A Picture is Worth a Thousand Gulags

Picture of Obama's Houston campaign headquarters office from video taken by FOX 26 in Houston.

HT: Captain's Quarters

The Mirror Has Two Faces

I also agree with others who have written in before on these issues who have complained the driving all the way from Pullman to the sprawl area where Hawkins would wish to build is a waste of gas and not environmentally sound.

- PARDner Christopher Lupke, online comment, Moscow-Pullman Daily News website, January 30, 2008

Burma seems to have forgotten there is a Wal-Mart seven miles away. If she has trouble getting there, I’d be happy to do the neighborly thing and take her. She has a right to shop for shoddy sweatshop-made goods if she wishes.

- PARDner T.V. Reed Monday, letter to the editor, Moscow-Pullman Daily News, January 1, 2007

10. We already have a Wal-Mart 7 miles away, and a new Supercenter is being planned for Moscow

- "Top 10 Reasons a Wal-Mart Supercenter Would Be Bad for Pullman," PARD Poster at 2005 National Lentil Festival

While we understand some people in Pullman who think it only fair turnabout to gain sales at the expense of Moscow, for a number of reasons that is highly unlikely to happen. Moreover, at a time when the Pullman and Moscow governments are seeking to cooperate on a number of projects, including responsible development of the Route 270 corridor, this is no time for store wars to ruin good will.

- PARD Position Paper

The Hawkins "sprawl area" to which Lupke refers is directly adjacent to the existing Wal-Mart that the PARDners direct folks to, as well as the Moscow businesses which they are so deeply concerned about.

If you are getting motion sickness trying to follow all of PARD's gyrations on the various issues, don't worry. You're not alone. Fortunately, Lu Laoshi's hypocritical rantings on the Hawkins development will remain just that: the inane, incoherent, illogical ramblings of an academic with a hugely overblown sense of self-importance. PARD has no big labor sugar daddy to bankroll an appeal of the Hawkins project.

"Hawkins development: Residents query commissioners on public bond"

From last Thursday's Whitman County Gazette:

A standing room only crowd packed commissioners’ chambers at the county courthouse in Colfax Tuesday afternoon to gather more information on the county’s proposal to float more than $10 million in bonds to set up infrastructure at a shopping center on the Idaho stateline.

The county was asked two weeks ago by Hawkins Companies, Boise, to pay for roads, lighting and water and sewer systems for the company’s proposed 700,000 sq. ft. strip mall.

“I’m worried that we don’t have answers to specific questions, and we’re a week away from this decision,” said Pullman Resident Carol Chipman.

Most in attendance sought clarification.

Chipman asked for clarification on the company’s proposal on the bond, which delayed payment of the principle until the bonds mature.

Cheryl Morgan, also of Pullman, asked for clarification on the company’s construction cost estimates.

Hawkins Spokesman Jeff DeVoe called the bond and construction figures he put forth two weeks ago a “sketch on a bar napkin,” and not hard figures.

He said county bonding consultant Jack McLaughlin, VP of public financing for DA Davidson in Spokane, explained to him the necessity to pay a portion of the principle and interest over the term of the bonds.

DeVoe added the private-public cooperation between the company and the county has been in “infantile planning stages for a long time”.

Pullman Developer Duane Brelsford worried that obligating public funds for a private development would set a “dangerous precedent.”

Brelsford said his company, Corporate Pointe Development, has several large projects planned in and outside of Pullman.

“We’ll of course assume we would be treated the same,” he said.

Brelsford added dedicating funds to Hawkins would mean the county would have to, in fairness, extend similar cooperation to other developers looking to site in the corridor.

“If we choose to go that direction, I think we’re going to need a lot more than $10 million,” he said.

Thornton resident Carolyn Kiesz doubted the wisdom of dedicating funds to the retail development in the face of a nationwide economic slump.

“Now is not the time to encumber the taxpayer with this debt,” said Kiesz.

