Posted on 05/28/2006 7:52:10 PM PDT by SmithL
Hercules once had a reputation as a city that never saw a development it didn't like. But as Wal-Mart has learned in the past few months, times have changed.
Today, this city of about 24,000 residents stands as a national symbol of small-town audacity after its City Council unanimously agreed to invoke eminent domain to take over a tract where the world's largest retailer applied to build a store.
The David-versus-Goliath quality of the showdown has drawn the attention of the national media and created a public relations quandary for Wal-Mart, which in commercials has portrayed itself as a good employer and welcome friend to the communities where it builds stores.
Resident Jeffra Cook, a member of the group Friends of Hercules that led a grass-roots revolt against the store proposal, greeted the council's display of steel as "a welcome experience." With continued vigilance of the citizenry, said Cook, who has had her differences with the council in the past, "the hope is (that) no longer is anything so easily rubber-stamped here."
Steve Kirby of Friends of Hercules set the tone early at a public hearing Tuesday, calling on the council to "throw the bums (Wal-Mart) out."
Wal-Mart's foray into Hercules actually began quite auspiciously. Two years ago, three council members and the city manager went on a tour of several Northern California Wal-Mart stores with a vice president of the Lewis Group, the previous owner of Wal-Mart's Hercules tract. Afterward, Councilman Ed Balico said he had seen nothing of the "social challenges" for which Wal-Mart is often criticized.
"I saw working people, regular people, people who wanted to buy," Balico said in April 2004.
But residents quickly made it clear they did not want a Wal-Mart near the Hercules waterfront.
Hercules' erstwhile pro-development reputation grew out of a frantic residential building boom that lasted from the late 1970s into the 1990s. Subdivision after subdivision of single-family houses blanketed the hills surrounding what was then one of California's fastest-growing cities. The city transformed from a company town of fewer than 100 people to a suburb of about 17,000 in about a decade and a half.
On the waterfront, meanwhile, the Pacific Refining Co. refinery represented the bulk of Hercules' sales tax base while other cities such as neighboring Pinole built shopping centers.
Development slowed in the 1990s, and was down to a trickle by 2000. Pacific Refining closed in the late 1990s, leaving a sales-tax revenue gap the city is struggling to fill. The 880-home, upscale Victoria-by-the-Bay subdivision occupies the site today.
In 2000, Hercules officials conducted a series of neighborhood planning sessions to forge a vision for the vast undeveloped area near the waterfront south and west of North Shore Business Park. It culminated in the Hercules Waterfront Plan and the Central Hercules Plan.
The plans favor pedestrian-friendly development: live-work studios; houses with car access via back alleys; upscale boutiques and restaurants; a Capitol Corridor train station; a ferry terminal. In short, they want to make Hercules a "destination."
Hercules' vision has been likened to a 21st century version of Main Street, Smalltown USA, with a taste of New England. Articles in national magazines hailed Hercules as a pioneer of the "New Urbanism."
"The citizens spoke," said Community Development Director Steve Lawton. "They said they wanted a high quality of life; not a lot of traffic; and nice places to eat."
That vision does not include a big-box store, most residents say.
Wal-Mart's tract is 171/4 acres about midway between San Pablo Avenue and the Bay. A 2003 development agreement with Lewis limits store size there to 64,000 square feet; Wal-Mart's latest scaled-down application calls for 99,000. It was the third application, counting one that Lewis made on Wal-Mart's behalf. "Three strikes and you're out," Kirby said at Tuesday's public hearing.
After about two hours of impassioned testimony, most of it in opposition to Wal-Mart, the council authorized the Hercules Redevelopment Agency to acquire forcibly the retail giant's property at the fair-market value to eliminate blight and to ensure the fulfillment of the redevelopment plan for the area. Wal-Mart has estimated the value at $13.2 million.
Wal-Mart attorney Edward Burg called Tuesday's unanimous council action "unprecedented."
Hours before Tuesday's meeting, a company spokesman had said the Hercules community widely supports a Wal-Mart store.
But few people spoke in favor of Wal-Mart at the council meeting, excerpts of which were widely broadcast. Backers included a Wal-Mart employee from Richmond and several residents who said they enjoyed shopping at Wal-Mart for its prices and quality.
The fight to keep Wal-Mart out of Hercules is rooted in an earlier struggle over a proposed development of more than 500 homes, a hotel, offices and stores in undeveloped Franklin Canyon at the easternmost tip of Hercules.
