I understand the desire to have the blighted area unused now filled in some way. I might suggest that with a community effort the area could be developed into a 'victory' garden to raise food for personal and food bank use. Braddock Pa and other communities did the same with remarkable results.

I think it is a great thing because moon township is so built up that the robinson store is crazy to get into there s to many people in the area and it will help the area

Hi Cheryl..

I would be very interested in hearing how the WM store will help the area? Will it enhance the growth of existing businesses that it will compete against? Thanks for your response in advance.

Walmart imports over 70% from China and India raising THEIR GDP instead of the GDP of the United States. Walmart is the world's largest retailer, therefore they dictate the terms to producers. When they buy domestically, they demand from producers only make a 1-2% profit, which often puts them out of business or forces them to abandon domestic manufacturing plants and move to China or other places where the labor and production costs are cheaper. This makes them a domestic predatory company. They did this with Huffy Bikes, Vlasic Pickles, Levis, etc.

Walmart has raised the GDP of China so much that China takes those dollars and purchases US Treasuries: Bills and Bonds, owning the US debt, which controls the US economy. Yes, China significantly controls the US economy because of the amount of imports we Americans buy.

On a micro-economic scale, Walmart will ultimately control the economy of Moon Township, since they could easily force our local small businesses to close creating further blighting of our business districts, not to mention the traffic nightmare they will create by being in the center of our town.

Walmart has seen the data, which states that their customer base has an evermore shrinking budget; therefore, Walmart will have to cut prices even further. This will force small local businesses to either close, or operate on a near zero profit margin. Most operate on a marginal profit already, while barely holding on.

I can not but giggle here imagining Clearhead an employee of a Walmart look alike. Maybe he is a KMART checker. Walmart is a devourer of small businesses and that is a reality. The Wall Street Journal had a piece on how WMart puts the screws to companies to cut their prices so as to give WMart the edge and claim they are the cheapest. And I do imagine you have kept up the lawsuits against WMart for unfair and illegal practices with it's employees. Other than that they are a dream come true.
And other than property taxes what the heck will they give back to our community?? Cheap toilet paper?

Hi everyone,

It's Jenna from Patch. At Patch, we're all about promoting community discussion and debate. But this is just a friendly reminder to please refrain from personal attacks at one another on the site. For more information on our commenting policy you can see our Terms of Use policy listed at the bottom of the site.

Best,

Jenna

I have lived in Moon Twp all my life and I don't want Walmart here, they are the ANTI_CHRIST of all Dept. stores causing smaller businesses to close down. We don't need a Walmart here there is one not even 10 minutes away. Walmart will eventually raise all their prices once they wipe out all the other stores. I love Kmart, I remember when it was Kresgies in West Hills Shopping Center.

WalMart bought the property. If they comply with all the federal/state/local ordinances, you get a WalMart. The only way to get rid of them now, is to not shop there-and thus eventually return the property to a blight. If I remember correctly, that land sold for around $2million. Where were these Moon First folks when the property was for sale? Why didn't they counter WalMart's offer and actually save the day instead of comming in after the fact and wasting time and money on a fait accompli? Did you ever notice these 60's throwback protest everything types are always a day late and a dollar short with their causes? Surely all of the highly intelligent and industrious members of their organization could have come up with funding to buy that land...but oh, that seems to be another trait of the protest types. They are so busy protesting that they never seem to have any money of their own. They come in after the fact to waste taxpayer's and other's money. So boycott the Walmart and when it closes, MoonFirst will buy it for a commune or some other 60's throwback foolishness!

WHEW LCDR... stereotyping and castigating people who disagree with you clouds the issues at hand and certainly does not encourage community..

I will be sitting back listening to all the reports of accidents and police calls coming in chasing shop lifters coming from other communities other than Moon, because this Walmart will not only be drawing people from Moon and Cory, there will be people coming from surrounding communities like Hopewell and Aliquippa. Moon will be so consumed with so much traffic it won't be funny. Even where they put Getgo is not a very safe place for cars to pull in and out. I remember when Burger King was on that side of the road it was so hard to make a left turn out of their lot.

Here is some background obtained from a Moon First participant whom I had spoken to: Moon First was formed because a couple people in the community had learned that someone in the township had spoken with a Walmart representative, this was before Ms. Creese had been hired, and after the Target deal had fallen through. The owner of the property was in default, and had blighted his own property.

Any deal making had been done away from the public eye. It was assumed by many that the overlay district covered West Hills Shopping Center, since it was in the center of the township; but, it was not included. It wasn't until some citizens were informed of the Walmart deal that a group was formed.

