the race card." The company told the city's black leaders that the unions 
fighting the retailer were racist, effectively exploiting existing racial 
tensions in the city. As elsewhere, the building trades unions in Chicago have 
historically discriminated against blacks. But it is service unions like the 
Service Employees International that are speaking out the most against Wal-Mart, 
and in cities, their membership is mostly people of color. "[Wal-Mart] knew what 
buttons to push," Redmond acknowledges, but he's outraged that so many black 
leaders bought the simplistic line that all unions are racist. "I've never seen 
so much ignorance. They had no sense at all of the history of African-Americans 
in unions. A. Philip Randolph, ever heard of him? So they're going to side with 
the corporate enslaver, like, 'Wal-Mart will save us Negroes!'" 
Thindwa says, "Wal-Mart was able to paint this as white unions protecting their 
turf, instead of as a broad-based community issue." Worse, activists now agree, 
the anti-Wal-Mart coalition failed to respond effectively to the company's 
race-baiting. Dorian Warren, an African-American community activist and member 
of the Chicago Workers' Rights Board, says, "The media framed it as 'white labor 
versus the black community.' We were not able to change the frame." 
There are clearly profound racial tensions in the labor movement, and as 
Wal-Mart continues to move into cities it is likely to continue to exploit these 
tensions. Warren, a public policy scholar at the University of Chicago, says, 
"I've been at a loss to figure out why the labor movement can't have an honest 
conversation about race." Contributing to the problem, black-led labor activism 
has declined in recent decades, and many mainstream unions aren't training black 
leaders (which is closely related to their failure to develop leaders from the 
rank and file of any race). There's a sense--in these battles over Wal-Mart, as 
in many other situations--that labor uses communities of color when it's 
convenient but drops them when a particular campaign is over. That's easily 
exploited since, as Warren puts it, "there's just enough truth to it." 
Of course, there's still plenty of skepticism among African-Americans about 
Wal-Mart. 
Indeed, some black clergy were leaders in the fight against Wal-Mart in Chicago. 
Community opposition probably did contribute to the retailer's defeat on the 
South Side and may help the coalition's attempts to pass an ordinance requiring 
Wal-Mart to pay a living wage to workers on the West Side. In Inglewood, the 
fight against Wal-Mart was led by black and Latino church and community 
activists, and very few leaders were bought off. Blacks there did not buy the 
line that Wal-Mart was antiracist and the unions--therefore, all of Wal-Mart's 
opponents--were racist. That's partly because in Inglewood relations between the 
United Food and Commercial Workers and the community groups were much better. 
Whereas in Chicago the union often insisted on having its white and male 
leadership speak at public events, in Inglewood black women who lived in the 
town and worked in supermarkets were prominent faces in Wal-Mart's public 
opposition; they knocked on doors and talked to their fellow citizens about why 
their unionized grocery job was so important to them and their families, and why 
Wal-Mart was such a threat. 
Madeline Janis-Aparicio of the Coalition for a Better Inglewood says about her 
campaign's success: "We were also lucky--Wal-Mart did something really stupid." 
In trying to pass an ordinance exempting itself from the town's laws, the 
company violated the largely black community's most basic requirement: respect. 
"We used that," says Janis-Aparicio, who credits that theme with winning over 
the church leadership and many Inglewood voters. After one large, mainstream 
black church joined the anti-Wal-Mart fight, the rest followed, not just lending 
passive endorsement but enthusiastically rallying their forces. Another helpful 
issue was crime--Wal-Mart is the nation's leading purveyor of guns. To rural 
white communities, that's often a political asset, but to urban black voters 
it's a harsh liability. In the last few days of the Inglewood campaign, the 
anti-Wal-Mart coalition hung a flier in the shape of an M-16 rifle on 
everybody's door. "Some on our side felt it was a scare tactic," Janis-Aparicio 
admits, but, she adds with justified pride, "it had a powerful impact." 
Even in Chicago, Wal-Mart's own actions may end up helping its opponents. Elce 
Redmond says, "A lot of people who supported Wal-Mart at first are now saying, 
'Elce, you were right.' Wal-Mart made a lot of promises, and hasn't delivered." 
Politicians and community leaders are now finding that since Wal-Mart secured 
permission to open the West Side store, its officials aren't returning their 
calls too readily. Rather than agreeing to pay workers decently, the company 
sent 300 holiday turkeys for the community's needy. That struck many people as a 
shallow response to concerns about the store's economic impact. "People are 
beginning to ask questions," says Redmond. "Why can't Wal-Mart pay a living 
wage? Why can't its workers have a union if they want one? Why not?" 

