Wednesday, March 28th, 2007...7:27 am
Wal-Mart 1 - Community Organizers 0
The Tucson City Council last night voted 6 - 1 in favor of a development on the South Side that will likely include a Wal-Mart. Well, it doesn’t explicitly say a Wal-Mart, but the developer demanded exceptions to the “big box” ordinance that are usually only demanded by Wal-Mart.
Congratulations to Karin Uhlich for voting against this garbage.
I know there is going to be a great deal of scorn heaped on to the councilmembers that voted for this. Rightly so. Nina Trasoff, for example, gave a littany of reasons to vote against this thing, but voted for the ordinance anyway. She even campaigned against Wal-Mart when she ran two years ago.
But, I want to know, what the heck was our side doing here?
We always like to think that we have the people and “they” have the money. We could fight off the big money influence on elected officials by filling the audiences at council sessions and showing up at meetings and letting them know where folks stand, or at least where the folks that are paying attention and will remember when it’s time to vote stand. This can put the fear of God into a local elected official far better than big campaign contributions or winks and nods from the high placed. We used to be good at this stuff.
You know who did that this time? Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart massaged the right neighborhood leaders. Wal-Mart kept in touch with people in those neighborhoods. Wal-Mart made their case to the people. I know we should expect elected officials to always do the right thing, but it is hard for them to do that when all the pressure is coming from the other direction.
I saw almost no campaign on this from PCIC, which I know just got a new set of leaders but this would have been right up their alley. Where were they? What about the UFCW? Wal-Mart is a favorite target of theirs. They could have also organized those neighborhoods against this. Where were they?
Wal-Mart learned from our side when it came to organizing, I guess now our side has to learn from Wal-Mart.
6 Comments
March 28th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Good points Tim, I mean Ted.
As many know, we are fighting a Wal-Mart battle in Oro Valley. This was a little bit different set up because the developer, Vestar, was awarded a $23 million give-away before anyone knew it would be a Wal-Mart anchor. Those who had studied this before the “give away” vote on by the citizens of Oro Valley, realized that Vestar usually anchors with Wal-Marts and tried to warn the public. Vestar and the mall advocates insisted that this would be a “high end” shopping experience and, in their slimy way, duped those who would not remove the wool from their eyes.
Once the Wal-Mart was announced only, two months ago, I tried to contact both SEIU and UFCW to add to our protest. They have yet to reply to my request. Since this announcement, a new organization has started, OV 1st, which advocates to conduct business at locally owned businesses, http://www.ov1st.com. It is amazing how many non-politically active people have become active on this issue, Republicans, Independents, and Democrats. Unfortunately, the unions seem to be a non-player here and they are missing a great opportunity to help educate the public.
My wife, Salette, saw this coming months ago. Along with many of the other issues, which this local town counsel has chosen to favor out of town developers versus the citizens of Oro Valley, she is stepping up to the plate and running for Oro Valley Town Counsel http://www.votelatas.com. It’s time to return this government to the rightful owners, we the people of Oro Valley, and take the power out of the hands of Phoenix developers like Vestar. She is having a fund raiser this Friday which is posted on her web site.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Great response, Jeff! Time and time again you have proved to be well versed and informed about the issues…..though, your post could have used a little more cow bell and a little less attitude to the blogmaster.
March 28th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Yet another reason to support Patterson for mayor. He has strong relationships with many union leaders in Tucson. Trasoff has proved to be a B-I-G disappoinment on many levels.
March 28th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Ted correctly asks the question “Where was our side on this one?”
I am as stumped as him, but honestly, OUR side was supposed to be the council. The council is overwhelming dominated by Democrats…not even close folks. The mayor is Republican and the Carol West an independent.
Honestly, I am not quite so sure what we were getting when we voted for this council. I thought there would be a roll-back and a fighting of the garbage fee…well that was BS now wasn’t it. And as much as I campaigned for and love Karin, I have heard that the constituent service in her office has been half that of Dunbar by the neighborhoods that she represents.
I am very uneasy now. I want to see some real effort for neighborhoods by this council as they campaigned on. One chance to redeem in my mind is the Neighborhood Protection Zones that were recommended by the Planning Commission. Unfortunately, the vote was put off after developers of mini-dorms and the powerful sacked us with misleading ads in the Star and sucking up to a editorial staff that wrote a condemning op-ed without even reading or understanding the ordinance.
I am an independent and I vent, but I am left wondering what credits have come from this new Democrat dominated council.\
I am ready to be educated. What are some of the successes of this council?
March 28th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
This Ward 5 project was a done deal once Steve Leal went for it.
Tucson must be stronger. We could have this project without the unwise big box flip-flop.
Thanks, Councilwoman Uhlich for showing courage and backbone.
March 28th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
The way they ran their campaign to expand in Winslow was particularly interesting.
A lot of people were so incensed at the deal that was ‘done in the dark’ in which WalMart had worked out what they needed with the mayor and the city manager in order to expand to a Supercenter before it became public, that they launched a recall against the mayor. In a seperate election, WalMart had a vote on the zoning ordinance change which would allow it to expand. As it happened, WalMart won on the zoning change but the mayor was recalled.
Meaning that they even managed to win when ‘their guy’ was being voted out of office primarily due to anger about the deal that WalMart made with him before he told anybody.
That tells you they know how to win an election.
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