Business
Wal-Mart: Round 2
As officials confirm a new proposal for a supercenter in Bangor, environmentalists claim the planning process was ‘circumvented’
Source: Bangor Daily News
Published: Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Photos: 1 with graphic
Edition: All
Section and Page: A1 (Front-page lead)
Headline: Wal-Mart: Round 2: As officials confirm a new proposal for a supercenter in Bangor, environmentalists claim the planning process was ‘circumvented’
BY ANDREW KNAPP
OF THE NEWS STAFF
BANGOR, Maine — More than three years after state regulators cited environmental concerns in scuttling a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter in the Bangor Mall area, a project engineer and city official confirmed Tuesday a new plan, embittering the same activists who opposed the first.
The new proposal calls for a 210,000-square-foot shopping center to be constructed on a 50-acre site behind the Blue Seal Feeds store on Stillwater Avenue just down the road from the initially proposed site, according to project engineer Jeff Allen of the James W. Sewall Co. of Old Town.
Wal-Mart representatives could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but local officials expect the supercenter will replace an existing 114,000-square-foot Wal-Mart store located less than a mile away on Springer Drive. That store was described by a company official as “bursting at the seams” in 2003 when Wal-Mart opened a 158,000-square-foot supercenter in Brewer.
In spring 2003, the Maine Board of Environmental Protection denied a state permit to build the initially proposed 224,000-square-foot store on 28 acres behind Circuit City off Stillwater Avenue. That planned development abutted the Penjajawoc Marsh, a popular habitat for rare bird species.
Area residents and environmental activists, including Maine Audubon Society members, began protesting that first project as soon as it was announced in 2000. They warned of irreversible damage to the watershed surrounding the marsh.
Allen stressed Tuesday that the portion of property now slated for the Wal-Mart development won’t influence the wetlands or alter nearby woodlands.
Only about 20 acres of the 50-acre parcel under consideration would be used for parking and the building that will offer general merchandise, automotive services and grocery items. Remaining acreage will be set aside for open-space mitigation, Allen said.
The Sewall Co. will submit applications for location of development and natural resources permits later this month, he said.
Engineers have worked closely with the Maine Department of Environmental protection to establish a site that doesn’t encroach on the Penjajawoc Marsh, according to Allen. Only the grassland in front of a stand of trees behind the Blue Seal store will be used. The rest will be preserved, he said.
“We have a reasonable expectation that the permits will be approved this time,” Allen said Tuesday.
Despite his assertions, some complained Tuesday that the developers had circumvented a 15-member commission the city established last fall to recommend properties suitable for commercial development near the watershed. The Penjajawoc Marsh-Bangor Mall Management Commission, which is made up of landowners, developers, business owners and city officials, was designed to balance environmental and economic concerns.
Commission member Cindy DeBeck, who also owns 70 acres abutting the marsh and the proposed development site, said she received a letter Monday from the Sewall Co. indicating plans to file for construction permits. All landowners near the parcel were informed by certified mail, she said. DeBeck was surprised, however, that the commission was not informed of the new proposal.
“They would have a much easier time because [the commission] can make recommendations and offer support for a developer’s plans,” DeBeck said. “I guess they just want to see the public’s reaction.”
Members of Bangor Area Citizens Organized for Responsible Development, which was formed in 2000 to combat the first Wal-Mart Supercenter plan, also were caught off guard.
BACORD spokeswoman Valerie Carter of Newburgh said the engineers failed to consult with the commission early in the current planning process, as city guidelines now stipulate. Considering the company aims to apply for permits within the next few weeks, she said, the project is now well-developed. Planners have “circumvented” an organization the city spent time and money to create, Carter said.
“Their actions show a disrespect and disregard for the whole process,” she said Tuesday. “They’re really rushing this.”
Allen explained that the state permits were applied for first because that process takes about six months while city approvals can be obtained within four months. Bangor officials, including the commission, will be presented details within the coming weeks.
“It just makes more sense to get the longer process started first,” Allen said.
