Against the Wal-Mart Expansion

Wal-Mart wants to expand their store on Dam Road into a Supercenter. The new store will be 156,000 sq ft and be opened 24/7 which will put a drain on City services and cost more tax dollars. To make matters worse, the expansion won’t generate a significant amount of revenue for the city, since it will mostly add non-taxable goods and small stores in town will likely close down or have reduced sales.

A WAL-MART SUPERCENTER WILL…

Generate approximately 45,500 car and large delivery truck trips weekly.

• According to the Institute of Transportation Engineers, a Supercenter will generate approximately 45,500 car trips weekly!

• Traffic from the expansion will also increase runoff into the lake and, create tons of green house gases, and unhealthy air pollution.

Threaten our downtown and put locally owned stores out of business.

• Locally owned businesses are at risk. In the worst economy in over 70-years, we must protect local businesses, not make it more difficult for them to survive.

• A community will lose1.4 jobs for every job a Wal-Mart creates, according to a study on www.newrules.org. The jobs that get shifted to Wal-Mart are part-time, low wage jobs with no benefits.

Not increase the city’s tax base; it will just create urban blight.

• A Wal-Mart Supercenter will just shift our tax base from struggling local stores to the Supercenter. A supercenter will not increase sales of goods in Clearlake, just shift them from one store to another.

• Local stores will go out of business causing urban blight and job loss. Empty storefronts create economic holes that can spread, closing other stores in the same neighborhood center and attract crime and graffiti.