Wal-Mart foes face a taxing challenge

Officials say retailer a revenue generator

By Berny Morson
Rocky Mountain News
Jan. 26, 2005

Opposition to Wal-Mart stores is losing ground to the reality that the giant retailer is also a giant generator of sales taxes.

Two new metro-area Wal-Marts open today, including one in Thornton, where city leaders were forced to reject another store the company wanted after angry citizens threatened to put the issue on the ballot.

Thornton Mayor Noel Busck said half of his city's general fund comes from sales taxes, and Wal-Mart is a big contributor.

In Lafayette, opponents packed the City Council chambers last month to protest a Wal-Mart expansion.

"It tends to destroy what we want to think of as our small-town atmosphere," said John Bollinger, a leader of the opponents. "It's the antithesis of what we like to think our town is."

But City Council members saw an even worse fate for Lafayette without a bigger Wal-Mart.

"We could have (city) employees count to seven, and every seventh employee is gone," said Mayor Chris Berry. That's the magnitude of the revenue cut the city faces if Wal-Mart closes its present Lafayette store and builds the expanded version in a neighboring town, Berry said.

The council ended that December meeting with a unanimous vote to offer Wal-Mart $2 million over three years as an incentive to stay in Lafayette.

The Arkansas-based company has attracted an impassioned cadre of opponents nationwide who dislike everything about the world's largest retailer, from the way the stores look to the wages workers earn to the reliance on suppliers in China and Third World countries.

In Colorado, five communities - Arvada, Denver, Monument, Windsor and Thornton - rejected Wal- Mart stores in recent months. In addition to Lafayette and Thornton, stores were approved in Broomfield, Aurora, Lakewood and Centennial.

The Centennial Wal-Mart opens today. Although Thornton jettisoned a Wal-Mart planned for the north side of town last summer, a new Super Wal-Mart also is opening today near Thornton Parkway.

In Westminster, proposals are pending for a new Wal-Mart on the east side and an expansion on the southwest side of town.

In Lafayette and nearby Longmont, where the most recent battles were waged, city officials opted for the sales-tax revenue that supports city services.

"They were chasing the golden carrot that was dangled in front of them," said Glenn Spagnuolo, a leader in the fight against the Longmont store.

Wal-Mart is a lightning rod because it's the biggest of the big boxes, said company spokesman Keith Morris.

"It's solely because we have grown and evolved to become the nation's largest, most successful retailer," Morris said.

Every other big box is selling merchandise made in the Third World, and Wal-Mart's wages are based on the averages paid at other big boxes in the area, he said.

Entry-level wages are between $8 and $9 an hour, with the average wage at $11.60. The new Lakewood store drew 1,500 applicants for 500 jobs, Morris said.

Local leaders say existing Wal- Mart stores have not driven small businesses out of Lafayette and Longmont, as charged by opponents.

"My answer is, it didn't happen then and it's not going to change when a bigger Wal-Mart comes," said Vicki Trumbo, the director of the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce.

People "freaked out" in 1987, when the present Wal-Mart opened, Trumbo recalls. But most of the small businesses along Public Road - the city's old downtown - are still there, she points out.

As for claims that Wal-Mart's practice of buying from overseas drives down wages in this country, "That's a global issue," Trumbo said. People who are concerned about it shouldn't shop at Wal-Mart, she said.

Such issues carry more weight in nearby Boulder, where talk of a Wal-Mart store brought loud public opposition in recent years. No store was built.

Trumbo points out that Boulder has seen three years of municipal budget cuts.

"So be careful who you close the door on," she said.

In Longmont, opponents have not ruled out a referendum against the Super Wal-Mart approved by the City Council last fall. But Spagnuolo, who led the opposition, concedes the battle would be uphill.

Mayor Julia Pirnack said she received between 800 and 1,000 calls and e-mails on the issue in the fall. They ran more than 2-to-1 in favor of the new store, she said.

The city can't exclude a business because some people object to its labor policies, Pirnack said.

"We have a Department of Justice that looks into that," she said.