Don’t look now, but Wal-Mart is facing a “mini movement” to block its effort to build a huge supercenter on Highway 29 in American Canyon, California. In response, Wal-Mart is underwriting the cost of a tent party to present a dog-and-pony view of its “Napa Junction Project”, which will feature its supercenter, restaurants, office space and housing. The American Canyon Planning commission is slated to review the architectural designs on July 22nd, but the Napa Register reports this unsettling “mini movement” against the project that “is gaining momentum”, according to the newspaper. Wal-Mart is holding a 2 hour open house where its traffic engineers, architects and housing developers will host booths and answer questions. “It’s an opportunity for the public to come down and ask any questions in regard to the Wal-Mart project,” American Canyon’s City Manager explained. “If there’s a concern or a problem, they can literally go to the developer or the corporate representative.” The City Manager noted that a petition against the superstore may have been circulating recently at the city’s Fourth of July celebration. “There’s a lot more opposition than I expected,” the Manager admitted. “What concerns me is a lot of that opposition is just ‘we’re against it’ without a lot of reasons.” The City Manager, who seems to be doing most of the spade work for Wal-Mart, defended the company from the charge that it would hurt small businesses in American Canyon. “We don’t have a downtown to destroy,” he said, adding that Wal-Mart will buy the land, not lease it, so they will not skip town and leave an empty hulk behind. Meanwhile, the ‘mini movement’ against Wal-Mart is cloaked in mystery. The Napa Register says “it is unclear who spearheaded the petition drive against Wal-Mart,” but another newspaper, the Napa-Solano Post, said the anti-Wal-Mart petition was avaiable at the newspaper’s office, and a full page ad ran in that paper with the headline, “Keep Wal-Mart Out of American Canyon.” The ad was signed “by your friends, neighbors and area businesses to protect the future of our community.”
The ‘mini movement’ in American Canyon is so emblematic of the battles against Wal-Mart every other canyon in America: local officials carrying water for the developer, unabashedly promoting the project, even though they have no data to support their enthusiasm. Local residents being intimiated by officials and the media, turned into a ‘mini movement’ to dowplay its significance, and denigrated as being “without a lot of reasons.” If the City Manager of American Canyon went door to door among his constituents, he’d come back with an armload of reasons, and perhaps would not be surprised next time by the level of opposition to the plan. In American Canyon, its hard to measure which party has failed the public more: the party-throwing developer, or the ‘happy talk’ city officials. Neither group is listening very hard to what the taxpayers, homeowners and businesses of American Canyon are saying. Wal-Mart buildings, for the record, are owned by the Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust, or often leased from a developer. But Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. does not own the building, and the decision to leave a store — which Wal-Mart often does — is not influenced by whether they own or lease the premises.