She suggested a manufacturing company would better benefit the regional economy, as it would close the trade gap and not encourage a shopping center filled with “cheap foreign-made goods.”

Kiesz also noted that jobs from the retail development would not pay enough to be of significant value to job-seeking residents of other parts of the county.

Morgan questioned the reasoning for the public-private partnership.

Morgan cited news accounts that said the increased costs in construction, and in the company’s pursuit of water for the site, as built-in costs the company could well have anticipated.

“They’re not new to this process,” said Morgan. “It makes me wonder if this was the whole plan in the first place.”

DeVoe replied that the lengthy appeals process over the transfer of four water rights to service the site was new to him.

“Three years ago, if you would have told me the interesting road we would have been down on the water issue, I would have laughed,” said DeVoe.

The company last July received approval from the county Water Conservancy Board to transfer four water rights.

Three of the Conservancy Board’s decisions were upheld by the state Department of Ecology, and one was denied because the DOE found the company did not adequately address pumping groundwater in drier summer months.

Hawkins has appealed that decision.

The city of Moscow appealed the other three on the basis that such a development would further drain the region’s declining aquifer levels.

Conservancy Board Chair Ed Schultz questioned the wisdom of issuing millions of dollars worth of bonds without any guarantee that the development would be supplied with water.

Next week’s announcement, Commissioner Michael Largent explained, would declare whether or not the county intends to float the bonds.

Commissioner Greg Partch explained the company must have water rights in hand and an anchor tenant committed to occupancy before the county would issue the bonds. To date, only Lowe’s home improvement stores has committed to occupy the space.

DeVoe assured the crowd that the company will not ask for the bond without water and that anchor tenant.

“If I’m a taxpayer, I’m going to ask myself, ‘what if Hawkins goes away, are we left to pay off this bond?’” he said.

DeVoe said if the company acquires the water rights, it would then donate them to the county, as state requirements prohibit a private company from providing water and sewer service.

That transfer, he added, would not be as difficult a process as the company’s pursuit.

Kiesz then asked if commissioners would be open to other types of businesses in the corridor, or if this was an effort to help out the company.

“No one else has come forward, that I know of,” said Largent. “Whether Hawkins makes a profit or not is not our concern.”

Partch said commissioners were “not married” to this project or to the Hawkins company itself.

“We are married to the corridor,” he said. “Our future is hanging out there.”

He pointed to the lengthy re-zoning of land in the corridor as proof that commissioners focused on it as their main focus in economic development. County code was shifted for more than two years to allow such zoning.

“People in the past didn’t attempt development in the corridor because they couldn’t develop anything in this county,” said Commissioner Jerry Finch.

Finch pointed to developments such as the Garage Mahal storage units and James Toyota’s planned move to the corridor from Moscow as evidence that those re-zoning efforts have paid off.

Any growth, retail or otherwise, in the corridor, Partch noted, will help to stave off the impacts of a national recession on the Palouse. He also pointed out that the county’s treasury was seriously impacted by voter-approved initiatives that removed tax revenue and limited tax increases.

“If we put together this shopping center and they do it the classy way that they do, it will set the tenor for all development in the corridor,” said Finch.

Without such a development, Finch worried that in 20 years the corridor would be filled with “ramshackle steel buildings sitting in a hodgepodge.”

"The other side of state line, and looking glass"

What an unbelievably sloppy, selective, biased and outright false editorial from Jim Fisher in today's Lewiston Tribune, even by his leftist standards. I love it when liberals start trying to lecture us on what conservatism really is all about.

Sure, a developer and Pullman businesswoman expressed reservations over the Hawkins bond proposal last Tuesday. But a developer and a Pullman businesswoman expressed support for the bond the previous Monday. And this statement by Fisher is patently false: "despite reservations from constituents who are hardly starry-eyed radicals." What the..? PARDners Chris Lupke, Don Orlich, Janet Damm, and the Liberal Women Voters are not starry-eyed radicals? How about anti-everything activist Cheryl Morgan? And let's not forget Carolyn Kiesz, who compared shopping to tuberculosis.

