[Vision2020] The Future

[Donovan Arnold]

Andreas,

Big stores do not provide wealth for the stock boy in
the store. They provide wealth for the shopper. If
they can knock 20% of the price off my purchases, that
is 20% more in my pocket I can go downtown with an
spend at a local specialty shop. 

You are right that a locally owned shop trying to go
head to head and toe to toe with the same services and
merchandise as a big chain is going to belly up real
fast. And frankly, that would be stupid and would only
be destined to go the way of the Dodo bird anyway.
Most local businesses provide a special niche that the
big chains cannot provide, in either service and/or
product. Small specialty shops will only expand if
their patrons have more wealth by getting bargains on
some daily needed items and/or the population
increases.

Wal-Mart is not in competition with anyone in town.
They were once with K-Mart and are now with Shop-Ko. I
lost no tears for K-Mart when they shut down. I am for
a Target because it will only hurt Shop-Ko and
Wal-Mart.

Further, would we rather the Home Depot, Target or
Pier One be in Pullman or in Moscow?

I think the way to go is for Moscow to be more
business friendly and lower the property taxes for
incoming business for a year or two so we can lower
taxes for everyone with a bigger tax base.

The moratorium was a bad mistake. It sends an even
louder voice to businesses that could provide jobs,
increase revenue for our school district, lower the
tax burden and improve the quality of life in Moscow
for everyone, to not bother coming to Moscow. It only
confirmed our negative reputation of being business
hostile. We need more than just the UI to support our
economy if we want Moscow to have a decent future. We
cannot keep Moscow in the 1900s. We need jobs. We
needs a diversity of jobs. And we need tax relief.  

Donovan J Arnold


--- Andreas Schou <ophite at gmail.com> wrote:

> Chris --
> 
> Though not all big-box stores are drains on the
> economy -- CostCo and
> Bed, Bath, and Beyond are good examples -- some
> big-box development
> demonstrably has negative effects on local
> economies, especially small
> economies. Retail pays less and has fewer benefits
> than any sector of
> the economy than food service.
> 
> We cannot compete with Spokane as a nexus for
> big-box development. Any
> attempt to do so w idiocy -- we don't have the
> population base to
> support it. Unless we bring in more shoppers from
> outside Moscow --
> and we don't have any coherent plan to do so -- the
> only town that
> will show any net economic benefit from another
> Wal-Mart is
> Bentonville, AR. We cannot have an economy that
> cannibalizes itself:
> fewer, lower-paying jobs replacing local retail*
> will simply Hoover
> money out of the local economy -- and that's not
> even including the
> bribes in tax write-offs it would require to make
> them come.
> 
> Retail cannot save Latah county. Relying on retail
> is a sucker's bet.
> 
> -- ACS
> 
>
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