---

Don't let your dream ride pass you by. Make it a reality with Yahoo! Autos.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS E-MAIL MESSAGE TO ALL ON YOUR DISTRIBUTION LISTS AND ACT!


Peace & Blessings,

The sad realization is beginning to set in!!!   The signed contract with Wegmans may be as valuable as a $12 bill.  The hopes, prayers, aspirations, and hard work to deliver the first truly upscale retail store in Prince George's County may be a fruitless fantasy.  It may not come to pass if the wishes and desires of some are realized. For years, people who live, work, play, and pray in our beloved Prince George's County have wanted upscale retail.  We have wanted Nordstrom's, Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdales, Tiffany & Company and other retailers.  We too have wanted Cheesecake Factory, Maggiano's Little Italy, Legal Seafood, Houston's, McCormick & Schmicks, Ruth's Chris Steak House and Morton's so that we could experience true upscale dining with business associates and our families.  Since many of the retail stores and restaurants that you have said that you want have red-lined Prince George's County and have chosen to not establish a presence here, many have felt compelled to patronize those businesses in other jurisdictions.

We have shopped in Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Montgomery, Howard, Charles, and Anne Arundel counties.  When we shopped in those areas, we helped  their tax bases to grow,  created jobs there, and improved their economies.  Our patronage paid for their school construction;  paid for hiring their police, fire and EMS workers; paid salaries and benefits of their teachers and administrators; and paid for their road construction.  That money was sorely needed in Prince George's County.  Those jobs were truly needed in Prince George's County. 

Retailers have offered a host of excuses why they have not come to Prince George's County.  Some have said that we did not have high enough incomes although we are one of the wealthiest areas in the country.  Some have said that we did not have sufficiently high tastes to appreciate their stores although our far too high credit card bill would dispute this patently false assertion.  Of course, we know that there are unspoken reasons why we don't have the stores that we want too.  In fact, retailers have employed a scheme where they have chosen to locate in close proximity to Prince George's County and still get our business within being within our borders.  Wheaton Plaza Mall and Columbia mall have been used to attract northern county residents.  Annapolis Mall has been used to attract central county residents.  And, The Mall at St. Charles in Charles County and shopping centers and malls in Alexandria have been used to attract residents who live in southern Prince George's County. 

Sadly, we have done without.  Our quality of life has been diminished.  Our economic base has suffered.  Our job creation has been suppressed.  This is all due to retailers redlining our beloved Prince George's County and failing to open a store within our borders.

We want to shop where we live.  We want the convenience of shopping in close proximity to our homes.  We want the improved quality of life associated with    quality upscale retail.  We understand that with Wegmans coming, other retailers would take a second look at coming too.  In the world of retail, businesses like to be located near certain retailers. Wegmans is a business that other retailers like to be near.  Starbucks has that same type of pull.  With Wegmans coming, we would surely get other name businesses who too would come and the domino effect of attracting true upscale business would surely follow.

So we continued to fight for quality retail.  But, the prized gems have always eluded us.  We have gotten the second tier and third string upper echelon stores. And apparently a breakthrough had happened when a contract was signed to bring Wegmans  http://www.wegmans.com/  to the Woodmore Towne Centre. http://woodmoretownecentre.com/   An element of the contract called for the construction and delivery of the store by a certain date.  Failure to have the store built and deliver it to Wegmans by a certain date could kick in an exit clause.  That is, Wegmans could void the contract!  So, it was important to get the project approved and built ASAP.  Appeals, delays, and county red tape could jeopardize the project.

We want Wegmans and we want Wegmans now!  We want progress!  We want the new retailers and restaurants that would come because of Wegmans.  We want the new jobs, increased tax base, and the ability to shop where we live.  We want what people all over the country enjoy daily and  have come to accept as basic life.

A hearing was held in August before the Planning Board.  They approved the detailed site plan for infrastructure including mass grading, retaining walls, street construction, stormwater management, water, sewer, stormdrain and other utilities.  Victory was ours.  But within weeks we learned that our hopes of getting our Wegmans might be dashed as an appeal was filed by Anthony Perez,  a Local 400 United Food and Commercial Workers Union operative.  Published reports have indicated that he has some concerns about traffic.  As I type this message, I am thinking about the traffic problems that people will experience later today as a throng of over 90,000 people will go to FedEx field to watch the NFL football game between the local team and the New York Giants.  As you know, Exit 16 (Arena Drive) on the Beltway was an illegally constructed road which is only open during the times that events are held at FedEx Field.  I don't remember Mr. Perez or his union appealing the approval of FedEx field or registering concerns about traffic during that approval process.  The official record does not show their opposition either!

