Wal-Mart is coming!
Comments(6)
Wal-Mart is coming!
Wal-Mart is coming!
Or is it?
Wal-Mart has applied to the city for a rezoning on a site for a proposed Super Wal-Mart. The approval (or disapproval) process will include public hearings before the Littleton Planning Commission and the Littleton City Council. At these meetings, you will be given an opportunity to speak or to have your written comments placed in the record for consideration.
As is to be expected, the proposal has generated opponents (www.littletonagainstwalmart.com) and hopeful shoppers (less organized, but hopeful – and with cash and credit cards at the ready).
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The Littleton Examiner’s August issue will feature the proposal for rezoning and columns for and against. We invite anyone interested to submit columns for publication. The columns must be signed, include a contact phone number (for verification purposes) and not exceed 600 words.
Please email your column or Letter to the Community regarding Wal-Mart to walmart@littletonexaminer.com no later than July 15, 2006.
Do you want a Super Wal-Mart on Santa Fe or elsewhere in Littleton?
Share your thoughts with your fellow Littleton residents.
Submit your comments to The Littleton Examiner by July 15, 2006.
Send to:
walmart@littletonexaminer.com
YES, I want the Super Wal-Mart built on Santa Fe. I am tried have having to drive several miles to get to a Super Wal-Mart to spend my money.
Letter to the Littleton Community
Wal-Mart vs South Platte Park
As an avid hiker, birder and frequent user of South Platte Park, I’m definitely opposed to the Wal-Mart proposal to build, yet another, Super Center virtually next to the North Woods section of South Platte Park. After visiting Wal-Mart’s web site I found that within a 5 mile radius of my house on S. Elmwood St. there are already 4 Wal-Mart Super Stores. Why another in Littleton and why build it next to an award-winning wildlife park and bike pathway? The noise, light, traffic and crowd pollution from their 24/7 operation will do irreparable damage to the wildlife presently nesting in the park. The North Woods section of the park has annual nesting Great Horned Owls, Red-Tailed Hawks, Swainson’s Hawks and other nesting birds that will re-locate if the proposed Wal-Mart operation is built as planned. Not to mention the eyesore the building will present when viewed from the bike path or park pathways. Presently South Platte Park has 237 species of birds that either nest, or seasonally live within the park boundaries. Denver Audubon ranks this park as a significant bird watching site not just for the local community but for the state of Colorado as well. We can only imagine what will happen to the wildlife if the Wal-Mart Super Center goes as planned.
Another significant factor is the water pollution to the South Platte River and environs that will result from the Wal-Mart parking lot runoff. Take a look at any Wal-Mart parking lot in the summer months and you will see bags of fertilizer, weed killer, and other chemicals stored, unsheltered, and uncontained on the asphalt. Wal-Mart proposes a containment pond that they will build and then “give to the city of Littleton” for future upkeep and maintenance -yet another tax burden for Littleton citizens. The containment pond will not stop a 20 year or 100 year flood or even a strong thunderstorm similar to the ones we get regularly during the summer months. Wal-Marts proposed “bandaid” simply won’t work.
As a concerned citizen of Littleton, I ask all of you that read this letter to please fight the Wal-Mart proposal to build next to South Platte Park. Please take the time to write the Littleton City Council voicing your disapproval of the Wal-Mart plan. Join “L.A.W.” (Littleton Against Wal-Mart) and attend their meetings. You can view LAW’s website at http://www.littletonagainstwalmart.com. Get involved. Wal-Mart can be stopped and now is the time to stop them.
Thanks for listening.
Lee Watson
With a Wal-Mart by the foothills on Bowels one on Wadsworth and another just off Santa Fe in Englewood, this proposal for yet another Wal-Mart is ludicrious. There are too many too close to each other. Also, putting a Wal-Mart along the Platte is an eyesore and an enviormental hazard. And for a community and state that cherishes open spaces and scenic areas, this doesn’t make sense. Also the increase in consumer traffic would further congest Santa Fe during peak hours.
If the citizens of Littleton want to shop at Wal-Mart they already have two stores in their backyards.
Do the citizens of Littleton really need or even want a thrid Wal-Mart?
As long as there is neither force nor fraud nor subsidies nor bribes, then I believe we should let Wal-Mart join the business community here in Littleton.
The citizen’s of Littleton do not want a Wal-Mart next to the South Platte River corridor. Why? Wal-Mart’s business ethics do not fit Littleton’s community and the reasons many of us have chosen to live and raise families here. Wal-Mart has a history of driving out local business, building mega-stores within miles of each other (there are three other Wal-Marts within seven miles of the proposed site), closing stores within a few years of opening and leaving the spot vacant after enjoying local tax breaks, utilizing questionable product procurement practices and viewing the payment of environmental fines as simply a “cost of doing business.” (Visit http://www.walmartwatch.org and http://www.stopwalmart.org for more information.) This is not the type of business that fits in our community.
A grass roots organization, Littleton Against Wal-Mart (LAW) is fighting to stop this proposed development.
We are a diverse group of concerned citizens who love Littleton’s quality of life and community and have a deep appreciation for the city’s South Platte Park.
