Bad news.

Those Wal-Mart sock puppets are more slimey and less ethical than we gave them credit for.

So, late last night, after having stated categorically that the Wal-Mart certificate of occupancy was NOT going to be considered that night, Maggie, Gary, and Jay pulled a fast one over on the two Johns. Maggie got to play-act, and pretend she was making a completely extemporaneous suggestion that they "talk" about the Wal-Mart. Of course, this "talk" quickly turned into a motion to approve the certificate of occupancy. This, even though the city's own Planning Department told them that Wal-Mart had not yet met all of the conditions of approval.

I drove by through the parking lot of the site this evening, just to see for myself. Sure enough, there were still piles of PVC piping and potted plants laying all over the property. Clearly, the landscaping was not done. Clearly, the garden area is not completed.

No way for my amateur eye, without access to the full property, could determine if all other conditions were met. For example, are those security cameras mounted on the roof actually powered up? Are they transmitting a signal? Is the scene being videotaped? But the landscaping is obviously not complete, and it "had" to be before the certificate of occupancy could be issued. But when during our entire fight have technicalities like "the law" stopped Jay, Gary, Maggie, Little Mikey Lewis, and the rest of those Wal-Mart toadies from doing what ever they wanted to do?

It's another sad day for grassroots democracy. There is no doubt that the city council's approval of the certificate of occupancy violated their previously-mandated conditions. Now, it may be that the city council has the authority to amend the conditions of approval at their discretion, since Wal-Mart no longer has a development agreement with the city. But the city council can't adopt a change like this without first placing it on the agenda for the meeting. Or, sure they can add issues to the agenda when an "emergency" arises. But what's the emergency in granting the certificate of occupancy last night, instead of in two days, or four days, or two weeks?

Sorry, Jay and Gary: The end of your political lives does not qualify as an emergency. There will be much rejoicing when the hearst comes to haul your political cadavers away. But it will be no emergency.

And so Rosemead's Wal-Mart opened its doors this morning. A judge who had repeated postponed hearing several lawsuits against Wal-Mart could then say that it was too late for an injunction, since the store was already open.
The odds of being able to successfully shutter an already-open store are pretty long. But that doesn't mean our fight with Wal-Mart is over. We still have a duty to hold them accountable for their actions. If we can't shut them down, we'll at least be able to make them pay for their many violations of the conditions of approval. We'll be able to enforce the mitigation measures they agreed to. And we'll be able to make sure they don't switch over to 24-hour operation, with a 24-hour liquor license, and that they can not succeed in rolling back any of the other conditions of approval that they have already agreed to.

And, perhaps just as importantly, we can send a message to city councils all across the country: Bring a Wal-Mart supercenter to your community at your own peril. LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE. LET THEM VOTE. Or, face the consequences.

All of these things can still happen IF we win the recall election.

The recall election is still September 19. And the stakes are still high. We are still being out-spent by nearly six or seven to one. So we still need your support.

Phone banking continues tomorrow (there was a major snafu this evening--we should be back on track tomorrow). Info on phone banking was in my last message, on Tuesday.

[note - this was an email. The Wal-Mart situation in Rosemead is a good example of what happens when the City Council is in bed with the big corporations, against the will of the people. Not only do projects get approved -- laws are violated, politicians are bought out, and nobody is punished. It should be no surprise that the unemployment rate, growth, and economic division in Rosemead are worse than in the adjacent communities.]]

This is a letter by Todd Kunioka that he's got on the site:

Bryan Xu (Sept 8) asks why there's a Rosemead recall. I'd like to answer that question.
There’s a mis-perception that the arrival of Wal-Mart has divided our city and created a rancorous, uncivil discourse in Rosemead. But it’s not just that Wal-Mart has come to town–it’s that the citizens of Rosemead never got a chance to vote on the issue.
Rather than give the people a voice in determining the future of their city, Mayor Gary Taylor and Councilman Jay Imperial have done everything they could to silence their critics. They twice refused to place the issue up for a city-wide referendum. Then, when the citizens of Rosemead demanded a recall election, Imperial sued their own city to try to stop that election.
People wonder why the recall election is occurring so close to the next scheduled election? It’s because Jay Imperial’s lawsuit delayed the recall for over seven months (and cost our city over $400,000!).
What could that $400,000 have paid for? More law enforcement? (Response times to Priority One calls in Rosemead is over eight minutes–that’s six to eight times longer than it takes law enforcement to respond in Alhambra or Monterey Park, and twice that of San Gabriel). More parks? (Rosemead has fewer park acres per capita than Alhambra or Monterey Park). Help attract the sort of national chain grocery stores, restaurants and movie theaters that we don’t have in Rosemead, but they do have in Alhambra and Montebello?
Rosemead has plenty of needs. And, thanks to Jay Imperial (and with the full support of Gary Taylor), we have 400,000 fewer dollars to meet those needs.
Should they be recalled? You bet they should.

This is a comment on recall elections from the sewerwatch blog. click the link for a more formatted, linked version.

A local government board is pursuing a large project in their community. The project is very controversial and has already led to the election of two candidates that oppose the project to the board.

However, the board majority still favors the project and continues to aggressively pursue it, so the community launches a recall campaign aimed at removing the remaining project proponents from office, and that campaign leads to a recall election.

Then, the officials targeted for the recall stifle the process for months, and then they set the recall election for one of the latest possible dates.

