Sept 19 was the date set for the recall of two of three remaing pro- Wal-Mart council members in Rosemead. See last post on Rosemead here. However, there is an outstanding court case that may screech this to a haly again. See here. This kind of election bring out all kinds of wackiness. The targets of the recall voted to ban all outdoor smoking and ant- Wal-Mart types are looking at everything Wal-Mart is doing on the building site. See here.
Of course for me the ironic part is that the election will take place after theGrand Opening of the Wal-Mart which, could put an anti- Wal-Mart council in charge of spending the tax revenue Wal-Mart produces. Only in California.
August 25th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Gary Taylor and Jay Imperial are targeted for recall. There was never any vote to ban all outdoor smoking in Rosemead. There was a vote to ban smoking in Rosemead’s parks. Gary Taylor voted for the ordinance and Jay Imperial voted against it.
So, obviously, outdoor smoking has nothing to do with the recall.
Opponents have been outraged that the current city council majority refuses to enforce the conditions of approval and the mitigation measures that the council majority themselves approved.
In other words, the message has been: “Wal-Mart, you can do anything in Rosemead that you want to do. Don’t worry about mitigation measures or conditions of approval. As long as we’re in charge, the law does not apply to you.”
The Wal-Mart may or may not be open before September 19. Either way, I’d feel a whole lot better if the majority on city council was at least willing to enforce the conditions of approval that Wal-Mart agreed to in the first place.
Of course, a cynical person might conclude that Wal-Mart only agreed to those conditions because they knew the then-current city council majority would never actually bother to enforce those conditions. And maybe that’s why Wal-Mart has spent over $200,000 in just the past eighteen months to try to keep those charcters in office.
It’s unlikely that more than 3,000 ballots will be cast in the recall election. It IS likely that Wal-Mart will dump another $200,000 into the election in the next four weeks. That’ll be about $133 they will have spent for each vote cast. Yet, the amazing part is that the incumbents will probably still lose. Doesn’t that say something about the quality of these incumbents?