Letter to Walmart Corporate from CoM -December 1, 2015
Douglas McMillon, President and CEO, Walmart U.S.
Walmart Corporate Offices and Headquarters
702 SW 8th Street
Bentonville, Arkansas 72716-8611
Dear Mr. McMillon,
This letter is in regard to a proposed Walmart Supercenter planned for the Town of McCandless in Western Pennsylvania. Thousands of people in our community have united and filed a suit to oppose this development. It is not the store that we oppose but rather the environmentally fragile, unsuitable building site and the danger that access to the site will create for local citizens. This proposed development has torn our small community apart and the opposition is so fierce that three of the four Town Council members who approved the development and who were up for re-election this year have been voted out.
The proposed development lies immediately adjacent to Pine Creek on a historic wetland and within Pine Creek’s floodplain. Pine Creek is a 67.3 square mile watershed and is a significant tributary to the Allegheny River. The Creek also feeds directly into North Park Lake, the largest and most heavily used lake in Allegheny County, and the lake lies within North Park, the largest park in the county, only ½ mile downstream from the proposed Walmart superstore. Listed below are our immediate concerns.
Environmental implications and consequences:
The intended superstore site was at one time part of a large unregulated oil tank farm, long before federal and state regulations existed. There were no containment basins surrounding the tanks and leakage caused significant contamination to the soil over the years.
The several present buildings and parking lots on the site were erected before the land was designated as a floodplain and before current environmental regulations and concerns existed that would have required remediation of soil contamination.
Damage to Pine Creek and North Park Lake from old, unremediated soil contamination and from new gasoline and oil contamination from thousands of cars, washed off of the superstore parking area into adjacent Pine Creek by storms, will be substantial.
Combined with contamination of Pine Creek and North Park Lake from the many tons of salt used in this region in winter on a paved area the size of a superstore parking lot, the waterway may well be rendered lifeless.
Significant safety issues:
Ingomar Road, which is the main road leading into our county park, will be one of two roads used for supply truck and customer access to the supercenter. Ingomar Road has both a bike lane and a walking lane separated from traffic only by white lines, and it is used by many hundreds of local citizens who run, bike, and walk in North Park daily.
Blazier Drive, the other access road for trucks and customers, is also a two lane road and will go through an “environmental wetland park” now being developed by the Town and Allegheny Land Trust. This wetland park is also in the Pine Creek floodplain and has a long common boundary with the land on which the supercenter would be built. This “new park” is intended, at least in part, to aid in reducing the flooding along that section of Pine Creek. But if the supercenter is built, the users of this park will face the same safety hazards as users of Ingomar Road and North Park. Putting a supercenter between two parks is nonsensical given the safety concerns presented.
Negative impact on surrounding community:
The site is surrounded on three sides by residential neighborhoods. The proximity of the site will affect the property values of these homes and the quiet, park-like community will be greatly impacted by this development.
Sam Walton himself said it best, “If some community, for whatever reason, doesn’t want us in there, we aren’t interested in going in.” Our reasons are not imagined nor in any special way aimed at Walmart
Our concerns about the supercenter development are centered around citizen safety and environmental impact. This property should never have been developed in the first place. The floodplain belongs to the river, and its history of upstream flooding will only worsen if Walmart puts a store of any size, especially a supercenter, at this site. Additionally, there are already three Walmart stores and a Sam’s Club within a six mile radius of Blazier Drive. It does not make good business sense, and does not show concern for the local citizens or their environment.
If you take pride in being a good corporate citizen and an environmentally responsible company, please consider NOT going forward with this store.
Sincerely,
Rita Martin, Chairperson
Citizens of McCandless
PO Box 195
Wexford, PA 15090
citizensofmccandless@gmail.com
Letter REPLY from Walmart - December 15, 2015
Rita Martin, Chairperson
Citizens of McCandless
Dear Ms. Martin:
Thank you for contacting Walmart regarding the proposed store in the Town of McCandless, Pennsylvania. We take your concerns seriously and want to thank you for communicating with us directly as we continue to move forward with this project.
One of our objectives at Walmart is to continue offering our customers new and more convenient access to affordable products and groceries. In Pennsylvania, we are working hard to be flexible in our approach to communities while serving local customer needs. We work closely with members of the local communities we serve to make sure our stores are well designed for the surrounding areas.
The store being considered for McCandless on the former movie theater site across from Giant Eagle will bring our everyday low prices closer to where our customers work and live. The store will offer electronics, apparel, toys and home furnishings with the added convenience of a grocery store with fresh produce, bakery and a deli. Our Supercenter stores typically create 300 full-and part-time jobs. Walmart recently announced and implemented a pay increase for associates nationwide, with a minimum wage for full-time employees reaching $10.00/hour next year.
Regarding the issues raised in your letter, I wanted to share some specifics on Walmart’s plan to reduce our impact on the local ecosystem.
The proposed Walmart is within the commercial-mixed use zoning district. No variances were granted for this application. Walmart met the Town’s zoning code in all respects which is why we were ultimately granted approval.
PennDOT and the Town ordered a significant traffic study, which was completed by Walmart’s engineers.
