Tuesday, September 21

score: Wal-Mart 1, Tax Dollars 0

The parking lot of the Anne Frank Elementary School was almost full when I arrived; no surprise, since the issue of Wal-Mart moving into the neighborhood is seldom a cause for celebration, and commonly attracts a crowd.

I attended part of a Town Hall meeting, presumably put on by the City of Dallas. I'd guess 300 people were in the auditorium; this is substantially more than the most recent Town Hall meeting where they discussed how much our taxes will be raised. Score one for Wal-Mart in beating out that Tax Increase meeting (shaking head).

Dallas Mayor Laura Miller was there, along with a Channel 11 news crew and two Dallas Councilmembers, and several members of City staff, including Theresa O’Donnell (Director of Development Services).

Wal-Mart has a reputation for using lawyers to Win At Any Cost; you don't get to their level by playing nice. It was obvious that Wal-Mart was orchestrating the meeting, and had made the City Council into their pawns. Their agenda was to allow people to stroll through the adjoining gymnasium and view artist renderings while munching on tea & crumpets. Then, they planned to show a slide show of what the new store will look like. Only problem is they didn't communicate that, so 200 or so people were left stewing in the auditorium until about 7:20 when one of the Councilmembers took the microphone and announced the delay. This was not the way to Win Friends And Influence People.

The meeting started more than 30 minutes late. Also, many people signed in at the first table inside the door, onto to find out it that the person manning the table was not from the City of Dallas, but from Wal-Mart (there was no signage or badge to identify her).

Wal-Mart sent Bob McAdams, Vice President of Corporate Affairs. He's an obvious professional with these community meetings, and never lost his cool (while I was there, anyway). I'm not sure if it was the intent, but he wasn't the one in the crosshairs tonight; it was the site developer: Prudence Laverne represented The Archon Group. Early on, the heat was generated due to "oops! accidental!" destruction of some trees, witnessed from across the street (people dining at La Madeleine). Although they "saved" 287 trees which have been temporarily moved to a tree farm across the street, Dallas code requires a permit anytime a tree with a trunk larger than 8 inches in diameter is involved. The Archon Group also took heat from several deviations to the site plan (formerly the Prestonwood Mall).

Another left field issue was the density of parking spaces; even the Mayor said that if it's striped for compact cars, it'll not go over well in Dallas (where the average vehicle is a Ford F-250 pickup). They mentioned something about Dallas Article X (10), a landscape ordinance; this bears further investigating.

At that point, I left the meeting, which presumably went on until 9pm (when the janitors were to clean up).



The final episode of The Amazing Race 5 was on the telly tonight, and I wasn't all that surprised with the outcome. As has been noted on various TAR fan forums, the editors have been positioning Chip & Kim for the past 6 episodes or so. The termination of the race was here in Dallas at something called Trammell Crow Park, but I've never heard of it. Hmm .. it looked undeveloped when this was filmed (February 2004).

Interesting blog: DavidCorn.com (lots of political insights; only those who are free thinkers should read it). I wonder if he's read The Scobleizer's How your blog will get discovered

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