Wal-Mart gives backers $111,000

Eron Ben-Yehuda

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- If money talks, then Wal-Mart will be heard loud and

clear in the campaign leading to a vote on a ballot initiative that may

scuttle the retailer’s plans to open a store.

A local campaign committee friendly to Wal-Mart has collected about

$112,000 so far, with the retailer contributing about $111,000, according to public financial statements filed Jan. 11.

“It’s an outrageous sum of money,” said Connie Boardman, a member of Save

Crest View, an opposing committee whose members helped sponsor the

initiative.

Known as Measure I, the initiative will ask residents in the March

election to rezone the site on Talbert Avenue by Beach Boulevard, where

Wal-Mart proposes to build a 150,000-square-foot retail complex. Changing

the zoning from commercial to residential may prevent the project from

moving forward.

The total amount of money Wal-Mart opponents have managed to collect --

about $13,000 -- pales in comparison to the retailer’s largess, public

financial statements dated Jan. 4 show. Boardman said Wal-Mart is giving

the other side an unfair advantage.

“I think it’s unfair when a giant corporation is trying to influence a

local election,” she said.

But Wal-Mart spokeswoman Cynthia Lin said the company is simply

supporting a grass-roots campaign driven by parents, teachers, school

officials and local businesses. The project site is a closed school

campus owned by the Ocean View School District, which plans to use the

money gained from the development to renovate other district facilities.

“This is their campaign,” Lin said. “We’ll do what we can to help.”

The money pays not only for mass mailers and campaign signs, but for the

services of firms that specialize in public relations and surveys, the

financial statements reveal.

The Arkansas-based retailer isn’t the only outsider involved in the

campaign, Lin points out. Wal-Mart’s opponents received $10,000 from a

retail clerks union headquartered in Washington D.C., financial

statements show. The United Food and Commercial Workers, with a local

chapter in Buena Park, is critical of Wal-Mart’s practice of hiring

nonunion employees, Boardman said.

Ultimately, campaign contributions will not decide the election, said

Tracy Pellman, co-chair of Save Our Schools, the committee fighting the

initiative.

“Having the community understand what’s going on is going to be the

advantage,” she said. “I don’t think money is going to do it.”