Storm water regulations adopted last year by the DEP pose the greatest roadblock for the project, the engineer said. He added that plans call for five storm water retention ponds to collect runoff and prevent pollution from entering Penjajawoc Stream. Though the stream borders the southwest corner of the 50-acre property, the Wal-Mart complex will be erected far from the stream, Allen stressed.
Carter worried, however, that if an access route to the Wal-Mart site is built near the stream it could endanger the already impaired watershed. The stream runs beneath Stillwater Avenue between the Blue Seal store and the Means Investment building.
Land trust Penn-York Associates owns the acreage eyed for the new Wal-Mart. Dr. Francis Kittredge, a Bangor neurologist and the land’s trustee, was unavailable for comment Tuesday.
Assessors valued the land at $1.8 million in 2006, according to Bangor Code Enforcement Officer Dan Wellington.
Wal-Mart now operates 12 supercenters in Maine — including facilities in Augusta, Brewer, Palmyra, Presque Isle and Waterville — and 11 discount stores.
Recent speculation has indicated that W/S Associates of Massachusetts is interested in building a supercenter in Ellsworth. The same company has had limited involvement with the Bangor project, according to Allen.
When the Brewer store opened in June 2003, the Bangor site saw only a minute decrease in sales volume, Wellington said. Despite increased competition from Brewer, the Bangor store remains one of the highest-grossing Wal-Mart locations in the state, he said.
“If the Brewer superstore brought business down significantly, they wouldn’t be going through with plans for a new store in Bangor,” Wellington said.
Allen will conduct a public information meeting at 10 a.m. Wednesday, July 26, at the Stillwater Avenue site. At that time, engineers will release detailed maps and monetary estimates for the project.
If approved, the multimillion-dollar construction project will begin sometime next year, he said.
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Drainage concerns critics of project
Wal-Mart: Less than 1 acre to be disturbed
Source: Bangor Daily News
Published: Friday, July 21, 2006
Photos: None
Edition: All
Section and Page: B1 (State front lead)
Headline: Drainage concerns critics of project: Wal-Mart: Less than 1 acre to be disturbed
BY ANDREW KNAPP
OF THE NEWS STAFF
BANGOR, Maine — Company representatives officially announced plans on Wednesday night to construct a Wal-Mart Supercenter on a 50-acre parcel off Stillwater Avenue, disturbing a small portion of the surrounding wetlands that serve as a habitat for rare bird species.
City officials and environmentalists said Thursday, however, that drainage designs for the project are outdated. Local activists are concerned that the proposed system won’t effectively divert storm water pollution from the marsh.
Wal-Mart officials will meet in August with a city commission designed to balance economic and environmental concerns in the Bangor Mall area, according to Christopher Buchanan, senior manager of public affairs for the retailer that operates 26 stores in Maine.
The Penjajawoc Marsh-Bangor Mall Management Commission formed last fall to recommend acreage suitable for commercial development.
“We listened to local residents’ previous concerns and have found a site that will disturb less than 1 acre of wetlands,” Buchanan said in a press release issued this week.
The company will expand its dialogue with the overall Bangor community throughout the coming months, according to Wal-Mart spokeswoman Daphne Moore.
“There’s a long process ahead of us, and it’s certainly far from complete,” Moore said Thursday night.
After city officials and a project engineer confirmed on Tuesday the proposal for a new 218,000-square-foot supercenter, however, environmentalists and commission members claimed the planning process was circumvented.
Valerie Carter, spokeswoman for the Bangor Area Citizens for Organized Development, or BACORD, said potential developers should have presented plans to the panel earlier in the process.
“[Wal-Mart is] making an effort, but it’s still late in the game,” Carter said Thursday.
The James W. Sewall Co. in Old Town, which serves as Wal-Mart’s land agent, will apply for state permits within the next two weeks, according to project engineer Jeff Allen.
Citing environmental implications, state regulators sunk plans in 2003 to build a supercenter behind Circuit City on Stillwater Avenue. Area residents and environmentalists protested that initial project as soon as it was announced in 2000. They feared irreversible damage to the nearby watershed.
Allen said the new construction will be confined to grassland behind Blue Seal Feeds and Crossroads Mall and won’t encroach on the marsh or Penjajawoc Stream, which forms the parcel’s southwest border.
