Times Herald suggests American Canyon start followng the law

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Paul Maguire
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Times Herald suggests American Canyon start followng the law

Post by Paul Maguire »

Issue: AmCan's Wal-Mart
Law trumps Supercenter
By Times-Herald editorial staff
Article Launched:11/22/2006 07:06:15 AM PST


When voters overwhelmingly approved the California Environmental Quality Act in 1970, Sam Walton's Arkansas-based department store chain, Wal-Mart, was only eight years old and just going public on the New York Stock Exchange.
And, American Canyon was still 22 years from becoming a city.

Those two factoids converged two years ago, when the well-established global retail giant came to the still fledgling city of American Canyon with a plan for a Supercenter in the still-on-the-drawing-boards Napa Junction shopping center. .


The factoids converged again last week, when a state appellate court unanimously slapped American Canyon's wrist for not dotting all its "i"s and crossing all its "t"s before approving Wal-Mart's Supercenter plan.

For a growing city that had practically no retail base, and certainly little to produce adequate sales tax for expanding service needs, Wal-Mart's Supercenter idea was an early Christmas present for American Canyon.
But as the city would learn, like other Christmas presents sometimes they don't always fit. Such was the case here, but in American Canyon's case, instead of returning the gift for a different version the city tried to make do, particularly where a new and costly environmental re-review came into play.

The city had previously conducted environmental and traffic studies for an anchor department store at the Napa Junction site. The studies had concluded there would be no problems if a regular "box" store of some sort was built there.

But those studies hadn't counted on a relatively new concept at the time in Wal-Mart's retail strategies.

In mid-2004, Wal-Mart decided it wanted to build one of the state's first supercenters in American Canyon, which would include a 24-hour grocery store. Though hundreds of supercenters had been built outside California, they were attracting strong opposition whereever they were proposed in the Golden State.

American Canyon was no exception. As we all learned, protesters inside and outside the city limits gathered at City Council meetings and wrote letters to the editor condemning Wal-Mart's employee practices and pricing, as well as how a Supercenter would negatively impact nearby stores. They also were troubled about the traffic impacts and other "urban" impacts, like crime, that a 24-hour outlet might produce.

As the appellate court noted in its 37-page ruling, conflicting opinions were issued that a new environmental study would be needed on the superstore's impacts. The planning commission basically punted, holding that if Wal-Mart closed at midnight instead of operating around the clock, no new study was warranted. And so it was ordered.

When both sides went to the city council, however, the possible sales tax losses outweighed common sense. Lacking real evidence, the council decided that a 24-hour Supercenter would have no major impact on outlying businesses or traffic patterns. And because the council believed - or wanted to believe - that to be so, no CEQA followup was deemed necessary.

A Napa Superior Court judge agreed, and construction began in earnest. The supercenter was set to open in mid-January.

All's on hold today, however, as the appellate court rightly held last week that the Supercenter was a substantial change from the earlier project and required a follow-up environmental study. In an interesting twist, the decision also requires American Canyon to study economic impacts the supercenter will have on neighboring communities such as Vallejo.

In some ways it's more disturbing that in its apparent zeal to get the Supercenter project going, the city ignored its own zoning ordinances than state law. City law required a new study if a project expanded by more than 5 percent, which the supercenter clearly did. The appellate court held that, in effect, just saying it didn't matter, as the council did, wasn't good enough to satisfy the law.

So now what? The city may choose to appeal to the state Supreme Court, a move that could lead to further delays. Or, it could decide to abide by the appellate court ruling and start on new environmental reviews. Or, Wal-Mart could decide to open its nearly completed store in January, but forgo its 24-hour grocery store portion.

Whatever is decided, last week's ruling provided an important lesson for American Canyon - When considering the needs of their community, city leaders must remember their first obligation is to serve their constituents, but an equally important obligation is to follow the law when doing so.
Emphasis added
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