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San Bernardino Superior Court Judge overturns the Town of Yucca valley’s approval of Wal-Mart’s phoney environmental report.
Commentary
There is much ado behind the Wall-Mart settlement. More than meets the eye. Sure, it’s about how was the $120,000 settlement reached and it encompasses proponents and opponents arguments on the proposed Yucca Valley Wall-Mart superstore.
What is surprisingly, and much overlooked, is the incompetence and complacency of the Town of Yucca Valley.
It opens up the Town to criticism for rubber-stamping a failed report that they knew or should have knows was flawed and fudged. The report was flawed on its face.
The study was “flawed and fudged” and the town of Yucca Valley went along with stale and incorrect data.
A San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge overturned the Town of Yucca Valley’s approval of the Wal-Mart supercenter. The court found violations of The California Environmental Quality Act.
Attorney John G. McClendon, of Leibold McClendon & Mann, represented opponents of Wal-Mart. According to McClendon, the judge found the important parts of their environment report was “flawed and was based on stale and incorrect data”.
McClendon also said said ‘the consultant fudged the superstore’s impact on retail vacancies, claiming they would be insignificant, and this conclusion was repeated in the EIR. Market data which indicated that the new Wal-Mart supercenter would almost certainly result in the closure of the Food4Less and probably one of the Town’s two Stater Brothers, setting off a spiral of urban decay. Wal-Mart’s consultant conceded that the superstore’s impacts on retail vacancies would be 16 times greater than had been disclosed in the EIR.”
The Center for Biological Diversity stated Wal-Mart had violated California law and they said the court agreed Wal-Mart broke the law.
The court ruling does not mean the Wal-Mart debate in Yucca Valley is over. Wall-Mart will now have to come back to the town with a new environmental report. However, it seems to be over for the recipient of the $120,000. Even so, Center for Biological Diversity may continue its suit.
There is a laundry list of incompetence flaws found in the report the Town of Yucca Valley approved. Some of those are:
* Wal-Mart attempted to avoid adopting feasible measures to reduce the carbon footprint;
* Wall-Mart bent over backwards to avoid incorporating cost-effective features;
* Wal-Mart failed to follow measures California law requires to take stronger steps to live up to its promise to reduce significant environmental impacts;
* Mal-Mart’s urban decay analysis was flawed and was based on stale and incorrect data.
Was the Town of Yucca Valley asleep at the wheel? Do they normally approve reports that are fraudulent, and violate the law?
It matters not if you are for or against the Wal-Mart supercenter. What matters is that that the municipality is short on leadership and far too cosy with developers — the four councilmen desperately need to be rotated with fresh and enthusiastic new leaders. Leaders that will work toward respecting the natural history of the Morongo Valley. And new town leaders willing to upholding the physical integrity and beautiful character and nature of Yucca Valley.
When you’ve got a Town playing monopoly with tax payers money, buying real estate — and trying to come up with a use for it, or sell it — there isn’t much hope .
The four councilmen need to be replaced. What is not needed is councilmen playing monopoly with taxpayers money buying and selling real estate. Nor is it productive for the city to uproot acres of old growth Joshua Trees and scrape the land for a new Arco station — when there is already a huge Arco to the West with acreage of barren for expansion.
The Town of Yucca Valley failed miserably in protecting the public and town residence and they rubber-stamped a bogus environmental report. A report that violated the law.
“The ends do not justify the means.” If you use illegal mean to accomplish a legal and even desirable result, the good result does not make the bad means you used justifiable.
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Let Superwalmart come to 29!
If it does become a reality, the Wal-Mart superstore will have the same floor space as its present store in Y.V. Who knew?
And the blight it will cause was understated by 16 times in Wal-Mart’s report. Local stores will close. The study shows that.
There is not really many stores in 29 that would close, you have to have stores in order for them to close. The thrift shops can remain there, and maybe they might have to actually lower some of their ourtragous prices so people who truley need the items can afford it.
Again Is say -- bring it to 29.
