mesa legend

May 3, 2005
IDEAS AND OPINIONS

Bass Pro, yes; Wal-Mart? Not one more

Riverview. It sounds beautiful.
Police and firemen in Mesa are apparently all for the newest shopping center going up in Mesa.
But Dan Harkins and Eddie Basha are against Riverview.
What exactly is it?
If you ask the Mesa City Council, they will tell you it is the opportunity to bring 5,000 more jobs to city residents.
Will they tell you those 5,000 jobs are mostly minimum wage?
Bass Pro, the fishing store, will be an anchor. The nearest actual Bass Pro store is in Las Vegas, and there are plans to build ones in Dallas and Denver.
Maybe we could stand a store with that reputation in Mesa, it sure would bring in a lot of money!
But Wal-Mart is the other anchor store for Riverview.
Why?
I attempted to find out how many Wal-Marts there are in the Phoenix area. My attempt turned up 30 stores in our metropolis.
Guess how many were in Mesa? Eight! We already have more than 25 percent of Wal-Marts in the Phoenix area. Good grief!
Why on earth would we want another?
Do we really need another store with a cheap but poor selection of merchandise? That’s what dollar stores are for!
Do we really want to give more money to a corporation that doesn’t think its employees deserve to be paid for hours they are forced to work “off the clock?”
And then, to add insult to injury, we are being asked to bankroll this endeavor, to the tune of an estimated $40 million to $84 million.
Oh yeah, but it’s not out of our pockets they assure us. Not directly!
The Mesa council promises the tax incentive from the developers will include the developers making public improvements to Dobson Road.
But the city of Mesa –and its taxpayers—will REIMBURSE the developers for impact fees, permit fees, and the cost of those public improvements.
That’d be money from our pockets.
“Well,” you say, “that doesn’t sound too bad.”
Personally, I like camping, and fishing. I could tolerate ONE huge chain store like Bass Pro.
And I think it’d be nice to be able to see a movie at somewhere OTHER than Harkins or AMC (I miss Madstone), so Cinemark would be alright.
But Wal-Mart?
Is there any way the voters can pick who gets to set up shop at Riverview?
If I was mayor for a day, I’d ban that sleazy, low-down corporation forever. And then I’d make them pay us for having to put up with their shoddy stores right now.
Quality matters to me.
Doesn’t it matter to you, too?