GILROY
– If you have an opinion about Super Wal-Mart coming to Gilroy,
now is your time to speak up. The city has started the process for
public comment regarding the controversial relocation and expansion
of the nation’s largest chain store.
GILROY – If you have an opinion about Super Wal-Mart coming to Gilroy, now is your time to speak up. The city has started the process for public comment regarding the controversial relocation and expansion of the nation’s largest chain store.
On July 29, the city will hold a so-called public scoping meeting so citizens can address the impacts related to placing a Super Wal-Mart store in the ever-growing Pacheco Pass Shopping Center at the junction of state Highway 152 and U.S. 101. Issues aired July 29 may be included in an extensive environmental review for the development (called an Environmental Impact Report).
The mega-retailer is conducting the EIR voluntarily. A less stringent review would likely have sufficed.
“I think this shows the level of our commitment to the project, that everything gets considered,” Wal-Mart spokesperson Amy Hill said.
Earlier this year, Wal-Mart announced plans to move the super-sized version of its decade-old 7900 Arroyo Circle store into the new regional shopping center. The new retail complex will be 220,000 square feet – more than double the size of the existing store – and will include a grocery store.
The plans were met with stiff resistance from some Gilroy residents and various food workers unions who believe the presence of a Super Wal-Mart grocery store would destroy locally run markets and take jobs away from Gilroyans.
In March, at least 100 people – many of them workers from United Food and Commercial Workers Local 428 – protested the company’s practices in a carnival-like event in front of the current Wal-Mart on Camino Arroyo.
Protesters expressed fears about everything from quality of life impacts to more direct and personal worries that a Wal-Mart grocery store – which does not use union labor – will threaten the existence of Gilroy’s current grocery stores while creating downward pressure on the wages and benefits workers receive there.
“Wal-Mart is a merchant of shame,” Ron Lind, a Local 428 spokesman, told the crowd that day.
Hill said economic concerns would be addressed in the EIR, but it is not clear how deeply those impacts would be reviewed. In the case of traffic and air quality impacts – two EIR mainstays – detailed scientific analysis must be done.
“The economic component may not be looked at the way our opponents want,” Hill acknowledged.
Gilroy Planning Division Manager Bill Faus said City Council will have to determine the extent to which the EIR covers economic impacts.
“There are a number of instances in the past (in California) where economic issues came up as part of a city council’s determination (if an EIR was complete),” Faus said.
The meeting will be July 29 at 4 p.m. It will take place in side Gilroy City Hall Council Chambers.
