Walgreens got NIMBY'd. Its fatal mistake was not finding out whose backyard it wasn't wanted in. But it found out Monday as state Delegate Anne B. Crockett-Stark joined a chorus of residents from her neighborhood in opposing the drugstore's plans.
Walgreens would have built one of its big-box style retail store/pharmacy combos on the west side of North Fourth Street, in a site occupied by medical offices, had Town Council not sided with the Planning Commission and denied a special use permit. Crockett-Stark said she was speaking at the meeting as a resident of Fulton Street and not an elected official. Please. Let us rephrase that. Puh-leeze.
The very fact that she is a state delegate changes the equation substantially. She controls in some measure the flow of state money to places like Wytheville and wields an incredible amount of power, no matter how you look at it. When she speaks, even if prefacing it by saying she's doing so as a private citizen, her words carry the weight of the state. There is implicit threat and promise in everything she says. That's why politicians, at least the ones who understand that public figures do not get the luxury of behaving like private citizens, are always so careful to weigh their words.
If Crockett-Stark cannot understand why she cannot speak as a private citizen, especially about an issue that could ripple beyond her front yard, then she doesn't deserve her public position. At the same time, if she does understand and simply chose to exploit the power for personal reasons, she most certainly doesn't deserve her public position.
The Republican state delegate said she doesn't have anything against Walgreens, she just doesn't want one too near her. Her reasoning is the same as every other "Not In My Back Yarder." She worries about safety. Others cite water runoff. Light pollution. The things, in other words, that the less fortunate, those who can't smell the charcoal from a powerful politician's cookout, should have to contend with.
(On a side note, we find it disingenuous that Crockett-Stark objects to the drugstore at least in part because it might prompt a "stranger to wander into the neighborhood" when she came to power by canvassing, knocking on doors, oftentimes making herself that stranger wandering through others' neighborhoods.)
Elected officials will lie and tell you that money and power don't talk. But consider this: A group of homeowners in a low-rent district could scream till their hoarse without a shade of a chance of convincing a governing body to deny a permit for a business like Walgreens. Those who oppose the Walgreens extol the virtues of a neighborhood with sidewalks and nearby conveniences. It's the reason, they might argue, they choose to live where they do. They like having a neighborhood, a place four blocks from one grocery store, five or six to another, less than a block from a bank. A Walgreens, they argue, would ruin all that, though how isn't so clear.
"I do advocate economic development," Crockett-Stark said. Don't worry developers, including the ones possibly planning a Home Depot for Fourth Street, we're sure she does, as long as you steer clear of her property.
Unfortunately, the vote Monday set two bad precedents. The town of Wytheville has shown it can be unfriendly to prospective businesses, even as it tries to lure retailers into borders. And the town's governing body has proved it is willing to bow to the whims of its more powerful constituents. "We take care of our citizens. These people are very important to us," Vice Mayor Jacqueline King said. We get the sense that maybe she really did mean "These" people and just "These" people.
Shame on Crockett-Stark for using her position to quash economic development. And shame on the town of Wytheville for allowing it to happen.
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