09 March 2016 (00:10 UTC-07 Tango 01) 19 Esfand 1394/29 Jumada al-Ula 1437/01 Xin Mao (2nd month) 4714
In Albany, Oregon, complaints about a new WinCo grocery store violating local zoning rules have been settled simply by changing the name of the type of ornamental windows to be used. ‘Frosted glass’ has been changed to ‘spandrel glass’, what’s the difference? Nothing! Even local news reports say the city council considered the terminology “synonymous”. Everybody knows that frosted glass is opaque. Here’s the definition of spandrel glass by glass maker PPG: “…spandrel glass is designed to be opaque…”. This proves my assessment of many Oregonians as being obsessive compulsive about government rules, yet, they still can’t come up with a plan to deal with the approaching catastrophic Cascadia earthquake, 3-hundred years in the making.
By the way it was the anti-employee owned business group known as United Food and Commercial Workers Union that filed the complaint about the ‘frosted glass’!
And it’s possibly unions who’re behind the opposition to a new employee owned and operated WinCo in Mose Lake, Washington. iFiber reported that United Food and Commercial Workers Union adamantly denies being behind the opposition. Officially the group trying to prevent the new WinCo from moving in is called A Stronger Moses Lake. This group’s new official complaint is that the new WinCo would pose a threat to pedestrians and bicyclists due to increased vehicle traffic in the area! Previously they accused the city of not complying with the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) process regarding the approval of construction.
A commentator in Durham, California, revealed his ignorance when he used WinCo in an editorial about unAmerican corporate America executives jacking up prices at WinCo to pay for their personal assets: “The CEOs and the bankers can squeeze only so much profit from selling a Chevy or Chantix or a box of Cheerios or a mortgage. If the cash for their third houses and second yachts and political contributions has to come off the top, then they have to pay workers less, charge consumers more. And then the price-tags at Winco go up.“
He obviously doesn’t understand what an employee owned business is.
Staying in California, it’s been revealed that the Sacramento property formerly housing an old Gottshalks, and supposedly to become a WinCo, has suddenly been sold to a company out of Los Angeles for more than $12-million USD. My research shows WinCo has expressed a desire to move into that property since 2013!
In 2014 EDM Reality bought the property known as Country Club Plaza. However, recently EDM sold-off the section that was supposed to be the site of a 92-thousand square foot WinCo to LA based Boma.H LLC ( a new REIT created in California in November 2015, keeping busy buying up commercial retail properties). To make this even stranger I found reports that WinCo actually signed a lease for that property last year! I also found reports from 2014 opposed to WinCo moving in.
According to KFBK radio “members of an Arden-Arcade community council” will fight WinCo every step of the way. It makes you wonder, California’s economy is suffering (the Gottshalks space has been vacant sine 2009) and yet there are groups adamantly opposing businesses that want to move in!
New stores for Texas, Washingtonians & Oregonians want WinCo out!