Westminster – The red, white and blue streamers fluttered in the wind.
People gathered around the Wolff Run Park pavilions laughed and joked and shouted in the evening sun. It had all the makings of a summer barbecue.
Except one thing. There wasn’t any barbecuing going on.
Instead, the several hundred people who showed up Friday evening at Wolff Run Park were there to kick off a petition drive in hopes of keeping a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter out of their neighborhoods near West 72nd Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard.
Over the next three weeks, those gathered at the park will knock on doors, stand outside grocery stores and wave their petitions in an effort to get Westminster’s City Council to either overturn its votes allowing the store to be built or force the issue before the voters in November. They will need to gather 6,460 signatures.
“This is insane,” cracked Dino Valente, one of the petition-drive organizers, in the midst of dozens of folks signing petitions and grabbing packets of petitions. Valente, who operates a deli near the proposed Wal-Mart site, was wearing a name tag that gave his name and sarcastically added, “Public Enemy #1.”
“But, you know, we’re having fun. Democracy is fun.”
Mike Ciletti, a local Wal-Mart consultant, said the retailer is prepared for the possibility of an election.
“It’s certainly a scenario we’re watching very closely,” he said. “But 6,400 valid signatures in 21 days is sort of a tall order. We wish them all the best.”
Residents have a wide number of reasons why they don’t want a Wal-Mart nearby. Some have environmental concerns. Others feel the rundown shopping center at 72nd and Sheridan is a poor fit for a big-box store. Still others fear it will drive out small businesses, and some just plain don’t like the retailing giant.
Kaaren Hardy, holding an armful of manila envelopes containing petitions, said she worried that, with one Wal-Mart already and two more – including the one at 72nd and Sheridan – approved, the city may come to rely too much on one company for its sales tax revenue.
“I don’t want to have to drive to another community to shop somewhere other than a Wal-Mart,” she said.
Ciletti said all the facts about the proposed store were on the table at a public hearing last month, and he said the council made a well-reasoned decision to approve the store.
“We’re certainly going to seek to uphold the City Council’s decision,” Ciletti said. “The City Council has shown great leadership in the past. This is a good example of it.”
Poppycock, said resident Brian Albert. He believes the council’s decision was based more on financial reasons than on what makes sense for the community and its neighbors. In that sense, he said, anti-Wal-Mart organizers such as Valente and others have shown more leadership in rallying and energizing the community than the council has in the three years Albert has lived in the city.
Referring to Valente’s button, Albert said: “I call him public champion No. 1. The council certainly isn’t doing it.”
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