According to Carter, however, that grassy area may serve as a vital nesting habitat for the birds occupying the marsh.
Attempts made Thursday to confirm that information with the Maine Audubon Society and Bangor Land Trust were unsuccessful.
Developers do have plans, they said, to protect the peripheral environment. To stop pollution from seeping into the impaired marshland, engineers will install five retention ponds designed to collect storm water runoff, Allen said this week.
Some, however, have claimed that drainage system is outdated.
Commission member Cindy DeBeck of Newburgh, owner of 70 acres near the marsh, said diffusion drainage systems that allow storm water to seep through a treatment system in the ground would be much more conducive to environmental sustainability.
“We’re not receptive to retention ponds because of this new technology,” DeBeck said.
Efforts made Thursday to reach Allen, city engineers and other commission members were not successful.
Dan Wellington, Bangor’s code enforcement officer, had hoped the new supercenter would utilize a storm water diffusion system for the first time in the city. Retention ponds, like the one currently on the Home Depot site, are a decade old. Even though that system meets city code and strict water-quality standards, better methods exist, he said.
“Based on early talks with developers, I thought we might see a novel, new approach,” Wellington said Thursday. “I’m disappointed by this.”
The proposed development also poses traffic questions, which Carter said would be the most pressing issue if plans progress.
When the Bangor Parkade, a development a half-mile from the potential supercenter site, opened last fall, motorists on Stillwater Avenue were met with gridlock. Measures to add another traffic lane to the route eased congestion.
“It’s going to be a nightmare again,” Carter said. “How many cars can Stillwater handle?”
City officials said traffic concerns aren’t unfounded but also aren’t unique to Bangor, especially during the holiday season.
“Every city gets that congestion,” Wellington said.
Dave Gould, the city’s planning officer, said the project’s magnitude demands improved infrastructure. Otherwise, severe traffic impairments will arise. Developers will pay for any roadway alterations, he said.
Herb Thompson, spokesman for the Maine Department of Transportation, declined to comment Thursday on the project because the organization hasn’t received an application for traffic movement permits.
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THE HEAT IS ON … To fix a price
As heating oil prices fluctuate, more Mainers select fixed-rate payment plans for next winter
Source: Bangor Daily News
Published: Saturday, July 1, 2006
Photos: 2 graphics
Edition: All
Section and Page: B1 (Business Front)
Headline: THE HEAT IS ON … To fix a price: As heating oil prices fluctuate, more Mainers select fixed-rate payment plans for next winter
BY ANDREW KNAPP
OF THE NEWS STAFF
Despite the intensifying summer sun, some homeowners are already thinking about winter — specifically how to pay for heating oil when the snow flies again.
Talk of heating oil hitting $3 per gallon this winter has many homeowners enrolling in fixed-price plans this summer even though many of those programs are being offered at a wallet-walloping $2.70 a gallon or more.
Debbie Fournier, 36, and her husband of Bangor prepaid oil for the first time last year to eliminate fears she wouldn’t be able to afford the cash price during the winter.
As she neatly planted irises in the dirt in front of her home one day this week, the mother of two boys said she might have to dig into her garden budget to pay for heating oil this year.
“We used to pay as they delivered it,” Fournier said. “We can’t do it that way now.”
The statewide average cash price for home heating oil was $2.09 a gallon a year ago. Cash prices in the Bangor area ranged from about $2.40 to $2.61 on Friday.
Companies that offer prepay plans and fixed rates pay commodity traders at the New York Mercantile Exchange about 20 cents per gallon to reserve the right to purchase oil at a fixed wholesale rate in the future. That charge is passed on to consumers through increased retail prices for prepay and budget options.
The average home in Maine burns anywhere from 800 to 1,000 gallons of oil per year. Considering the typical prepay price of about $2.70 per gallon offered this week in the Bangor area, total bills could run from $2,160 to $2,700 to pay for next winter’s heating oil now.
Budget programs feature a slightly higher rate — about $2.80 per gallon at the moment — but allow payments to be spread over several months throughout the year.