If the Hawkins deal falls through, development in the corridor is finished. All those who say we should stop and look back at the last 25 years will be looking at no more growth for another 25 years. I'm sorry, but I am just sick to death of all this small-minded myopia, this whole attitude of "let's go slow" and "let's not change a thing." I'm sick to death of all these petty jealousies, internecine squabbling, and the whining about "so where's my handout from the commissioners?" Some in Pullman are jealous of the county getting the development instead of Pullman.

If you ever wonder why Pullman and Whitman County are so backwards, take a look in the mirror.

From today's Lewiston Tribune:

How many Moscow residents who resent their city officials discouraging certain developments because of potential effects on the community wish today they were residents of Whitman County? There, commissioners are preparing to obligate county taxpayers to subsidize work for a private shopping center.

It is a strange kind of conservatism that proposes floating $10 million in revenue bonds to provide infrastructure for the retail development by Hawkins Companies of Boise. Yet that is what county commissioners are rushing to do, despite reservations from constituents who are hardly starry-eyed radicals.

"I'm worried that we don't have answers to specific questions, and we're a week away from this decision," Pullman business woman Carol Chipman told commissioners Tuesday afternoon, according to the Whitman County Gazette.

More pointed was the warning from Pullman developer Duane Brelsford that commissioners were preparing to set "a dangerous precedent."

Saying his Corporate Pointe Development is planning several large projects in and near Pullman, Brelsford said, "We'll of course assume we would be treated the same."

"If we choose to go that direction," he added, "I think we're going to need a lot more than $10 million."

Do commissioners believe they can say yes to an out-of-state developer's request for up-front public financing, even if it is intended to be repaid by private revenue, and then say no to such requests from within their own county?

That is a separate issue from Moscow Mayor Nancy Chaney's challenge to the shopping center's water rights, some of which were transferred from the city of Colton to the proposed development on the Pullman-Moscow highway abutting the state line. Chaney says she fears the 700,000-square-foot center will deplenish underground sources of water for Moscow and the entire Palouse.

Whitman County Commissioner Jerry Finch blames Moscow's resistance to the development for increasing Hawkins' costs, which he says justifies using public money to provide water and sewer service to the center.

"I think in a perfect world, they should do this 100 percent on their dime," Finch has said.

The question remains, however, whether commissioners can tap taxpayers for the cost of this development and ever hope to require future projects, by Brelsford and others, to pay their own way.

Putting public dollars into private development might be considered pro-business, but it is more reflective of socialism than conservatism.

"Bonding idea shows promise for corridor plan"

In land navigation, you orient yourself and figure out where you are standing by looking at what's around you. The same goes with politics.

To all of you Hawkins development skeptics and opponents, I realize there are still unanswered questions and the bonding proposal is not 100% risk free. But what great accomplishment has ever been obtained without risk? Do you want to be on the same side as CAVE (Citizens Against Virtually Everything) people like Chris Lupke, Don Orlich, Janet Damm, Cheryl Morgan and the Liberal Women Voters?

From last Saturday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

It's getting closer now.

Corridor development in the past few years has gone from a subject for casual conversation to that for serious discussion.

The planning stage is next and, to that end, one of the latest ideas has positive economic potential for Whitman County and the region.

Boise-based Hawkins Companies plans to build a 700,000-square-foot retail center in the corridor along the border with Idaho.

Hawkins officials have proposed the center's infrastructure be paid by $10.5 million worth of bonds sold by the county. The money would pay for a well water system, roads, sidewalks and a sewer system. Hawkins also has stated it will build a fire station for District 12.

The resulting public-private partnership would have Hawkins constructing the infrastructure and the county purchasing it back at a predetermined price.

That's a sound idea.

Development in the corridor has been stymied by the lack of available water and sewer hookups. To extend those services from Pullman would cost millions per mile.

Most developers and business owners can't afford to foot that kind of bill, and Moscow thus far has not indicated an official willingness to sell those services across the state line.

