The Christmas season usually brings glad tidings to retailers, but a local activist group is intent on putting a wrap on Walmart’s wishes of super-sizing a store in Lompoc.
Receiving a monetary boost from the nonprofit Fund for Santa Barbara, a grassroots campaign calling itself Citizens Against Walmart Expansion (CAWE) is ramping up efforts to block the retail giant from expanding its location on West Central Avenue by 51 percent.
CAWE member Robert Cuthbert, a former union organizer, said he’s opposed to the expansion because of the negative impact “big box” stores have on the development of a local economy.
“A typical pattern of Walmarts in a community like ours is to get their footprint and expand it,” Cuthbert said. “Right now, our biggest concern looking at the facts is that Walmart out-competes small businesses, it exchanges high-paying jobs for low-paying jobs in the retail sector. Even in a bad economy, an expansion is just not a good idea.”
Walmart representatives hadn’t returned phone calls to the Sun as of press time, but have stated to city officials in the past that the expansion would create as many as 100 new jobs.
Cuthbert, who said he intends to run for Lompoc City Council, said any job creation brought about by an expansion would be countered by the loss of jobs in local grocery stores.
“The net increase in jobs is marginal,” Cuthbert said. “The health of a local economy really depends on small businesses, so without a small business sector working and thriving, creating a big box only means a smaller tax base. When you start to depress wages and your major employer is a big-box retail, you really don’t have a whole lot going through your economy.”
Members of CAWE have been battling Walmart since the corporation first announced its intentions to build a store in Lompoc in 1992. In 2006, when the company unveiled plans to expand the location into a 207,505-square-foot Supercenter, the retailer faced more opposition. Walmart later scaled back the size of the expansion plan, which now calls for an increase from 109,838 to 151,271 square feet.
The city’s first public hearing on the proposal took place on Aug. 26 and drew about a dozen protesters, led by Lompoc City Council candidate Harry Keim. A
subsequent meeting hosted by CAWE on Oct. 29 drew about 30 people to the Lompoc Public Library. Attendees listened to Santa Barbara City Councilman Das Williams and activist Elliott Petty speak about efforts to stop Walmart from adding stores in Ventura and Inglewood, respectively.
According to Lompoc Planning Manager Lucille Breese, the city is currently preparing the draft of the project’s Environmental Impact Report. Breese said she expects the EIR to be released by the end of January. Then, it will be posted for public review for 45 days before the city will hold a second round of public hearings.
In the meantime, Cuthbert said CAWE would use the $3,000 grant from the Fund for Santa Barbara to continue research and further educate the public on the impact of big-box retailers on local economies.
The group is also in the process of collecting signatures for a ballot measure that would restrict the size of retail stores. So far, the group has more than 2,000 signatures and is looking for volunteers to gather more.
This article appears in Dec 24-31, 2009.
