This past month, much to my surprise, the Wichita city council ruled against a re-zoning request that would have allowed Wal-Mart to build a third store here in town. Wal-Mart already has numerous Supercenters here in Wichita but most are on the edge of town; this was a more central location. I found out about it a few days before the vote and wrote to the council members to let them know that I didn't think Wal-Mart ran the kind of business that had the interests of Wichita in mind. I would not consider myself a wholly anti-Wal-Mart citizen (here are some that are) but definitely lean more that direction.
I wish I could say that our city council sided with the grass-roots efforts to keep Wal-Mart at bay but my reading of the minutes from that meeting (starting on page 98) lead me to believe that the council was more interested in getting the issue settled rather than give Wal-Mart time to work its PR machine to change the mind of the public. Regardless, the re-zoning request was turned down 5-0 and Wal-Mart was kept out of that particular location.
All that leaves is the rest of the city to defend.
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