Better Than Wal-Mart

Studies from important institutions across America repeatedly find that Wal-Mart kills jobs. The Athens Banner-Herald published some of these studies here: http://onlineathens.com/opinion/2012-01-31/editors-desk-linking-walmart-studies

A Walmart in downtown Athens is a threat to downtown businesses, as well as businesses on Oconee St., North Avenue, Broad Street, and in the Iron Triangle.

Small, locally owned businesses have a greater positive impact on local economies than big box retail: http://edq.sagepub.com/content/25/3/277.abstract.

Studies show that Wal-Mart’s often illegal and brutal cost-cutting measures inevitably harm employees. Wal-Mart is routinely punished by the U.S. Dept. of Labor for stealing its workers’ wages. On May 2nd, 2012, the Dept. of Labor forced Wal-Mart to pay 4.8 million in back wages that were illegally denied their employees.

But Huffington Post’s Alice Hines points out that this is hardly the first time Walmart has been caught denying workers overtime they’d earned:

In 2008, the company agreed to pay as much as $640 million to settle 63 federal and state class actions that charged the company with refusing to pay overtime, as well as other types of wage theft.In a separate case in Massachusetts in 2009, the company paid $40 million — the largest wage and hour class-action settlement in the state’s history — to settle a suit that accused it of refusing to pay overtime, denying employees rest breaks and tampering with time sheets.

And in 2007, through another Department of Labor settlement, Walmart paid $33.5 million in back wages to 86,680 workers, many of them managers who were denied overtime.

Additionally, Wal-Mart’s practice of underpaying employees forces nearly half of their workers to turn to welfare and food stamps to make ends meet and to rely on Medicaid for health care. Athens 7.4% unemployment rate is 11% lower than the national average, while nearly 40% of the children in our community live in poverty. We have a preponderance of part-time, low-wage jobs and Wal-Mart stands to eliminate many of those and replace just some of them with their own corporate brand of part-time, low-wage jobs. Civil Rights organizations including the NAACP, ACLU, and the National Black Church Initiative have repeatedly protested Wal-Mart’s unjust labor practices and record of discrimination. Additionally, many of the economic ills America faces today can be traced back to Wal-Mart’s big box business model that has forced thousands of manufacturers overseas and millions of Americans out of jobs. All the while, Wal-Mart wields massive political influence and goes as far as to bribe officials to get what it wants.

Key Studies on Walmart & Big-Box Retail
http://www.newrules.org/retail/key-studies-walmart-and-bigbox-retail

What Do We Know About Wal-Mart?
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/what_do_we_know_about_wal_mart_an_overview_of_facts_and_studies_for_new_yor/

UC Berkeley Labor Center
http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/research/walmart.shtml

Study: Chicago Wal-Mart Does Not Boost Employment or Retail Sales
http://tigger.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/newsbureau/cgi-bin/index.cgi from=Releases&to=Release&id=2734&fromhome=1

The Impact of an Urban Wal-Mart Store on Area Businesses: An Evaluation of One Chicago Neighborhood’s Experience (link to complete study w/ literature review & data analysis) http://google.luc.edu/search?client=default_frontend&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&output=xml_no_dtd&q=walmart+study&search.x=0&search.y=0

NYC Hunter College Study/Literature Reveiw: http://advocate.nyc.gov/files/Walmart.pdf

Are Bad Jobs Good for Poor People? The Wal-Mart Question: http://urbanhabitat.org/node/834

Is Walmart Good for Minority Communities: http://reclaimdemocracy.org/walmart/benefit_minority_communities.php

Jesse Jackson Accuses Wal-Mart of trying to ‘Buy’ its Critics: www.blackpressusa.com/News/Article.asp?SID=3&Title=Hot%2BStories&NewsID=10859

NAACP Legal Defense Fund on Dukes v. Walmart: www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/dukes-v-wal-mart-stores-inc

National Black Church Initiative on Dukes v. Walmart: www.eewmagazine.com/national-black-church-initiative-walmart-class-action-suit.html

ACLU on Dukes v. Walmart: www.aclu.org/womens-rights/supreme-court-refuses-allow-sex-discrimination-lawsuit-against-wal-mart-go-forward

National Black Church Initiative Blasts Walmart for Cutting Benefits: http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles%2Fnews%2Fthe_black_diaspora_news%2F34301&page=4
Walmart cheats warehouse workers: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46597603/ns/business-us_business/#.T14jkYFYWSo

This development is primarily auto centric and not enticing for bicyclists or pedestrians. Formulas developed by the Institute of Transportation Engineers indicate that this development will add approximately 10,000 cars per day to an already clogged Oconee St. Traffic jams on this road will prevent people from visiting downtown and cause many frustrated drivers to cut through the nearby East Athens neighborhoods making for dangerous conditions on quiet neighborhood streets—many of which have no sidewalks. Selig’s plan is in violation of Athens-Clarke County’s Future Development Map, which calls for an extension of Hickory St. to run directly through the property with the intention of alleviating downtown traffic, linking the Multi-Modal Transportation Center to UGA bus services, and allowing easier bicycle and pedestrian access to Oconee St.

The 94,000 square foot Walmart will sit atop multiple levels of parking deck and serve as the gateway to downtown Athens from Oconee Street. The 65-foot tall Walmart alone totals the size of two football fields and will dominate the cityscape for miles around. This development essentially creates an entirely new downtown adjacent to our historic downtown and it violates Athens-Clarke County design guidelines on several fronts. It includes 6-stories of condos and parking deck that will overshadow the North Oconee River Greenway directly across from Dudley Park’s Heritage Trail for the length of two football fields. Residents throughout the nearby neighborhoods will be able to see the massive hilltop complex from their porches and windows at any time of day or night.

