Yeah, I’m back blogging, a bit at a time.
The San Diego City Council, having passed one of those lame anti-Walmart superstore ordinances, is now having to backtrack after Walmart managed to get over 50,000 petition signatures in less that three weeks to put the ordinance to an actual public vote:
The ordinance approved in December requires retailers that want to build supercenters to conduct an independent economic study that would assess how many jobs would be created and displaced, how traffic would be affected and how the store would affect local wages. Supercenters are stores of 90,000 or more square feet with 10 percent of floor space dedicated to nontaxable items such as groceries and prescription drugs. . . .
Walmart waged an aggressive campaign against the ordinance by calling out council members with full-page newspaper advertisements in the weeks leading up to the decision. After it passed, the retailer created a coalition called San Diego Consumers for Choice that collected the [54,000+] signatures in 18 days to support a ballot measure to repeal the ordinance.
Councilman Kevin Faulconer, who opposed the ordinance, said his colleagues now have a chance to correct what he called a wrong.
“This is about consumer choice, and I believe if this goes before voters the majority would agree,” he said in a statement. “Let’s save our city $3 million [what the special election would cost] and give consumers the choice to make their own decisions. The role of government should not involve telling San Diegans where to spend their money.”
Oh, yeah — there was some kind of speech in DC last night. Rand Simberg explains why my eyes rolled when Pres. Obama used the phrase “Sputnik moment.“
In related news, here’s the SOTU reaction from flyover country:
I’ve been doing a bit of guest blogging over at Ace of Spades (as “fritzworth”); here’s my latest post, with a video well worth watching.
Have a great day, and be sure to watch the SDSU (#4) @ BYU (#9) basketball clash tonight at 8 pm MT on CBS-C. Go, Jimmer! ..bruce..