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The Sun is right to question the worth of Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke's legislation requiring Wal-Mart to pay a "living wage" to employees ("Another Wal-Mart bill?" May 5). However, the issue is hardly as simple as a local lawmaker being "unfair" to a giant, predatory corporation. Some of The Sun's rhetorical questions are well-aimed: indeed, why single out Wal-Mart when so many other business pay low wages? It's probably a safe bet that Ms. Clarke did not sit down and analyze the national and global economic situations before proposing her bill.

Harford County officials may have been reluctant to talk about a Wal-Martcoming to the Emmorton area south of Bel Air when the subject first came up more than a year ago, but the developer of the site off Route 924 and Plumtree Road is moving forward with the project regardless. Legal notices were published in The Aegis last week announcing a community input meeting "for a proposedWal-Mart and other commercial uses" on 33.7 acres on the southwest side of the intersection of Route 924 and Plumtree Road.

To hear some local retailers express it, the advent of a Wal-Mart mega-discount store in Howard County is like the coming of Public Enemy No. 1. The nation's top retailer evokes just such fear, particularly among the owners of smaller shopping stores who find Wal-Mart's aggressive approach overwhelming.In fact, Wal-Mart comes by its scorch-and-burn reputation honestly. In the early years of the Arkansas-based firm's explosive growth, it was common for Wal-Mart to descend on some rural hamlet, leaving the local mom and pop stores in the dust.

Maryland's state retirement system said Thursday that it would once again vote against the election of Wal-Mart Stores' board because it isn't confident in the independence of the directors. The Maryland State Retirement and Pension System, which owns 1.2 million shares of the retail giant, has a policy of voting against all candidates if less than two-thirds of a company's board is independent. Six of Wal-Mart's 16 board members are either company officials or affiliated with the company in another way, according to the system's proxy advisor.

Even in the best of times, it's tough to say no to a major retail presence. That becomes doubly hard when it's the nation's No. 1 merchant offering hundreds of jobs and millions in tax revenue. Yet Howard County's Planning Board has nixed Wal-Mart's proposal to build 250,000 square feet of shopping space at the intersection of Routes 40 and 29 near Ellicott City. It seems the rezoning needed to make the project happen doesn't meet the legal test -- a noticeable shift in the character of the neighborhood or a mistake in original zoning.

They fought it in Chestertown. They fought it in Ellicott City. They fought it in Owings Mills.Those locales won't conjure images of Bunker Hill and Yorktown, but their battles against Wal-Mart are very much part of a revolution. The late Sam Walton, founder of the Arkansas-based chain, was for years noted as the country's wealthiest man. Yet for many Americans, particularly in the populous Northeast, his was an invisible empire.The company made its mark mostly in rural backwaters, where it bled dry the mom-and-pops on Main Street.

From: Richard R. ByardEllicott CityThe letter from Edwin Strakna (Howard County Sun, Readers write, "Bring in Wal-Mart," March 22) is a classic example of how people respond when they don't know what the issue is.Strakna indicated he believes Howard County should have a Wal-Mart to keep him from going outside the county to shop. Whether or not Wal-Mart is in Howard County is not the issue; we would welcome Wal-Mart into Howard County if it acted like a responsible business and was willing to locate where it already has been decided such businesses should be located.

Feast or famine seems to be the message being sent by Wal-Mart to Howard countians.Not only is the nation's most successful retailer continuing its fight over land on which it wants to build in Howard, it is also eyeing property just over the county line on U.S. 40 in Catonsville. The two locations are six miles apart.More than likely this is a case of the aggressive discounter from Arkansas hedging its bet by creating two options in general proximity to one another. That's simple, good business sense.

Wal-Mart's rapid rise from an Arkansas chain into the top national discount retailer is stuff for the annals of merchandising. Not even the death of Sam Walton, Wal-Mart's energetic founder, slowed its expansion to new, more competitive markets.Wal-Mart's magic will be tested again in Glen Burnie, when it takes over the 306,155-square-foot store that the bankrupt hypermarket Leedmark abandoned last year. Leclerc, a French firm that hoped to take America by storm by launching a nationwide chain from Glen Burnie, gave up its costly investment after only three years.

From: S. D. BoviEllicott CityIn response to Mr. Bernard Bartos (Howard County Sun, Readers write, "Bring on Wal-Mart," March 15), I say, "Stay away, Wal-Mart!"I am one of "those who are retired and on a limited income," and I feel that my needs to shop in discount warehouse-type stores are more than adequately met in Howard County.We have Caldor, K mart, Burlington Coat Factory and now Ross, which recently opened in Dobbin Center and advertises "brand names and designer fashions at 40-65 percentsavings."