Posted on Mon, Jun. 17, 2002
<http://clk.atdmt.com/EIN/go/knghtusa3250000015ein/direct/01/1459647> 

The fight on big-box blight

SCOTT DODD

Staff Writer

Charlotte's new warning to big-box developers: If you build it, you might have to pay so we can tear it down someday.
City planners say that anyone who wants to build a giant discount store such as a Wal-Mart or Target -- a staple of Charlotte suburbs for decades -- must also provide the means for the city to destroy the building if the store closes and remains empty.

The new policy also requires big boxes to be part of larger, mixed-use developments that include other stores, offices, even apartments -- and meet higher architectural standards than the usual windowless shells that give the buildings their name.

"We're not going to accept some corporate, logo-stamped design," said Charlotte Planning Director Martin Cramton.
If the popular chains -- which typically build identical models all over the country -- object to the policy and threaten to move outside the county, "My attitude is, let them go someplace else," Cramton said.

The City Council has not been presented with the policy yet, but members Lynn Wheeler and Don Lochman said they're skeptical of the idea of requiring a bond for potentially demolishing new big-box stores because it could mean too much government interference.

"I think there are other ways that we can encourage developers to redevelop the vacant big boxes without imposing stringent measures on them," said Wheeler, chairman of the council's Economic Development and Planning Committee. "I just think that at some point, we need to let the market decide."

Both Wheeler and Lochman said they supported tougher design and architectural requirements for big boxes.
The new requirements, which planners quietly have begun to enforce with recent zoning applicants, would make it difficult to build the type of single-anchor shopping center that has proliferated across the country for two decades.

Cramton and the planning staff don't make the ultimate decision, however. The Planning Commission makes a recommendation to the City Council, which has the final say on a developer's rezoning application. Builders -- in some cases the anchor store, in others a developer -- usually need to rezone property before creating a new shopping center, and they negotiate with planners to get their endorsement.

So Cramton has some authority to enforce his new direction. Builders who don't follow the guidelines would get a thumbs down from the planning staff -- which often leads to a "no" vote from City Council.

"The only way you will have staff support," Cramton said, "is if you agree to these conditions."
Planners see the proliferation of big boxes as a threat to the city's continuing vitality. Charlotte has allowed dozens to be built on city corridors. But they often have a short life span -- usually 10 to 15 years -- before they close and the tenants move farther out in the suburbs.

For two years now, city planners have wrestled with the problem, and several City Council members have said they want to see a change. More than 30 empty big boxes were identified in a recent report, the first of its kind.

City leaders and real estate professionals agreed that number was a problem.
When the stores move, they leave behind empty husks surrounded by hundreds of parking spaces. Though big boxes are increasingly being built as stand-alone stores, older ones often have shops around them that close when the anchor stores are no longer there to draw shoppers.

"It's an economic domino," city councilwoman Nancy Carter said last year when discussing the high number of empty boxes in her east Charlotte district. "It hurts the economy. It hurts the neighbors. It scares people away."

Last year, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission studied the problem and proposed several possible reforms.
One of them was requiring developers to put up a bond or place money in escrow when they build a big box. David Anderson, who was then chairman of the planning commission, came up with the idea along with a real-estate professional he won't name.

If the store closes and stays empty long enough, the city could use that money to demolish it and redevelop the site.
Cramton said planners are now using that approach with two current developers who want to build big-box stores and will do so in the future.

The amount of money the developers would have to put up is still being negotiated, like many other details of their proposals. Developers and planning staff routinely negotiate design, parking and other elements of projects.

Neither developer has filed a rezoning application yet. One wants to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter at Sardis Road North and Monroe Road. The other has plans for big-box stores near a proposed regional mall in north Charlotte off Interstate 77.

Cramton said requiring big boxes to be part of a mixed-use development with a workable street system is just as important as a demolition bond, because it allows old shopping centers to be more easily redeveloped.

Developers have countered that the chains that stamp out big boxes will simply move outside the county limits if they can't build what they want within Charlotte's planning jurisdiction, which includes much of the unincorporated part of the county.

They point to Concord Mills and the glut of stores around it just across the county line in Cabarrus as an example.
But Cramton said the city's planning boundaries are so large -- 380 square miles -- and the Charlotte market so desirable that the city can apply some muscle to the chain stores and force change.

"We need to hold the line," he said; otherwise, too much of the city could one day look like the empty stretches along Independence Boulevard and Freedom Drive.

