Several residents in the small community of Smyrna, Delaware (pop. 5,000) contacted sprawl-busters this week about a suprise attack from a combination of Wal-Mart officials and town officials. On June 19th, after 4 hours of debate, the Smyrna Planning Commision with 1 member on vacation made a motion to approve plans for a Wal-Mart distribution center, reportedly 1.2 million square feet. The vote was 2 to 2. None of the council members knew what to do in case of a tie, so they passed a second motion to vote again when the 5th member of the Commission comes back to town. Here’s a grassroots report from a Smyrna resident: “I live in a very small community in Smyrna, Delaware. We have a BIG problem. Wal-mart is building a Distribution Center right in our small town. They have already been through our Mayor, our School system and our Fire Departments to be approved to build. We have no idea how long this has been in the makings, but they are buying 200 acres of land right beside our industrial park and are planning to break ground on September 16th. Wal-mart has not even purchased the land yet, however everything seems to be approved, except by the people that care what is going to happen to our town. But as we dig deeper we see that nothing really has been approved, they just seem to be able to take over. THEY are going to build a 30 acre building, plus parking for 1500 trailers. Our Town Council says that they also have another investor with them, but will not disclose who. Can you believe the amount of traffic, pollution, noise, and everything this plant is going to create. I don’t think our State and town does. We need you BADLY. I just read an article that you went to Rehobeth Delaware on September 8, 1999 and as a result was able to stop a Super Wal-mart from being built in their community. On June 20th we had a town meeting and repre-sentatives of Wal-mart from Texas were there and could not answer any of our questions. We had around 80 concerned citizens present and I believe we overwhelmed them. However they will be back on July 1st to our next meeting and I am sure they will be armed and ready for any attack that we can possibly come up with.
For more information on Smyrna vs. Wal-Mart, contact [email protected].
