Wal-Mart

The battle in my area is over a twenty-four hour Wal-Mart. After three years of reports and meetings, the city of Ontario, California's planning commission unanimously voted to approve the project and send it to the five person city council for final acceptance. Despite over three hundred outraged local residents who showed up at a Thursday night meeting, Wal-Mart is very close to winning this battle. It is obvious that in a growing San Bernardino County, Wal-Mart will have many shoppers drooling to get inside its doors and snap up the low price merchandise. The issue in this battle was not the residents hatred of Wal-Mart's predatory practices and its low salary structure and poor health benefits for employees. Most of those who spoke out against the giant chain did want the store to built in their most residential area. With Ontario busting as the seems and growing into former dairy lands, the residents could not understand why a twenty-four hour superstore had to be put so close to their homes, churches, schools, and parks. North Ontario is home to many older folk who have lived in the city since the 1950's and 60's. These are the people who literally built the city and were Ontario's economic backbone for many years. I went to the planning meeting and was disheartened and brought to a tear or two to see regular hard working folk publicly pour out their hearts only to have a callous planning commission vote against them. There can be no doubt that Wal-Mart is using its power and wealth to pull the strings in this situation. You always hear about corporations and developers getting their way but to see this happen at such a close distance makes one wonder what our democracy has come to.