-- STAFF WRITER RICHARD RUBIN CONTRIBUTED TO THIS ARTICLE.
-- SCOTT DODD: (704) 358-5168; SDODD@CHARLOTTEOBSERVER.COM <mailto:SDODD@CHARLOTTEOBSERVER.COM>

Court Upholds Superstore Ban in Turlock, CA
By John Holland
First published by the Modesto Bee <http://www.modbee.com/>, Dec 22, 2004

TURLOCK — A Stanislaus County Superior Court judge has upheld a city ordinance that kept Wal-Mart from building a supercenter near Fulkerth Road.

Judge Roger Beauchesne rejected Wal-Mart's claim that the ban illegally interfered with retail competition.
The judge said the stated goals of the nearly year-old ban — preventing traffic jams and protecting neighborhood grocers — were "reasonably related to the public welfare."

The nine-page ruling was delivered to the city and Wal-Mart on Monday.
"It's very encouraging," Mayor Curt Andre said Tuesday. "This is about being able to be responsive to the voters and the values of the community."

Wal-Mart spokesman Peter Kanelos said the chain's management had not decided whether to appeal the ruling. It resulted from a lawsuit filed by the company in February, a month after the City Council approved the ban on a 5-0 vote.

"We strongly believe that the impact of this ordinance will be to limit consumer choice," Kanelos said.
He noted that a federal judge had yet to rule on a parallel lawsuit charging that the ban violated Wal-Mart's right to conduct commerce under the U.S. Constitution.

Wal-Mart, which has had a 125,000-square-foot store on Fulkerth since 1993, proposed last year to build a 225,000-square-foot supercenter nearby. The larger store would have combined the department store selections of a conventional Wal-Mart with a full-service grocery section.

Backers cite congestion, blight
Backers of the ban said the proposed store would worsen congestion as customers made frequent crosstown trips to buy groceries. Backers also said the store could lead to the closure of supermarkets that anchor small shopping centers around the city — a change that could bring "blight" to the neighborhoods.

The debate was among the fiercest in Turlock in recent years, drawing overflow crowds to Planning Commission and council meetings last year.

"The main issue I had against Wal-Mart was that they were trying to force their way into a city that didn't want them," Jacqueline Hollcraft, a Turlock homemaker, said Tuesday. "If a city wants them, that's fine for that city."

Some opponents brought up the nationwide debate over Wal-Mart wages and benefits — are they adequate?
People who opposed Turlock's ban said city shoppers would lose out on Wal-Mart bargains, and the city would lose out on sales tax.

"I think there was a great opportunity to get an enormous amount of sales tax to go to their budget, which they are in dire need of," Bob Santo, a retired sales representative for the American Automobile Association, said Tuesday. "I also think (Wal-Mart) employs a lot of people."

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, has more than 1,200 supercenters but only recently brought the concept to California. One of the stores opened in Stockton in October, to little protest. Lodi voters last month rejected a measure that would have hindered plans for a store there.

Officials in Oakdale and Riverbank have talked about the impacts that supercenters might have, though no such stores have been proposed in those cities. On Monday, the Oakdale City Council passed new rules regulating "big-box" stores.

The Turlock ordinance bans most new or expanding discount stores that exceed 100,000 square feet and devote at least 5 percent of the space to groceries and other nontaxable items.

The ordinance exempts membership stores, such as the new Costco Wholesale near Monte Vista Avenue, on the grounds that their customers shop infrequently and buy in bulk, and therefore do not jam traffic.

Wal-Mart claimed that the ordinance singled out the retailer and violates state law by using zoning powers to regulate business competition.

According to the lawsuit, Turlock officials at first welcomed a supercenter but then moved to ban it after meeting with executives from competing grocery chains and a leader in the grocery workers union.

Judge sees legitimate concern
City officials said such meetings are a proper way of hearing the views of constituents.
Beauchesne cited appellate rulings in other cases in concluding that the ban is valid. He acknowledged that it will affect grocery competition, but said Turlock officials had "a legitimate concern for blight, traffic congestion and its resulting air pollution."

"The fact that the ordinance does or will have an incidental effect on competition is irrelevant so long as there is otherwise a valid purpose in enacting the ordinance," the judge wrote.

Wal-Mart argued that the ban forces residents to go to multiple stores for groceries and other items, thus producing more traffic and air pollution than if they did one-stop shopping at a supercenter.

Under state law, the lawsuit stated, these environmental effects had to be studied before the council could enact the ban.

City officials said no environmental study was needed, because the ordinance was simply a means of carrying out land-use policies outlined in the Turlock general plan, which had its own environmental review.