Then, in the window of time allotted by delaying the election, the board approves work on the project, and the developer begins "site preparation work, with trees cut down, and bulldozers on site," all before the recall election.

And, of course, the delay in the election date also allows more time for those targeted in the recall to receive huge sums of campaign contributions from the businesses that will benefit from the project.

Los Osos, 2005?

Nope.

Rosemead, 2006.

What is currently playing out in the southern California community of Rosemead is almost the exact same situation that happened in Los Osos last year. The only difference is that instead of a sewer project, the controversial Rosemead project is a Wal-Mart Superstore, and the "site preparation work, with trees cut down, and bulldozers on site" was paid for with private funds in Rosemead. In Los Osos, that was paid for with public funds.

If there is a lesson that can be gleaned from the recall process in Los Osos last year, it's this: Officials targeted for recall in California shouldn't be setting their own recall election date.

That is just asking for problems, and the situation in Rosemead -- with its grossly un-level, campaign contributions playing field, and its unpopular project recklessly moving forward -- is just the latest example.

In Los Osos, 2005, in a 3-2 vote, the three directors that were up for recall, set their own recall election date at one of the latest possible dates. In the time they allotted themselves by delaying the election, they were able to use millions of dollars of public funds to begin work on the controversial sewer project. The recall was successful, the project was stopped, and the public funds would prove to be needlessly, and recklessly, wasted.

As it currently reads, the California Elections Code (pertinent sections reprinted below) allows the governing body that has members up for recall to schedule the recall election date anywhere from 88 days to 125 days after the election is announced.

The three members of the Los Osos Community Services District that were recall targets in 2005, voted to use almost all of the 125 days, and then started work on the sewer project just a few weeks before the election.

In a recent phone interview with San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder, Julie Rodewald, I asked her if she would have set the recall election date in Los Osos closer to the 88 days, or closer to the 125 days. She said, "I would have set it closer to the 88 days."

Which means the California Elections Code, as written, is hurting California, because if Rodewald had the authority to set the recall election date in Los Osos, instead of those facing recall, the election would have taken place weeks earlier, and the recalled board majority would have never had the opportunity to start work on the project, and millions of dollars of California taxpayer money would not have been wasted, and Los Osos would not have a huge ditch today in the place of what was once Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area.

SewerWatch is advocating a change in the elections code. The change is simple and reasonable: A governing body that is up for recall should not be setting its own recall election date. Instead, that should be done by the county elections official. In San Luis Obispo County, that would be Rodewald.

Here's the current language in the CEC for setting recall elections:

11240. Within 14 days after the meeting at which the governing body received the certificate of sufficiency as specified in Section 11227, the governing body shall issue an order stating that an election shall be held pursuant to this article to determine whether or not the officer named in the petition shall be recalled.

11241. If the governing board fails to issue the order within the time specified in Section 11240, the county elections official, within five days, shall set the date for holding the election. If the recall is to be voted on by voters in more than one county, the elections official of the county with the largest number of registered voters who will be voting in the election shall set the date for holding the election in consultation with the elections officials of the other counties.

11242. The election shall be held not less than 88, nor more than 125, days after the issuance of the order, and if a regular or special election is to be held throughout the electoral jurisdiction of the officer sought to be recalled within this time period, the recall election shall be held on the same day, and consolidated with, the regular or special election.

SewerWatch is advocating that section 11240 should be changed to read:

11240. Within 14 days after the meeting at which the governing body received the certificate of sufficiency as specified in Section 11227, the governing body shall issue an order stating that an election shall be held pursuant to this article to determine whether or not the officer named in the petition shall be recalled, and the county elections official shall set the date of the election.

Then 11241 would simply read:

11241. If the recall is to be voted on by voters in more than one county, the elections official of the county with the largest number of registered voters who will be voting in the election shall set the date for holding the election in consultation with the elections officials of the other counties.

And that's it.

If the elections code had included that language in 2005, Los Osos doesn't have a huge ditch in the middle of town, millions of dollars of California taxpayer money would not have been recklessly pounded into the ground, and there's a very good chance that the Los Osos CSD isn't bankrupt today (unless, of course, they needed the SRF money to avoid bankruptcy before the recall election. The jury is still out on that one.)

The Rosemead recall election is set for next Tuesday, September 19. To date, Wal-Mart has contributed over $200,000 to the two sitting board members' campaigns. The three candidates seeking their seats have raised less than $50,000 combined. It is the most expensive election in Rosemead's history.

The 210,000-square-foot Wal-Mart store opened last Wednesday, under massive controversy.

###

This is an interesting twist from way back. After the recall petition was circulated, a court judged, in a different recall case in Santa Ana, that recall petitions need to conform to the Voting Rights Act. (It was the Nativo Lopez case.)

Then, shortly after that decision, the DOJ said that the Rosemead recall, which had already been concluded, needed to conform to that law as well. It was a coincidence of timing.

What IS interesting is that the main proponent of the VRA on the Rosemead CC was Jay Imperial, but has traditionally opposed the VRA according to Gloria Romero (he's a right-wing christian conservative). Also, the attorney general at this time is Alberto Gonzalez, the guy who thinks torture is good.

(I don't think these guys are racist. It's just that the VRA probably hits closer to home for them than for most people, and they would take the anti-VRA stance to prove something. Their VRA-abuse is a kind of protest against the VRA -- of using the system against itself.)

http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/sec_203/documents/rosemead_comp.htm