Wal-Mart Is Focus of Feud Over Land Use

Its foes publish ominous ads warning that Wal-Mart will “invite . . . economic disaster” and “destroy Simi Valley.”

Its advocates say the giant discount store will boost sales tax revenues, bring more shoppers to Simi Valley and perhaps even lure someone to build the mall this city has dreamed of for so long.

And before Wal-Mart has even applied for a building permit for its planned 135,000-square-foot mega-store, this city is abuzz. There are rumors, half-truths and promises of an uncommon split on the usually unanimous City Council at Monday night’s meeting over whether a shopping center--with an outlet for the nationwide discount chain--belongs here.

But Wal-Mart itself is not even on the agenda. Even as the City Council girds for a noisy hearing, it has no power to approve or reject the giant retailer.

Wal-Mart alone could start construction in the west end tomorrow with nothing more elaborate than a set of city-approved plans and a bulldozer.

The real issue on the agenda, almost obscured by the sound and the fury over Wal-Mart, is land use.

The council is to decide whether developer Stan Rothbart can have a zoning change to build a “power center” of stores on about 30 acres of rolling hillsides if his plans include retail stores smaller than 70,000 square feet, as well as the big Wal-Mart structure. The Wal-Mart site is now zoned for commercial buildings of 70,000 square feet or larger.

But sentiment against Wal-Mart--and thus, the zoning change--continues to grow, fanned in part by inflammatory hyperbole from Wal-Mart opponents.

The Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce set out nearly two months ago to draft a position on the rezoning plan, which would switch more than 45 acres of the west end from industrial use to retail.

“Wal-Mart keeps coming up, and it ends up being the focus of the discussion,” said Alan Rice, chamber president. “Lots of calls from chamber members have been saying, ‘We oppose [Wal-Mart],’ but at a board level the discussions and focus of our communication is the debate over what the land is intended to be zoned and used for.”

The chamber board set up a Wal-Mart task force, which surveyed nearly 800 chamber members and 1,000 other Simi Valley businesses. The survey showed businesses opposed Wal-Mart by nearly 2 to 1, said Dennis Barbee, the chamber’s president-elect.

Added chamber CEO Nancy Bender, “Our members have expressed a desire for more shopping and the [hoped-for] regional mall. But on this they keep saying, ‘It’s another general merchandise store, and we don’t need another general merchandise store.’ That’s the comment that keeps coming to us, and they’re pretty passionate about it.”

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Former chamber president Michael McCaffrey helped tabulate some of the survey results: “An overwhelming majority of them oppose Wal-Mart,” McCaffrey said. “They cite predatory pricing, low wages and consequently few benefits for the employees, and negative business practices.”

But in the end, the chamber chose to stick to the core issue, announcing on Friday that it opposes any zoning change to allow more retail stores where the city could have job-generating industrial development instead.

At the heart of the anti Wal-Mart ad campaign is a coalition of businesses and residents led by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which opposes the giant store chain because it refuses to unionize.

UFCW lobbyist Jim Dantona said that Camarillo-based Local 1036 of the store workers union is fighting Wal-Mart to protect the Simi Valley market from nonunion competition.

“Their issue is really two words: market share,” Dantona said, referring to the local labor market. “Being able to give people livable wages, have health-care benefits and make sure the employers pay well.”

But the advertisements on cable TV and in local papers focus mostly on fears that Wal-Mart would hurt small businesses and the city’s economy.

The union- and business-supported newspaper ads have stirred residents’ passions, warning, “Don’t waste $1.6 million from Simi Valley taxpayers for Wal-Mart!” and “Don’t kill any chance for a regional mall!”

But several council members scoffed at the anti-Wal-Mart campaign, saying it urges people to demand that the council overstep its powers and engage in illegal obstruction of trade.

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What’s more, several council members point out, the ads are misleading.

“If you look at the advertisement [in a local newspaper], it says something to the effect that the city is going to pay Wal-Mart $1.6 million to come here,” Councilman Bill Davis said. “And that’s a damn lie.”

