Unscientific poll now ongoing at the Adirondack Daily Enterprise website. The question is "Do you want the 121,000-square-foot Wal-Mart that has been proposed for Saranac Lake"?
I believe there are basically three groups involved in the ongoing Wal-Mart story. The first group wants a Wal-Mart and only a Wal-Mart and the bigger the better. The second group understands the need for a large retail store but seems to want to limit the size of the store to 68,000 sq ft or below. A large proportion of this second group also does not want the store to be owned by Wal-Mart because of Wal-Marts business practices. The third group wants the status quo - no large retailer. I believe the first and second groups probably comprise at least 90% of the people in the area. I also believe that the sizes of the 1st and 2nd groups are quite similar.
So how do groups 1 and 2 'work together'. Well, obviously the square footage of the store would be an easy place to begin to compromise. A more difficult problem is with those who insist that Wal-Mart has to be the store and refuse to consider trying to attract another company. They have the advantage that Wal-Mart obviously wants to come to the area and thus far K-Mart or Target or someone else has not expressed a desire to build here. Wal-Mart also now owns two contracts to purchase the land in SL. However, those contracts are probably worthless without the 10 acres that belong to the village.
I wonder how much Wal-Mart would be willing to compromise in this situation? Wouldn't it be wonderful if the village could insist that Wal-Mart provide affordable health care coverage for Wal-Mart employees. Many states are now beginning to pass laws that companies with over 10,000 employees must spend a certain percentage of their income on employee health insurance. Wal-Mart can afford to provide decent healthcare coverage unlike many local businesses. Wal-Mart could increase their prices by one half percent and easily start treating their employees like human beings.
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Have you heard the story about the proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter in Massena or Malone (?) that wants to locate across the street from an existing Wal-Mart? The town is considering using eminent domain to acquire the land from the existing business owner.
I guess this is standard practice for the big boxers like WM and Target. See
http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/23/news/fortune500/retail_eminentdomain/
2/15/2006 9:38:27 PM from IP# 66.153.31.40
From some recent postings it looks like the SAGA square footage has increased to 68K from 40K for the Wal-Mart. I think I heard that the entire former AMES shopping center is approximately 80K. If this is true I see no problem with a Wal-Mart limited at 100K for the proposed area across the street. It seems they should be allowed 40K for the grocery store portion, which is the same as PriceChoppers, and 40-50K for retail, with the additional 10-20K for the drug store / seasonal departments. In this view it puts a little perspective on the size when compared to the existing former AMES shopping complex. I think we need to find a Happy medium or compromise in scale between 68K and 121K, I merely propose the 100K option be examined by SAGA in view of the new supermarket which is included in the plan. I do not shop at Tops as I find the stores substandard and I am forced to do grocery shopping at PriceChopper, which is the only game in town, and has the potential of becoming a monopoly in the Saranac-Lake-Placid Area!
With all due respect (to everyones opinions and thoughts), I would like to respond to the grocery comment above. At least we have 3 stores to choose from at the current time. Two Grand Unions (formerly Tops) and one Price Chopper. We have choice. If WM comes in, there is a very real chance it will put all 3 of those stores out. What choices will that leave us with? Walmart is substandard itself, so you may be forced to shop at Walmart. Furthermore, what will the Village residents without transportation do, the ones who can now walk down to Grand Union? Will they now have to pay for transportation to Walmart on the edge of town? Just some thoughts.
Thank you.
your group #1 - the walmart bigger and better group - seems both angry and willing to make a political wedge issue out of it. This makes compromise much harder.
I agree that group #1 seems quite upset. I think they believe that group #2 doesn't want a new retail store. I think they are frustrated that, until now, no large retailer has shown interest in locating to SL.
Dear Adirondack Wal-Mart,
Since you are such a Democratic Liberal, I thought you would like to rethink your actual sentiments and personal positions - It seems at least on the local level with a close analysis Democrats have become Republicans and Republicans have become Democrats. Have we crossed over the looking glass - Pinch me am I in Alice's Wonderland. I am not the author of the text below - courtesy of the ADE Web Poll, but it is something you may want to think about. P.S. Do you still have your Sam's Club Card - If So I really think you should burn it!