Traditionally, home heating oil prices have declined during the summer months when demand is lower, but that hasn’t been the case since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
When crude oil prices rose dramatically last summer to more than $70 per barrel, many Mainers held off buying protection plans, gambling that the price of heating oil would drop by fall, according to Mike Shea, president of Webber Energy Fuels, based in Bangor.
Prices failed to lower, however, and many consumers were forced to pay elevated rates in October and through the winter.
“When the market continued to go up, it froze people,” Shea said. “A lot of people learned from that and are locking in early this year.”
Because of increased demand, the market’s instability is magnified during winter months and cash prices are bound to escalate, he said.
The price per gallon of oil at times has fluctuated 10 cents each day, according to Jamie Py, president of the Maine Oil Dealers Association.
“With that uncertainty, the option to buy now when the price is certain is much more attractive than waiting to pay the cash price in the winter,” Py said this week.
Since Webber Energy Fuels made its protection plans available on May 1, a “significant increase” of homeowners has prepaid oil this year and capitalized on a tranquil period in the market, Shea said. Last year, about 40 percent of his customers purchased fixed-rate oil. About 25 percent have already locked in this year.
While many people are opting to buy early, prices are still high, Shea admitted, and that trend is expected to endure. Oil prices this summer don’t reflect the mild winter, he added. High demand and limited surplus worldwide continue to fuel the market. Further volatility is inevitable, he said.
Tim Dysart, vice president at fuel supplier Dysart’s Inc. in Hermon, said that while prices typically have dropped during the summer, that hasn’t been the case recently. In the past three years, oil his company purchased was at its cheapest in the spring. About one-third of Dysart’s customers typically pay for oil early, he said.
During the past five weeks, a lull in the market prompted buyers to act sooner rather than later, according to oil company staffers.
Prices are beginning to inch upward again, however, according to Beth Nagusky, director of Maine’s Office of Energy Independence and Security. Any tranquility in market prices may be fleeting, she said.
“Right now, it’s so volatile that it’s impossible to predict,” Nagusky said.
Ted Taylor, 46, of Bangor capitalized on the steady rates earlier this season and signed up for a fixed-rate budget plan, as he has done for the past eight years. He said it eliminates the hassle of shopping around when prices are inconsistent from day to day. And because of the large lump-sum payment required, prepaying for oil wasn’t an option.
“I don’t have that cash on hand,” he said Wednesday as he fumbled through files containing past monthly oil bills.
Taylor, who lives with his wife and teenage son in a 3,000-square-foot home, now pays about $450 per month on his heating oil budget plan. Just two years ago, the bill was $250 a month.
“We’re at a point that we don’t want to turn the thermostat down,” he said, adding they have already cut heat to an extent. “We’ll just have to spend less on other things and find other ways to cut costs.”
Low-income consumers are looking toward fuel-assistance services like the Maine State Housing Authority’s Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.
Jennifer Giosia overseas LIHEAP funds for Penquis Community Action Program, which administers aid in Piscataquis, Penobscot and Knox counties. She said a record 9,400 households received help last year, while the average benefit per recipient was $614.
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With talks of job cuts, copy editors fret of increased workload
Source: American Observer
Published: Thursday, Dec. 7, 2006
Photos: None
Web site: http://americanobserver.net/2006/12/07/copyeditors/
Headline: With talks of job cuts, copy editors fret of increased workload
BY ANDREW KNAPP
As newspapers and media firms look to reduce production costs, some editors said consolidation of an already heavily burdened copy desk is endangering high-quality editing.
In a desperate brainstorming flurry to pacify shareholders before its eventual sale to The McClatchy Co. in June, Knight-Ridder Inc. considered centralizing copy desks at all its newspapers, according to an Aug. 27 article in The New York Times. Under that system, copy editors for the company, which owned 32 daily newspapers from coast to coast, would edit “local” stories datelined thousands of miles away.
“That just suggests they don’t have a clue about what the value of copy editing is,” said John Russial, a journalism professor at the University of Oregon and former 12-year Sunday copy chief at The Philadelphia Inquirer, once a Knight-Ridder publication. It’s vital for editors to have first-hand knowledge of the material they’re editing, he said.
The idea was promptly scuttled.
