Green Party Candidate
for Mayor of St. Paul
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Green Party Candidate |
For Immediate Release August 23, 2005
Elizabeth Dickinson Critiques Big Box Impact, Proposes Protections for Small Business St. Paul, MN – Tuesday, August 23, 2005 – Citing studies and solutions from around the U.S., Elizabeth Dickinson today contrasted the benefits of local small businesses with the negative impacts "big box" stores often have on local economies. At a Grand Avenue press conference — held in front of locally-owned Amore Coffee — she set out several ways St. Paul could protect itself from negative big-box effects. Noting her own past involvement in the issue as a producer of Always Low, a widely-distributed short documentary on Wal-Mart, Dickinson began by saying she would attend today's protest at the St. Paul Wal-Mart. By contrast, she praised the local non-profit Metro Independent Business Alliance for its efforts to strengthen and promote locally-owned, independent businesses. "Why is small business so important?" she asked, then responded by pointing out that 75% of all new jobs come from small businesses. "If an acre of land is devoted to a big box development," she asserted, "that development will only provide about 25 jobs — but if that same acre is devoted to small businesses, it will yield 100 jobs." She added that, as a proportion of their income, small businesses spend three times as much in the community as do big chain stores like Wal-Mart. Citing a Massachusetts study, she went on to say that local businesses are far more likely than large chains to increase the tax base and reduce homeowners' tax burdens, because the cost to taxpayers for roads, water, and sewage for big box development is often more than the payment of sales and property taxes. The MA study, in the Cape Cod town of Barnstable, compared big boxes vs. local businesses and found that downtown stores generated a net annual surplus (tax revenue minus costs) of $326 per 1,000 square feet, while big box stores created an annual tax deficit of $468 per 1000 square feet. Dickinson then offered several proposals for St. Paul. "We need to improve our planning and land use policy to ensure that years of revitalization and investment are not undermined by uncontrolled, competing retail," she said. "We should think about enacting a temporary moratorium on construction of large retail stores." She noted that such a moratorium is currently under informal consideration among city councilmembers. Longer-term responses, she said, would include a size cap like the 50,000-sq. ft. cap proposed by the Green Party of St. Paul, or the 25,000-sq. ft. cap suggested for Grand Avenue by the Summit Hill Association and District 16 Neighborhood Council — measures that could slow the encroachment of multiple formula businesses. Dickinson cited a year-long Consumer Reports investigation which showed that independent drugstores — like nearby Bober Pharmacy, threatened by several chain outlets — outperform chain drugstores "not only in personal service and the extras like in-store health screenings, speed of filling prescriptions, supplying hard-to-find and out-of-stock medicines, but also in the price of items." Dickinson also called for requiring an economic impact review — examining impacts on tax revenue, city services, community character and other areas — for any proposed retail store over 25,000 sq. ft. Stores whose costs to the city outweighed their benefits, she said, should be denied permits. Referring to Coronado, CA, she proposed consideration of restrictions on the number of formula businesses; the California town allows no more than 10 formula restaurants, and requires a special review and permit for all formula retail stores. St. Paul's slogan, she said, "should not be, 'Come to St. Paul — we're just like everywhere else.'" Finally, she commended San Francisco's creation of Neighborhood Commercial Individual Districts — in which ordinances limiting retail building, sizes, and styles are tailored to the character of each neighborhood — and proposed establishing within the mayor's office the position of Small Business Development Director, a liaison who would assist small businesses through such programs as low interest loans, listings of available storefronts and office buildings in each ward, and actively soliciting desired businesses in the downtown area. Dickinson summarized her goals with something of a rhetorical flourish. Standing on the Milton Street sidewalk and referring to adjacent Grand Avenue, she noted that small businesses "can be the engine of economic growth for St. Paul," claiming that "they can, and do…define the atmosphere of the city." Praising small businesses' commitment to service, to job creation, and to the community, she closed with the observation that "Cities — great, successful cities — are incubators of dreams." For St. Paul to live up to that potential, she said, "we must help our best and most imaginative entrepreneurs make their dreams a working reality." Contact Elizabeth Dickinson, (651) 235-1208 (cell) Mary Petrie, Campaign Manager, (651) 226-3527 (cell) Christopher Childs, Communications Coordinator, (651) 312-1216 Elizabeth Dickinson for Mayor 384 Hall Avenue St. Paul, MN 55107
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Click here to read the pre-event press release. Click here to read Elizabeth's August 23, 2005, address.
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