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Wal-Mart
Maneuver Draws Suit
Los
Angeles Times - December 19, 2003
By Abigail Goldman
Two community
groups filed suit Thursday to stop an Inglewood ballot initiative that
would allow Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to build a new store without City Council
oversight.
The lawsuit,
filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by the Coalition for a Better Inglewood
and the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, claims it's a violation
of state law for the retailer to try to get its project approved by circumventing
elected officials and going right to voters.
"Even
if the voters of Inglewood wish to allow Wal-Mart to develop a Supercenter
in Inglewood, they cannot," said Jan Chatten-Brown, the community
groups' lawyer. "The remedy for them is to go to the City Council
and tell them they want the City Council to process and approve a Wal-Mart
development in Inglewood."
Neither
Inglewood city officials nor a Wal-Mart spokesman would comment, saying
they had not yet seen the lawsuit.
Bentonville,
Ark.-based Wal-Mart last year convinced Inglewood officials to withdraw
on procedural grounds an ordinance that would have blocked the company
from building one of its combination grocery and discount stores.
It has embarked
on a major expansion into the grocery business in California, triggering
stiff opposition from organized labor and others.
To prevent
the council from trying again to block Wal-Mart's plans, a pro-Wal-Mart
group gathered enough signatures to qualify the initiative, which calls
for building permits for the proposed store adjacent to Hollywood Park
to be issued without a public hearing or environmental impact study.
Approval
of the initiative, scheduled for a special election April 6, requires
only a simple majority of voters. If approved, the measure requires a
two-thirds vote to repeal or amend it.
The retailer
has said that it planned to build 40 Supercenters in California.
The proposed
development includes a regular Wal-Mart discount store. Although the company
has said it has no plans for one of its Supercenters in Inglewood, Wal-Mart
says it needs the flexibility to expand to that format in the future.
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