In truth, he said, the city plans to spend $1.6 million of the $4-million to $5-million cost of extending Cochran Street between 1st Street and Madera Road. The road will serve the city’s infrastructure as well as the shopping center, he said. And the developer is to pay the rest.

Davis dismissed the mall-killer claim as “a scare tactic.”

“I do know this,” Davis said. “[We went] to Vegas last year and met with 20-some-odd major businesses [at a convention] and asked, ‘Why won’t you come to Simi Valley? We certainly have the acreage for you and the population; we certainly have the income-per-person for you.’

“And to a person, they said the same thing: ‘Because you don’t have a major drawing card,’ ” Davis recalled. “ ‘You give us a . . . Best Buy or a major Wal-Mart that is within a center, and we’ll be there.’ ”

Mayor Greg Stratton disputes the widely held notion that Wal-Mart would hurt small business. That image stems mostly from the store’s impact in smaller towns, where Wal-Mart became the first and only general-merchandise store, and took business directly from smaller stores.

“In our community, we already have a lot of general-merchandise stores, and I don’t see where Wal-Mart is going to make any difference at all,” Stratton said. “The behemoths are fighting among themselves, but that’s the way it is. They’re competing with K mart and Target, but so what? No one’s shown me anything that says a small business is going to be hurt by Wal-Mart.”

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In fact in Oxnard, fears that Wal-Mart would permanently ravage that small business community have pretty much evaporated in the three years since the retailer opened a store there, said Florence LaManno, president of the Oxnard Chamber of Commerce.

“There’s no doubt that some of the businesses were impacted because they [Wal-Mart] have taken customers away from those businesses,” she said. “But right offhand, I couldn’t come out and tell you of any particular business that was directly affected. Wal-Mart and [neighboring discount store] Sam’s Club have proven to be good neighbors, and they are involved in the community and are community contributors.”

Simi Valley Councilwoman Sandi Webb, whose libertarian views occasionally put her at odds with the council majority on economic issues, agrees with Davis and Stratton.

“I honestly don’t quite understand the animosity toward Wal-Mart,” she said. “I don’t see any difference between K mart or Target or Wal-Mart. . . . I think we need some sort of power center there. I think it will attract a mall.”

But Councilwoman Barbara Williamson--who opposes Wal-Mart now as she did nearly four years ago when the voters passed a measure opposing a plan to build a Wal-Mart store on the 1st Street mall site--disagrees.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people in the mall business and they have great concern over what we are doing,” Williamson said. “Their concern is that this whole power center is going to take away from the mall site as far as people who would be actually coming to the mall.”

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She also said she believes that Simi Valley has enough discount stores and does not need low-paying jobs or bargain merchandise of the type Wal-Mart would bring.

Williamson said she has not decided firmly whether to oppose the zoning change for Rothbart.

“I’m going to listen to the facts,” she said. “If somebody can convince me to change my mind, I’ll do it.”

But Williamson dismissed a suggestion that her own ties to the anti-Wal-Mart forces--Dantona has been her campaign manager and the UFCW has given $2,000 to her council campaigns since 1995--might color her decision.

Dantona is a friend, she said. What’s more, Williamson said she also accepted a $1,000 donation from Louis Pandolfi, a part-owner of the proposed Wal-Mart site, which is principally owned by Woodland Hills real estate investor Adrian Murphy and his family.

“I do what I think is right,” she said. “You look at what the chamber’s doing, too. I’ve lived in the community for a long time, and the businessman has been my friend. I’m not going to abandon this issue.”

Straddling the fence is Councilman Paul Miller.

“I have not made up my mind at the moment,” Miller said last week. “I’m waiting to see the staff report and some analysis in that report regarding land use all over the city. Any time you look at rezoning a piece of land, you need to look at the potential overall effect on the city five, 10 years from now. Every time you nibble away at the buildable land, you cut your options later down the road.”

Miller said he has seen no facts supporting the accusations that Wal-Mart brings low-paying jobs and threatens to damage small businesses.

“One of the things that we owe our constituents is a careful consideration of the issue,” he said. “The other thing we have to be careful of is that I don’t think the city can discriminate against any retailer just because of who they are.”