Stop the Wal-Mart Machine

Join forces with community, union, environmental, and senior activists fighting Wal-Mart in Contra Costa County. Business Week, in their October 6th cover story on Wal-Mart wrote, “The most hotly contested battleground at the moment is Contra Costa County.”

Volunteers needed to walk precincts and make phone calls, especially this weekend.

Meet this Saturday at 9 am at the ACORN office:

132 Bailey Road, Bay Point (this is one block west of the Pittsburg/Bay Point BART station)
925-261-0233

BACKGROUND on MEASURE L - the anti-big box ordinance

Last year a broad coalition of community, Labor, faith, senior, and environmental groups worked with the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors to pass an anti-Big Box ordinance that limits large-scale retail commercial development in the unincorporated areas of Contra Costa County. This ordinance directly targets “supercenters” -- mammoth stores that take up over five football fields and put tens of thousands of extra cars on the streets of our communities. Our coalition saw this as the first step in an ambitious plan to control unplanned growth, traffic, and congestion in the region.

Within one week, Wal-Mart brought in an out-of-state petitioning firm to gather signatures for a referendum. UFCW Local 1179 and ACORN ran a blocking campaign in response. Although Wal-Mart's deep pockets prevailed, company spokespeople described it as the strongest and most well organized opposition they have encountered anywhere in the country.

Faced with a March ballot, our coalition is fighting to make sure land use choices are made here and not in Arkansas. Wal-Mart has already spent $1 million on this campaign and they are not done spending yet. Come help us win and tell them that it will not be "business as usual" in California.

For more information see our web site:
http://na4lc.org
http://www.acorn.org