That’s right. In one week we will see if voters in Rosemead will recall the last part of the council majority that voted to allow Wal-Mart to come to the city. See past posts about lawsuits and the recall here.
To their credit, Wal-Mart has stepped up to the plate and spent over $200,000 to protect those that voted for it. That is a lot of profit from toliet paper. But with union and leftist attacks on Wal-Mart increasing they have to go to bat for those willing to allow them to compete. See article here.
The San Gabriel Valley Tribune today also editorialized against the recall. They rightly pint out that this development brings much needed sales tax revenue and shopping access to Rosemead. By the way ,over 35% of employees will be Rosemead residents. (Hope Wal-Mart supporters registered them to vote). See editorial here.
Of course, the Wal-Mart grand opening is any day now.
September 14th, 2006 at 12:00 am
The Wal-Mart in Rosemead opened today, after the city council violated the Brown Act and stuck the issue on the agenda at the end of a 2 1/2 hour long meeting (after all the honest folks in Rosemead had gone home–The Wal-Mart supporters, of course, all stayed until the end, because they knew this was coming).
Wal-Mart has spent a WHOLE lot more than $200,000 in Rosemead, even though the SGV Tribune article led with that figure.
The $200,000 is just for contributions to Rosemead Neighbors (sic) Against the Recall (the group is based in Sacramento, and is fully funded by Wal-Mart), made between August 4 and September 4. Wal-Mart also gave $8,500 directly to one of the targeted candidates. And they contributed $40,000 to another front group, so-called Rosemead PRIDE, last summer. That was when volunteers were going door to door, gathering signatures.
Incidentally, another front group, “No on Rosemead Recall,” is now over $5,100 in debt. Similarly, for the January 1 – June 30 period, so-called Rosemead PRIDE had expenditures of about $25,000 greater than they had cash to pay the bills. Anyone care to guess who will pay for that debt after the election?
So that’s over $275,000 in expenditures in just the last year.
Wal-Mart also spent $60,000 in independent expenditures before the March 2005 municipal election, and gave so-called Rosemead PRIDE another $15,000 in February 2005.
So add it all up, and you’re looking at about $350,000 in Wal-Mart expenditures in Rosemead in the last year and a half.
Figure on about 4,000 voters in a typical municpal election. That’s nearly $100/voter they’re spending.
Of course, Rosemead does need tax revenue and jobs. The city lost 6,600 jobs between 1991 and 2000 (San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments 2001, http://www.sgvcog.org/1san_gabriel_valley_job_creation.htm, Table 2)
. Just more of Jay and Gary’s wonderful record of accomplishment in Rosemead.
Incidentally, the Wal-Mart front group took out a full page ad in today’s San Gabriel Valley Tribune. It says Jay and Gary brought “over 1,400 new jobs to our city.”
But there’s no cite and no time period referenced. Does that mean that they’ve brought a net 1,400 jobs after a combined 60 years in office? Or are they starting their count AFTER the 6,600 jobs that Jay and Gary lost for us? Either way, their record on job creation is not exactly an earth shattering.