Chicago officials angry at Wal-Mart placement

EVERGREEN PARK, Ill. — After Chicago rejected Wal-Mart Inc.’s proposal to open a store on the city’s South Side, the retailer will open one Friday just outside city limits — leaving city officials shaking their heads at the prospect of hundreds of workers and countless shoppers flocking to this tiny suburb.

“It makes you go ballistic,” said Alderman Howard Brookins, Jr., who pushed unsuccessfully for a Wal-Mart in his ward. “When you look at the revenue stream that we’re losing and the property taxes and sales taxes there and you look at the opportunity, we’re not going to stop these people from going to shop at Wal-Mart.”

Brookins lamented the news from Wal-Mart that of the 25,000 applicants — a record number, according to the retailer — for about 350 jobs, all but 500 were Chicago residents. Further, he said he has no doubt that when the store opens, most shoppers will be Chicagoans, too.

The store is just across the street from Chicago’s city limits.

In Evergreen Park, Mayor James Sexton said the village is expected to collect $1 million in sales and property taxes the first year the 141,000-square-foot facility is open. And, he said, two local school districts are to each receive an additional $200,000 from property taxes.

“That’s a shot in the arm,” he said. The village collects $3 million a year in sales taxes and about $5 million in property taxes.

The announcement about the job applications is part of Wal-Mart’s stepped-up defense against an organized chorus of critics led by labor unions, who contend the world’s largest private employer is bad for its workers and their communities.

Wal-Mart has started touting its role as a job creator and in saving money for working families. Earlier this month the Bentonville, Ark.-based company said it created 125,000 U.S. jobs in 2005, and that its average hourly wage for full-time store hourly employees rose from $9.68 to $10.11 over the same period.

Word about the numerous job applications in Evergreen Park raised eyebrows among Wal-Mart critics. Chris Kofinis, a spokesman for WakeUPWalMart.Com, a political campaign group funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers questioned whether that many people applied.

“Wal-Mart has a track record of underestimating its negative impacts and overestimating its positive impacts,” he said.