Almost before the echo of our mouse click to publish our last post died, the editorial department of New Mexico's largest newspaper floats in to defend the questionable reasoning behind the city council's Wednesday Osuna Purchase. Today's Journal derides the residents of Vista del Norte for being a group of "not-in-my-backyard neighbors who want to close the gate to development right after they move in." (ABQ Journal - Subscription Required)
However, they support the council's decision to buy the land because we need landing sites for the Balloon Fiesta; which is a simple excuse for the council to exercise their anti-Wal-Mart passion. How many years has the Fiesta been at the Alameda site? They just now noticed that the site needs to be preserved for balloon landings?
The balloon argument has actually been floated before by the NIMBY neighbors with little notice by the council or the Journal. Now that the Reflecting Pool waters have parted and the landing excuse is uttered by the holy ones at the Fiesta, the city council and the Albuquerque Journal Editorial Department are in favor of wasting at least $6.1 MILLION tax payer dollars AND unleash the city's eminent domain thugs to steal the property.
The council and the Journal are no better than the residents of Vista del Norte. In fact, they are considerably worse. They're trying to disguise their own version of NIMBY under the cover of hot-air. A little advice to the neighborhood associations of Vista del Norte, keep negotiating with the developers of Wal-Mart.
2 comments:
Another "loaded diaper" here.
What do you think? Does America need a Wal-Mart on every corner? Are you shopping there? Do you really SAVE money? What are the long term consequences?
Most Americans create a shopping routine for convenience and price, time is short with our busy lives and being able to pull into a massive parking lot, fighting for parking, dodging pedestrians, shopping carts and oil slicks get to the big box is for some, our anticipated weekend outing.
Others see the big box as a threat and recognize all too well, the long term negative consequences to our quality of life and the economics of the community we live in.
Businesses continually push for higher market share as they fight to get their piece of the American Pie. The ultimate goal for some companies is to obtain the "whole" pie, thus creating a monopoly raising prices to the consumer, because "they can" due to their ultimate control of the supply chain. The Government usually steps in with control measures to ensure fair business practices and prevent corporations from total domination and price setting. A very good example of this was Ma Bell 30 years ago and more recently, Microsoft.
What is going on here? A new Big Box is popping up on every corner is Uncle Sam turning a blind eye? Do they care? Most citizens resist Government intervention, however sometimes it is necessary for the long term success of our economic engine.
Let us know what you think!
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