Former city manager tells Wal-Mart woes
Former city manager tells Wal-Mart woes
BY FRANK ZUFALL
Spooner Advocate
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 11:51:02 AM
Nancy Shipley, former city manager for Nowata, Okla., said when Wal-Mart proposed a small store in the city of 4,000 and built one in 1982, the people in the community greeted the store with open arms, even excitement.
However, she said, the perception of Wal-Mart began to change as 18 longtime existing business closed their doors within three years of Wal-mart’s arrival.
Shipley was in Spooner Tuesday afternoon at the invitation of Washburn County First, a grassroots organization opposing Wal-Mart’s development plans for the northwest corner of Cty. Hwy. H and Hwy. 53 in Spooner.
Steve Carlson of Trego, chairman of Washburn County First said he read about the situation in Nowata and called the Nowata City Hall to find out more. He was put in touch with Shipley, the city manager through the Wal-Mart’s opening in the community and after it left. She changed jobs in 2005.
She intended to relay what happened in her city to the Spooner City Council Tuesday night during an open hearing on the proposed Wal-Mart Development.
“It didn’t take me very long to figure out it wasn’t a good deal when my shoe store and my dress store and everything else I bought [from] in town were closed,” Shipley said earlier on Tuesday. “The only thing that was left was the Wal-Mart, so you didn’t get the good shoes, the good dresses. You took what they had.”
But Shipley alleged the community really soured on Wal-Mart when the Fortune 100 retailer closed the Nowata store suddenly in 1994 and two other small Wal-Marts near the city, and moved operations to a newly constructed Supercenter 25 miles away in Bartelsville.
She said when Wal-Mart left, the downtown was literally boarded up and the citizens were left without local options for shopping other than driving 25 miles away to the Supercenter.
“The question you need to ask Wal-Mart is ‘How long do you intend to stay?’” said Shipley.
The story of Nowata has been chronicled in books opposing Wal-Mart expansion across the country. Shipley herself was featured in a New York Times article titled, “When Wal-Mart pulls out, what’s left?” She also has been interviewed by the BBC about Wal-Mart’s impact on communities.
“I think I am up here to show how Wal-Mart devastated Nowata when it left,” she said. “Actually it devastated when it came in. Within 1 1/2 years, half the businesses [of the 18] were closed; within three years they were all closed.”
She said the Spooner City Council needs to ask some serious questions of Wal-Mart before the city gives the green light.
“Before I’d agreed for them to come into this town, I would want to know if they are going to stay forever. If they will stay and help you,” said Shipley.
She said Wal-Marts will build at the end of a town, and other businesses will tend to move in that direction, and downtowns will be affected.
“I think people should support the stores that are here,” she said. “Even if you have to pay a higher price, it is better to keep your mom and pop stores, rather than having one giant Wal-Mart coming in and everything else closing down.”
She said a drug store survived downtown because Nowata Wal-Mart did not have a pharmacy and because the drug store owners purposely carried inventory Wal-Mart did not sell.
She said the town’s grocery stores also managed to survive because the Nowata store, because it was not a Supercenter, did not sell groceries.
The Supercenter Wal-Mart plans to build in Spooner besides selling commercial products will also sell groceries and have a pharmacy.
“It was really a sad situation when they left,” she said. “That is probably my message, how it affected the town when it left. There was not places to go to shop.”
Shipley said she has no idea why Wal-Mart left. She said a local banker she knows who collected the Nowata’s Wal-Mart’s receipts said the store was doing a “very good business” with “huge profits.”
Shipley said when she first heard of the Wal-Mart leaving she went to the store’s manager who told her, “We will be here always.”
“The had a sign on the building that said, ‘We will be here always,’” she said “and within another month they said they were going to close.”
Shipley said the manager was a nice man and she tends to believe he did not know himself of the closing.
She said them most affected people by Wal-Mart’s leaving is elderly people who can not drive to Bartlesville and 70 employees of the store who lost their jobs.
“I can tell you this, they had no sympathy for our town for the citizens who lived there,” she said. “Besides that they took the tax base with them. It left the city with no money to maintain the sanitry, aiport, all the mowing that has to be done. We laid off seven employees in our maintence department when they left town.”
Brayn Lee, president of the First National Bank of Nowata, interviewed in the New York Times article was also crtical of Wal-Mart. “They came in and ravaged all the small businesses, and when it came to the point where they were not satisfied, they left,” he said.
Also interviewd in the New York Times artle was the mayor who was in office, Armel Richardson, when Wal-Mart came into the city in 1982.
“Wal-Mart has proven this: They’re big and greedy; they have no compassion for the community or the individual,” said the former mayor.
In the New York Times Article Don E. Shinkle, Wal-Mart’s vice president of coroporate affairs refered to the closing of the Nowata and two other stores in the area as consolidations and a “win-win-win situation for everybody,” he said.
“He said the supercenters, withthe jobs they offer and wider selected of goods generated more sales and taxes, help everyone mor than the smaller stores,” wrote the article’s author Peter Kilborn.
Signs of recovery have slowly appeared since Wal-Mart has left, she said, with the arrival of Family Dollar store and department store called Bud’s, a division of Wal-Mart selling production-damage, refurbished and discounted goods.
