Wal-Mart Petition 1

[ Excerpt from: "Anti-Wal-Mart group does its job too well," By Marie Lakin, VENTURA COUNTY STAR, August 26, 2008 - Full text and many comments at: VCS: Wal-Mart Petition


THE STOP WAL-MART VENTURA COALITION has earned a place on the [Ventura] fall 2009 ballot for its anti-big box initiative and may have even collected enough signatures to trigger a special election at the beginning of next year...

Coalition organizer and Santa Barbara City Councilman Das Williams said he doubts a special election will be triggered.

"We do not believe that much more than two thirds are valid," Williams said. "It was a tough decision as to when we stopped gathering signatures. If we had turned in fewer, we would have risked not qualifying. We felt better erring on the side of more. The advantage of having 15 percent and a special election would be to have this law on the books before Wal-Mart can move in, but the disadvantage is the possible cost to the city. That's why we stopped the effort early, because we would rather save the city taxpayers some money."

A special election could potentially cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars extra...

"12,875 signatures is something that we are very proud of, since it indicates the level of enmity Venturans have against Wal-Mart," Williams said.