Does Mr. Perez have a legitimate concern?  Is this a reason to kill the deal?  And why did Mr. Perez fail to contact the Senator, Delegates, and County Councilman for the area where Wegmans would be built---- prior to filing the appeal?  Seemingly,  if there were legitimate concerns, prior to filing the appeal it would have been responsible, professional, and courteous to meet with elected leadership to discuss a fair and equitable resolution of the matter. Healthy dialog is good and sometimes it bears fruit.  Instead, our leaders were blindsided. They all were dumbfounded to learn that someone would seek to keep us in our second class position.   They all felt as though Plymouth Rock had landed on them.  And, they were angry!  I know, I have spoken to some of them about this.

Why is Mr. Perez fighting against those who live, work, play and pray in our beloved Prince George's County?  Why is he acting to keep us in a subservient, second-class, substandard, marginal state?  Why would he squelch the progress that we have spent countless hours working towards?  Does he rejoice in our not having the upscale, quality retail options that we have longed for?  I am prayerful that his intentions are noble and just and not part of some less than honorable scheme.

If the union that Mr. Perez is affiliated with truly is concerned about all who live, work, play, and pray in our beloved Prince George's County, I humbly ask that he call off his appeal.  I ask that this project be allowed to continue and that we are able to enjoy shopping at Wegmans like our friends and families can do in surrounding jurisdictions. I have heard people say that they drive to Baltimore County in order to  shop at the store at Hunt Valley.  Future stores planned in Maryland include Columbia, Crofton, and Frederick.   In northern Virginia, currently there are stores in Fairfax and in Chantilly near Dulles.  Additionally, plans are being made for the opening of four new stores in northern Virginia.  The Manassas store is slated for a fall 2008 opening and Woodbridge is slated in the  second quarter of 2008.  Plans also continue for Fredericksburg and Leesburg.  Last Saturday, a store opened in Harrisburg, Pa. http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/cumberland/silverspring/article148955.ece

Seemingly, Prince George's County has been targeted for opposition.  As people in and other areas enjoy the value and benefits of Wegmans, we are forced to spend our time,energy, efforts, political capital, and resources to counter Mr. Perez and Local 400.

If Mr. Perez prevails in his appeal of the approval of the Woodmore Towne Centre project, it appears that THE WEGMANS DEAL IS DEAD!  A victory by Mr. Perez would further delay the construction of Wegmans and all but kill the deal.  I encourage Mr. Perez and Local 400 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union to let us have ours.  Other counties have enjoyed quality shopping for years.  Don't cut us off now that we are standing on the verge of taking a positive step upwards.  Don't pick us off because we may appear to be low hanging fruit because of our past lack of success in drawing upscale retail.

Do know and fully understand that my support of the Woodmore Towne Centre project and Wegmans  is not a fight against Local 400.  This is not an us versus them situation.  This is a fight for Prince George's County!  I am and have always been a supporter of our brothers and sisters in labor.  I have always supported and stood with labor in their efforts to raise the bar on salaries, benefits, safety issues, and other concerns of labor.  I grew up in Hampton, Virginia and the largest employer there was the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, now known as Northrop Grumman.  So, most people that I knew growing up had parents who worked at the Shipyard.  Neighbors worked there.  My classmate's families worked there.  Church members worked there.  And, one of my first girlfriend's father did not let her go to the movies, and Buckroe Beach with me because he could not afford to give her money to go and pay her own way.   At the time, he was on strike because the shipyard tried to kill his union and establish a company owned, operated, and controlled sham union which was beholden to the company and not to the union members.  He was a proud man and did not want me to pay his daughter's way when we went out.  He wanted her to have money in her purse that he had earned and given to her.  This high school experience has fostered a tremendous lifelong respect for labor and the lessons that I learned have unalterably impacted me.