For the past few years much has been debated about how to proceed with economic growth on the Palouse: some want to control it, some want to encourage it and still others want to find a middle ground.

The Pullman-Moscow corridor will be developed - it's just a matter of time.

Hawkins Companies has the ability to see its development to fruition. The result will be that economic boom many look for in the terms of jobs, tax revenues and money spent on the Palouse.

There are many hurdles left in the process and more opportunities for the public and entities to share input. The dialogue should be extensive - surprises tend to alienate people, and we all know what transpires when that happens.

Nothing is perfect. The bonding plan has a slight risk but such projects rarely fail. And this is a risk worth taking.

Chris Lupke: Working Class Hero

Fear not, gentle reader, The PARD of Avon is back. He wrote the following on the Daily News website last Friday:

I am pleased to see Alice Schroeder speak out against this ill-conceived plan to prop up the Hawkins Project on the back of Whitman county residents. It was shocking to me to read the coverage in this newspaper that mis-lead the reader to believe that residents support this boondoggle. There has been one half-hour meeting and another is scheduled for next week. Both are in Colfax. For those of us who work for a living, it is difficult to take time out of the middle of the work day to drive so far. But even if we did, what is the message being sent by the county government by scheduling only a half-hour for such a meeting?

Apparently, however, working stiff tenured professor Lupke did find the time to take out of his busy work day to drive home this afternoon and post this on the Daily News website at 1:19 PM (ironically, the approximate starting time of the first hearing in Colfax on Hawkins):

Lobo,

I'm still waiting for you to publicly reconcile a government handout to the Hawkins corporation with your expressed libertarian beliefs.

The good news is that after a small amount of fanfare by a couple radicals and the conservative editorial board of this paper, it now looks certain that this half-baked idea is going nowhere. It is even being vocally opposed by major, local developers, because it unfairly supports one corporate interest while ignoring local businesses in Pullman and the county who could use the subsidy too.

Of course, there are other problems with the project too.

I am assuming, of course, that Lupke, taxpayer champion that he is, drove home to post his personal political views from his own computer rather than utilizing the taxpayer-funded network and computer provided to him by WSU.

Say What? Part Three

Does anyone who attended Tuesday's Whitman County Commissioners meeting know if any of the no-growth moonbat PARDners actually showed up to comment, or are they just going to content themselves with chucking arrows from the sidelines? I guess there is no union willing to haul Hawkins Companies into court, which just makes them powerless, insignificant buzzing little gnats in this case:

If you lived in Whitman county and you knew that your tax dollars were subsidizing sprawl, you would likely feel differently about the matter.

- PARDner Chris Lupke, online comment at Moscow-Pullman Daily News website, January 22, 2008

Mr. Forbes insinuates that I am left wing and maybe even a communist, but what he fails to point out is that I have previously advocated encouraging Costco to build in Pullman. This would make a lot more retail sense to me than Wal-Mart. That being said, many people in the community actually stand to the left of me on this issue, opposing any further big box development at all. This illustrates the fact that actually I am in the mainstream not on the radical left, as Mr. Forbes’ so desperately wishes to paint me.

- PARDner Chris Lupke, online comment at Moscow-Pullman Daily News website, November 29, 2007

To that end, we should develop a regional plan for retail growth that attracts Moscow residents to Pullman not because we wish to replicate them but, as the C.L.U.E. study concludes, because we are adding new and unique “products and services not currently available within the region.”

- PARDner Chris Lupke, Moscow-Pullman Daily News, June 16, 2006

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Say What? Part Two

We don't want any of our tax money subsidizing development, retail or housing.

- PARDners Janet and Leroy Damm, Moscow-Pullman Daily News, January 21, 2008

An interesting idea that emerged from the discussion was that of a community trust that could work with groups like the Community Action Center to help families in Pullman find homes in their price range, keeping these homes in trust to ensure that when the owners decide to move, these homes remain affordable. It’s a win for the community, a win for the home owners and a win for Pullman.