Under the Town’s zoning code, Walmart has to provide for adequate stormwater management. Walmart’s plans meet the Town’s standards and will significantly improve stormwater control over what is currently in place.
More than 10 hours of significant citizen input was received during two Council meetings, as well as three hours of input during the Town’s July 1 planning commission meeting.
Town Council placed a total of 14 conditions on the Walmart plan—some suggested by residents—to which Walmart agreed. Several of them exceed Town zoning requirements, as follows:
Construction traffic prohibited from using all Town roads except Blazier Drive.
Prohibited overnight parking of recreational vehicles, campers, or delivery trucks, except for deliveries to Town site.
No trailer storage outside the store’s loading dock.
Please know that we have received and reviewed all of your concerns.
Sincerely,
Jason N. Klipa
Director Public Affairs & Government Relations
New York, Pennsylvania & Vermont
Letter with Petition Submission to Walmart - January 6,2016
On behalf of Citizens of McCandless, a grassroots group based in western Pennsylvania, we are submitting this petition:
No Walmart on Blazier Drive, McCandless,PA.
This online petition has been gathering signatures for only one month and currently contains the names and comments from more than 665 signers (99% are from the immediate area surrounding McCandless Township). The petition will be ongoing.
We hope that you will read the comments to understand the reasons for and the depth of for our opposition to building a Walmart Supercenter on Blazier Drive.
Jason Klipa, Walmart Director, Public Affairs & Government Relations, NY, PA & Vermont, recently responded to a letter from Citizens of McCandless with this inaccurate statement.
“More than 10 hours of significant citizen input was received during two Council meetings.”
What really happened was well over 500 residents of McCandless expressed their opposition to the Town Council and Walmart making this decision to purchase the Blazier Drive property. Merely stating that the rules were followed by listening is a complete disregard for the citizens of this community.
It is in this spirit that we submit this petition, to restate our complete opposition to the purchase of land by Walmart on Blazier Drive. We have done the same with our Town Council, and in this past election three McCandless Town Council seats were turned over to members who support No Walmart on Blazier Drive, we believe the voices of the citizens will be heard in the future.
Please take our concerns and the statement of this petition as “seriously” as you have said you do. As stated clearly in the petition comments, Walmart is not needed or welcome on Blazier Drive in McCandless, PA.
Please contact Rita Martin or Barbara Richards of citizensofmccandless@gmail.com for any further comments or discussion.
Walmart…It’s Not A Done Deal !!!!!
Citizens of McCandless Update 8/18/15
It has been a while since we discussed our legal case as a group, so this letter is intended to review our motivations, to provide some information to update you on the case which, as you know, is pending in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania at this time, and to bring you up to date on the current outstanding fees for legal services which we owe to our attorney, Dwight Ferguson and his firm. We are requesting with this update your continued financial support to reduce the balance owed.
The correctness of our stance as Citizens of McCandless to oppose the Town Council and WalMart in the WalMart development project is now more clear than ever. We have an advanced view of the consequences of the proposed development in the complete destruction of the rural character of the area where McCandless Crossing is located. Where there was a small baseball field, wildlife habitat and beautiful autumn leaves, we now have traffic congestion, noise, garish 24 hour lighting, and more unnecessary retail that is only competing against other local retail. We would be mindless not to see that the same, and worse, will happen along Blazier Drive if the WalMart development occurs. In fact, the two developments will be competing against each other!
We should be proud of ourselves for having taken the stance we have taken to oppose this second large unwelcome and unnecessary intrusion into our living space. The Town Council in the proposed WalMart development has again shown an incredible arrogance and disregard for the opinions of McCandless citizens who will be most impacted. Unlike the practices in Ross, Franklin Park, Marshall and other nearby townships where citizen opinion has been sought first to determine if the citizens want community changing projects such as these, in McCandless the citizens opinions were the last tobe considered. Votes were taken on nearly finalized plans, which were obviously the result of many months of undisclosed discussions between Township officials and WalMart, with only the minimum notice required by law for citizen response.
Our lawsuit against the Town Council, filed in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas on August 28, 2014, has been a strong and necessary reaction to the Council’s disregard of its own citizens’ opinions, and its own zoning ordinances, in its rush to approve the WalMart development. WalMart, of course, soon joined the Town Council in opposing our lawsuit, and the case then proceeded on the docket of Common Pleas Judge Joseph James through conferences, the filing of briefs, and a hearing. Judge James on January 28, 2015, entered an order dismissing our case. However, in the opinion of our attorney, Dwight Ferguson, the Judge made numerous legal errors in reaching his conclusions, and those errors are the subject matter of our appeal to the Commonwealth Court.
The brief and the reply brief prepared and filed by Mr. Ferguson detail the issues raised in our appeal before the Commonwealth Court ( An electronic link to these briefs, as well as to the briefs of the Town of McCandless and WalMart Real Estate Business Trust are available and can be emailed to you ).
Six issues are set forward as being most significant: (1) WalMart’s site is too small under the zoning ordinance modified in December, 2013; (2) WalMart’s plan fails to provide adequate parking and storm water controls under existing zoning ordinances; (3) WalMart’s plan fails to depict current FEMA flood mapping; (4) WalMart has failed to account for storm water generated by its site; (5) the lower court failed to perform its decisionmaking function; and, (6) the lower court erred in denying Mr. Ferguson’s motion to present additional evidence.
