Wal-Mart tells landowners: Sell or else

[sabra]

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-walmart1206may12,0,5034430.story?coll=orl-jobs-utility

Wal-Mart tells landowners: Sell or else
The retailer cites eminent domain in its bid to build a massive distribution center.

The world's largest retailer, battling to build a huge new distribution center in Putnam County, is threatening a handful of rural residents that they may have their land taken if they don't agree to sell it to the company.

Representatives of Wal-Mart have told the landowners they will ask Putnam County to use its powers of eminent domain if the families won't sell. The retailer needs about a half-dozen parcels to widen a road that would provide access to a proposed 800,000-square-foot distribution center just over the Volusia County line -- a project Volusia officials have gone to court to block.

A letter to the landowners gave them until 5 p.m. Thursday to agree to a deal with the company.

The deadline came on the same day that Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law a bill curbing local governments' use of eminent domain to benefit private businesses. But the bill, which was in response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed a Connecticut city to condemn an entire coastal neighborhood for a developer, does not apply in this case because the road is public, said a legal expert who helped craft the legislation.

[Deja Q]

1. The results of this will be very interesting.

[Tempest]

2. It would be political suicide for any local official to approve this

Especially considering the distribution center is being held up and the outcry against using eminent domain for private use.

[warrens]

3. Wal-Mart cracks me up

I've been writing about them for about 20 years. Every couple of years, they start a PR campaign to soften their image, spend a ton of money on it, then go do something like this. Leopard, spots...

[brentspeak]

4. All right, Mall-Wart, try it.

With any luck, this could spark such a national outrage that anti-American/pro-Chinese Wal-Mart will lose half its business.

[Kagemusha]

5. It's not like Wal-Mart is lying or making this up.

The county may well indeed use those powers...

At some point Wal-Mart's entirely justified in saying, we both know what you are, we're just talking about the price. (Which is an unflattering way to put it, I understand, but what "you are" in this instance is a seller of real estate whether you want to sell it or not, because eminent domain does not imply taking the land for free like a thief. Per se.)

[KansDem]

6. Time to call out the Pinkertons?

If I remember correctly, during the heyday of the railroads, rights-of-way were obtained from farmers by using the Pinkertons as essentially "goons."* We know Jeb knows many goons, but are any of these Pinkertons he could call on?

Incidentally, the Pinkertons became the model for the FBI
________
*Although the Pinkertons are mainly known more for strike breaking.

Many historians note the railroad strike of 1877 as a watershed in the late nineteenth- century labor movement. In the economic downturn that followed the Panic of 1873, railroad managers cut wages, increased workloads and laid off workers, particularly those who belonged to unions. In July a series of strikes broke out among unionized workers who were protesting wage cuts. Violence spread from Pennsylvania into the Midwest. At one point, nearly two thirds of the railway mileage in the country was shut down. Private police - the Pinkertons - and state militia were called in by company owners to control the strikers. The courts issues injunctions against the strikers, citing conspiracy to obstruct the U.S. mail in some cases. In August that year, a judge in Indianapolis gave railroad strikers who had violated his injunction short jail sentence for contempt of court. After a month of unprecedented carnage, President Hayes sent in federal troops to end the strikes.
http://www.connerprairie.org/HistoryOnline/1880econ.html

[madrchsod]

7. the new pinkertons will be home soon

once we leave iraq they`ll be locking for work...

[saigon68]

8. They will be Killing soon in a town near you

[LostinVA]

15. I had never heard that about the FBI

Huh. Makes sense. Scary sense.

[Javaman]

9. So the picture is complete, china-mart resorts to mafia tactics...

I knew it was only a matter of time.

[genieroze]

10. It figures.

[Odin2005]

11. Say hello to your new corporatist feudal overlords.

To them our property rights mean nothing, we are like serfs to them.

[flvegan]

12. For a "distribution center"...it won't happen.

A distribution center, ie warehouse doesn't benefit the community as a whole.

[SoCalDem]

14. Ahhh, but walmart will use the "jobs jobs jobs" argument

This is their favorite ploy. They tell local-yokel planning commissions about all the wonderful jobs they plan on providing.

[freethought]

13. Actually, I am not surprised by this story.

Why would anyone think Wal-Mart would do anything less? Not only that but have you ever seen their CEO, Lee Scott, interviewed? The very second the interviewer puts him on the spot you can see him get upset and angry, he grits his teeth, his face turns red, he becomes combative and rude. Personally I think the man is a psychopath. Probably why the Waltons like him.

[IntravenousDemilo]

16. If I were one of the property owners affected,

I'd feel perfectly within my rights to firebomb WalMart's corporate HQ and to sabotage the bulldozers and other equipment working on any new distribution centre.

[Ilsa]

17. Corrected headline: WalMart tells landowners to bend over. eom

[sandnsea]

18. This isn't what happened in Connecticut

In Connecticut there was a complete renewal project, with housing, park, bike paths, etc. They did not just declare eminent domain and hand over land to a corporation. It was a dangerous mischaracterization to make and now we see what happens when the public is misinformed. The people in Florida won't understand this is different and will allow themselves to be bullied.