Instead of just griping, Wal-Mart critics need to talk to some land use attorneys about Burbank’s contention that the Empire Center DA is so expansive in its entitlements that it automatically allows full-service food sales in so-called Big Box stores.
We don’t see it. They might also want to examine how the DA defines Big Boxes. There could be a very big and bad wrinkle here for Wal-Mart.
Because sorry, we’re not convinced it’s as easy as staff claims, especially when they rely upon language which uses words like “understood” to describe this so-called right to full grocery sales. Or that full-service food stores are not grocery stores. Staff was a little too glib about this in their report– and evasively incomplete about the legal/citation basis for their claims.
That the DA explicitly bans grocery stores from this old Lockheed property does suggest an internal conflict. And remember, too, that when this DA was approved in the late 90s, the ‘Big Boxes’ that they were talking about did NOT have full-service grocery stores inside of them.
They sold frozen pizza and Little Debbies. And maybe milk.
What Walmart foes really need to do is get real.
Allowing yourself to be used by Union Organizers & Union Lawyers as they “feed-you-lines” undermines anyone’s effectiveness.
Over the last 14 years there have been multiple opportunities to express concerns about the traffic problems in and around the Empire Center.
Even before that there were those who questioned the reconfiguration of 5 Points to accommodate the Costco Gas Station (Built in the middle of Victory Boulevard).
How about when the Dog Pound was moved to that location?
The wailing & gnashing of teeth over Burbank Small Business lacked in sincerity.
When the lawyers advised them to bitch about whether Walmart would CHEAT on their taxes it was “priceless”.
You have to wonder if these “oh-so-sincere” folks have a clue that the $ales Tax-Give-Backs on the Media Mall are scheduled to run through 2014?
Does Dr. Emily REALLY care if Walmart has LIVE Butchers? Is she more into Boneless-skinless-chicken-breasts, or…………fresh salmon?
We are pretty far from Salmon fishing, but some still raise chickens in our San Fernando Valley.
Maybe the Unionistas could use her help in organizing some of the “chicken-pluckers”????
Contrary to what the Leader is trying to do, this is not a union issue. There’s plenty of reasons to hate Wal-Mart.
Just wait until they start having “99-cent Barbecue Pit Weekends!” to put Handy Market out of business. That’s how they roll.
I really think the unions should try to organize their employees ASAP. Just to watch people squeal. I’d love to see some local corporate sap or sucker try to criticize it.
Without its union history, Burbank would look like Huntington Park. And only if we’d been lucky.
Please don’t sprain your precious brain my friend.
Those Unions & those Union Jobs we can both fondly refer to delivered a totally different service for the $$$$—
both for the workers and the employers.
Since those days we have seen quite a diminishment of the quality of the representation, both from the representative level and legal beagle level.
We now have Unionized Clerks throughout the Government Bureaucracy.
In the past, Local Union representatives FOUGHT not just for Health Benefit levels—-they FOUGHT for the HEALTH of the employees.
Hating Walmart is just like hating Harry’s or IHOP.
Don’t GO there.
As for Emily’s Planning Acumen, Catholic, Hindu, Moslem or Jewish—ain’t no never mind.
Upscale, Downscale means babble from Redevelopment Pukes.
For TOO long the “staff” fell in love with a particular “type” of establishment—and “sold” for the “developer of Week”, or……..
threw-up every roadblock imaginable to “block” the out-of-favor developer.
Lest you forget how little parking Earl’s World of Toys had.
Sav-On had TWO spaces, both for trucks at their loading dock.
Thrifty had NO loading Dock–but an agreement for adjacent parking, etc.
How much parking was there for the Glenoaks Branch Library?
When the Warehouse folks showed-up from Rialto, and the Local Ralph’s employee’s got chewed-out for NOT going to the “meeting” some of us “heard the conversations”.
Maybe you had a good idea—–sometime back, however……
that was the one about me being a “Walmart Greeter”!!!
Just look to the municipal code, adopted by the city, and other states
interpretations. Then review the state’s interpretation of “Variances” a “special” exemption to the Muni Codes. (see case history) Then enlist a non connected attorney, pro-bono, because they WILL win.
p.s. Staff gets muddled in their egotistical efforts or bosse’s efforts to
“make it happen” and need to understand that since they live in the city, they are really part of the Alex de Toqueville philosophical society.