Wal-Mart foes fight development nationwide

Brewer said citizens do have legitimate concerns when a Wal-Mart comes to town, such as how it will look and how traffic will be affected. But he accuses WARN of “just out-and-out attack using full-time campaigners,” instead of truly trying to meet a community’s needs.

Still, Brewer concedes that efforts by WARN and others have proved time-consuming and costly for the company’s Florida operations.

“We have certainly hit our targets of growth, but we have had to match their efforts (with) our own,” he said.

In some communities, citizens have been divided over whether to welcome or spurn Wal-Mart.

When a developer purchased a closed-down Kmart building in coastal Marina, Calif., many local residents expected the property would be used for a cluster of shops meant to appeal to tourists and visitors. Some were outraged when the developers disclosed that they had struck a deal with Wal-Mart.

“Visitors come to Marina for the natural beauty and the outdoor recreation opportunities. They don’t come to Marina to shop at Wal-Mart,” said Steve Zmak of Citizens Against Wal-Mart in Marina.

Still, Zmak said that his group faced opposition from others locals who remembered when the town was much worse-off financially and felt they should welcome any development. Some older residents on fixed incomes were eager for the bargains.

“We found that there’s sort of a division in Marina,” Zmak said.

In the end, the city approved the Wal-Mart, and it opened in November. Zmak has now turned his attention to trying to prevent Wal-Mart from expanding to a larger Supercenter.

Similarly, in the small town of Woodland, Wash., opponents argue that a proposed Supercenter on the north end of town will snarl traffic in an already congested area, potentially backing up access to a nearby industrial district.  A traffic mess could prove devastating to a local trucking business and manufacturing operations that rely on easy highway access.

“I don’t know why you should trade one business for another,” Darlene Johnson, president of Woodland Truck Line Inc., said at a daylong public meeting this year about the proposed Wal-Mart.

Opponents in Woodland also say the Wal-Mart will hurt longstanding efforts to revitalize the small downtown, and worry that the combination of big trucks and Wal-Mart traffic will prove dangerous when a proposed high school is built nearby.

But others complained that they currently have to drive as far as 20 miles to get things like kids’ sports uniforms, and said their cash-strapped families could use the bargain prices.

“Why not let Wal-Mart come in, and those who don’t want to shop there can go somewhere else that they like?” resident Shirley James asked.

Holder, the Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said the company has operated Wal-Marts near schools elsewhere in the country, and argued the benefits Wal-Mart would bring to Woodland would outweigh any potential harm to direct competitors.

A decision on Wal-Mart’s Woodland plans is expected later this month.

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