- Deirdre Rogers, Moscow-Pullman Daily News, December 14, 2007

Susie Law-Godat, with the Portland Community Land Trust, discussed how the program helps provide people with home owner opportunities in the Portland-area. Through the program, people purchase their homes but the agency owns the land.

The idea, she said, is to keep the land to be used for affordable housing.

"It's a lot of bang for your buck," she said. "It's a great way to keep your subsidy in the same property."

Because the agency owns the land, the family's mortgage payments are lower. When and if a family decides to move, they often have acquired enough equity that they can purchase a home on the open market.

- "PARD forum tackles issue of affordable housing in Pullman," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, November 30, 2007

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Say What? Part One

Break out your shovels and hip waders. The PARDners are at it again, this time going after the Hawkins corridor development:

The "2006 Idaho Job Gap Report" noted that a living wage in Idaho for a family of three is $22.23 per hour. No business associated with Hawkins will ever pay that hourly wage. Again, there is no addition to the overall economy.

- PARDner Don Orlich, Moscow-Pullman Daily News, January 24, 2008

I also have been asked the question, “If Target was planning to build in Pullman would there be the same opposition?” The answer is no. I think Pullman would welcome Target with open arms.

- PARDner Leilani Alamillo, Moscow-Pullman Daily News, January 11, 2006

A Target, if of modest size and located away from Bishop Boulevard, will cause far less disruption and will actually accomplish the stated goal of super-center backers to bring people in from Moscow and even Lewiston.

- PARDner TV Reed, Moscow-Pullman Daily News, November 2, 2005

Target pays between $6.25 an hour to $8 an hour for entry-level, hourly positions in its Twin Cities stores, according to a recent survey of local Target workers by the UFCW. That's in line with what Wal-Mart pays in this market, though some starting-level Wal-Mart workers can earn $9 to $10 an hour, the UFCW said.

Both companies offer health care insurance to employees, but Target's is considered more restrictive. Two years ago, Target dropped health care insurance coverage for all part-time workers. By contrast, Wal-Mart makes its medical plan available to all workers, full- and part-time.

Union groups that have analyzed the two companies' policies maintain that Wal-Mart's also is more equitable.

All Wal-Mart's employees, from store cashiers to chief executive Lee Scott, are covered under the same medical plan. All employees can choose from the same four deductible options and receive unlimited coverage for catastrophic expenses -- such as organ transplants or cancer treatments -- that can financially ruin an employee.

Target, however, offers multiple health care plans to its employees that vary by geographic location, according to the company's employee handbook. At Target, store employees do not receive catastrophic coverage and deductible levels vary, according to former and current employees.

Wal-Mart estimates that 56 percent of its employees receive health care coverage. Target declined to disclose its percentage of insured workers, but the UFCW estimates based on surveys of Twin Cities employees that less than half the company's workers receive coverage under its plan.

- Chris Serres, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, May 22, 2005

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The Idiots Took the Bait

I had prayed that someone from PARD would be foolish enough to publicly attack Radio Shack owner Dale Hammerly by name, in addition to the cowardly, anonymous attacks they have made on the Daily News website. Now everyone can see how they really feel about "local business." It's all about Wal-Mart hatred, not "Mom and Pop." I can only imagine the torrent of anti-PARD letters this is going to set off.

And I should have known it would be the supremely arrogant and ever loquacious Chris Lupke. Nice move, Poindexter. But you might as well enjoy it while it lasts. And I looked, and beheld a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Jack McCullough, and Attorneys Fees followed with him. From today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Market has spoken with its silence

One of the nicest things about Pullman is that it preserves the small-town appeal lost to most of America these days. It's a place where the person at the bank who decides whether I get a loan, the person who cuts my hair, who bags my groceries, who sold me my truck, and who sold me my home all know me by my first name.

