[Kzyxtalk] The Hare-Brain Strip Mall - Opposing Arguments

[David Gurney]

Dear Editor, Mendocino TV:


A good place to start is to answer some of the points you made in your
below post, one by one.


First, opposing the strip mall is not arguing for higher food prices, nor
against our own best interests.  It's arguing against a cheap, unhealthy
national chain that sells stale, outdated packaged food at a discount.  It
is not called "Food Outlet" - it's called "Grocery Outlet."  They have 23
stores in the greater Bay Area, 25 if you include Santa Rosa.  Mendocino
County already has two "Grocery Outlets" - one in Willits one in Ukiah.
Lake County has two.  At last count, the corporation has a total of 210
stores.


Grocery Outlet is not a "family run business"- unless billionaires are part
of your family.  It started out in 1946 by Jim Read, and was previously
known as "Canned Foods Grocery Outlet," selling surplus canned food at a
discount, through sweetheart deals with Del Monte and other canneries.  The
corporation is still run "in family" - by third generation brothers-in-laws
of the Read family. They market and sell their chain stores with a
deceptive sales pitch that claims each store is run by an "independent
operator," but this is a sham.  They recruit and tightly manage a young,
gung-ho married couple to be totally indoctrinated into their corporate
model, and run the store by the strict Read family rules.  Period.  What
happens when life plays it's hand, and the brainwashed "independent
operator" falls out of favor with their corporate over-seers?  We don't
want to find out.


As a footnote:  Canned food is NOT good for you.  Studies have shown that
the BPA in canned foods is linked to reproductive abnormalities and a
heightened risk of breast and prostate cancers, diabeted, and heart disease.
  If you think the few bucks you save at a Grocery Outlet will offset your
cancer treatment, you are sorely mistaken.   See:


Consumer Reports -  http://tinyurl.com/y9vtb2y

Mayo Clinic -  http://tinyurl.com/o4n9xo8

The Oregonian -  http://tinyurl.com/lffxz3u

Wiki -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisphenol_A


William Patton, owner of the Boatyard Center is playing monopoly with the
Mendocino Coast. Just because he wants to cash in and pawn the heart and
soul of the south end of Fort Bragg doesn't mean we should let him. He
recently installed a "Dollar Tree" store in the Boatyard.  If there is a
more trashy purveyor of useless plastic crap, I have yet to see it.  The
Dollar Tree corporation now has an unbelievable 13,000 stores nationwide,
with over $18 billion in yearly sales.  A monument to mindless corporate
greed, trickled down to splash on us local peons.


No thanks.


---------------------------------


"Editor" wrote:


I understand that there are opponents to the project. I just haven't

heard a cogent argument against the development. It seems as if there

are some in our community that would continue to support higher priced

food and would argue against their own best interests.

Food Outlet is a family run business and their prices are half to one

third the price of either Safeway, Purity or Harvest. What's wrong with

this picture. Please explain it to me.

William Patton, the landowner, graduated from Ft Bragg High School and

developed the Boatyard Shopping Center. Can't get more local than that!

The land is zoned correctly. Where was the opposition when the City

zoned the property. I'm not necessarily supporting it. I just cannot

come up with a valid argument against it.

If I don't like something I'll file my vote the old fashioned way, I

won't spend my money there. I cannot understand others forcing their

purchasing decisions upon the rest of our community. There is poverty in

our town and I believe many would welcome a chance to save on their food

expenses. What is wrong with that?

Arguments for:


  * Jobs

  * increased tax base

  * Competition

  * Zoning compliance


Arguments against


  * Grass is prettier than a shopping mall


Please, someone articulate a simple reasonable opposition viewpoint

other that, "It's Bad / Not Pretty" and I'll consider bringing them into

the studio to speak to the issue. Please....... anyone?


--

Editor



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