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To the editor: A new, larger Wal-Mart Supercenter is good for
Lincoln and Logan County.
For the past several years Lincoln and Logan County residents
have elected to spend their money outside of Logan County. Their
decisions have resulted in fewer new retail stores in Lincoln and
less retail sales taxes collected to pay for the needed services
that we have grown accustomed to and expected from our city and
county governments. In order for these services to be continued, our
city and county governments have had to turn to increasing
real-estate taxes and raising sales taxes to make up for the loss of
revenue as a result of the out-of-county shopping by Lincoln and
Logan County residents.
In all due respect, there was a compelling reason why our
residents stopped shopping here. We lost all of our local chain and
local department stores and several local grocery stores, beginning
with Wards, Sears, Penneys, Kmart, Myers Brothers, Spurgeons,
Landauers, Eisner, Eagle, Red Fox and the old IGA.
[to top of second
column in this letter]
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We now have an excellent opportunity to reverse this trend by
accepting Wal-Mart's offer to reinvest in Lincoln and Logan County
by them agreeing to add a much-needed third local supermarket and a
much-needed additional gas station here. They will also be paying
higher real-estate taxes for this much larger facility, we will be
receiving much higher retail sales taxes from these improvements,
and this added competition should lead to lower food prices and
lower gasoline prices for all area residents. A new Wal-Mart
Supercenter should also spark additional development to Route 10
West because other retail chains will then recognize that Lincoln
and Logan County must be worth making an investment in, if Wal-Mart
is reinvesting in this market. This, too, should result in higher
retail sales taxes, while providing very good reasons for us to shop
at home, in Lincoln and Logan County.
In my opinion, this is our only hope to reverse the past trend
and habits of residents shopping out of town and to once again begin
to grow Lincoln's retail trade area by giving residents a good
reason to spend their money in Lincoln and Logan County.
Les Van Bibber
Lincoln
(Posted Nov. 25, 2005)
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