Daily Herald | Posted: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 11:00 pm
Caleb Warnock
Wal-Mart in Cedar Hills has been delayed.
Just after midnight Wednesday morning, after listening to hours of expert testimony about the amount of noise and traffic a proposed Wal-Mart would generate, arguments broke out among Cedar Hills Council members. At 12:43 a.m., they voted to continue their discussion in two weeks.
As discussions bogged down, Council members made a motion to continue the discussion at a later date, causing Councilman Joel Wright to angrily slap the table, saying "No, no!"
Even after midnight, about three dozen concerned members of the public still sat in the audience to hear the Council's vote. When the meeting began at 7 p.m. even the hallways had been packed with residents shouting out that they could not hear the meeting.
Speaking after midnight, Councilman Eric Richardson said the meeting had gone on too long, making it unfair for those residents who wanted to hear the Council's discussion of the issue. He said he had asked the city to hold Tuesday's meeting in a venue large enough to accommodate all residents and had been ignored. He also said state guidelines say meetings should not last beyond the physical endurance of those present.
"I'm dull and exhausted and the environment for rational discussion has long passed," he said about 12:25 a.m.
Council members and Mayor Mike McGee argued over whether some residents were not able to speak in a public forum about the issue. McGee called council members "reprehensible" because they had not given their questions to Wal-Mart in advance to allow the company to better prepare for the discussion.
"Have you guys expressed what additional information you want, because I don't want to be here for five hours again and table it again," said Councilwoman Charelle Bowman, speaking to Richardson and Councilman Jim Perry.
As the discussion broke down, Wal-Mart and property representatives expressed dismay, saying they had met all the requirements of the city and brought all the information and experts to the meeting that the city had requested. At 12:30 a.m. they began asking whether the meeting was illegal.
"I want clarification on the record," said Roy Williams of Phillips Edison & Company, which owns the land Wal-Mart wants to build on. The city made the decision to hold the meeting at city hall "and now you are saying, six hours later, this was not the right place to have it and the fact you had it here is illegal. Now you are saying at 12:35 a.m. it is not a valid meeting."
"There is no question of the legality of this meeting," said city attorney Eric Johnson in response.
Perry said even though the meeting was legal, the small venue and late hour made it impossible for him "to discharge my duty to make this information available to the public."
"My brain is fried," said Perry, noting the discussion had gone on for so long he was worried that he could not recall all the issues he wanted Wal-Mart to address.
"I don't think we've got everything in order," said Bowman.
"It makes me nervous that we are missing something," said Councilman Gary Maxwell. "I think this is a big enough deal for our city that we have to get it right."
Nineteen people spoke in a public hearing for more than an hour before the decision, most of them saying they were concerned about traffic, noise and safety. A few residents spoke in favor of the store, saying it would bring jobs and convenience to the area.
After the public hearing, Council members questioned a traffic engineer hired by Wal-Mart for more than an hour about how the store would affect traffic patterns between now and 2030.
Council members spent another hour questioning a sound engineer hired by Wal-Mart about what kind of noise levels nearby homeowners would experience from the store, delivery trucks and the parking lot.