Gilroy council scheduled to discuss Supercenter tonight
GILROY – Five days before City Council makes the most controversial decision it faces in upcoming months, activists garnered Thursday a disappointing eight picketers to demonstrate against a Wal-Mart Supercenter in front of Arteaga’s Super Save on First Street.
Due to the low turnout, organizers canceled a march, advertised to the media, that was scheduled to conclude at City Hall.
The picketers were targeting City Council before the 220,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter project goes to a vote tonight. If approved, it will be the first Supercenter in Northern California and second in the state.
“Our concern is that the permitting process needs to slow down,” said Rose Barry, one of the picket’s organizers. “We’d like City Council to ask for an Environmental Impact Report, take a serious look at the EIR. There are some various concerns about exceeding the federal and state pollution standards.
“We’d like to see the City Council take some time to look at some possible mitigations.”
An economic impact report for the site does exist, although it does not look at the particular impact a Supercenter would have. It is from 1992 and only specifies that retail stores will go into the area.
Picketers echoed other ongoing worries cited by Wal-Mart opponents; namely, that independent grocers in Gilroy would go out of business.
“We want it to be here; we just don’t want (a Supercenter) to go over there,” said Felicia Rosas, a 73-year Gilroyan.
“We don’t need it, because these guys are going to go,” she said, indicating Arteaga’s.
Miguel “Mike” Correa, Councilman Paul Correa’s father, said he hoped the picket would show Councilmen the faces of people who feel a Supercenter would negatively affect Gilroy.
“I have no agenda for nobody,” Correa said. “It’s not just about union, it’s not just about non-union. … My agenda is ‘Gilroy total:’ Gilroy businesses, Gilroy families, Gilroy senior citizens.”
Wal-Mart Spokeswoman Amy Hill, in town to continue lobbying Council before tonight’s vote, discounted the picketers’ charge that a Supercenter will crush smaller grocers.
“Our studies have shown that there is more than enough growth in this area to absorb a Wal-Mart Supercenter and allow all the other grocery stores to continue to compete,” Hill said Thursday.
Wal-Mart’s low prices and underpaid, non-unionized employees unfairly target existing grocers, said Robert Shiraki, president and CEO of Arteaga’s Super Save.
“There’s a difference between free economy and deliberately trying to monopolize a market share with an unfair advantage,” he said. “I’m more than concerned about this.”
Shiraki said that, based on surveys conducted before the second Arteaga’s opened on Tenth Street in Gilroy, the city cannot support another general market grocery store.
Hill pointed out that Safeway has debated opening a second Gilroy store.
“I think that clearly demonstrates that there are other opportunities for growth in this market,” she said.
Bill Lindsteadt, executive director of Gilroy Economic Development Corporation, said Safeway last year was considering opening a second store, but no plans are in the works.
Hill said she met with nearly all Councilmembers individually, calling the exchanges largely positive.
“We definitely are getting very good feedback,” she said. “We are limited to a five-minute presentation, so we really want to talk to the Councilpeople to hear, what do they really want to hear from us?”
The picketers also signed a petition urging City Council to consider requiring another environmental impact report and mitigations that Barry said she plans to take to City Hall.
Wal-Mart wants to open the store in the Pacheco Pass Center in the first quarter of 2005.
If the retail giant were allowed to move, it would sell the 148,000-square-foot site to Hudson Jones Commercial Brokerage out of San Jose.
