PARD must keep the pressure on Wal-MartHmmmmm. So which is it? Is PARD the little old grassroots group of Pullman residents they love to portray or are they part of the great socialist International(e) effort against Wal-Mart? That might be the truest thing Hosick has ever written.
Haven’t you heard? Wal-Mart is under attack all over the world – not exclusively in Pullman by the Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development and our supporters.
International pressure is beginning to bear fruit: witness Wal-Mart’s greatly slowed growth; the price-slashing they have initiated in the past few months to try to improve their profitability and their image; their pullout from Germany; and their less-than-stellar success in other European countries.
We live on Pioneer Hill, near Bishop Boulevard. We are customers of Les Schwab, Shopko, Safeway, Barnacle Bill’s, Unicel, Radio Shack, Wheatland Center, Crimson and Gray, Daily Grind, and Zeppoz. We eat at the Fireside Grill and attend movies at the new complex. I’m delighted that Pullman Building Supply will move to Bishop, and we are regulars at the doctors’ offices and the hospital.
We support Pullman businesses, but we’ve experienced firsthand the increasing traffic problems as the commercial establishments on Bishop have developed over the past two years.
It can be a real challenge entering and exiting the medical complex, the residential streets, and all the boulevard businesses. No current development, however, could even approach the huge negative effect on the entire southeast side of town that a 225,000-square-foot Wal-Mart would have — one enormous property larger than our entire downtown, and 11,000 predicted vehicle trips per day.
Many of us oppose a Wal-Mart Supercenter on Bishop simply because such an immense commercial project is a completely inappropriate fit for that neighborhood, and because it doesn’t mesh with the ideals presented in the city’s comprehensive plan.
No, there is nothing addressing mega-box stores in Pullman’s comprehensive plan. Perhaps that’s because none of the planners ever envisioned such an outlandish development.
That’s why PARD exists. And why Wal-Mart is under attack in cities around the world — not just in Pullman.
Cynthia Hosick, Pullman
Les Schwab, Shopko, Safeway, Unicel, and Radio Shack are "Pullman businesses" to be mentioned inthe same breath as Fireside Grille and Zeppoz? That should be of great interest to stockholders in those out-of-state corporations.
And someone explain to me how the 80,000 sq. ft. difference between the proposed Pullman Building Supply and the Wal-Mart Supercenter make Wal-Mart an "immense, inappropriate and outlandish development."
Not with the Comprehensive Plan again. From Hearing Examiner John Montgomery's decision:
The proposed Project would be consistent with Chapter 3, page 20 of the Comprehensive Plan, which indicates that Moscow has captured the bulk of retail trade in the Palouse region, and that Pullman desires a better balance of shopping and entertainment opportunities. The proposed Project would bring desired retail to the City of Pullman and help balance the retail trade currently existing in Moscow, Idaho.But I've saved my favorite part for last.
"We support Pullman businesses?" Oh really? I guess that's why Hosick wrote a letter to the Whitman County Commissioners back in May that stated:
"In fact, as much as I support the expansions of SEL (Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories) in most regards, I think their newest huge building is an absolutely awful example of hilltop development, and a prime example of what any city/county development code in this area ought to prohibit."Hosick later said she had overspoke, but as Commissioner Jerry Finch stated, "the bell can't be unrung."
I urge Palousitics readers to send in their letter to the editor to the Daily News and remind the citizens of Pullman of Hosick's statement.
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2 comments:
The part I find funniest about her letter is the reference to Wal Mart's trouble in Germany. Guess what? It wasn't Wal Mart that was in trouble. Wal Mart bought an ailing chain and tried to turn it around. Those efforts failed, in large part due to government over regulation and union interference. That's right. Those stores were UNION shops. Perhaps that's why Wal Mart doesn't invite the union into all their stores. They want to stay in business.
More amazingly dis-jointed logic.
Sigh.
If a 225,000 sqare foot Costco, Target or some other liberal approved store announced plans to open on the top of a hill, Cynthia would look around herself and if everyone else approved, she would approve too.
And somehow I have a hard time believing that Wal-Mart is under attack world wide because Pullman doesn't have size limits on retail stores.
Cynthia's letter is a pathetic attempt at group self-approval.
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