EDITOR: Wal-Mart in Gilroy, has announced that it intends to put
in a monstrous super center. This super center will be 40 acres in
size, more than 200,000 square-feet. If this super center opens, it
will have a
“kill zone” of 20 plus miles around it.
EDITOR:
Wal-Mart in Gilroy, has announced that it intends to put in a monstrous super center. This super center will be 40 acres in size, more than 200,000 square-feet. If this super center opens, it will have a “kill zone” of 20 plus miles around it.
The super center intends to target every type of business and shut every single competitive business down. The Wal-Mart Super Center intends to sell or have books, toys, bicycles, groceries, furniture, computers, software, bakery, hair salon, dry cleaners, pharmacy, oil changes, tire sales, music, arts & supplies, liquor/wine/beer products, electronics, floral, video rentals, etc.
Wal-Mart’s strategy is simple, fool the people then take everything they have, causing them to be dependent solely on Wal-Mart. Contrary to Wal-Mart’s evil plot, you need to remember, “Just Say No!”
There seems to be a lack of knowledge, commonsense and/or reality with those who believe the misinformation that Wal-Mart grinds out of its propaganda machine. Any realistic in-depth study of the company will see that Wal-Mart is truly not a good neighbor. Wal-Mart does make minimal donations to the community, but its devastating business practices will more than counter all of the community assistance it may have given.
If the super center does open, then an irrevocable devastation to the communities of Gilroy, San Martin, Hollister and Morgan Hill will occur. Many scoff at that suggestion, but any serious study of smaller communities like ours will show how a Wal-Mart Super Center has “strip-mined” the entire surrounding communities.
With the Wal-Mart expansion, our hometown store owners will take the biggest hit. Wal-Mart will send out it’s super center spies to scout out the competition in Gilroy, San Martin, Hollister and Morgan Hill. A Wal-Mart Super Center on the offensive against its local competition will be willing to take losses on the merchandise that our hometown businesses sell.
Wal-Mart managers will ascertain what they are selling and at what prices; then they will stock, advertise and sell those items at prices near or below their cost, an illegal tactic known as predatory pricing. Our hometown businesses will not be able to compete without losing money, and will eventually be driven out.
One of the “carrots” the Wal-Mart Super Center will hold out to our small towns will be the promise of jobs. But, for every two jobs created by Wal-Mart, at least three jobs are lost. The Wal-Mart Super Center jobs that are offered will be part-time and low-paying. The vast majority of the Super Center employees will work fewer than the customary 40 hours a week. Wal-mart Super Centers define a full-time worker as someone who puts in 28 hours per week.
Further 60 to 70 percent of these workers have no health insurance. Wal-Mart is not really offering new jobs in the way a manufacturer would be. If the super center opens it will be selling merchandise that was already available in our communities, it is just going to be rearranging the way money already gets spent in our towns. What it offers is not job creation, but job re-allocation and, eventually, job loss.
Other businesses will suffer. Businesses not directly competitive with the Wal-Mart Super Center will not share in Wal-Mart’s wealth. Newspapers will see a decrease in advertising dollars as smaller business are sent into extinction. Wal-Mart will rarely advertise through our local newspapers. Our local banks will not see an influx of Wal-Mart money, that could be used to help the towns’ infrastructure. The super center may make a nightly deposit, but its money will then be electronically transferred back to its private bank in Bentonville, Ark.
Downtown Morgan Hill, Hollister and even San Martin will die. This is the all-too-frequent result of a Wal-Mart Super Center infiltration – and it’s part of the plan. Wal-Mart’s super center’s formula is to provide a neatly packaged and heavily promoted alternative to our small downtown communities. Just look at downtown Gilroy, look what the smaller version of the Wal-Mart Super Center did, all that now occupies downtown Gilroy are antique and used furniture stores. Do we want that to happen to the other downtown areas? No.
With the super center, taxpayers pay for the disaster. Along with the lost jobs, there will be lost sales tax from the closed businesses. Remember, Wal-Mart will be adding nontaxable items (i.e., groceries) that will not generate any more sales tax then the current store generates. People who once made a livable wage will not be spending their money in our community and all the new Wal-mart employees will be earning a wage rate that is at or below the poverty line, walk-in shoppers will disappear as people will bypass Morgan Hill, San Martin and Hollister to shop at Gilroy.
Even scarier are the tales from the towns that actually were strip-mined by Wal-Mart. A small town’s lifeblood isn’t always enough to feed the world’s largest discounter. Once the competition is out of business, and the community cannot support a super center (to Wal-Mart’s standard) it will pick up and leave. Then the community has nothing at all, just like the hospital healthcare crisis, Morgan Hill has been suffering.
Our communities do not need a Wal-Mart Super Center. Wal-mart will bleed our communities dry of their uniqueness and its small town atmosphere; do we need to be another San Jose? I strongly encourage everyone to contact the City of Gilroy Planning Commission and City Council, let then know that you will hold them responsible for the devastation that will be caused.
Let them know that you will make sure that their political careers will end. Let the politicians know that each of us will work to elect a person who truly cares about our communities and those who will be devastated by the Wal-Mart Super Center. Let the Morgan Hill and Hollister City Councils know that they need to protect their community and help stop this Wal-Mart Super Center expansion.
John Reese,
Morgan Hill
