I arrived at the Holiday Inn Express at 5:30. It was sunny out, a day you would rather be outside rather than in stuffy meeting room. I went into the lobby and saw a table with sign in sheets. One of the people at the table asked me if I had received one of the postcards they had sent out. She then asked me to sign in on a visitors sheet. As I was walking away she said she thought I'd be happy with the proposed appearance of the new building.
I must say they had quite a professional display, and the proposed building looks like a kind of Frank Lloyd Wright version of the Cascade mountain range, not the expected white cracker box. The property itself would be surrounded by landscaped trees which would hide most of the buildings from view. Apparently WalMart is trying to fit into the community the best it can.
People started arriving fairly quickly, many of them wearing the frounyface stickers. A couple of people were walking around with yellow slips of paper that said "Go for it WalMart". Later, I noticed a reporter from Z21 interviewing the woman who was handing out the slips of paper. (I've seen this kind of thing before. A minority of counter protestors show up at an event, and get equal air time, hardly fair and balanced reportage.
No seats were provided, I guess people were expected to just look at the display and leave. At about 6:30 someone spoke up and asked for a show of hands of people who expected to be at a meeting. Everybody raised their hands. Then he said "This is not a meeting, this is an introduction." A few minutes later Michael of jobs with justice spoke up and asked, "How many people don't want WalMart here?" everybody cheered.
I left at that time and headed over to the Bend city council meeting.
|