City leaders and residents alike have worked hard to create our unique environment. The City of Littleton has long been concerned about and focused on preserving the natural tranquility of the South Platte River corridor. From the 1960s, when Littleton citizens and legislators caused Federal legislation to be passed initiating the creation of South Platte Park (a precedent-setting floodplain park), to the city’s current support of the Mary Carter Greenway Trail, Littleton has an extensive history of preserving our distinct, hometown setting.
Is it now clear that the City of Littleton is thoroughly altering its vision of our community’s future? Zoning at the proposed site – currently residential and suburban agriculture – would have to be changed drastically to allow Wal-Mart to build. This proposed plan does not meet the city’s own South Platte River Corridor Development Design Objectives that were adopted by the Planning Commission in February of 2000: “The Planning Commission reached a consensus that this corridor, as one of the last developable areas in Littleton, must be developed in a highly sensitive manner. The proximity to the South Platte Park exemplifies this issue due to South Suburban Park and the Recreation District’s desire to preserve the wildlife habitat.”
A 24/7 business operation on the proposed site will radically disturb the serenity and beauty of South Platte Park and along the Greenway Trail. As residents of Littleton, are we ready to sit back and watch as the damaging impacts of around-the-clock operations (noise pollution, traffic congestion, light pollution, drainage issues, etc.) negatively affect our community’s crown jewel, until it becomes unrecognizable as the natural oasis it once was?
And it’s more than just Wal-Mart’s harmful environmental impact that threatens our community. The City of Littleton has recently been emphasizing “economic gardening” (a concept which aims to develop locally-owned businesses who hire local residents) as a natural extension of our community’s values into the economic sector. How does inviting a “big box” store to build on prime city property embrace local ownership and employment as emphasized by the city’s initiatives?
We understand that the City of Littleton sees dollar signs when it looks at Wal-Mart. But at what cost to our community’s future? There can be no guarantees with Wal-Mart. No assurance of increased revenue for the city, increased jobs for Littleton residents and increased commerce for local businesses. The only guarantee Wal-Mart will bring is that of decreasing Littleton’s quality of life and an irreparable loss of the true spirit of our neighborhood. Preserve our Park – Preserve our Community.
Littleton Against Wal-Mart
http://www.littletonagainstwalmart.com
303-380-1533
Note to Littleton Citizens,
The Business/Industry Affairs Advisory Committee’s (BIAAC) 2004 report to the Littleton City Council contains this recommendation:
1. “Pursuing large format retail projects because they generate retail sales tax in the range of $1.2 milion per project. These mega retail projects should be located in appropriate areas that minimize impact on surrounding neighborhoods, particularly along the Santa Fe corridor. Three sites in particular (the old sewer site, the Sundown/Hebert/Ida “greenhouse” site and the Flying B Ranch site) should be investigated for the feasibility of building large format retail projects.” (page
There are several other recommendations in this report that the public would be interested in knowing about, but most likey will not become aware of them until they are ready to “fight” something in progress. The Council, in pursuing Wal Mart, is just following a recommendation made in December, 2004. No one opposed the recommendation when it was made, at least not publicly.
The public needs to wake up and pay attention to what is going on in the council meetings. The televised meetings are not the meetings that are most important. It is the special meetings that council holds where most of the real discussions and decisions take place.
For example, at the last special meeting (July 11, 2006) council decided to spend approximately $400,000 to remodel the holding cells and the suspect processing rooms in the police department. This remodel is badly needed for the safety of the officers and the public. However, you will not find any honest minutes detailing the discussion that took place. You will find a very short sentence that reads, “The unanimous Council consensus was to renovate the holding cells as generally described in Scenario VII of the city manager’s presentation.”
At the same meeting Council, by consensus but not unanimous, decided “to proceed with referring a general de-Brucing question.” The so called minutes do not detail the discussion nor does it identify which council members favored proceeding. This decision will cost the taxpayers several thousand dollars to pay for a special election.
The point I am trying to make is that much of what council decides to do is based on prior recommendations. If the public does not challenge any of the recommendations then the council views the lack of challenge as support. Citizens are reacting too late to what council is doing. Citizens need to be informed about the current direction of the council and the only way to do that is to attend or watch their regular meetings, read the minutes on the city’s web site, and, most importantly, find a way to learn about what goes on at their special meetings and that can only be done by reading the Littleton Examiner or requesting the citizen minutes that I write. Reading the Littleton Independent is better than nothing. Jennifer Smith is doing a wonderful job reporting but she can’t print everything.
In addition to the recommendation for mega retailers the report contains recommendations for redevelping 4 “marginal” shopping centers, turning four more into mixed use projects. The 2005 Annual Report is just as interesting!
Get involved. Pay attention to the election of council members – it is a very important election and very few people vote. The direction of Littleton won’t change until there is a change in the leadership of Littleton or a significant number of citizens become involved and the council members have to respond. Until then Littleton is well on the path of mega retailers (Lowe’s and Wal Mart). The next portion of the path is mixed use, code for high density, and we are on our way down that path too (Littleton Station and Littleton Village which has been approved for mixed use and 900 dwellings).
Thanks,
Carol Brzeczek