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on Monday requested a meeting with Wal-Mart officials in response to allegations that the retailer covered up a bribery scheme to expand its business in Mexico. In a letter to Wal-Mart CEO Michael Duke, the Baltimore Democrat says he is opening an investigation into allegations raised in a story over the weekend by The New York Times and asked the company to schedule a meeting with lawmakers to discuss the issue by Friday.

lperl@patuxent.com Normally, news of a community meeting in Charles Village is hardly unusual. The neighborhood is well-represented by groups ranging from the Charles Village Civic Association, which will host a forum for political candidates Aug. 30, to the Charles Village Community Benefits District, a special taxing district, which will discuss its supplemental services at a public meeting Sept. 10. But one upcoming community meeting, billed as a chance for residents to discuss everything from crime to a planned Wal-Mart, is taking community leaders by surprise, not for its topics, but for its unlikely sponsor, the owner of a local yoga studio called The Living Well.

In its decision to throw out the sex discrimination lawsuit filed by 1.6 million women workers against retail giant Wal-Mart, the Supreme Court concluded that there was insufficient evidence that each of these women - who worked at different jobs and in different states - had been harmed in the same way. In other words, in order to file a class-action suit, the plaintiffs must have more in common than just their sex. And, by the way, they need...

Dear Councilman McMahan: Wal-mart is attempting to build a super store in our neighborhood at Emmorton Road and Bel Air South Parkway. We do NOT want this store in our neighborhood. They would not be good for our property values nor provide anything positive to our environment. They are projecting 500 cars an hour traffic flow that I think is an underestimate. But even at 500 per hour would require massive upgrades to the infrastructure and traffic expansion. This is not a good thing for us. We do not want this kind of traffic in our community.

The thrust of The Sun's editorial and the approach of public officials for decades for improving Liberty Road and other secondary roads with aging retail areas has been to treat the problems as economic development issues ("Life on Liberty Road," May 23). The solutions have been to update failing areas with new buildings without dealing with the core problems. People need to be connected to their neighborhoods. Suburban Baltimore County communities were built around the love affair with the car. They became commuting communities.

I am moving to Baltimore in a couple days to attend the University of Baltimore School of Law this fall. I have already signed a lease for a home in Remington. I do not want to live near a Wal-Mart. Study after study has confirmed that Wal-Mart creates a net loss of jobs, drives out locally-owned small businesses and depresses wages. Being from the South, I've seen the effects of Wal-Mart first hand. Where Wal-Mart doesn't crush all other local businesses, it doesn't make enough of a profit and it quickly moves on, leaving an ugly big box store, unemployed workers and taxpayers holding the bill.

Officials in Howard County should have felt some pangs of remorse when they turned down Wal-Mart's request for a zoning change to build on 54 acres at the intersection of Routes 40 and 29. What with the razzle-dazzle of the nation's leading discounter dangled in front of them like so many tantalizing carrots, it wouldn't have been surprising for county officials to jump through some hoops. They didn't.Instead, Howard's zoning board -- which is also the county council -- ruled that Wal-Mart had failed to prove a mistake was made in prior zoning of the parcel or that the character of the neighborhood had changed.

The county commissioners said yesterday they will allow Wal-Mart to begin building in Eldersburg, but only after company officials agreed to install a traffic light at the store entrance on Liberty Road.The commissioners held up work at the site, at Routes 32 and 26, last week because they were concerned that the shopping center entrance on Route 26 (Liberty Road) would make the already-busy intersection more dangerous.Commissioner W. Benjamin Brown said at a meeting at the County Office Building yesterday that a traffic light would make it safer for motorists to make left turns in and out of the shopping center.

Recent discussion about living-wage legislation introduced by Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke and the proposed development at 25th and Howard streets has muddled the issues with comments hostile toward the legislation and dismissive of community concerns about the 25th Street Station project. Whether these comments are purposely misleading or just ill informed remains to be seen — but we do know some facts. Retail is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the economy, and it will remain so for the foreseeable future.

The Sun is right to question the worth of Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke's legislation requiring Wal-Mart to pay a "living wage" to employees ("Another Wal-Mart bill?" May 5). However, the issue is hardly as simple as a local lawmaker being "unfair" to a giant, predatory corporation. Some of The Sun's rhetorical questions are well-aimed: indeed, why single out Wal-Mart when so many other business pay low wages? It's probably a safe bet that Ms. Clarke did not sit down and analyze the national and global economic situations before proposing her bill.