More recently, the Tribune Co. proposed cuts of newsroom staff, including copy editors. At the Tribune-owned Los Angeles Times, Jeffrey Johnson recently was forced out as publisher after he refused to eliminate positions.
The growing popularity of blogs, which eliminate the middle-man editor, further threaten the profession.
Those events have placed what one Tribune editor called a generally “ignored” and sometimes “scorned” copy desk into an even more precarious position. This is especially true at smaller newspapers where embattled editors’ workload has been mounting since the extinction of composing rooms in the 1980s and the more recent advent of the Internet. More and more copy editors at small to midsize dailies – some with circulations of more than 100,000 – oversee design and pagination, along with editing content and uploading it to the Web. Several editors interviewed for this story said that, in a struggle to meet deadlines, increased duties mean less time for fixing factual flops, grammar gaffes and syntax slips – basic elements copy editing.
While many modern copy desks are inherently attracted to the creativity of design and its tendency to eliminate the job’s so-called “drudgery,” editing can suffer, some said.
“The more work you give to one person, after a while, it begins to show in both areas,” said Bill Cloud, a copy-editing instructor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and member of the American Copy Editors Society board of directors. “There’s an aspect of design that’s just so appealing to people that they get too deeply involved and ignore the editing side.”
He said the danger is time and how editors divide it between various tasks.
“Potentially, that can harm both,” Cloud said. “Certainly, it will harm editing, and it could also harm design.”
And the prospect of job cuts and the consequential heavier workload has some copy editors worried about the future of top-notch editing.
More than 20 years ago at newspapers nationwide, a handful of the rule-focused, technology-oriented editors replaced hundreds of compositors who used a traditional method – a razorblade – to cut printed text and paste it onto the page.
Today, copy editors at smaller newspapers compose pages with computer programs such as QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign. When hiring, even though managing editors say they seek workers with editing backgrounds, job advertisements increasingly beckon journalists who have proficiency in those programs, said Russial, who has conducted substantial research about copy editors.
Many experts said recently that copy editors rarely perform both pagination and traditional copy editing well. The tasks are too time-consuming. Separating copy editors and designers into two desks is a more ideal setup, they said, but also a costly one.
“It’s not ideal to have copy editors do design, but unfortunately, it’s a staffing situation we have, and it’s not uncommon,” said Juan Elizondo, managing editor of the daily 30,000-circulation Longview (Texas) News-Journal. “We have some staffers who consider themselves primarily designers or primarily copy editors. It’s a juggling act, and there’s constant pull in either direction.”
When Elizondo arrived at the Cox Communications-owned newspaper three years ago, lack of a night-editor position forced copy editors to serve as originating editors, Web editors, designers and proofreaders. “They basically did everything but the reporting,” he said.
Elizondo added a night editor and designated a copy chief whose sole job was to give a final look at section-front stories, not design pages. Ideally, several copy chiefs would handle every section, but the money for additional positions just isn’t available, he said. As a result, most editing focuses on the news section, while others may suffer.
The News-Journal also uses technology to its advantage to mitigate the time issue. Elizondo said the newspaper avoids “overly templated, cookie-cuttered designs,” but copy editors can avoid starting from scratch every day by using design presets in QuarkXPress. Spending less time on design allows more for the actual copy-editing portion of the job.
“That’s one response to deal with that division of labor,” he said. “But it is difficult.”
At The Providence (R.I.) Journal, with a daily circulation around 220,000, technological advances eliminated 300 composing-room employees in the 1980s, according to Len Levin, a former copy chief at The Providence Journal. In 1996, the newspaper employed five compositors, and production tasks once performed in the composing room were transferred to a copy desk that failed to grow despite its increased workload. But Levin said that instead of hiring more, newsroom managers have continued to slash copy-editing positions.
“This has all kinds of repercussions on the desk from morale loss to missing deadlines,” Levin said. “If management is enlightened enough to realize you need a few more people to replace all those hundreds in the composing room, the job can be very creative, pleasant and rewarding. If not, it can be really frustrating.”
Copy editing is admittedly less glamorous than reporting, according to the eight top editors interviewed for this article. And as technology and economics tighten their grips on the copy desk, recruitment problems may arise.
