I recently received an email from Elisabeth Jewel, the PR person for Safeway. In it, she expressed her concern that those in favor of an expanded Safeway have been oppressed by the very vocal opposition to the project. In her words:
"Safeway recently convened a neighborhood Stakeholders Group in an effort to involve the neighborhood in planning a new and much improved store. Unfortunately, those that want minimal change have been dominating the public input at these community meetings. Please don’t let your opinion be drowned out by those who come to the meetings proclaiming the neighborhood is united in opposing a larger store."
Safeway seems convinced that despite several public meetings where HUNDREDS of people have voiced their opposition to this project, there exists some silent majority (do they really want to evoke Nixon?) who are on their side. I know from attending these meetings that there is some support for a larger Safeway. But I find it hard to believe that there is some significant groundswell of favorable opinion that the neighborhood doesn't know about because its supporters are too intimidated to speak up. Elisabeth's email is a further tactic to obscure the fact that the opposition is so vocal and strong because it in fact represents the prevailing view - we don't want a large Safeway in our neighborhood! Who knows how long they will continue to try to avoid this plain truth.
"Safeway recently convened a neighborhood Stakeholders Group in an effort to involve the neighborhood in planning a new and much improved store. Unfortunately, those that want minimal change have been dominating the public input at these community meetings. Please don’t let your opinion be drowned out by those who come to the meetings proclaiming the neighborhood is united in opposing a larger store."
Safeway seems convinced that despite several public meetings where HUNDREDS of people have voiced their opposition to this project, there exists some silent majority (do they really want to evoke Nixon?) who are on their side. I know from attending these meetings that there is some support for a larger Safeway. But I find it hard to believe that there is some significant groundswell of favorable opinion that the neighborhood doesn't know about because its supporters are too intimidated to speak up. Elisabeth's email is a further tactic to obscure the fact that the opposition is so vocal and strong because it in fact represents the prevailing view - we don't want a large Safeway in our neighborhood! Who knows how long they will continue to try to avoid this plain truth.
I think it is very important that all opinions are represented any public forum discussing the proposed expansion, both favorable and unfavorable. It is important to establish what the range of opinions truly is. Therefore, I invite everyone to attend this evening's meeting at the Claremont Middle School Gym, Miles Ave at College, at 7 pm.
4 comments:
I was at the meeting last night and while a number of the people there were obviously interested in communicating with Safeway in a productive manner, I think it is fair to say the group of Contiguous Neighbors were obviously dominating the discussion.
This group of people who reside close to Safeway obviously have grave concerns about any expantion and are very passionate in their views. However, they are a very small part of our community and we need to make sure that it's not just their views that are pushed to the front.
This is obvious in the Proposed document that was presented, the lady from Contiguous Neighbor Group only spoke on the things that affected her rather than the commnity as a whole.
And remember these people probably bought houses next to Safeway in the first place and either paid less for them because of it, or bought them so they could be close to all the shops and cafes.
For a lot of the commnity, we just want a better store than the current one that adds to the visual appeal of the neighborhood. Because our passion for that is not as strong as the people wanting Safeway to relocate the refrigeration away from it's existing site (where I imagine it's been since the store opened and these people bought there houses) we run the risk of ended up with too many compromises by Safeway to satisfy the small number of people who live next door at the expense of the rest of the community.
I think it is important to know three things:
1. Safeway invited the contiguous neighbors to have representation at the Stakeholders' table. Obviously, Safeway feels their specific concerns merit public attention and discussion. So much so that the contiguous neighbors are one of the groups that Safeway has been engaged in conversation with for the past year and a half. Therefore, it doesn't seem that Safeway is worried about the contiguous neighbors skewing public opinion.
2. The Contiguous Neighbor representative made specific references to how their concerns impact the whole community - including driveways that will impact traffic patterns in the entire area and building heights or set backs that don't obscure sunlight for the entire street.
3. The proposed program that was made was developed by all the Stakeholder representatives - Concerned Neighbors, Contiguous Merchants, RCPC, RDA. If these groups thought the needs of the Contiguous Neighbors would skew or overshadow the needs of the rest of the community, they would not have so gladly included them.
Dear Anonymous:
As one of the contiguous neighbors, I'd like to point out that we did buy our house with the awareness that Safeway - in it's current iteration - would be our neighbor. If we had wanted to live next door to a 75,000-90,000 square foot suburban mall, we would have purchased a home in Brentwood or Fairfield.
It would hardly be unfairly compromising to work with all of the neighbors, current customers, Safeway, merchants, etc. to create a store that is successful for Safeway and meets the reasonable need to not unnecessarily degrade the current quality of life in the existing neighborhood.
We live here because we like it here. We would love to sincerely work with Safeway on a mutually satisfactory solution. If the store was expanding ten feet from YOUR house, wouldn't you be passionate about YOUR quality of life significantly eroding?
Adele Crady, Neighbor
Hmmmmm. Where I have heard the word "dominate" before? Let me think . . .
Oh, that's right: In the original post/e-mail from Safeway.
Safeway's inability to be a good neighbor impacts everyone in the community, and it just so happens that the Contiguous Neighbors get a concentrated dose. Anon should understand that this is, in fact, a community, and people here care a good deal about what happens to their neighbors.
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