Thursday, February 09, 2006
Wal-Mart in Saranac Lake - Evil Rears Its Ugly Head
So the 'rumors' turned out to be true. Wal-Mart just announced it wants to build a 121,000 square foot supercenter in Saranac Lake, NY. Happy days are here again - NOT. This is a done deal. A majority of Saranac Lake village residents are in favor of a giant Wal-Mart, so it will happen. The village will sell its 10 acre sandpit lot to Wal-Mart. What used to be Stanley Chevrolet will definitely sell; it's an odd coincidence that they gave up their Chevy dealership just a few months ago. Burger King 'closed' for the season in November; any bets that it will re-open as a MacDonald's since MacDonald's will be looking for a new location? Carcuzzi - well what can I say about Carcuzzi. A couple months ago I asked one of the partners if they would sell out to Wal-Mart. To paraphrase - nope, we are a brand new business and they would have to pay way too much to buy us out. Well, I guess the largest retailer in the universe can afford to buy out a little car repair business afterall. What really bothers me are the Village officials. They have claimed for months that they knew nothing about Wal-Mart wanting to purchase the village sandlot. Well, the Carcuzzi owner said he knew last summer that Wal-Mart was interested in buying his property, so I find it hard to believe that the Village officials didn't know. One can understand why a private business might not want to be upfront about their future plans, but there is no excuse for misdirection by public officials.
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9 comments:
Cool. If I take pictures of "Walmart People" will you put them on your blog? Not that I won't become one of them - I needs cheap smokes and shoddy consumer goods too...
Actually on the fence on this one. Hate going to Walmart, but don't like to drive to Plattsburgh (Plattsburra) to buy socks either.
OMG, that's craziness - I move to London and all hell breaks loose in SL!! Don't worry my grant proposal is done & about to be handed in - Thanks for your comments! Toodle-pip :)
I don't know SL well enough to answer this myself:
Which county is the proposed site in?
anonymous, it's in the Village of Saranac Lake, the Town of North Elba and Essex County. But since it is within the Village limits I think all decisions concerning this Wal-Mart will be made by the Village alone (with input from the APA, but Wal-Mart could buy and sell the APA)
b-wizz, only pictures of the 'greeter'. As you know I hate the 'greeter' even though in a couple of years I'll probably be one. I'll have to make sure to keep the weight off though if I want a job at Wal-Mart.
I think if you have a job as greeter at WalMart you'd have no problem keeping the weight off - you'd only be making enough to eat Ramen noodles and quaker oats.
Essex County officials have been trying to encourage more big boxes in along county or state lines for increased sales tax revenue purposes.
See their comments in a Press Republican article last week about the proposed Lowe's in Ticonderoga.
I propose a new county motto: "Who needs traditional community character when we can have increased tax revenues?"
Sen Schumer. has been advocating a Wal-Mart in the SL - TL area.
See http://www.senate.gov/~schumer/SchumerWebsite/pressroom/press_releases/PR01300.html
Great at least we have a responsible politician in our corner! Go Schumer!
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