Politics from the Palouse to Puget Sound

Monday, July 25, 2005

Support Pullman Merchants NOT PARD

I'm sure many of you saw the "Their View" opinion piece written by Terence L. Day in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News over the weekend. I don't have time to post the whole thing right now. Grand Moff Tarkin and I are too busy working on the Death Star. Look out Montine Vona-Kenobi.

Mr. Day, the recently retired lead news writer of Washington State University's College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences, gave PARD the thorough intellectual roasting it so richly deserves.

As you PARDners put down your dictionaries, ponder this: Why is there such resentment against you when there is no pro-Wal-Mart organization in Pullman yet (and yet is the key word)?

I'll tell you why. Your motley band of Johnny-come-lately Deaniacs, socialists, treehuggers and anti-changers have rekindled decades long strife between the town and the university that dates back to Pullman losing out on the Palouse Empire Mall. You can try to spin it all you want that the mall is ancient history, but then again so is this whole issue. The Wal-Mart site was zoned C-3 23 years ago, cemetery and all.

The more I talk with long-time Pullman residents and merchants, the more I hear about the mall and how they don't want that to happen again.

The best thing you can do at this point is immediately stop your SEPA appeals. If, by some miracle, you manage to stop or delay Wal-Mart, you would open up a serious rift between the university and the town that would do more damage than a Wal-Mart ever could. Believe me, there are many university faculty and staff that don't want that to happen. They support Wal-Mart for the good of the community.

The answer is simple. Either don't shop at Wal-Mart or move somewhere else.

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