2/16/2006 9:48:15 PM from IP# 68.64.65.5
I am amused by the last political comment that is supportive and cheering for the Democratic Candidates for Village Election on March 21st. "Have a Vision," "Right-sized store." These I am sorry to say are nothing more than push button empty words that mean ablsolutely nothing. Words are cheap but getting a retail store to locate in Saranac Lake takes more than just political jibberish it takes hard work and not just sitting on your hands and waiting for somthing to come along that you hopefully like and will not disturb you little unique part of the world where middle class families, the working poor and the those who unfortunately find themselves living at or below the povety level. If you don't think these demographic groups don't exist in Saranac Lake your are truly kidding yourself and live in a very unrealistic world. There are families here in Saranac Lake who stuggle each and every day to put their kids through school, pay high energy fuel bills, and that is with both partners working. You easily forget our large population of senior citizens who live on fixed incomes and have to make tough choices between paying rent, paying property taxes, paying for medicine or putting food on their table. The universe does not revolve around your little white bread world. I am a Democrat and proud of it but I am absolutely ahsamed of the Saranac Lake Village Democratic Committee for the slate of candidates they put up for office this year. They are all anti-Wal-Mart candidates and they are hiding behing the false promises that they can bring some sort of department store to Saranac Lake and magically snap it out of the air. Our Democratic Party in this village has forgotten who they are suppose to be fighting for.....those same working class families, working poor and individuals who find themselves living at or below the poverty level. Their interests have always been the cause for which the Democratic Party fought for but it seems that under the leadership of Mayor Tom Catilliz we now have a slate of candidates who Harry S. Truman would chartarize as a big bunch of "do nothings." They don't want change. Christy Fontana is the candidate of Historic Saranac Lake and the Village Improvement Society and the Ladies of the Saranac Lake Free Library. Unfortunately, many working families are often to tired to get down to the library. The sound of Tom Michael speaking out on issues involving Saranac Lake is deafening. They are hoping that the anti-Wal-Mart crowd will carry them into office with a great mandate to absolutely nothing to bring a retail store to Saranac Lake. We already have Wal-Mart ready to come into our village. Democrats should be on the forefront fighting to get that store here and help our local citizens stay here in our own community to shop. But instead they have decided to abandon everything our Party has stood and fought for just to get three candidates who are tied in with the anti-Wal-Mart crowd. This year for the first time in many many years I am absolutely ashamed to be a Democrat in Saranac Lake and will for the very first time in my entire voting life be voting for all the Republican candidates on March 21st. They at least are fighting for the majority in this town who want Wal-Mart to be here. This is nothing short of a very sad day and time for the Democratic Party in Saranac Lake and I hope they are totally rejected at the polls on Election Day in March. They deserve no better from the voters.
The poor people that person is referring to are the ones that will likely get jobs at Wal-Mart. They are the ones that will get sub-standard wages and rotten benefits. I don't see how wanting Wal-Mart to give employees a living wage and decent benefits is not a liberal position. In my simple mind at least, liberals believe in helping disadvantaged individuals. Conservatives think they should sink or swim.
Dear Adirondack Wal-Mart,
Do you still have your Sam's Club Card?
My hope? Everyone will think beyond cheap underwear, and ultimately do whats best for Saranac Lake! Politics, religion, and Wal-Mart!
Commenting as the spokesperson for SAGA I would like to clarify a couple of things that are refered to in comments made above.
First - sorry this appears as "anonymous". This is Mark Kurtz writing and I'm not blog savvy and I don't know how to sign in with my name at the heading.
Second - SAGA is not affiliated whatsoever with this blog. Someone had told me about it recently and I checked it out for the first time only yesterday (Thursday, Feb 16)
Third - In reference to an "anonymous said..." above (8:51 AM), SAGA has not changed it's position on the size of a large scale retail commercial development. However, I do agree partially with one of the writers above: The proposed W-M could scale down to a total of 68,000 square feet, 40,000 square feet for it's general merchandise store and 28,000 square feet for it's grocery store - make it two separate stores in a well designed shopping center. This would allow for a W-M that would address the needs of the community. W-M has recently built and is currently building 40,000 square foot stores that carry the line of products that would easily address the needs and concerns that have been raised in the tri-lakes area regarding a greater choice of affordable goods. There could be a certain amount of cooperation in bringing an appropriate sized store to the tri-lakes area that would address the needs of the community if those constantly opposing the so-called anti-WalMart folks would stop trashing SAGA and recognize that we want the same thing, just in a size that fits into the community. Imagine if we worked together! We could move things along more efficiently and smoothly and not be wasting time and energy on negative rhetoric. SAGA feels it's important for Saranac Lakers be in the drivers seat as this proposed development moves forward. I admit that I'm not confident that a huge out of town multi billion dollar company will build something with serious concern for the community - they need to be controlled and directed to what WE (Saranac Lakers) want and not simply what the huge Wal-Mart wants. They will conform but we have to have both the backbone and the appropriate regulations in place to tell them: hey, you can come here but you have to play by our rules.
If anti "anti-Wal-Marters" continue to express dissatisfaction for a reasonably sized store you are going to lose credibility in your campaign to bring a department store here, especially when an organization like SAGA has gone on record as not opposing W-M - just build it in the proportion of our community. We urge people to be positive and realistic or you stand a chance of losing everything.
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