They felt that it was better to have formed when they did, then to have never formed at all. They stated that they have spent many hours, UNPAID, to organize the actions that they put forward.

The taxes projected will likely be between $45k-$70. Do people out there believe this tax revenue is going to be a help for the school district and the township? Even if it was higher, such as $170K--is this an answer?

I must say that in spite of the few very angry commenters, who have thus far put up no facts and only opinion, or put forth any data to substantiate their claims, the members of Moon First has acted on behalf of many (and, of course, not all) within the community.

The issue at hand is not if a Walmart will be built but when it will come.

And by the way I am not in any organization I am a lifelong Moon resident so if you all think I am Ha!! Ha!!! NOT!!! I am a human being. I have always thought of Walmart as The Anti-Christ of all Dept. Stores, because I remember when they first built one somewhere else where I spent time and saw a whole town lose all their businesses. When Wally World takes over the entire USA and closes down other competitors, they will raise the prices. And just look at the people they let in their stores, they don't care if they are fully dressed or not. http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/

Walmart does not keep their daily cash register receipts in local banks, which if they did, would benefit local businesses, which could be used as credit lines. Instead, they wire all their receipts to Bentenville, AK. This shows me that they are not really trying to be a good neighbors. They are only coming to Moon as opportunists, and not as community collaborators.

I do enjoy the relationships I have with small business owners that I might frequent. I especially appreciate the service that small business. I don't enjoy the lack of service that one may experience from many large big box stores.

Of course, like everyone else, I do go to big box stores. But, I do frequent small businesses, and locally owned store chains.

I do agree with Jenna from Patch, these threads should be civil.

Today Wal-Mart is known as one of the largest profit making enterprise as well as the largest retail corporation in the world with annual sales of over 400 billion dollars. Wal-Mart is also considered as an ‘oligopoly’ since it has only a few players competing in the same retail sector. It has 5000 stores in 10 countries worldwide and 256 stores across Canada employing 60,000 employees. Wal-Mart is best known for its “everyday low prices”, which attracts millions of people around the world. The success behind Wal-Mart is that it identifies and satisfies people’s needs and wants by offering the most affordable prices that are 8%- 39% lower than many other retailers. However, Wal-Mart’s best prices and immense market power have taken over the majority share of the retail market and have drawn away the customers from other smaller businesses. Wal-Mart’s demanding low pricing strategy has negatively impacted the suppliers, manufacturing plants which were forced to close down, and has resulted in unemployment. Thus it, has ended up having a negative impact on the world’s economy.

In the recent times Wal-Mart has begun to manufacture a mass production of products in their own corporation and is saving up a large amount in the cost of production, in order to continue with its “low pricing” strategy, which signifies that it has an economy of scale. Today, 80% of Wal-Mart’s suppliers are Chinese, and while benefiting from their cheap labour, Wal-Mart offers to buy their products at lower rates. In order to meet Wal-Mart’s price demands, suppliers tend to cut down their production costs which lead to poor quality products being produced. Many suppliers find the Wal-Mart’s demand for low price unacceptable, because they cannot keep their products in high quality standards while selling their products to Wal-Mart for lower prices and enjoying a lower margin. Due to this reason many suppliers differentiated their products into high and low quality standards and supply their low quality products to Wal-Mart in order to meet its low price demand. For example, article Levi’s use colour tags such as the Red tag and the Orange tag to differentiate its products supplied to Wal-Mart because Levi’s couldn’t meet Wal-Mart’s low price demands. Therefore, a pair of Levi’s jeans purchased at a cheaper price from Wal-Mart is definitely not the same quality as a similar pair of jeans purchased from other retail outlets at a higher price.

Many consumers assume that the prices they pay at Wal-Mart are the best prices for their products, but they’re not aware that most products sold at Wal-Mart are of cheap quality due to its cost reduction measures. Thus it is not the best decision a certain individual could make when purchasing products. The difference is if a consumer pays a higher price for a product, it may last longer than the product he/she bought at a cheaper price.

Many manufacturing companies have faced various difficulties when trying to meet Wal-Mart’s low price demands. For instance, Rubbermaid a popular Corporation in the US in 1994 lost its business due to Wal-Mart. The reason being, as the cost of raw materials increased eventually the production cost increased, which led Rubbermaid to increase its price rates. Wal-Mart dropped the amount of products purchased from Rubbermaid, which had a tremendous decrease in Rubbermaid’s production and led the company to close down business.