The development includes almost 1200 parking spaces that will be free-of-charge to those who shop there. This will also draw customers away from downtown where a brand-new parking deck was recently built with bond money to be paid back through parking fees. The new deck is already generating far less revenue than hoped-for. Selig’s plan will certainly doom the payback plan to failure and Athens taxpayers will be obligated to cover the bonds. Additionally, Selig Enterprises also owns AAA Parking, the company that runs game day parking for Georgia Tech and Auburn University. Selig’s Athens development is ideally located at a mere 3 blocks from Sanford Stadium, guaranteeing game day parking profits of over a quarter million dollars a year and further affecting the income of local small businesses, charitable organizations, and residents who commonly rent out spaces on their own properties on game days. Selig’s primary motivation for including a large Walmart in their plan is not to serve the people of Athens, it is so that more parking will be required and their own profits will be maximized.

This project includes no greenspace and no permeable surfaces and will completely obliterate a grove of mature oak and pecan trees while blasting out a granite outcropping to make way for underground parking. Trash and stormwater runoff from the concrete and asphalt surfaces will threaten the delicate riverfront ecosystem along the Oconee River Greenway and Dudley Park’s Heritage Trail. Walmart’s overall record of environmental degradation is appalling, while their price pressure on manufacturers is undermining the quality and durability of consumer goods and contributing to a sharp increase in the amount of unnecessary stuff Americans buy and doubled the volume of trash households generate. They continue to build sprawling stores on undeveloped land, often just a few miles from older, vacated stores—it is very likely that once the downtown Athens Walmart is up and running, the current superstore less than 4 miles down the road will be shut down. Additionally, Walmart’s campaign donations heavily favor candidates who consistently vote against environmental issues.

GROCERIES

Walmart is driving further consolidation and industrialization of our food supply, bringing harm to the environment and small-scale agriculture. Although Walmart is the largest supplier of groceries in the US, yet consumers rate it among the worst grocery stores in the nation. And evidence shows that the presence of a Walmart in a community actually reduces ready access to fresh food as small neighborhood markets shut down and people are forced to travel greater distances to buy groceries at Walmart.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this project is the fact that it was supported through the secret dealings of an elected official. An ACC government-appointed panel was using taxpayer funds on a study that included the property as part of a hoped-for public/private Blue Heron River District that would have invited tourism and economic development. Mayor Nancy Denson has admitted to the press and in a public meeting that, in the early months of 2011, she had communication with Selig Enterprises and knew a Wal-Mart was intended for the property. Subsequent to learning of Selig’s plan to bring Wal-Mart to downtown Athens, the Mayor shockingly said nothing when the Economic Development Foundation, on which she served, voted to spend tax-payer money to hire a consultant to study uses for the very same parcel that Selig planned to develop. Ultimately, the Mayor stalled river district plans, clearing the path for Wal-Mart. Denson finally shed light on Selig’s Wal-Mart plan in September 2011 when she cited it as justification to kill the Blue Heron Project in a meeting of the Economic Development Foundation that violated GA Open Meetings law. Weeks after the Blue Heron Project was scuttled illegally behind closed doors, Selig sprung to action claiming they had vested rights to bring Wal-Mart to downtown Athens and that it was a done deal. ACC commissioners for the area report that they only found out about Selig’s plan a week or so before it was publicly announced in the Athens Banner-Herald on November 16, 2011. Despite vocal public pressure, Mayor Denson refuses to host a public meeting on this matter and has gone so far as to suppress public comment in opposition to the project.

Selig Enterprises has many powerful friends in Athens. Vice President Joann Chitty spent five years as head of UGA’s Real Estate Foundation. The Seligs also fund the Selig Center for Economic Growth in UGA’s Terry College of Business —no expert economist from UGA will dare address the facts of Walmart’s perpetuation of poverty and devastation of local economies. Selig family members sit on the Board of Trustees for the University of Georgia Foundation and the Georgia Museum of Art, and they are major supporters of the UGA Athletic Association —the road around the UGA Athletics building is named Selig Circle. Selig has also hired Brian Broderick of Jackson Spalding Public Relations as the point man on this plan. Broderick lives in Oconee County and sits on the Watkinsville City Council, while his role as chairman of the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce gives him a seat on the board of Athens Downtown Development Authority. Despite the fact that Selig’s plan promises to devastate downtown businesses and culture, as well as threaten the ADDA’s primary revenue source—parking fees,  the ADDA has not issued a statement on the project.

In addition to the closed-door Economic Development Foundation meeting and Mayor’s confidential communications with the developer that paved the way for this project, Selig Enterprises has hosted a number of closed-door meetings were the press were prohibited from attending in which small groups of hand-picked community members were sold Selig’s plans with slick talk and flashy presentation. Many individuals who attended those meetings were given conflicting information dependent upon which meeting they attended. In the meantime, a vast majority of residents in the surrounding neighborhood have expressed deep concerns about the project.  Despite repeated initiatives for public meetings with Selig representatives from organizations including People For a Better Athens, the Federation of Neighborhoods, and Occupy Athens, Selig Enterprises refuses to participate in a public discussion and will not hear the questions and concerns of the people of Athens.