What is Save Our Community?

In case you've come to our site by accident, you may not know what SOC is all about.

The people who call themselves Save Our Community are volunteer citizens from Rosemead, South San Gabriel, and surrounding communities.  The group was originally organized to unify Rosemead and South San Gabriel residents in their battle against the Wal-Mart supercenter proposed for the corner of Rush St. and Delta Ave. in Rosemead.

Over the years, volunteers, whether as Save Our Community or as Save Our Community--To Support the Recall of Jay Imperial and Gary Taylor, have participated in the environmental impact report study process for the supercenter, protested against the biased report that was produced to justify the supercenter, supported litigation aimed at requiring a complete, unbiased environmental study, gathered petition signatures to qualify a referendum against the Wal-Mart, gathered petition signatures to qualify a recall election against two particularly unresponsive city council members, opposed litigation initiated by one of the targets of the recall that attempted to derail the election process, and supported candidates for city council who have commit themselves to being responsive to the health and safety concerns of all Rosemead residents.

Our opponents rely almost entirely on Wal-Mart for their funding.  Wal-Mart has dumped several hundred thousand dollars into Rosemead, mostly through their front-group, so-called Rosemead PRIDE.  Several mailers sent by so-called Rosemead PRIDE were in clear violation of state laws regarding campaign disclosure requirements.  Wal-Mart has also funneled tens of thousands of dollars in so-called indepedent expenditures on behalf of their favored candidates, and tens of thousands of additional dollars in so-called "advertising" and "public relations."

Wal-Mart's contractors have also been caught repeatedly violating the conditions of Wal-Mart's construction permit.  They have also repeated violated AQMD air quality regulations.  Unfortunately, the majority of our city council seems more concerned with helping Wal-Mart expedite the construction process than with making sure that the construction occurs in a manner consistent with the conditions of their approval.  One of these city council members was on record as early as December 2003 (when the study process was barely even begun) as saying that "There will be a Wal-Mart in Rosemead."  He obviously made up his mind without the need to actually consider evidence.

That's the short version of the history of SOC.

This website is set up as a blog.  Individuals post to our blog, providng you with a variety of viewpoints on the events that shape our city.  Peruse the various posts to get an idea of what we've been up to these past three years.