City Council members want your Wal-Mart questions

I believe the wal-mart distribution center is an awful idea. I remember about 12 years ago the wal-mart store came into Merced promising decent paying jobs for hundreds of citizens. However, in the reality of it, it did bring hundreds of jobs to this area but they are mostly minimum wage jobs. Okay for students but hard to raise a family on. That is why most of the employees at wal-mart are getting some kind of government assistance like welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, free lunch for their children, etc. In fact, I've even heard of Wal-Mart having inservices to help aid their employees in applying for these services. What we need is higher paying jobs with benefits to help the citizens of Merced. I know that the distribution center promises jobs at $14.00 an hour but in reality the wage will probably be a lot less. More than likely all the management or higher up jobs will probably be offered to people already in the company not to new highers here in Merced.

I think that bringing the wal-mart center is a huge trade off for a couple hundred jobs. In exchange for a couple hundred jobs we'll have increased traffic, more air pollution in our valley, noise, etc. In most cases distribution centers are placed in industrial areas not in the middle of a residential area, not right next to a school.

As it is the university expressway has not been finished which means that we only have access to Pioneer school through one road as Coffee and Mission street have both been barricaded. So as it stands all the trucks will have to come down Gerard Ave. right in front of Pioneer School which is already seriously overcrowded in both the morning and afternoon. We have people double parking in the middle of the street because of the overcrowding now we are going to add several thousands of trucks a day down that road? Allowing Wal-Mart trucks to freely use the expressway will make it very difficult to get to North Merced for students, parents, patrons of businees which was the whole purpose of the expressway in the first place. If the city allows this we might as well change the name of the university expressway to the wal-mart expressway because that's the only people that will be able to use it since it will be too congested with trucks. Why doesn't the city suggest the other side of the freeway where there are no residential developments or schools?

All in all I think this is a huge mistake in exchange for at best a few hundred jobs.

Leslie,

I read your story from June. I just want to point out that despite the 4.5 hour tour at the center and the comments about 'few trucks' being seen, Wal-mart goods (mostly imported from China) do not magically appear from the works of elves using teleportation. This is a major regional distribution center on par with any major port or airport. Any 1.2MM square foot logistics facility requires massive 24/7 truck traffic to support it and the 900 full time employees. That traffic alone will have a major impact (cost) on the city/county and its residents. Is Wal-mart going to pay for all those new streets, or are the tax-payers?

As a former banker for Wal-mart and one that tracked Wal-mart's imports from China, it is important to note that Wal-mart's "success" is driven by their capacity to buy massive quantities of goods. These volume purchases command reduced prices from manufacturers, who over time structure their business to rely more and more upon Wal-mart. If you sell to Wal-mart you are required to drops your prices each year going forward. These reduced prices require US (any) manufacturers to ultimately relocate US jobs to China and elsewhere to bring down costs (no environmental, employee safety laws, payroll taxes, etc. China labor costs are typically only 5% of the US). Wal-mart has a special unit that compels 'helps' move US manufacturers to China in order to meet these price targets. What does all this mean - Wal-mart is simply a distribution affiliate for China exports.

Wal-mart (anybody) coming to Merced is a good thing. However, the reality is that any big corporation is only willing to relocate to an area if they are given "free stuff" by the local politicos. The big worry is how much will Merced residents subsidize Wal-mart for the privilege of making $14/hr. The untold story is; What list of tax holidays, infrastructure improvements, imminent domain actions, etc. will the city/county give to Wal-mart on the backs of citizen taxpayers to build this distribution center. Wal-mart is no dummy. Just as they are talking to Merced, they are talking to everyone else - waiting to see who is desperate enough to build their distribution center for them. This kind of predatory bottom feeding will induce some local mafia of politicians to give away the farm at the expense of everyone else. Merced is no different than Atwater, Madera, Chowchilla and the like in this matter. If you were in Wal-mart's shoes you would try the same strategy - grind away at small communities for new subsidized development in the same way you treat your suppliers.

You really need to transparently report just what the citizens of Merced have to give Wal-mart in order to get this going. Does it make economic sense? Is it a net gain to Merced or a net loss? This is important, because it is already well documented that many Wal-mart employees must also receive tax-payer social service just to make ends meet. If Wal-mart is already unwilling to pay its own employees enough to live on, why do we assume that building their distribution center is any different to our fair city?

PS: Why the Kim Shaw/UC Merced fraud conviction cover-up? The paper reports teens having sex at malls, but does not report on a UC Merced employee taking $30,000. You guys went nuts last year on a UC Merced employee that used a stolen credit card. That name Shaw sounds familiar. I guess white collar crime is not worth reporting.