It spawned an opponents group, Friends of Franklin Canyon, that included Cook and Kirby. The group eventually sponsored a ballot initiative to restrict most land uses in the Franklin Canyon area to agriculture and recreation. The initiative passed by a wide margin in 2004. After the election, the group evolved into Friends of Hercules.
What began as a local tug-of-war over a piece of real estate now has taken on a more global dimension. Tuesday's meeting produced more comments about Wal-Mart's business tactics and employee relations than about the trellises, tiles and trees in its most recent, downsized Hercules design.
One speaker said Wal-Mart wants to build in Hercules solely to monopolize retail in the area. Eventually, he warned, Wal-Mart could replace the store with a warehouse, leaving Hercules with no sales tax revenue while Wal-Mart steers shoppers to another of its stores now under construction at Hilltop mall in nearby Richmond.
Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Loscotoff said the planned Hercules store was uniquely tailored to Hercules and intended as a neighborhood shopping center, not a regional one. Most residents, however, said a Wal-Mart would draw in unwanted traffic from out of town.
Mayor Trevor Evans-Young said council members had been advised by the city attorney not to comment on the Wal-Mart matter. He allowed, however, that he is not thrilled about the national attention.
"We're just a quiet town, trying to complete our redevelopment project," Evans-Young said.
Cook and Kirby believe people power had much to do with the council's willingness to condemn Wal-Mart's property on Tuesday.
"When a citizenry has been vocal as this one has," Cook said, "I don't see how a council can ignore it."
We're idiots! We don't want to pay lower prices! We want to pay the full price for the crap we buy!
David versus Goliath? What a crock. Libs complain that corporations are too powerful. If they are, how can stuff like this continue to happen?
We don't want any more growth but we do want a scapegoat.
This is an out right move by the Democrap/Communist to stop Capitalism. Stupid is as Stupid does!
I'm not a Wally fan but this is one dumb city.
So Walmart just builds in the town right next door. The clever leaders of Hercules lose out further growth generated by the Walmart anchor, and they lose any share of sales taxes that the neighboring town will now enjoy. But what do the leaders of Hercules care but for their self-righteousness?
All Walmart has to do is buy some property outside of the city and they will wind up siphoning all of the businesses out of the city tax base. Of course then the city will have to anex them back into the city because of the loss of tax money.
Good ole Wal-Mart ping.
I would rather pay "full price" once, than get a "bargain" that has to replaced several times in the same time frame due to it's poor quality.
Wall-Mart is really China-Mart, and nearly everything they sell is JUNK!
Wall-Mart demands that producers of quality products "rationalize" their products for lower pricing as a condition of receiveing WM contracts.
So even the good products quickly become trash when they begin supplying WM.
When WM achieves the sort of market dominance they are striving for, watch what happens to those "low prices"!
Invoking eminent domain simply to keep a lawful property owner from putting a lawful business on its property really is unprecedented. This is an abuse of the right of eminent domain. Cities can now buy the land of any company - or person - they don't like? Btw, what if Wal-mart buys some other property in the town - and some other, and some other. Is the town going to buy up all this property for vague "redevelopment" plans? I'm sure Wal-Mart could win that sort of competition - but easier to just put a store right over the city line and let the shoppers vote with their feet.
This was a "nice deal" for Walmart, nice as eminent domain goes. Hercules paid a pretty penny when they could have lowballed and stalled.
If it's facade that Hercules wanted, however, I'm curious why Walmart couldn't have customized theirs to the city's wishes. Even tourists would appreciate finding something familiar.
DirectFromChinaMart.
Bingo.
Really?
Where will they find the slaves to work even cheaper than China?
Darfur?
Palestine?
Ethiopia?
What third world crap hole will we shift production to in order to fulfill your prediction?
Jap cars, camera's and appliances were cheap once too, then they got enough market share to ramp up their prices and compete head on with U.S. products.
To H**L with China-Mart!
Urban congestion will increase as Jercules residents drive to the Wal-Marts & Costcos in neighboring communities.
If you, or Hercules, don't like Wal-Mart, then...just don't shop there!
What Hercules did was steal Wal-Mart's land (gee, thanks, Supreme Bozos). Had WM been able to build on it, the store would have brought in new business around it. Instead, they'll build out of town an Interstate exit and suck the town dry.
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