Update, Sept 28, 2005: Wal-Mart backers won their recall bid. Auto dealer and Wal-Mart backer Chris Havill defeated David Olsen 880 to 815 on Sept 27.

In small communities across the country, Wal-Mart never comes to town quietly. Out here, it didn't depart quietly, either.

The company left in its wake a recall effort against one alderman, a local newspaper smarting from the loss of a major advertising client and hurt feelings from people on both sides of the debate.

David Olsen, the targeted alderman, said the schism has divided the city of about 7,500 more than an 11-month strike at the local Tyson Foods plant in 2003.

"It's split friends against friends, neighbors against neighbors and even family members against family members," said Olsen, who maintains that Wal-Mart is behind the recall effort against him, a charge Wal-Mart denies.

Jefferson's Wal-Mart wrangle is the latest skirmish in what's become a series of local battles for the world's largest retailer.

Fort Atkinson concluded in 2002 that a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter would violate its master plan, and Franklin passed an anti-big-box-store ordinance in 2004.

In other small towns across Wisconsin and the nation, community groups formed to fight the store chain.

In Jefferson, the fight continues even though Wal-Mart's bid to build a 158,000-square-foot store died June 7.

On that date, three of the city's eight aldermen voted against annexing 22 acres on which Wal-Mart planned to build a superstore.

It failed because six affirmative votes were needed for it to proceed.

Citizens' groups compete

When Fort Atkinson turned it away, Wal-Mart focused its attention on Jefferson.

As often happens in small communities, an interest group, Coalition for a Better Jefferson, sprung up to oppose the store.

Then Charlotte Goers-Nevin, a 69-year-old retiree, launched a grass-roots organization in support of the multinational corporation and called it Coalition for the Best Jefferson.

"The number one complaint of the older people is they don't have a place to shop," she said.

"Wal-Mart was going to be a good tax base for us, and it was going to be nice for the older people."

Goers-Nevin spoke regularly in support of Wal-Mart at Common Council meetings, collected 2,118 signatures in support of the store and persuaded aldermen to pull city legal notices from the Daily Jefferson County Union because of its editorial opposition of Wal-Mart.

In May, aldermen switched the city's legal notices from the Union to the Watertown Daily Times, even though the Union sells nearly five times as many papers in Jefferson than the Times.

Mayor Collin Stevens said the switch was made in response to the Union's anti-Wal-Mart editorial stance.

"The council members didn't think they were getting an accurate printing, and they didn't appreciate the editorials that were anti-Wal-Mart," he said.

The Union's managing editor, Christine Spangler, said she expects the switch to cost the paper about $15,000, a lot for a paper with a circulation of about 7,800.

But she said the Union's circulation has increased since coverage of the issue began.

On July 6, Goers-Nevin launched the recall effort against Olsen. She has until Aug. 5 to collect 887 signatures to put the matter to a vote, a figure she says she is close to reaching. Olsen's infraction, she said, was letting the Wal-Mart opponents talk at a public meeting between aldermen and Wal-Mart executives, though the meeting notice stated the public would not be able to speak.

But no open-meetings complaint has been filed with Jefferson County District Attorney David Wambach, and Kelly Kennedy, a spokesman for the state attorney general, said the office reviewed one complaint on the matter and determined Olsen broke no laws.

Olsen, who maintains he did nothing wrong, said last week that Wal-Mart officials warned him - before he cast the deciding vote against the annexation - that he could face a recall if he opposed the store.

He said he believes Wal-Mart is backing Goers-Nevin's recall push.

"I felt direct pressure that if I would not change my vote, I would be recalled, and if I changed my vote, they would support me in future elections," Olsen said.

"I'm saddened and sickened that someone who is elected to represent the people has to face that kind of pressure."

Roderick Scott, Wal-Mart's Wisconsin community affairs manager, said he met with Olsen the day before and the morning of the June 7 vote but denied having anything to do with the recall effort.

"It's something that I absolutely, positively, categorically deny," Scott said.

"When we were voted down, we walked away from that site altogether and are moving on to work on other projects."

Scott said Olsen broached the topic. The alderman joked, Scott said, that he could lose his seat if he blocked the Wal-Mart. Stevens, the mayor, said he had also warned Olsen of that possibility.

Olsen has no proof to back up his claims that Wal-Mart is behind the recall.

But a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart Watch, a Washington, D.C., group that monitors the company and is often critical of its conduct, said it would not be surprising for Wal-Mart to get involved in local politics.

"I don't think it's beneath Wal-Mart to engage in stealthy tactics like this," said Tracy Sefl, the spokeswoman.

"There is something to be said to a local legislator who stands up to the world's largest company, and to see ugly politics unfold in such a small community is, frankly, very disturbing."

Goers-Nevin said she has no affiliation with Wal-Mart.

© 2005 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

 

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