It came as an unpleasant surprise, therefore, that Dale Hammerly, in whose RadioShack I've made many purchases (and hope to continue to), would write so churlish a letter (Opinion, Nov. 16), wondering aloud why the "silent majority" in Pullman were not outraged over the prolonged wait for a gigantic Wal-Mart Supercenter to grace our horizon on Bishop Boulevard.

I believe I can answer his question regarding this deafening silence: Most Pullmanites have little appetite for such a superfluous addition to the retail landscape, and many recognize Wal-Mart's real and well-documented harms to communities like ours.

Leaving aside the litany of self-contradictions pervading Hammerly's letter (that Wal-Mart is free-market when it predicates its reputed cheap prices on the backs of a work force in part reliant on government-subsidized health insurance, that it will increase local tax revenues when we taxpayers are footing the bill for this subsidy, that the free market somehow magically granted China the MFN status necessary for Wal-Mart to establish its sweatshops abroad, and that big-box retail duplicated in Pullman would form a regional magnet), I was most taken aback by Hammerly's ungracious call for those who recognize Wal-Mart's inhumanity to "pack up and ship out." That could be bad for business, for if all who disdain Wal-Mart were to "ship out" of Pullman there would scarcely be enough of us left to shop at your store.

Christopher Lupke, Pullman

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Not With a Bang, But a Whimper

The long legal battle over the Chelan Wal-Mart Supercenter is over. According to the Wenatchee World, the Chelan City Council decided to drop their appeal of a judge's decision last December declaring the building permit for Wal-Mart invalid. The store was allowed to open as scheduled in January and it has remained open since then.

The city adjusted the zoning laws over the summer and the Washington State Board of Pharmacy has now given permission to open its phramacy, permission that had previously been denied because of the zoning issue. The appeal, as Chelan Mayor Jay Witherbee said, "is truly moot."

So what did the small collection of well-heeled out-of-town hippies and elitists known as the Defenders of Small Town Chelan gain from this expensive and bitterly divisive episode? No wrecking ball. No $5 million extortion money from Wal-Mart. Just triumphal coverage on Crazy Al Norman's and all the other Wal-Mart haters websites. And as Laurel Jamtgard, spokesperson for Defenders of Small Town Chelan stated, "We think the debate was actually a healthy thing."

Right. We had to destroy the village in order to save it.

Meanwhile, I wonder when PARD will update their website with the fact that Wal-Mart Supercenter in Chelan has not only survived, but has not "destroyed" the town as predicted.

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Revenge of the Nerds

The Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development's position paper of March 2005 ranked Radio Shack as one of the local businesses that would see a "High Impact" from Wal-Mart's entry into the Pullman market.

In December of last year, PARDner Cynthia Hosick wrote "We are customers of..Radio Shack...We support Pullman businesses."

And who can forget PARD's "Buy Local" campaign to support Pullman businesses?

Of course, the eggheaded sociology and English professors of PARD know as much about running a business as they do about fornicating. They never actually bothered consulting with the owner of Radio Shack to see if he felt his store was at risk. In a letter to the editor of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News published Friday, Dale Hammerly, the owner of the Pullman Radio Shack said he welcomed Wal-Mart. In fact, Hammerly recently purchased the Radio Shack in La Grande, OR and moved it on to the La Grande Wal-Mart parking lot.

Now that Hammerly has stepped out of line and publicly supported the Great Satan, the "defenders of Pullman business" are rising up like the crazed jihadis they are with stones in their hands and curses on their lips.

Hammerly asked why the "silent majority will not stand up and shout that the protestors should pack up and ship out." If Dale has an online subscription to the Daily News and reads the comments posted there about his letter, he'll have the answer to that question.

The hissing PARD cockroaches have scurried out from their dung piles to engage in cowardly character assassination, libeling and defaming Hammerly's business and reputation, as well as spewing their usual tripe about Target, Republicans, and their worthless petition.

For example:

And radioshack?!! Such good service from the snot nose highschool kids who think they know tech (but don't) that are too busy to give real help to a customer because they're busy playing with the toys in the shop. Do people really still shop at RS?

