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KLMNO POSTLOCAL Talk to us. Talk to newsmakers. Talk to each other. Join the conversation at postlocal.com After climbing to the top, a quick ride down MIKE DEBONIS


What comes next with Wal-Mart plan?


this month, the world’s largest retailer is eyeing an 11-acre Northeast parcel for its first D.C. store. We’ve been through this before. In 2004, the company explored locating a 100,000-square-foot store at the Rhode Island Place shopping center, adjacent to the Rhode Island Avenue Metro stop. Brookland business and community leaders, allied with union organizers, rallied against it. The company abandoned plans within months, citing that “the site did not meet the requirements to best serve our customers.” Last year, the company looked closely at a site


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near Poplar Point in Ward 8, but it turned out to be too small and too fraught with potential for government interference. The game plan for unions, who have long been


stalwart foes of the mega-retailer’s labor practices, will remain much the same this time. Earlier this year, an organizer for the United


KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST


David Goldberg, 13, of Thurmont tries to go backward Thursday on the giant wooden slide at Mount Tabor Park in Rocky Ridge. Built by volunteers in 1950, the 40-foot-high and 100-foot-long slide has “five humps and five dips,” according to the park’s Web site, bigslide.us. Riding the slide is free. The park is owned by Mount Tabor Lutheran and United Church of Christ.


We want your pictures! Got photos of a summer sunset over the Potomac? How about your favorite bag? Send them to our user photo galleries at washingtonpost.com/your-photos.


Food and Commercial Workers got wind of a Wal-Mart community representative’s appearance at a meeting of the Anacostia Coordinating Council, an umbrella group of civic organizations in Ward 8. The rep wasn’t there to talk about a potential store, only to tout the $400-billion-a-year corporation’s various community-service efforts. A dozen UFCW members came — sending a


message that Wal-Mart wasn’t welcome. “They got a dose of what the residents think,” says Thomas McNutt, UFCW Local 400 president. Joslyn N. Williams, leader of the Metropolitan


Washington Council AFL-CIO, says activists will try to get residents to look past the “superficial seductiveness” of those low, low prices. But the seduction might be less superficial in a


Winner! Simply ink-spirational The votes are in. Post readers picked Olivia


Walch, a 20-year-old student from Fairfax Station, as our America’s Next Great Cartoonist contest winner. We announced Walch’s win yesterday. Her prize is a month’s run in the Post, a shot at syndication and $1,000.


Olivia Walch will answer questions live at 1 p.m. today. To chat, explore her work and see


photos and video, visit washingtonpost.com/ greatcartoonist.


“ ✔ said they shouldn’t. Today on POSTLOCAL.com


Weekend getaways Need tips for getting around the area this weekend? Check with Dr. Gridlock. washingtonpost.com/drgridlock


THE DAILY QUIZ


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Q&A


Weekend staff writer Amy Orndorff answered a reader’s question on a live chat yesterday at postlocal.com about how to educate and entertain a child from out of town.


Inside view with out-of-town children Q: My 9-year-old niece is coming to visit from


San Diego in mid-August. I would like to send her some books about the area, so she can have some thoughts about what she would like to do when she gets here. Any suggestions? (I have planned to send “Misty Of Chincoteague” and plan a visit to Assateague but want some D.C. sites also.)


A: I have the perfect book: “The People in Pineapple Place.” It is set in Georgetown, and even though I read it years ago, I can remember a lovely scene where the main characters ride on a trolley. Perhaps a visit to Georgetown and the National Capital Trolley Museum?


city hurting from near-record unemployment. The District needs the jobs, even at near-minimum wages, and residents tend to appreciate the prices. Take what happened last month in Chicago, a union town if ever there was one. The mega-retailer won an unlikely 50-0 approval from the city council on a deal that lets a second Wal-Mart be built and could allow as many as a dozen others within the city limits. To break the union opposition, Wal-Mart reportedly agreed to pay workers $8.75 an hour — 50 cents above the city minimum wage — and after a year, a raise of 40 cents an hour. The reason for the unanimity is simple: “This is all about jobs,” Mayor Richard M. Daley said. Moreover, Wal-Mart has perfected its urban pitch in Chicago, noting that its grocery stores can help address “food deserts” — areas devoid of fresh produce where traditional grocers, like the ones staffed by UFCW dues-payers, have not been eager to settle. A New York Avenue Wal-Mart would serve a Ward 5 market where many have to travel miles for groceries, often across Eastern Avenue into Maryland. District officials want those groceries, and


they need that tax money. But labor is going to take a stand. The Metro


“Never confuse education


with wisdom.” — Reader tulsadave, responding to a story reporting that the Washington area has the most educated population of any large metropolitan center, according to data from 2008.