Kraft that enjoyed 10% of its revenue from Wal-Mart had to close down 39 of their manufacturing plants. Due to this 13,500 employees lost their jobs. The reason Wal-Mart being the largest retail corporation and having a huge customer franchise in the US, many manufacturing companies tend to depend on Wal-Mart in order to sell their products. Wal-Mart continued to increase its low price demands from suppliers to maintain their “everyday low prices” strategy. In the long run, it has a negative impact on many supply chains and their employees. Even though, Wal-Mart has continued to grow rapidly with their philosophy of offering low prices, the employees who work for them have been heavily under paid with low wages. As a result of the economic downturn and people losing their jobs, Wal-Mart seems as created the best for their business strategy. Lastly, their discounted prices do have a negative impact on the world’s economy as it hurts the supply chain, employees, other smaller businesses and even consumers because their cheap rates lead to poor quality products.

I know this is an emotional issue for many of us but I couldn`t help imagine that, like many others these days,I lived in an alternate reality. In my AR a few years from now I pull into the Moon Walmart parking lot and my attention is drawn to a line of carts being pushed by one of those little robots operated by Marv Eicher....I park and enter the store and am greeted by Tim McLaughlin....as I do my shopping it occurs to me that all of the employees in the store are either former Moon Supervisors or school board members mixed in with the all-time most annoying public comment people. I finish my shopping...hit the check-out line ,gather my bags and as I exit the store and head towards my shiny,barn find,restored Bugatti that just won the Pebble Beach Concourse de elegance.....I smile, look skyward and say...Thank You, God!

LOL well you must be either a great imaginary wizard seeing the future or a very cool very short story writer.. IN any case it did bring some relief to the tension on this board and I thank you from my 1959 Cadillac fantasy.

All you anti-Walmarters I better not catch you buying detergent or garbage bags there at 12:30 AM while on your way home from some pro-union or community organizing meeting. Honestly it's a store like Sears, Target, or Giant Eagle. They all operate on a profit motive. None of them are in business out of concern for the community or their fellow men. Get over it and enjoy the everyday low prices!

By saying Walmart is just another store, and no different than Giant Eagle, Sears, etc. is like saying that the elephant in the room is no different than the dog and the cat. They are all animals but one demands more space.

Of course, we all have daily choices to where to buy our stuff, but when one walks into a Walmart, one has decided to look the other way and ignore the fact that the elephant in the room has decided to crush the dog and cat. This elephant in the room has decided to destroy the room, as well.

Walmart has made a business decision to send jobs overseas, to demand that what they buy, and then sell, is made cheaper, and, at sacrifice to quality, under cut every other retailer because they can afford certain losses more than other retailers, to treat their employees with less respect than many other big box retailers, and lure the very people whose jobs were destroyed by them to shop with them. That, of course, is a personal decision, but a sad one at that.

It is like a neighbor who invites the kids to swim in his beautiful pool, but insults and belittles them while they are there.

It`s pretty civil in here tonight.....I`m proud of you all! I really think Walmart just needs a good PR company ,especially whenever they move in to a new location. I understand that advertising costs money(lots) and keeping costs down is Walmarts thing but I think in their case a little image polishing would help them a lot.
Maybe,like Comcast,they could have a little jingle...It`s good for you....It`s good for me....c`mon everybody say Monopoly!!! Or they could try those heartwarming commercials like Range Resources where people extoll the positive effects drilling has had on their lives by allowing them to live a better lifestyle...before they start chemotherapy . Just sayin......

dearest seen: if you are a female I recently moved to Moon and would love to meet you for coffee because you are just too cool in here. I am female seeking friendships in the area. . We could start up an ad company for the impending monolith coming to our town. Maybe something from the Music Man. People:
Trouble, oh we got trouble,
Right here in Walmart City!
With a capital "T"
That rhymes with "P"
And that stands for Pool,
That stands for pool.
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in Walmart City,
Right here!

Wow! So much pontificating about something so simple as a new store. I really can't wait for the new WalMart. Especially since KMart/Sears has chosen to allow their store to go completely to h*ll. Will it have a negative effect on some of the other stores in the area? Of course it will, it is cheaper! Of course Henry Ford had a negative effect on the buggy whip seller down the street, too. Email is having a bit of an impact on the Postal Service. I haven't seen too many 8-track tapes on store shelves lately either. Things come and things go. It is the way of the world. Even in big box retail, I remember when Murphy's was the big retailer, or Hills or when Sears was actually a good quality store instead of owned by KMart. Some of you may like the idea of going to Lowes or Home Depot for your home improvement stuff while others will morn the passing of Heckingers or even want to go down to Joe's General Store and sit around the pickle barrel. It is 2011 - get over it.

LOL Check out this related press release.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/3/prweb9349879.htm