The brief and reply brief are well reasoned and should be convincing to the Court. In addition, however, the case will be orally argued before the Court on November 16, 2015. After the oral argument there will most likely be a lengthy period of time--at least several months--before the Court enters a decision. A decision in our favor would send the case back to the Common Pleas Court for further disposition consistent with the Commonwealth Court order.
Fees for the legal services of Mr. Ferguson and his firm have been reasonable and in line with legal fees for a highly competent, specialized and experienced attorney these days. He has not “nickel and dimed” us by, for instance, charging for short phone conversations, nor has he demanded payment of outstanding balances by a particular date, nor charged interest on unpaid amounts even though under our agreement he could have done so.
Our balance for the Common Pleas Court “phase” of the case was well in excess of $20,000 at a point early this year. However, through the periodic, responsible contributing of the signers of the representation letter with Mr. Ferguson, both named in the lawsuit and unnamed, as well as through the significant help of our business contributors and other Citizens of McCandless supporters, fees for that early part of the case have been fully paid off.
We now are in the “appellate” phase of our case and we have again incurred a substantial legal fee balance, presently totaling $23,962.73. We are hoping that we can raise a large part of that amount, at least $12,000, at this time through an appeal for your assistance, that is, merely by making you aware of the amount due and relying on the responsibility that you have shown since we began this effort. If a large amount can be raised to pay down the legal fee balance, it will serve as a powerful message to our business contributors and other Citizens of McCandless supporters of our continued commitment and we are confident that they will assist us as they have previously. I am making a substantial contribution at this time and I hope my fellow Citizens of McCandless will do the same.
Dennis Kissane
Citizens of McCandless
-2-
So, what is up with the proposed Walmart on Blazier Dr., a two lane road? “Is it a done deal? Has it all been settled?”
Many people have asked this question. Some seem to be of the opinion that the project is continuing as put forth in July, 2014. That, actually, is not the case. This brief “Frequently Asked Questions” might be helpful for those who are concerned about the issue and want more facts at their fingertips:
Q—What is the current status of the proposed Wal-Mart?
A—The case is on appeal before the PA Commonwealth Court. Yes, last July 28th, the McCandless Town Council voted to approve this project. However, questions as to whether the McCandless Town Council followed its own zoning ordinances were immediately raised, and this led to legal proceedings in the Allegheny County Common Pleas Court and now, to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.
Q—Then what are the next steps? What might happen in Commonwealth Court?
A—The Council’s decision could be approved, or it could be rejected as being made in violation of its zoning laws. If it is rejected, it can get sent back to McCandless Council for a re-vote. If the court rules that the decision to allow the project was simply wrong, the whole plan might get shot down. What is more likely, however, is that a court decision would require a re-hearing before the Common Pleas Court.
Q—What happens if the decision would return to the Court of Common Pleas?
A—It means that this whole issue might need to be voted on again. There could be a need or an opportunity for new evidence. Review of matters regarding the impact that this project would have on traffic, residents’ property values, zoning and the possibility of other uses for that land could be requested. In general, all of the issues that Citizens were not given the opportunity to discuss and dialogue with Council before the vote last July.
Q--Could the result be different?
A—Yes, the results could change. In addition to the Courts ruling to overturn the decision, other things could take place. New Council members, when elected, could vote to abide by the Town's zoning codes, new Council members could give further consideration to the immense impact that a super center on Blaizer Drive would have on local traffic patterns, in addition, new Council members could take actions that would protect the interests of McCandless residents and homeowners. This election could very well result in a sensible development plan for the Blazier Dr. property and for the community as a whole. It should be noted that it was the forecast of traffic congestion (by PennDot ) on McKnight Road that stopped the construction of a Wal-Mart in Ross Township on the site of the former Sam’s Club. Are better outcomes still possible? Yes, better for the Town, the environment, and the community as a whole.
Q—What else to look for?
A—Official permits for construction and environmental protection have not yet been granted, at least as of this date. Pennsylvania agencies like the DEP have to give their approval, insofar as part of the Blazier Drive property is in a wetland and a flood plain, and sits atop the site of old oil storage tanks that have leaked into the land and contaminated the soil. We all remember Hurricane Ivan and how Pine Creek overflowed then! Many regulatory agencies still need to be heard from on this project. If you have expertise in this field, please contact citizensofmccandless@gmail.com
Q—What can I do about it?
A—Elect new Town Council members in Wards 1,3,5,&7 this May! New Council representatives, open to Citizen input, can make a difference in how things proceed, on Blazier Dr. and other Town properties. Keep yourself informed! Visit the websites listed on the sidebars and below to stay up to date with the latest information—an educated populace is a great asset! Share facts with your neighbors print this information so that you can explain the facts to those who may not be well informed! Don’t let all of this information stay only with you! McCandless is our beautiful, safe, park-like community; we need to work to keep it that way. It is a team effort.
Visit www.McCandless4Tomorrow.com