Get more education coverage and comment on issues of learning, schooling and more at


washingtonpost.com/education. You voted


46% 45%


of you said the students whose soccer game in a school hallway tripped a sprinkler system, causing about $150,000 in damage, should have to pay, according to a user poll as of yesterday evening.


Conversations


A parking lot under the Mall? That’s what reader Don Dilworth of Silver Spring suggested recently in a post published on our All Opinions Are Local blog. “No improvement to the Mall would be more appreciated by visitors than access to secure, nearby, out-of-sight parking,” Dilworth wrote. The suggestion got readers’ fingers flying. Here is a selection of responses.


Monumental parking issues


NikolasM: “The parking garage might be under- ground, but the thousands of extra cars flocking to downtown everyday would not as they contribute to tearing up the city streets. That is why we have Metro.”


WashingtonDame: “As someone who has used underground parking garages in Europe as a tour- ist, I think this is a great idea. It would help pre- vent tourists from doing the “Mall circle,” looking for scarce parking.”


Take more polls and tell us what you think about local issues every day at postlocal.com.


cjmark: “Let me know when you figure out how to prevent terrorists from parking explosive-filled ve- hicles in it.”


jamietre: “This is the first time I’ve ever heard


anyone arguing that we need to coddle the visitors who will spend two days here.”


Yesterday, blogger David Alpert advanced the con- versation with a post on our Local Blog Network. “If a magic parking genie appeared and said


he’d grant a free garage under the Mall, maybe it would be nice, although it would also attract more traffic,” he wrote. “But in the real world, especially one where the federal government is not going to build it (they aren’t willing to even fund keeping the grass alive), the question is, what else won’t get funded?”


Read more of David Alpert’s post and share your own thoughts on the idea at


voices.washingtonpost.com/local-opinions.


NATIONAL CAPITAL TROLLEY MUSEUM SUSAN BIDDLE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST


Get more local ideas for fun with kids and suggest your own at goingoutguide.com.


Labor Council specifically asked 2010 city candidates on its endorsement questionnaires: “Will you oppose Wal-Mart’s attempts to open stores in the District of Columbia?” The candidates running for D.C. Council chairman — At-Large Council member Kwame R. Brown and former Ward 5 council member Vincent B. Orange Sr. — answered “yes.” But Brown, economic development committee chairman, said in an interview that he’d wait to see what sort of deal came along, expressing openness to a Chicago-type agreement. Ward 5 Council member Harry Thomas Jr., who lives less than a mile from the site and has enjoyed strong union support, says a Wal-Mart deal would be a “strong opportunity” to spark the renaissance of a neglected corridor. He emphasizes the need to “ensure the community and others are satisfied as to what they want at that particular site.” The fact is, sources knowledgeable about the


city development process said, Wal-Mart will be able to fly into town with a minimum of city meddling. The site is already zoned for industrial and commercial uses, so the D.C. Zoning Commission — made up largely of political appointees — probably won’t get involved. Wal-Mart, if it follows its standard corporate practice, won’t ask for city support, meaning the council won’t have to weigh in. What will have to happen is a “large tract


review” by the city planning office and the usual permit and public space reviews. But those are purely administrative processes, where the city’s ability to shape the development will be limited. McNutt admits he faces an uphill climb. But in


an election year, he says, you never know: “Politicians are going to be paying attention to the wants and needs of their constituents, not necessarily to the needs of a developer.” But in these tough times, those interests might well be one and the same.


debonism@washpost.com


You can read Mike’s blog and write to him at washingtonpost.com/debonis.


A complete list of PostPoints Spots can be found at washingtonpost.com/postpoints.


et ready for the picket lines and raucous community meetings: Wal-Mart is coming. As The Washington Post first reported


FRIDAY, JULY 16, 2010


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