It seems like Hammerly is one of the "flies" that is begging to get stuck to the "flypaper" that Wal-Mart is, small businesses and franchise owners who first think that Wal-Mart will miraculously improve their business but turn out to be a big sucking sound in the community, taking small businesses and decent jobs elsewhere away.

So, Hammerly, would you kindly mind paying my portion of the insurance costs for all the Walmart employees who are being screwed out of it by their employer -- one of the richest corporations in the world? I don't think ordinary citizens who hate what Walmart has done to our country should have to foot the bill.

I noticed Hammerly mentions "foot traffic" in his letter. I wonder if he thinks people will be walking across the great horizon of asphalt from Walmart to his store. No. They will be driving (mostly PAST his store, not TO it).

Hey Hammerly, is Radio Shack still selling the TRS-80? That's about the last time I was in one of your shops.

I am intrigued by the contradictions inherent in Mr. Hammerly's letter to the editor. On the one hand, he seems to endorse "free enterprise." On the other, he endorses Wal-Mart, a corporation that better than almost any has availed itself of the government welfare system by subsidizing the health benefits of its employees through state-based health programs for the working poor.

I guess Hammerly has never tried to get an untrained Wal-Mart employee making minimum wage help trying to figure out a product in their store. Such "service" is hardly "beyond reproach."

I am rather concerned that this businessman would take such an impertinent attititude toward the residents of Pullman, demanding that those who disagree with his attitude toward Walmart should "pack up and get out." Dale: why don't you take a page from your own book?

I can't believe the angry tone of Dale Hammerly. I guess he wasn't around when all the protests against Wally World occurred. Get with it, man.

So, this is how you "clearly win the PR battle?" Is this the "civil discourse" the Pullman League of Women Voters want to impose on new businesses desiring to move into Pullman?

The "silent majority" remain silent because they do not wish to be subjected to such public scorn and ridicule. It is the heckler's veto that the leftist scumbags at WSU love to use to suppress thoughtcrimes.

The majority of business owners in Pullman who privately support Wal-Mart cannot do so publicly. In a small college town, they can ill afford boycotts of their stores.

That is why I admire Dale Hammerly. He had the cojones to lay it all on the line for what he believes is right. Meanwhile, the PARDners continue to turn off even more Pullman residents with their ad hominem attacks on a hard-working local entrepreneur.

From Friday's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Waiting for Wal-Mart

I have been watching the nondevelopment of the Wal-Mart in Pullman for the past few years. And for the life of me, I fail to understand why the silent majority will not stand up and shout that the protestors should pack up and ship out.

As a business owner in Pullman I would very much like to see this store come in ASAP. Why you ask? If we had a store such as this imagine the amount of revenue it would generate in sales tax dollars for our government needs, the jobs it would create for the students, and help by retaining our local residents with their shopping needs. And overall, I, too, would benefit from the foot traffic that this store would create.

Ask me and every other retailer where would be the best place to put a store, and I would say next to Wal-Mart. Look at most major shopping areas - when a Wal-Mart comes in who follows right behind?

I recently purchased the RadioShack in La Grande, Ore., Where did I move it? Right on the Wal-Mart parking lot. And let me say it was the best move I could have ever done.

As for those who go out of business when a Wal-Mart comes in. I would say maybe those businesses might still be there if they would be willing to step up and give their customers the service that goes beyond reproach. This is how you compete in our free-enterprise system.

So, Wal-Mart, come on in. I'm waiting and will endorse you.

Dale Hammerly, CEO DLH Electronics, Pullman RadioShack Dealer

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Quote of the Day

[Financial consultant for D.A. Davidson and Co., Jeremy] Nesset asked how Keim would lead the chamber if a business such as Wal-Mart wanted to come in and chamber membership was split in opinion.

- "Keim outlines direction for Moscow Chamber of Commerce," Moscow-Pullman Daily News, November 16, 2007

NEWSFLASH: WAL-MART HAS BEEN IN MOSCOW FOR 15 YEARS!!!