Copyright © 1998-2006 MultiMedia Interactive. All rights reserved.
BY FRANK ZUFALL
Spooner Advocate
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 11:51:02 AM
Nancy Shipley, former city manager for Nowata, Okla., said when Wal-Mart proposed a small store in the city of 4,000 and built one in 1982, the people in the community greeted the store with open arms, even excitement.
However, she said, the perception of Wal-Mart began to change as 18 longtime existing business closed their doors within three years of Wal-mart’s arrival.
Shipley was in Spooner Tuesday afternoon at the invitation of Washburn County First, a grassroots organization opposing Wal-Mart’s development plans for the northwest corner of Cty. Hwy. H and Hwy. 53 in Spooner.
Steve Carlson of Trego, chairman of Washburn County First said he read about the situation in Nowata and called the Nowata City Hall to find out more. He was put in touch with Shipley, the city manager through the Wal-Mart’s opening in the community and after it left. She changed jobs in 2005.
She intended to relay what happened in her city to the Spooner City Council Tuesday night during an open hearing on the proposed Wal-Mart Development.
“It didn’t take me very long to figure out it wasn’t a good deal when my shoe store and my dress store and everything else I bought [from] in town were closed,” Shipley said earlier on Tuesday. “The only thing that was left was the Wal-Mart, so you didn’t get the good shoes, the good dresses. You took what they had.”
But Shipley alleged the community really soured on Wal-Mart when the Fortune 100 retailer closed the Nowata store suddenly in 1994 and two other small Wal-Marts near the city, and moved operations to a newly constructed Supercenter 25 miles away in Bartelsville.
She said when Wal-Mart left, the downtown was literally boarded up and the citizens were left without local options for shopping other than driving 25 miles away to the Supercenter.
“The question you need to ask Wal-Mart is ‘How long do you intend to stay?’” said Shipley.
The story of Nowata has been chronicled in books opposing Wal-Mart expansion across the country. Shipley herself was featured in a New York Times article titled, “When Wal-Mart pulls out, what’s left?” She also has been interviewed by the BBC about Wal-Mart’s impact on communities.
“I think I am up here to show how Wal-Mart devastated Nowata when it left,” she said. “Actually it devastated when it came in. Within 1 1/2 years, half the businesses [of the 18] were closed; within three years they were all closed.”
She said the Spooner City Council needs to ask some serious questions of Wal-Mart before the city gives the green light.
“Before I’d agreed for them to come into this town, I would want to know if they are going to stay forever. If they will stay and help you,” said Shipley.
She said Wal-Marts will build at the end of a town, and other businesses will tend to move in that direction, and downtowns will be affected.
“I think people should support the stores that are here,” she said. “Even if you have to pay a higher price, it is better to keep your mom and pop stores, rather than having one giant Wal-Mart coming in and everything else closing down.”
She said a drug store survived downtown because Nowata Wal-Mart did not have a pharmacy and because the drug store owners purposely carried inventory Wal-Mart did not sell.
She said the town’s grocery stores also managed to survive because the Nowata store, because it was not a Supercenter, did not sell groceries.
The Supercenter Wal-Mart plans to build in Spooner besides selling commercial products will also sell groceries and have a pharmacy.
“It was really a sad situation when they left,” she said. “That is probably my message, how it affected the town when it left. There was not places to go to shop.”
Shipley said she has no idea why Wal-Mart left. She said a local banker she knows who collected the Nowata’s Wal-Mart’s receipts said the store was doing a “very good business” with “huge profits.”
Shipley said when she first heard of the Wal-Mart leaving she went to the store’s manager who told her, “We will be here always.”
“The had a sign on the building that said, ‘We will be here always,’” she said “and within another month they said they were going to close.”
Shipley said the manager was a nice man and she tends to believe he did not know himself of the closing.
She said them most affected people by Wal-Mart’s leaving is elderly people who can not drive to Bartlesville and 70 employees of the store who lost their jobs.
“I can tell you this, they had no sympathy for our town for the citizens who lived there,” she said. “Besides that they took the tax base with them. It left the city with no money to maintain the sanitry, aiport, all the mowing that has to be done. We laid off seven employees in our maintence department when they left town.”
Brayn Lee, president of the First National Bank of Nowata, interviewed in the New York Times article was also crtical of Wal-Mart. “They came in and ravaged all the small businesses, and when it came to the point where they were not satisfied, they left,” he said.
Also interviewd in the New York Times artle was the mayor who was in office, Armel Richardson, when Wal-Mart came into the city in 1982.
“Wal-Mart has proven this: They’re big and greedy; they have no compassion for the community or the individual,” said the former mayor.
In the New York Times Article Don E. Shinkle, Wal-Mart’s vice president of coroporate affairs refered to the closing of the Nowata and two other stores in the area as consolidations and a “win-win-win situation for everybody,” he said.
“He said the supercenters, withthe jobs they offer and wider selected of goods generated more sales and taxes, help everyone mor than the smaller stores,” wrote the article’s author Peter Kilborn.
Signs of recovery have slowly appeared since Wal-Mart has left, she said, with the arrival of Family Dollar store and department store called Bud’s, a division of Wal-Mart selling production-damage, refurbished and discounted goods.
Copyright © 1998-2006 MultiMedia Interactive. All rights reserved.
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