Levin, who derives his “tough and mean” editing style from a reader’s point of view, said pure wordsmiths will always exist. As newsroom convergence and the Internet further pressure educators and newspapers to train the next generation of journalists in digital media, however, focus on traditional copy editing may suffer while aesthetics and newspaper design become the priority.
“I always prefer to edit,” Levin said. “I understand that people want to be creative, and on a newspaper copy desk, I guess laying out a page is the most creative aspect. The spelling of a word is necessary but not necessarily creative.”
In a part-time “retirement” position as a three-day-per-week copy editor at The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Mass., Levin has seen four desk mates in the past six months leave for information technology jobs in Boston. The Ledger, which circulates 70,000 copies daily, places both design and editing tasks on the copy desk’s shoulders.
“Journalism is losing a lot of copy editors that way,” said Levin, who also conducts workshops for professional copy editors throughout New England.
As an advanced-editing professor at the University of North Carolina and an editing coach for the (Greensboro) News & Record and The (Raleigh) News & Observer, Cloud has seen steady copy-editing interest among students and young journalists. The profession, however, is less popular than reporting. One student who originally trained in copy editing and “was very good at it,” he said, found employment as a hybrid editor-designer at a small newspaper.
“But she just kind of drifted more and more into design and now has taken a pure design job,” Cloud said.
Other top editors of larger newspapers acknowledged a more fluid editing process at their publications where design desks are separate from copy desks. At the same time, however, those editors said an increasing number of young designers lack the required news judgment. Copy editors and designers should possess knowledge of the other desk’s responsibilities and collaborate on projects to provide a close correlation between the design and the writing; however, the two should be allowed to specialize, according to Entertainment Editor Anne Glover of the Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times and Assistant News Editor Scott Toole of The Express-Times in Easton, Pa.
With a circulation of 400,000, The (Baltimore) Sun, one of the Tribune newspapers involved in recent newsroom-slimming talks, John McIntyre stressed the importance of labor division among copy editors. McIntyre, assistant managing editor for the copy desk, said few people have “ambidextrous” skills in copy editing and design, and the 24 to 30 workers who specialize in editing aid The Sun’s credibility.
“My area of expertise is language, and what I’m concerned about, and what all copy editors have to be concerned about, are the articles and their headlines,” said McIntyre, a 20-year employee at The Sun and former president of the American Copy Editors Society.
Though he advocated more focus on editing, McIntyre stressed the importance of design in attracting new readers. After the paper underwent a redesign a few years ago, some older readers thought it looked “gaudy and cheap, like a comic book.”
“Those readers are more or less on their way to a place where our circulation cannot reach,” he said.
But McIntyre said his copy desk isn’t immune to increasing time pressures. Intensive design work often causes articles to reach copy editors late and forces them to do the same work in compressed time.
“You cannot diminish the importance of design, but you cannot allow design to mask the essential importance of editing,” he said.
Copy editors correct far more errors than they make.
The Sun reporters account for about 75 percent of mistakes, while the 25 percent introduced by copy editors is a “nefarious” but minor component, McIntyre said.
At the more under-staffed Longview News-Journal, Elizondo said 40 percent of publicly disclosed errors arise from sloppy editing and errors introduced by the copy desk because of a fast-approaching deadline.
For some copy editors, however, increasing time pressures have boosted the attraction of the job. Copy editors typically work “out of sight and out of mind,” several said recently. They work at night and after most of the newspaper’s top editors have left the newsroom. If news breaks after normal business hours, reporters hurriedly write while copy editors hastily edit.
At The (Elyria, Ohio) Chronicle-Telegram, a 24,000-circulation, seven-day newspaper that unveiled a major redesign in November, News Editor Dan Shortridge said most problems with juggling editing and design arise in late-breaking circumstances. The Chronicle-Telegram copy desk comprises five full-time and two part-time editors in charge of production for all sections but sports.
“That can sometimes skew a few things toward more emphasis on speed, and sometimes things do fall through the cracks,” Shortridge said. “It’s unfortunate that it has to occur on such tight deadlines. But that’s one of the exciting things about the job. You’re always on the clock. You’re always under the gun. It can get exciting from time to time.”
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