Sprawl-Busters in Southlake, Texas report that residents are organizing to block a Wal-Mart supercenter. Citizens report that “Town council is very publicly soliciting Wal-Mart not to close an existing 10-year old smaller facility and is having serious discussions about putting a Sam’s Club in the old facility and giving them tax breaks etc. At the same time they would bring in a Wal-Mart Supercenter across the street. Very controversial in a very upscale community. Seems to be a lack of understanding even among the many sophisticated and intelligent citizens and community leaders about the
long-term detrimental effects of mega-big box on existing businesses and infrastructure. Even the familiar game plan of playing neighboring communities off one another is applicable here. The grapevine says that the town next door is also in ‘competition’ for the Supercenter and to make it even more of a soap opera, the mayors of the two communities are cousins and major land holders! The only argument coming from the Southlake City leadership now is that ‘we need the tax revenue’ but many conflicts of interest, influence peddling and inside deal-making among big land holders and city leadership prevails. Town Hall has just relaxed our zoning ordinance dealing with outside storage so the existing Wal-Mart can now park big, ugly storage-type tractor trailer rigs behind their store to ‘prove’ that we really do want them to stay. Town Hall seems to be doing all this behind closed doors with insiders and the old guard with absolutely no honest input from the citizens.”
For more information on the Southlake Neighborhood group, and its emerging battle with Wal-Mart, go to www.neighborhoodsouthlake.com