The real question should have been, "What would the chamber's reaction be if a chamber member such as Wal-Mart, or Tri-State, or James Toyota wanted to relocate and/or expand its current facilities?" Oh brother.

No wonder new Moscow Chamber of Commerce executive director Darrell Keim was quoted as "It's been an interesting year at the chamber." It's like being in charge of the East Berlin Chamber of Commerce.

"I've pretty much lost sympathy for most of the working people on the Palouse"

For those of you who doubt that professors are elitist snobs, I submit as Exhibit A the arrogant, bitter, socialistic rantings of Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki. If you don't have access to the online version of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Chuckie is posting comments on Dnews.com bitching about the Saturday article that reported poor ol' impoverished WSU profs only make on average $92,000 a year.

Pezeshki's comments are some of the most amusing pieces of left-wing intelligentsia fluffery I've read yet and pull back the curtain on how our faculty libs really feel about the issues. His comments demonstrate quite well why we have no reason to ever fear the campus moonbats getting into political power locally.

One thing that really has to change if the relationship between the towns and the universities is to improve is that the towns need to stop HATING the professors that have chosen to come here for their rank and salary. These professors drive the quality of life in our cities, and their taxes pay for many things that people with lower salaries cannot. The universities also profoundly boost the average income in the area.

Mind you, Chuck's happy with his salary. He's just pissed off there's not more genuflecting to our Ph.D. betters like him. And he wonders why people "hate" professors? Chuck forgets one very important point: IT IS THE "FILTHY WORKING CLASS" HE DESPISES SO MUCH THAT PAYS HIS DAMN SALARY AND FOR ALL OF HIS TRIPS TO LONDON, VIENNA, ET. AL. WITH THEIR TAXES! YOU DON'T LIKE SUCKING OFF THE GOVERNMENT TEAT? THEN GO GET A JOB IN THE REAL WORLD WHERE YOU HAVE TO MAKE A PROFIT AND PRODUCE RESULTS, RATHER THAN FLINGING DISDAIN FOR THOSE WITH NO LETTERS AFTER THEIR NAME LIKE YOU!!

Sorry, A G. You get no sympathy from me-- and I've gotten to the point where I've pretty much lost sympathy for most of the working people on the Palouse as well.

If you poll most of the professors on campus, they are for higher taxes, which would predominantly affect the rich. Most of the professors are for socialized medicine, which would profoundly help the working poor and lower middle class in the area. Most professors would be for some form of low-rent, subsidized housing in the area. The one thing that the professors are mostly against is sprawl, and loss of community character, because that's the one draw we have going here.

But it's the working classes that are convinced that these things are the enemy. So be it.

I agree that people ought to be appreciative of the good fortune they have. But it's that doggone MARKET I keep hearing about from the lower-middle class that votes for Republicans that's supposed to raise them up and bring us down. It just doesn't seem to be working that way, though.

I've never seen a more dysfunctional, irrational culture in a 1st World country than what's on the Palouse. Keep voting against your interests, and alienating your intellectual and real allies. It's really worked great so far, hasn't it? Your children are being sent to war, your paycheck is dropping, and I can tell you from where the currency rate sits, the bottom is about to drop out from underneath the dollar, making those 'Guaranteed Low Walmart Prices' a thing of sunny memory.

I'm not happy about any of this. And having run for office to try to stop this, I've put my money where my mouth is. But it's exhausting, personally, the level of acrimony from the community. Myself, as well as others-- the ones that would really be interested in sharing community leadership, are really at the point of almost checking out.

Just remember, when the Gods want to punish you, they grant you your wishes.

Best,

Chuck

Are the arrogant, know-it-all, meddling, elitist, communist professors really going to check out of the Palouse? From your lips to God's ears, Chuck.

In Case You Thought I Was Joking About Those Red Scarves Worn by the Moscow Civic Association

This picture of MCA candidate Tom Lamar appeared in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News: