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Symbolism

Despite the entreaties from those who urged the Town not to rush in to okaying town water service for Walmart, interim Town Manager Wyatt Cutler repeatedly said that he saw no connection between Walmart coming and the opposition to it and the Town’s ability to say yes or no to providing water.

“Whether we give them water or not, they are still coming.” Cutler said. “It’s a symbolic gesture that does nothing, in my opinion.”

That prompted Oriental resident Barbara Stockton to respond, “You just caved to the Walmart business plan.” Earlier in the meeting, Stockton submitted more pages of the petition whose signers said they did not welcome walmart to Oriental’s outskirts. At the end of the meeting, she said that she would be starting a new petition drive, specifically on the water issue. (A day later, the petitions were in stores in Oriental.)

September 26 Agenda meeting where for half a hour public comment session, some opponents of the Walmart near Oriental pressed the Town Board to not grant water service. At this session, Board members responded to the comments, and signalled an inclination to let Walmart tap on. The matter is on the Agenda for the October 1 meeting.

Commissioner Venturi said that because Walmart could still get its water from the County, she didn’t think the Town denying its water, “would make a substantial difference.” “Do you think the symbolic gesture would be significant?” Venturi asked.

Bama Lutes Deal said that a symbolic gesture would be a way for the Board to show “real loyalty” to the homegrown businesses in town who, she says, are “so far feeling like there’s no one standing by us.”

“Our interests are not being protected,” said Deal

“Through your decision about the water,” Deal told the Board, “you have this last opportunity to exert any influence whatsover.” If the Walmart store is coming to the land outside of town, Deal said the time for the Town to negotiate with Walmart – regarding traffic patterns, light pollution at night for example — would be before voting to let the giant retailer tap on to the Town’s water system.

In one of the last comments of the half-hour-long dialogue between residents and Board members, Lili Stern told the Board that she’d grown up in Oriental and had moved back in the past year. Her hometown has a lot of pride she said, and she made a pitch to the pride of the Board as it neared the last month before the November elections. The water, Stern told the Board, “is the one thing you can control” with Walmart planning a store just outside of Town. “Just think,” she said, “about the legacy you want for this town.”

The Oriental Town Board meets for its regularly scheduled October meeting on Tuesday, October 1 at 7p at Town Hall. The item “Water Service: Walmart” is 11th on the agenda. There is a public comment period at the beginning of the meeting. At the regular meetings, Board members have not responded to comments from the public as they did at the Agenda meeting.

A copy of the petition may be seen at stopwalmart.org.

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Posted Saturday September 28, 2013 by Melinda Penkava