Now Playing: Jobs With Justice: Newsletter
Topic: Business & Labor
Sleeping with Wal-Mart Can Cost a Mayor’s Career
Fircrest Mayor Dave Viafore lost his position this month after backing Wal-Mart’s planned invasion of this community nestled between Tacoma and University Place. In a vote of 4-3, the City Council demoted Viafore to City Councilmember following his nomination to the JwJ Grinch of the Year contest and a community revolt against Wal-Mart. Even the Wal-Mart lovin’ News Tribune cited the Wal-Mart issue as Viafore’s first factor for his demise in a front page top-of-the fold story.
JwJ was an important ally in the Fircrest Against Wal-Mart (FAW) community campaign. Once the community organized overwhelming opposition to Wal-Mart, Viafore desperately tried to paint himself as neutral.
While Viafore’s ouster at the age of 43 and after a 14 year reign sends a message to all regional mayors courting with Wal-Mart, challenges remain to prevent an anti-worker Big Box company from invading the Fircrest site.
The Fircrest City Council has yet to rezone the Big Box designation of the site. The new Mayor Kathy McVay has a hostile history to FAW members’ efforts to debate the Wal-Mart issue.
Fircrest residents continue to want the site to be a source of needed commercial tax revenue but political leadership has failed to embrace publicly a pro-worker option.
