Does the city of Lincoln want an expanded Wal-Mart?  

To the editor:

Does the city of Lincoln want an expanded Wal-Mart?

First of all, if you haven't noticed, Lincoln already has a Wal-Mart store on the west side of town. They have been here for years. And the parking lot there is always crowded. The big question is: Does the city of Lincoln want to allow them to come into town and spend several million dollars to buy up some high-priced ground; build a new store with appropriate streets, sewers and utilities (infrastructure); provide more than a hundred new part-time and full-time jobs; bring in additional sales tax dollars to the city's pocketbook; and potentially bring in additional businesses in their currently leased building and on their proposed out-sites? All this for a mere $600,000?

It's interesting to hear so many people express their absolute distaste (or hatred) for the capitalistic monster that Wal-Mart has become. I wonder how many of the people that are so concerned about saving the "mom and pop" businesses here in our quaint little community refuse to shop the malls, Meijer's, Sav-a-Lots, Sam's Club, etc. in the surrounding communities.

What businesses would you think would be most threatened by the expansion of our local Wal-Mart store? Maybe Kroger? I do a lot of shopping at Kroger and will probably continue to do so with a Super Wal-Mart store right next door. Would Kroger be considered "mom and pop"? I visited the Kroger website and read, "Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Kroger (NYSE:KR) is one of the nation's largest grocery retailers, with fiscal 2004 sales of $56.4 billion." Sounds like a little healthy competition to me. Does anybody else think Kroger could use a little healthy competition? I personally think that Lincoln is large enough to fully support three grocery stores.

(Also, does anybody question whether a member of the city council, employed by Kroger, should be allowed to vote on whether or not to allow another grocery store to open next to her company's store? She even gave that as her reason for voting against it. Is this a conflict of interest? Weren't some people recently in an uproar because farmers serving on the county board were going to vote on a proposed ethanol refinery? Just asking.)

I personally don't think Lincoln's IGA will be seriously threatened by either Kroger or Wal-Mart. They have too many loyal customers who appreciate the personal attention and community feel of this locally owned chain store.

What other stores are so direly threatened by this retail giant's hope to expand?

I've heard people complain the Wal-Mart's goods are not American-made. I fully support buying products made in the good old U.S. of A., but I honestly don't give that a lot of thought when I go out to buy something. So just today, I looked at the label of the sneakers I bought at Goody's. Made in China. I recently discovered that my American-made car was assembled in Canada. Even my Lincoln Railer baseball cap, while it was assembled in the USA, was made with China materials. It says so, right on the label in my hat. The kitchen timer I'm using to cook supper tonight was made in China, but I didn't buy it at Wal-Mart. Where do I go in Lincoln (or elsewhere) to buy American-made products? When we buy things, whether it's a TV at Best Buy (or Wal-Mart), a pair of shoes at Payless (or Wal-Mart) or underwear at Penney's (or Wal-Mart), do we really pay that much attention to where the item is made? Why is Wal-Mart suddenly solely responsible for our national trade deficit?

When I go to our local Wal-Mart store (remember, they're already here), I see many of the same employees that I have seen for long time, people who have worked there for several years. I know many of them by name. They seem friendly, relatively happy, and they also appear to be dedicated, hardworking employees. None of them seem abused, enslaved or the like. If Wal-Mart is such a terrible place to work, why are they still there? There are still other employment opportunities in our community.

I'm sure that each and every employee of Wal-Mart would love to be paid 50-100 percent more than they currently receive. Who wouldn't? Maybe Wal-Mart should raise their prices 10-15 percent and fire half of their employees so that they could pay the remaining employees more money and/or provide them all with more extensive benefits. Does that make sense? Does a company have to provide all of their employees with affordable health-care insurance in order to be a decent employer? It would be wonderful if it could happen, but how many businesses could realistically do that? How many good employers could satisfy that criteria?

I'm not attempting to defend Wal-Mart or their business practices in this brief letter. I'll leave that to them and their P.R. people. I'm sure that Wal-Mart is not the perfect company or employer.

But let's be honest with ourselves and our neighbors. If we want our community to grow and prosper, we need expansion, new businesses and new jobs. Even if those jobs are not $40,000-a-year jobs. We need Sysco, MII, Kroger, Big R, Cracker Barrel, Eaton, Apollo Mart and more. We need them all.

Dennis Willmert

(Posted Nov. 30, 2005)

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