Here’s you sign
If you look at the stakeholders notes as presented for the general plan update you will notice that there was a strong desire FOR a large retail store in 29 Palms. Most mentioned target or walmart.
Does no one wonder as to why Walmart has not even asked Twentynine Palms what we can do for them to have them locate in Twentynine Palms?
Walmart has been put through the virtual meat grinding machine to build a store in Yucca Valley and it gets worse for them by each and every day yet they still do not even contemplate building that store in Twentynine Palms.
Have we as a City asked them to come here -- YES, YES, and YES!!!
Have they even entertained the thought -- NO, NO, and NO!!!
So, it is then clear as to why Walmart has not decided to build in Twentynine Palms. It is because we do not have a $120,000.00 a year Economic and Redevelopment Specialist.
Any Moron could see that! I guess that is what happens when you take the “go” out of Morongo!
Oh -- But wait.
We will soon have that $120,000.00 a year position and all will be well in Twentynine Palms.
Walmart and Target and many others will soon flock to our City.
I’m sure that Walmart’s failure to build here in Twnetynine Palms will be attributed to the fact that we waited too long to get that Economic/Redevlopment Specialist in place.
Tongue-in-Cheek, Tongue-in-cheek!
Your cheek is a fine place to keep your tongue, Steve. I guess once in a while though, it’s good to stick it out at the world!
The retail folks do a lot of analysis on where to put these monstrosities. They came to the conclusion that if they put it in Yucca Valley, then people from Yucca, Joshua Tree, and 29 Palms would come shop there. They looked at Joshua Tree as also a location where it would likely draw shoppers from all three (four, if we count Morongo) communities.
But they also realized that if they put it in 29 Palms, they’d stand to lose a lot of the Yucca Valley/Joshua Tree shoppers, who would then either drive 20+ minutes east to go to WalMart, or drive 30+ minutes southwest to go to WalMart, and the rest of the shopping/dining/entertainment opportunities of the Coachella Valley.
I applaud the city’s decision to hire an economic development specialist for $120,000, though you probably could have gotten four or five magazine publishers for the same price (not that you’d want them, mind you). Heck, I could probably turn The Sun Runner into Sunset magazine with that kind of money. I’d better not even think about this any more. I’ll get depressed.
One only has to look at where we are and who we are made up of to figure out why larger retail has a hard time looking at Twentynine Palms.
Q. How much money is it going to cost to get products to the store?
A. 62 Highway! Any further question on that?
Q. What is the population, and what is the population growth.
A. (This is the hard one.) There is NO good data for investors of Twentynine Palms. Investors look at the base as non-countable because they are told that this is nothing more than a training base where Marines come, stay a few days, and are gone.
Q. What environmental concerns are present.
A. Does my sanity count? No, damn! Well lets see if you listen to folks like Morongo Basin Open Space Group, Mojave Desert Land Trust, Morongo Basin Conservation Association, Sonoran Institute, Senator Dianne Feinstein, The Wildlands Conservancy, Campaign for the California Desert, Friends of the Desert Mountains, and Desert Protective Council just to name a few. What they would have you believe is that man is bad. These people have put together things like the Wildlife Corridor and Linkage Studies. They hired a company called Trust for Public Land, and they had their Conservation Finance team put together reports. ALL ONE SIDED!
These are just a few of the many reasons why we do not have larger retail in Twentynine Palms. I am sure others can come up with more.
All good points by all of you.
My point is that this new position will not change any of the factors that both of you have presented.
I just think it is throwing money away.
In any event the Council decided to proceed with the position with a 3 to 2 vote so it is a done deal. I’ll do my best to try and have a realistic and effective job description created for the position.
There’s a lot more to economic development than just dragging in a big box store. Every community has its opportunities and its limitations, and 29 Palms is no different. If you have the right person in there, and they put forth plans that receive the support of city government and the council, as well as the community, you could see some pretty positive results. But if not, then you would have been better off spending the money on some of the obvious needs of the city.
Anybody dealing with YV’s building inspectors knows the free passes given out to the developers. I guess that is how they keep their jobs. If independent inspectors were too tough, they were replaced.