Yay! Wal-Mart loses bid to enlarge their icky presence in my town!

It's bad enough just having them here, but they want to grow bigger, of course, and fortunately our city council slapped their greedy hand down, 4-0.

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100422/ARTICLES/100429779/1350?Title=Rohnert-Park-turns-back-Wal-Mart-s-expansion-plan

Wal-Mart's plan to supersize its Rohnert Park store was turned back Thursday when planning commissioners voted 4-0 to deny the environmental impact report on the project.

The vote came at the conclusion of a four-hour hearing that drew strong support from fans of low prices, along with sharp criticism from those concerned about the store's impact on the local economy.

An overflow crowd packed the Rohnert Park City Council chambers to tell city planning commissioners how the proposed 32,000-square-foot expansion to the existing Wal-Mart on Redwood Drive would affect their community. And when it was over, the crowd erupted in cheers as commissioners sided with those worried that bringing a grocery store into a town with seven other grocery stores would be detrimental to the community.

(more at link above)

That is their goal. Their mission is to put any competition out of business. They are not happy just to compete. They have a scorched earth policy. And years from now when they DO destroy all competition, do you think the prices will stay low? This is why we have anti-trust laws. 'Course those will most likely be gone by that time.

The taxpayers are then hit with the taxes for the old building as well as all the tax breaks on the new building.
Their new parking lots also are huge and soak up a tremendous amount of heat.

and overnight parking by truckers and RV'ers.

down here, it is a custom to park one's car, truck, van, etc. next to the Wal-mart building when hurricanes are forecast to hit. This is in case one's garage or driveway is liable to get a tree on it.
Highly likely in most places.
Since there are no trees around the parking lots, and the hurricane wind directions are known,
a building like Wal-Mart offers safer shelter for the car you don't need, and in these small towns, Wal-Mart usually has the biggest parking lot.
This year, we now have the empty Wal-Mart building lot as well as the new Super-Center lot to choose from.
It works, too, I can attest to have an intact car after 3 hurricanes.

It's a job just getting the garage cleaned out to fit the cars in once a year, LOL!

Our Walmart parking lots have become a place for puppy mill and drug sales, unfortunately.

Congratulations and thanks for posting this.

:party:

Anti-union SOBS who pay their workers sh**, help send jobs overseas, and who live off the public teat without paying much into the public coffers.

We've been desperate for a Super Wal-Mart ever since Von's closed up 5 years ago.