Dealing With The Devil
For
those of us in the Central Iowa area, there has been a rather
interesting battle going on between the West Des Moines City Council,
the citizens of West Des Moines – and Wal-Mart.
The
basics: West Des Moines has been pursuing a
retail-growth-at-all-costs plan of economic development. The area
around the new “upscale” Jordan Creek Mall is booming with big-box
retailers. This isn't quite what the original planners had in
mind when proposing opening the area to rapid development. Things
got signficantly worse when Wal-Mart bid on a spot in the “Galleria”,
and wanted to open an “Open 24 Hours” SuperCenter.
Residents
in the area immediately complained about having such a large business
open 24 hours a day – particularly the owners of new residential
property nearby.
Jon Gaskell of Cityview quotes West Des Moines City Council member Brad Olson:
Councilmember
Brad Olson says the city did nothing wrong by trying to limit
Wal-Mart's hours of operation because of where it sits geographically,
and he is launching an investigation into why his cohorts – namely
Sieman – collectively changed their minds in regard to the number of
hours the retailer can stay open. The city voted for Wal-Mart to be
open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., but is now likely going to OK a switch to
6 a.m. to midnight. Wal-Mart would like to be open 24-7.
“It's
disgusting to see representatives of the people cave in like this,”
Olson says, recalling the history of retail in the Jordan Creek area.
“Jordan Creek is not a town center, it's a mall. Pet-Co, Costco and
Best Buy is not a village and Big-O Tires, McDonald's and Wal-Mart is
not a galleria.” Essentially, Olson says, residents were promised class
but got nothing but ass – big boxes and parking lots. And the council
is paving the way for much more of it. The Des Moines Register reported last week
that Wal-Mart has filed a lawsuit against West Des Moines to void a
weakened ordinance finally passed by the city council limiting the
proposed hours of operation.
Monday,
the council voted 3-2 to restrict big stores like the proposed
Wal-Mart, but hours could be extended during the holiday shopping
season.
The
ordinance expanded by four hours the limit originally attached to the
site plan for the Wal-Mart store planned as an anchor of the Galleria
at Jordan Creek.
Some
residents objected to the ordinance. Luke Vogel, who lives in nearby
Pheasant Ridge, said of the vote and company, “They win, residents
lose.” In
some ways, this is an interesting take on the same problem that rural
Iowa and smaller communties have been facing for years: what
right does a community have to set limits on corporate operations?
Rural Iowans have struggled with corporate hog farms – the Iowa Supreme Court voided a Worth County ordinance barring large animal farms, which also voided other county efforts to police factory farms within their borders.
Smaller communities have also struggled with Wal-Mart.
It seems
that we'll have to come to a conclusion one way or the other what
“local control” means in the State of Iowa rather than letting the
issue boil over on the back burner.
Blog For Iowa 
That's absolutely right Chad, and yet another example of an important issue ignored by the recent “historic” session of the Iowa legislature.
By ignoring these issues, the legislature has essentially legislated the wild west.
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Right now, i think this is *the* issue that needs to be discussed – and I am very disappointed that the Senate Democrats didn't use their position to introduce it to the debate.
Gov. Vilsack has also been extraordinarily negligent on this front – and we haven't heard a peep about it from any of the potential candidates for governor other than Ed Fallon.
The situation in Cerro Gordo county with the Weaver farm is troubling – moreso because we don't have *any* laws or regulations on the books that have stood to serve as a guidepost.
Minnesota was able to address the issue – why can't we?
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Why would we want government telling private business what hours they can be open… to keep the spirit of this country alive we need to put that in the hands of the customers… if the community really doesn't want or need a wal-mart open 24 hours, it won't take long before they would decide they can't continue doing it, and by simple market demand would change to the hours that would be supported. If no one buys anything at 2am, they won't stay open that late anymore.
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However, there is far more to the issue than “what shoppers want”, there is also the notion of what the host community wants. In this case, the people that own housing right next to the Wal-Mart area are the most upset, because in addition to having traffic going by at 3:30 AM, their property values will drop. (In West Des Moines, property valuation is King.)
So, Wal-Mart will attract people from all over the Western suburbs, but only the people of West Des Moines will be affected negatively – and shouldn't they have a say in that?
(Something similar happened in Decorah with Wal-Mart suing Decorah from the city preventing them from building on a flood plain, and oddly enough, near Gettysburg, PA, where Wal-Mart wanted to build a supercenter within view of the Gettysburg Battlefield. The locals there overwhelmingly said “no”.)
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