Beauchesne agreed.
The council so far has authorized $130,000 in payment to the Oakland law firm defending the city against the Wal-Mart lawsuits. The expense spurred protests from some residents, but Andre said the money is being well-spent.

© 2004 Modesto Bee

from http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/2002/02/03/news/editorial/2595836.htm (philadelphia enquirer)
Posted on Sun, Feb. 03, 2002


From boom to blight

Rapid turnover of "big box" retailers has area suburbs struggling to cope.

Editor's note: This four-part series on problems with "big box" retailing is the first fruits of a yearlong Editorial Board focus on the interwoven issues of sprawl and blight, of preserving open space and renewing urban communities.

Urban blight - you know what that looks like:
Empty factories pocked with broken windows. Boarded-up homes, empty lots strewn with trash. Lonely retailers struggling to survive in between empty storefronts covered in graffiti.

In Philadelphia, Mayor Street wants to spend $250 million to clear such scenes from his city, to stop the spiral.
Suburban blight is less familiar, less obvious, but also destructive to communities. It arises not from a downturn in manufacturing but from the evolution of consumer taste.

Old superstores get shunned for the next new thing. Soon their acres of parking lots sprout weeds; adjacent restaurants and businesses are shuttered for lack of traffic.

These boxy giants fall prey to a Darwinian retail cycle that older towns know all too well. Main Street gave way to regional malls, which gave way to superstores, which gave way to mega-superstores.

In the nine-county Philadelphia region, 4.5 million square feet of such "big box" retailers- formerly Hechinger, Bradlees, Caldor, Service Merchandise, etc. - now sit empty. These one-time tax generators have become boarded-up shells, eyesores that attract vagrants and vandals. "Grand opening" signs have been replaced by "Space available: 200,000 square feet."

As in the city, suburban decay is contagious. Vacant storefronts send the message that the action is elsewhere; businesses, shoppers and residents listen. Tax revenue sags; upkeep falters; property values dip.

Towns are left with hard choices: let the buildings rot, spend millions to raze them, or find a developer who can attract a new tenant or new use.

As older suburbs struggle with this syndrome, growing towns aren't paying enough attention. Lured by the siren's song of immediate tax revenue, they're falling for the latest incarnation of the big box. They're welcoming faceless retail mammoths to their outskirts, hastening sprawl, tying up traffic, and heightening pressure on their resources, without regard to what will happen if the stores fail.

Nationally and in a few places locally, courageous municipalities are breaking both patterns. Thanks to strong laws, innovative planners and cooperative developers, failed big boxes are getting new lives, and new big boxes are being designed with the future in mind. But there's a long way to go.

Today and for the next three days, the Editorial Board looks at how this blight happens and how towns can deal with it - before it becomes a $250 million problem.

Not so long ago, shopping was a leisure activity for more than just teenagers. In 1980, Americans browsed the corridors of enclosed malls 12 hours a month. By 1990, the average had dropped to just four hours.

For many time-pressed Americans, shopping is now a race. They want to get in and out easily, find everything they need in one store, and save money, too. They want stores with long hours, multiple checkout lines and ample parking.

That's why volume discounters such as Wal-Mart and Target and warehouse clubs such as Sam's and BJ's became popular. They seek success through consistency of product, price and presentation. Every store within a chain looks roughly the same - a no-nonsense rectangular design isolated in a sea of parking spaces - and sells the same merchandise.

When consumers flocked to the big-box format, retailers flooded the market. Bigger became better. Drug stores left strip centers to have their own boxes. Supermarkets and early discounters doubled their space, creating stores up to 200,000 square feet. "Category killers" like Toys R Us or Best Buy aimed to dominate a specific market. "Power centers" like Eastgate in Mount Laurel or Metroplex in Plymouth Meeting clustered big boxes.

During the 1990s, the industry added 3 square feet of new store space for every man, woman and child in America. The problem: Consumer demand has increased at a far slower rate. That means losers are inevitable, especially when the economy weakens.

Main Street mom-and-pop shops were the first to go. Now power centers are threatening regional malls, as department store anchors lose their market share. Nationwide, nearly 200 regional malls are flagging to the point that redevelopment makes more sense than continued retailing.

First-generation big boxes are failing, too, leaving behind ugly, hard-to-use hulks. Even Kmart might now go the way of Caldor. It's a new form of blight, encroaching at a breakneck pace - often into communities that think of themselves as refuges from urban problems.

Even when these communities belatedly grasp the challenge they face, they often lack the legal tools, the resources, or the creative ideas to cope. But some towns, locally and nationally, are proving that thinking "outside the box" is possible.

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