Wal-Mart “associates” are known as “Walmartians”, but it was a different kind of alien that the INS found at the construction site for a Wal-Mart supercenter in Lake Charles, Louisiana.According to the American Press, the U.S. Border Patrol found as many as 30 or more illegal Mexican aliens working on the Wal-Mart project. The Walmexicans were carrying counterfeit Social Security cards, doctored immigration cards, and phony driver’s licenses. “This is odd,” a Border Patrol agent said. “Usually just a handful will have fake documents, but for all (30) to have counterfeit cards. It’s a little strange.” But if you ask Lake Charles neighbors, the whole Wal-Mart project has been strange, including the construction of a 680 foot long, 26 foot wide drainage ditch that has remained open with no fencing for nearly four months. Neighbors complain that the 5 foot deep ditch is a safety hazard, and should be tiled over and covered. This week, angry neighbors took their case to the Lake Charles zoning board to stop Wal-Mart from puting up 26 foot high light poles within the 15 foot buffer zone with residential properties. The Zoning Board voted unanimously to require Wal-Mart to move its light poles out of the buffer zone. But homeowners nearby continue to press for relief from the oppressive noise emanating from the massive construction project. One resident told local officials “I had to sleep in my closet for a week solid and board up my windows inside and out with plywood to get relief from generators being allowed to run all night.” While the noise may be unbearable, residents lament that the “loudest voices singing the highest praise of Super Wal-Marts belong to politicians,” who they say expect neighbors “to pay their salaries in the form of our taxes, while we have to sleep in our closets.” Finally, residents warn that once the store opens, they will have to put up with delivery trucks “making all kinds of noise and disturbing us all through the night and early morning.” Residents called police to the site recently because five 18 wheeler trucks were parked on the site and keeping the whole neighborhood awake. File this story under “Wal-Mart, good neighbor.”
None of the construction companies were fined, by the way, for hiring illegals on the Wal-Mart job, and the local unions complained about it at City Hall, but as one union official admitted: “It may be too late to do something about Wal-Mart, but something needs to be done before this happens again.” So the controversy just keeps piling up: the ditch, the light poles, the noise, the illegal workers. It’s left Lake Charles residents with the feeling that the entire project is out of control. What will happen when area homeowners go to City Hall looking for a tax break to compensate them for the diminished value of their largest investment in Lake Charles? Who will want to buy a house with a Wal-Mart as a night light? The Wal-Mexicans may have been carted off, but the nightmare on Nelson road continues for the unfortunate homeowners of Lake Charles. For local to contacts on Nelson road, email [email protected]