As Vice-Chair of the Prince George's Democratic Central Committee, I helped convene a meeting last Tuesday with the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 2 and Washington Gas to address the concerns of labor due to Washington Gas signing a 10 year contract with Accenture.  The actions of Washington Gas will result in the loss of 300 jobs being outsourced to Canada and India.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/20/AR2007062002236.html

Support of the Woodmore Towne Centre project and Woodmore is not an affront to labor.  Admittedly, Wegmans is not a union company.  But Wegmans is a great employer--one of the best.  In fact in the report recently released by Fortune Magazine, Wegmans in the third best company in America to work for in 2007.   In 2006, they were ranked as the second best, and in 2005, they were ranked as the best place in America to work.  So, as you can see, they are consistently one of the best companies in our country to work.   http://money.cnn.tv/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2007/snapshots/3.html   Additionally, Wegmans was recently named as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere Magazine, a national publication dedicated to illuminating the important correlation between ethics and profit.   http://ethisphere.com/2007-worlds-most-ethical-companies/ 

Last week, The Food Marketing Institue (FMI) presented the 2007 Maximizing People Potential Award (Maxx Award) to Wegmans. http://www.fooddigital.com/Food-companies-receive-FMI%E2%80%99s-2007-MAXX-Award_2525.aspx   They were recognized for superior training and human resource programs and honored last week at the FMI Human Resources/Training and Development Conference. Wegmans was recognized in the larger company category (4,001 or more employees) for its Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection (WSC) Program. In this initiative:

• Junior high school students are assigned a youth advocate, who guides and nurtures their progress.
• They may apply for a job once they are old enough to work, meet minimum attendance criteria and complete youth employment training.
• The advocate mentors the students at school and work.
• Students that complete high school can receive company-funded scholarships.

WSC students stay with the company twice as long as their counterparts. They have minimal dropout rates, and often go on to college. Since Wegmans founded the program in 1987, it has received extensive state and national recognition.

Isn't this what we want?  Isn't this what we need?  Why would somone of conscious be opposed to this?  As you can see, Wegmans is recognized nationally and internationally as being a great company with highly defined values, principles, and ethics. They also take good care of their employees.  Locally we support them because we have patronized them in Fairfax, Chantilly, and Hunt Valley.  More importantly, we understand that when Wegmans comes, they will serve as a magnet to attract other high end stores.

I am in agreement and supportive of labor 95% of the time.  This is one of those rare occasions where we are on different sides.  After this matter is resolved, I look forward to meeting with Mr. Perez and Local 400 to find out how we can work together.  We all have differences with family members and this is one of those rare  times when I am in disagreement with my brothers and sisters in labor.  This too shall and will pass and like good and loving family members, we will warmly embrace each other on future projects.   Our differences on this issue won't leave and indelible mark on our desire to work together on the behalf of labor.

IF YOU WANT WEGMANS TO COME TO PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, YOU MUST COME TO THE HEARING ON MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24TH AT 10:00.  YOUR FAILURE TO RESPOND MAY MEAN THAT WE LOSE OUR WEGMANS!

THE HEARING WILL BE HELD AT THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATION BUILDING IN UPPER MARLBORO.  IT IS IMPORTANT THAT WE FILL UP THE ROOM AND BE PREPARED TO VOICE OUR SUPPORT FOR THE WOODMORE TOWNE CENTRE PROJECT AND WEGMANS.    ALSO PLEASE BRING A LETTER WHICH STATES YOUR SUPPORT OF THE WOODMORE TOWNE CENTRE PROJECT AND WEGMANS.

PLEASE COME OUT AND SHOW YOUR SUPPORT.  IF WE LOSE, WE MAY NEVER GET OUR SHOT BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS THINK THAT THEY CAN KEEP US DOWN BY FILING FRIVOLOUS APPEALS AND OTHER SCHEMES.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO ALL ON YOUR LISTS AND ENCOURAGE THEM TO COME OUT.  THE INFO IS AS FOLLOWS:

WHO:      WOODMORE TOWNE CENTRE (INGLEWOOD NORTH)

WHAT:    APPEALS HEARING

WHEN:    MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24TH AT 10:00 AM

WHERE:  COUNTY ADMINISTRATION BUILDING COUNCIL HEARING ROOM IN THE COUNTY ADMINISTRATION BUILDING IN                     UPPER MARLBORO.

WHY:        IT IS IMPORTANT THAT WE SHOW UP, VOICE OUR SUPPORT FOR THE WOODMORE TOWNE CENTRE PROJECT AND                        LET IT BE KNOWN THAT WE SUPPORT THE PROJECT.

HOW:        SHOW UP AT THE HEARING WITH AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN BRING WITH YOU.  WE NEED TO FILL UP THE                                   HEARING ROOM. PLEASE BRING A LETTER OF SUPPORT.



   PLEASE MAKE THIS A SUCCESSFUL EFFORT!  LET US WIN!


PEACE & BLESSINGS,
ARTHUR TURNER



--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PG-Politics" group.
To post to this group, send email to PG-Politics@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to PG-Politics-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/PG-Politics?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---