Wal-Mart's City-within-a-City

[Updates below.]

Stymied by Politicians, Wal-Mart Turns to Voters

As Wal-Mart continues its march across the American landscape, this Los Angeles suburb of 112,000 people is the latest testing ground for the company's exercise of political and marketing muscle.

Inglewood voters go to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to turn over 60 acres of barren concrete adjacent to the Hollywood Park racetrack to Wal-Mart to create a megastore and a collection of chain shops and restaurants.

The ballot initiative is sponsored by Wal-Mart, which collected more than 10,000 signatures to put the question to voters after the Inglewood City Council blocked the proposed development last year, citing environmental, traffic, labor, public safety and economic concerns.

While Wal-Mart has turned to the ballot in a number of cities and towns to win the right to build its giant emporiums, the Inglewood initiative is significantly different. The proposal would essentially exempt Wal-Mart from all of Inglewood's planning, zoning and environmental regulations, creating a city-within-a-city subject only to its own rules. Wal-Mart has hired an advertising and public relations firm to market the initiative and is spending more than $1 million to support the measure, known as initiative 04-A.

In case anyone wasn't aware, I'm a big fan of Wal-Mart. As long as they aren't defrauding anyone or resorting to violence.

Back to the New York Times article:

Company officials say that Wal-Mart adopted this aggressive new tactic only after it became clear that Inglewood officials ? backed by allies in organized labor, church groups and community organizations ? would never approve the complex. Wal-Mart is strongly anti-union.

"We were told, basically, 'Don't waste your time,' " said Peter Kanelos, the Southern California coordinator for Wal-Mart's community affairs division.

"But these groups are not representative of the community," he said. "Organized labor is attempting to bully Wal-Mart and its customers. If organized labor and those elected officials they put into power think they're going to attack Wal-Mart, then they better expect Wal-Mart to fight back."

I admire the fighting spirit and using the system against it's opponents is a novel idea, but it does look real bad. I can't imagine the raving depths the left and the anti-corporate right will reach when this hits the broader opinion market.

"This is the first time in the country they've tried to do something this extreme," said Madeline Janis-Aparicio, leader of the Coalition for a Better Inglewood, a group formed to fight the Wal-Mart project. "They are driving a Mack truck through California land use, planning and environmental law and trying to create a Wal-Mart government on this 60-acre site. If they succeed in doing this, it will be their blueprint."

Ideally, in a social system that actually upholds property rights, Wal-Mart would be "the government" on it's own property. The principle difference, of course, would be that Wal-Mart wouldn't be free to initiate force against others at it's whim and without consequence.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, has announced plans to build 40 supercenters in California over the next five years, combining its usual assortment of goods with a full line of groceries. California's grocery workers and supermarket chains are trying to slow or stop the company's expansion. They have enlisted the support of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Nation of Islam and a number of elected officials and community groups opposed to Wal-Mart's employment practices and its impact on local merchants.

This is the message these people are sending: don't you dare grow your business too big and too successful. Otherwise, we'll oppose you on every ground possible.

The groups opposed to the Inglewood development have already gone to state court to try to block the project, but a judge ruled that any legal challenge would have to await the outcome of the April 6 vote. Ms. Janis-Aparicio said that if the measure is approved, the coalition will return to court immediately.

This is the message this sends: democracy doesn't matter. Especially the local kind we all love and promote. Of course, I'm not that big a fan of democracy in the first place...

A December opinion from the state attorney general indicates that the opponents may be on solid ground.

The attorney general's letter to the Inglewood City Council states that while the initiative process may be used to adopt land-use and planning measures, the ballot cannot be used to usurp powers granted to elected bodies, like issuing building permits. The attorney general also said the initiative might be in conflict with state laws governing subdivisions and the environment.

The initiative, which can pass by a simple majority vote, includes a provision requiring a two-thirds vote of the public to alter any of the terms of the development project. The attorney general said that provision also appeared to conflict with state law.

This could be a delicious if otherwise ultimately disheartening display of intra-governmental bickering.

Mr. Kanelos, the Wal-Mart official, said that the 71-page initiative spells out the project in minute detail, including building materials, traffic flows, landscaping and even plumbing fixtures. Each of these provisions "meets or exceeds every local and state building and environmental requirement," he said.

All four members of the Inglewood City Council oppose the project, along with the area's congresswoman and state assemblyman. One Inglewood council member, Curren D. Price Jr., who is a lawyer and expert on community development, said he had researched Wal-Mart's plans across the country and had not found a single instance in which the company sought such broad exemption from local control.

"That's what's so offensive," Mr. Price said.

"We're talking about 60 acres and an area covering 17 football fields and they don't want to have any give and take on how this thing rolls out," he said.

Doubtless, I'm sure the Wal-Mart execs find it offensive your crowd refuses to allow any "give and take" on this, either.

The only city official vocally supporting the project is the mayor, Roosevelt F. Dorn. He said the complex would bring more than 1,000 new permanent jobs, add $3 million to $5 million a year to the distressed city's tax base and provide a revenue stream to finance as much as $100 million in new bonds. "We're talking about a new police station, a new community and cultural center, a new park in District 4, upgrades for every park and recreation area in Inglewood," Mr. Dorn said. "As far as I'm concerned, it's a no-brainer."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

The LA Times has a registration-required article on this as well:

Inglewood May See a Corporate Takeover

It's an ungodly amount of pressure for a single community to bear, but nothing less than the fate of the planet will be decided Tuesday by approximately 10,000 residents of Inglewood.

They won't just be voting on whether they want a Wal-Mart Supercenter the size of an aircraft carrier. They will decide whether there's any role for government now that the largest company in America has taken over the world.

[...]

Assuming the turnout Tuesday is 10,000, Wal-Mart would need just 5,001 residents of Inglewood to say yes to Measure 4-A. That's $200 a vote, a small price to pay for the right to do virtually whatever the chain pleases without city interference.

Routine traffic and environmental reviews will be tossed aside, and a three-point shot away from the hallowed ground where the Lakers once played, Wal-Mart will reign.

While we're at it, why not shut down Inglewood City Hall and have Wal-Mart outsource the few remaining municipal jobs to Guatemala? In an initiative-happy state like California, we could have weekly Supercenter elections until no other store is left standing.

The hyperbole in anti-business circles knows no bounds. But Steve Lopez does keep one important thing in mind:

Even if Wal-Mart prevails, we can always vote with our feet.

Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times

UPDATE(4/7/2004 8:55am)
The ballot initiative failed:

Voters in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood on Tuesday rejected by a 2-1 margin a ballot measure that would have allowed Wal-Mart to build a sprawling shopping center in the heart of their town.

In voting down the referendum, residents apparently took their cue from elected officials in working-class Inglewood, who fought bitterly to keep Wal-Mart from building a supercenter there despite the promise of 1,200 jobs and millions of dollars in sales tax revenue.

"This was a major victory," said Jerome Horton, a state Assemblyman who represents Inglewood. "This was a test site for Wal-Mart. This would have set a national precedent and developers all over the nation were watching to see whether or not a developer could exempt themselves from complying with local laws. This was a much bigger issue than just jobs."

So much for conventional Democratic rhetoric about wanting more jobs.

With all 29 precincts reporting, election returns showed 33.8 percent of voters in favor of Measure 04-A and 66.1 percent opposed. Some 3,000 absentee ballots remained uncounted but a spokeswoman for the Inglewood City Clerk said those votes were unlikely to change the result.

Copyright 2004 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved.

Another Triumph of Democracy, I suppose.

Posted by Drizzten at April 05, 2004 05:18 PM