Save Our Community was founded in the movement to resist Wal-Mart's development in Rosemead, California. Now, it has become a general site for news, information, gossip, talk, and blogging about Rosemead. We also have stories about South San Gabriel, San Gabriel, Montebello, and occasionally about Pico Rivera, El Monte, South El Monte, Alhambra, Temple City, and other nearby communities. Your host is Todd. If you want a blog just sign up, get approved, and start writing. Good posts will be moved onto the home page.
Still the subject of litigation
Knowing that SOC had already appealed his earlier decision, Judge Yaffe took the unusual step of "approving" the revised EIR without hearing oral argument.
This is not as bad as it sounds however. Basically, Yaffe doesn't want to spend time deliberating on a case until after he has received further guidance from an appellate court.
So the earlier post stands: The grading now occuring at Delta and Rush Streets is mainly an effort by Wal-Mart to demoralize its opponents. But it is no guarantee that they will ever be able to build a store, never mind open it. Apparently, there is a completed big box in Bakersfield where Wal-Mart went ahead and constructed a store without final approval. It's been sitting empty for over a year, with no opening date in sight.
And, if you guys at Delta and Rush needed any additional incentive to fight this thing, just take a look at the "screen" they've constructed along Delta. The EIR envisions a wall of similar height running parallel to that screen. It would be set perhaps another ten feet or so further away from the street, but you get the idea. What an eyesore!
Oooh...
That thing gets me steamed.
Okay, Perhaps it is cause for concern
http://www2.sgvtribune.com/search/ci_3459964
Being the world's largest retailor, and having all their legal and political resources at their beck and call is not enough. Wal-Mart still needs to play dirty. They've gotten a permit to erect a portion of their building.
Normally, the building permit does not come until you're ready to being work on the full structure. Obviously, at Delta and Rush Street, they're not there, yet. But part of the land was already relatively flat and compacted. So they have gotten a permit to begin erecting the far southern portion of their building even while the vast majority of their property is still being excavated. Over most of their parcel, they've still got to haul out the dirt, then compact the surface, then bring back in additional dirt, compact that, etc., etc., before they'll be ready to build.
But because they know time is running out on their control of Rosemead City Council, they've gotten Rosemead's building and planning departments to do something they have apparently never done before.
Fortunately for us, getting a permit to build on a portion of their property does not guarantee them the right to finish their building, should the composition of the city council change.
Keep fighting. Keep writing. Keep phoning. We need to get our election back from Wal-Mart purgatory. And, in the meantime, others are pursuing litigation to stop this highly unusual course of action.