Wal-Mart has dangled the tax revenue carrot in front of the city and it salivates – but tax revenues in this instance come at a heavy cost.I love it whenever someone rants like this, because it gives a clear insight into the real mindset of these people. Who cares about tax revenue? Who cares about religious freedom? (notice Lien's slams on both Living Faith Fellowship and Pullman Foursquare Church) Who cares about affordable family housing? All that matters is one person's narrow personal definition of aesthetics.
The Pullman City Council’s motto boasts the “highest quality of life,” but city staff seems to have forgotten that quality of life comes from more than the availability of cheap goods; it starts with basic planning and foresight.
One can see examples of the lack of an effective planning code in Pullman without much effort: the monstrous church on Grand Avenue, its disproportionate size to the neighborhood is nearly laughable, if it weren’t so unsightly; allowing a nonretail use of a former theater in the downtown retail core despite the pleadings of existing retail business owners in the area; the cookie-cutter housing developments at the city’s entrance; allowing people to donate land for a park and name it after themselves; and now, the proposal of a supersized Wal-Mart, with no recourse. It’s all very Pottersville.
It’s troubling that, despite the large number of residents opposed to the Wal-Mart, the city didn’t organize opportunities for formal input on the issue during the development of the project and no promise has been made to update city codes to ensure that residents have a voice in future projects.
As a former 25-year resident of Pullman, to some, my voice may seem irrelevant to this issue, but I care about the welfare of my hometown. Pullman’s residents should take action now to ensure the city’s codes provide for public review and input, and that they protect the aesthetic balance and quality of life that Pullman’s residents expect. As it stands, Pullman’s city code gives corporations the power to transform the town however they choose – but it should be the residents who have the final say.
Jana Lien, Poulsbo, Wash.
By the way, Jana, there are NOT a large number of residents opposed to the Wal-Mart in Pullman, and they have had MORE than ample opportunity to make their case. It's funny how people start protesting that they have "no voice" unless things go the way they want. The Wal-Mart opponents lost in Poulsbo and they're going to lose here.
And you're right, your voice IS irrelevant on this issue. Take your insults of our town somewhere else.
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4 comments:
Ms. Lien doesn't say how long ago she was a resident of Pullman but I think Living Faith has been there for about twenty years. Before Living Faith bought the property, it was a very run down trailer park and car wash. Most of the trailers were small 1950ish with no yards and lots of dogs. It was quite a job to get that cleared out and cleaned up. I guess she would prefer to remember Pullman in that way. Maybe Ms. Lien should stay away from Pullman for awhile. She will probably have a duck when she sees the expansion of the Cub, Martin Stadium, the golf course, the Life Sciences, SR270, and Schweitzer Engineering.
I had this letter on my clipboard ready to paste it, but our fearless Tom beat me to it.
He hit on many of the points I was going to touch on... the idea that people can afford houses? Horrible! They should live in tents, in the old trailer park where LFF now sits. I was here when that was a trailer park. It was old and rundown. What is up with people and their anti-size about things. The church is too big. WalMart is too big... blah!
I don't know how many of you have ever been inside of the Living Faith church but for a church, it really is not that big. It just looks really big sitting on top of another one of those darn hills we're so famous for.
Funny you should entitle this post like that. That happens to be the name of my new blog.
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