RG4N Vows to Fight On

Jennifer Kim addressing Wal-Mart protesters (Photo by John Anderson)

The e-mail announcing the Responsible Growth for North­cross town-hall meeting last Friday evening read, "Most of all, we want to hear from you tonight." But the only one who actually fielded any questions from the audience was RG4N attorney Doug Young. In practice, the meeting served primarily as a pep rally for the organization trying to stop the Wal-Mart proposed for the former Northcross Mall property and to outline the plan going forward after losing the lawsuit that sought to force the city to overturn Wal-Mart's approved site plan.

That said, the 300 people in attendance seemed plenty willing to cheer for RG4N's leadership and left little doubt how they feel about their prospective new neighbor. As RG4N President Hope Morrison and communications chair (and likely City Council candidate) Jason Meeker laid out their vision for future action, they received often rowdy applause.

Morrison said the group's board of directors proposes four major areas of focus: Continue applying public pressure to Wal-Mart and developer Lincoln Property, become a watchdog organization, seek policy changes, and hold city leaders accountable.

On the first element, Morrison noted Wal-Mart has actually pulled out of proposed locations in response to public heat. She described the second project as an ongoing citizen surveillance of Wal-Mart's work-in-progress. "The watchdog focus has two aims: One is to slow the construction process. So we need to make sure that everything they're doing on that site is fully in compliance with their site plan. We can't let them have a pass on anything. If there's anything that looks like a violation of their site plan or a violation of city code, we've got to report it to the city. We've got to ask them to investigate it, and we've got to sit on top of the city to make sure they do it. The second focus of the watchdog function is that if they build it and they start operations, they are always completely in compliance with their site plan and with everything in the code." Morrison noted that earlier this year, previous RG4N President Paige Hill (now campaign manager for Council Member Jenni­fer Kim's re-election bid) took measurements of Wal-Mart's other Austin-area garden centers and allegedly found all of them in violation of city size requirements for such an operation.

Meeker told the crowd that even if the Wal-Mart gets built, the fight isn't necessarily lost: "It's not the size of the development. If I hear anyone else tell me about the size of the development, the square footage, and how they've reduced the size, I'm gonna hit 'em," Meeker deadpanned. "It's not the size. Like they say, 'It's the economy, stupid,' in politics? It's the impact, stupid. It's the impact of the development." He suggested amendment to the Big Box Ordinance and other legislative measures to stop Wal-Mart from receiving truck deliveries overnight and other such restrictions that would make this "not such a good store for them to build."

"We had a failure of leadership in this city that directly contributed to what happened here," Morrison said, especially regarding the lengthy delay of passage of the Big Box Ordin­ance that might have prevented the Wal-Mart. She pointed out that every City Council seat will face an election either this year or next: "RG4N is not going to endorse candidates – it's not something we can do given the federal tax status that we are pursuing, but we can certainly ask candidates for office their opinions on our issues. We can ask them to make a commitment to support our issues, and not just to support them – we can ask people if they will take a leadership role in getting some of this stuff passed that we know needs to happen, and we can let the public know how these candidates are gonna commit or not."

That line in the sand led the Chronicle to ask Meeker after the meeting: Would he finally give a 100% "yes" on whether he's going to run for council? Not quite: "I'm like 99.9 percent going to run," Meeker told me. "I'd be running against Lee Leffing­well for Place 1." Meeker said he isn't trying to be coy – the hang-up is that he was supposed to meet with a potential campaign manager last week, but the meeting didn't happen, and he wants that position confirmed before making a formal announcement.

Place 3 incumbent Kim was in attendance and applauded the speeches slamming the current council. "I think the city, that we've let the people down," Kim said after the meeting. "And that's very clear. But I'm not giving up. You know, I didn't give up when I was trying to stop Water Treatment Plant Number 4 from being built in the [Balcones Canyonlands] Preserve. It's never over. I think that there's still a lot of things we can do.

"I personally am not going to vote any more for legal fees for this case," Kim said, referring to the more than half a million dollars the city paid to outside counsel Scott, Douglass & McConnico to defend it against the RG4N suit. "What my colleagues want to do, it's up to them, but I'm done. I just think it's wrong. If RG4N decides to appeal, whatever they decide to do, I'll back them."

Sitting at her side was her newly hired campaign manager. Asked if the hiring of Hill was meant to send a message to voters in the area about her support for them, Kim said, "I've always supported this group." (That was news to Meeker, who described Kim as "lukewarm on us.") Summing up her feelings generally on the Wal-Mart, Kim said, "It's going to be a freaking disaster."