ATTENTION WAL-MART VOTERS.

(Yeah, I stole that title from The Village Voice.)

For a while now, Wal-Mart has been trying to build one of their insane "supercenters" in the Madison suburb of Stoughton, already home to a non-mutant Wal-Mart; the Stoughton City Council strongly opposed any new big box construction, and refused to allow a city-wide referendum on the new store. Yesterday, two anti-Wal-Mart Council members were voted out of office and two others were defeated for open seats, setting up a 6-6 split on the issue, with the pro-Wal-Mart Mayor breaking the tie. Madison itself already has two Wal-Marts, and the company has plans in the works in other Madison suburbs.

Meanwhile, the voters of Inglewood, CA, don't have their heads up their asses:

A bid by the world's largest corporation to bypass uncooperative elected officials and take its aggressive expansion plans to voters failed Tuesday, as Inglewood residents overwhelmingly rejected Wal-Mart's proposal to build a colossal retail and grocery center without an environmental review or public hearings.

With all votes counted Tuesday evening, 4,575 Inglewood residents had voted in favor of Wal-Mart's plan, while 7,049 had voted against it.

Wal-Mart hopes to break into California's grocery business by opening 40 such Supercenters statewide. The one in Inglewood would have been Los Angeles County's first.

The proposal would've effectively made the Inglewood Wal-Mart a sovereign city. If you're curious why this would be bad, please go here.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra ::: 2004:04:07:11:17