Super Walmart's And Their Impact On Poverty
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One morning waiting for my cup of coffee at 7am at Risoldi's grocery store on Quaker Bridge Road, I came across a new small gazette. The name of the gazette is The Hamilton Community Gazette. I began reading the Aug 20-27,2015 issue.  As I waited for my coffee, I found an article entitled," Hamilton Looks To Fill A Desert". The article focused on the revitalization of the old Suburban Plaza in Hamilton, Mercer County. 

 

The article focuses on an interview with the local Mayor of Hamilton. Evidently the Mayor is quite excited by the project.  She feels it will breathe new life into the shopping center.  The Mayor goes on to say," This component (meaning the Super Walmart),  will not just help fill a food desert, but build on the economy of our residents."  She continues to say," It will bring food access to portions of the town that previously lacked access to food."

 

What is the real impact, from a health perspective, that the residents of Hamilton will experience from this new Super Walmart?  We interviewed some workers at a Super Walmart,reviewed the research studies done by the USDA, and University of Pennsylvania that focus on Walmart's effect on communities as it pertains to poverty. Here is what we found.

 

One of the employees we spoke to said, "I would never buy fresh food here." Bagged salads, this employee claimed, are often past their sell-by dates and, in the summer, fruit is sometimes kept on shelves until it rots. “They say, ‘We’ll take care of it,’ but they don’t. As a cashier, you hear a lot of people complain,” they said.

 

This employee blames the problems on the store’s chronic understaffing and Walmart’s lack of respect for the skilled labor needed to handle the nation’s food supply. At their store, a former maintenance person was made produce manager. He’s often diverted to other tasks. “If the toilets get backed up, they call him,” they said.

 

Another employee who worked in the produce section of a Walmart store reported much the same. “They put a 20-year-old from electronics in charge of the produce department. He didn’t know anything about food,” they said. “We had a leak in the cooler that didn’t get fixed for a month and all this moldy food was going out on the floor.” Walmart doesn’t accept the idea that “a supermarket takes any skill to run,” they said. “They treated the produce like any other kind of merchandise in the store. An apple has the same clout as a tshirt.”

 

That’s plenty to give a shopper pause, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to reasons to be concerned about Walmart’s explosive expansion into the grocery sector. Why any town would embrace this in an urban area is beyond any rational understanding. 

 

In just a few short years, Walmart has become the most powerful force in our food system, more dominant than Monsanto, Kraft, or Tyson.

 

It was only 23 years ago that Walmart opened its first supercenter, a store with a full supermarket inside. By 1998, it was still a relatively modest player with 441 supercenters and about 6 percent of U.S. grocery sales. Last year, as its supercenter count climbed above 3,000, Walmart captured 25 percent of the $550 billion Americans spent on groceries.

 

As astonishing as Walmart’s national market share is, in many parts of the country the chain is even more dominant. In 29 metro markets, it accounts for more than 50 percent of grocery sales.

 

Seeking an even bigger piece of the pie, Walmart is campaigning to blanket New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other big cities with its stores. It has made food the centerpiece of its public relations strategy. In a series of announcements over the last year, Walmart has deftly commandeered high-profile food issues, presenting itself as a solution to food deserts, a force for healthier eating, and a supporter of local farming.

 

It is a remarkably brazen tactic. On every one of these fronts, Walmart is very much part of the problem. Its expansion is making our food system more concentrated and industrialized than ever before. Its growth in cities will likely exacerbate poverty, the root cause of constrained choices and poor diet. And the more dominant Walmart becomes, the fewer opportunities there will be for farmers markets, food co-ops, neighborhood grocery stores, and a host of other enterprises that are beginning to fashion a better food system — one organized not to enrich corporate middlemen, but to the benefit of producers and eaters.

 

Walmart’s rise as a grocer triggered two massive waves of industry consolidation in the late 1990s and early 2000s. One occurred among supermarkets, as regional titans like Kroger and Fred Meyer combined to form national chains that stood a better chance of surviving Walmart’s push into groceries. Today, the top five food retailers capture half of all grocery sales, double the share they held in 1997.

 

The second wave of consolidation came as meatpackers, dairy companies, and other food processors merged in an effort to be large enough to supply Walmart without getting crushed in the process. The takeover of IBP, the nation’s largest beef processor, by Tyson Fresh Meats is a prime example.  When Tyson bought IBP in 2001, they said they had to do that in order to supply Walmart. The market saw horizontal integration in the meat business because of worries about access to the retail market. Four firms now slaughter more than 80 percent of cattle. A similar dynamic has played out in nearly every segment of food manufacturing.

 

The consolidation of the last two decades has created a food chain that’s shaped like an hourglass.  There are a handful of middlemen now stand between 2 million farmers and 300 million eaters.

 

Their tight grip on our food supply has, rather predictably, come at the expense of both ends of the hourglass. Grocery prices have been rising faster than inflation and, while there are multiple factors driving up consumer costs, some economic research points to concentration in both food manufacturing and retailing as a leading culprit.

 

Farmers, meanwhile, are getting paid less and less. Take pork, for example. Between 1990 and 2009, the farmers’ share of each dollar consumers spent on pork fell from 45 to 25 cents, according to the USDA Economic Research Service. Pork processors picked up some of the difference, but the bulk of the gains went to Walmart and other supermarket chains, which are now pocketing 61 cents of each pork dollar, up from 45 cents in 1990.

 

Another USDA analysis found that big retailers have used their market power to shortchange farmers who grow apples, lettuce, and other types of produce, paying them less than what they would get in a competitive market, while also charging consumers inflated prices. In this way, Walmart has actually helped drive overall food prices up. This cannot be what any town leadership wants.

 

Last year, Walmart announced that it would double the share of local produce it sells, from 4.5 to 9 percent, over six years.

 

This doesn’t necessarily mean shoppers will soon find a variety of local produce at their nearest Walmart, however. Walmart counts fruits and vegetables as local if they come from within the same state. It can achieve much of its promise by buying more of each state’s major commodity crops, such as peaches in Georgia and apples in Washington, and by using big states like California, Texas, and Florida, where both supercenters and large-scale farming are prevalent, to pump up its national average.

 

It speaks to the weakness that we’ve all known about, which is that ‘local’ is an inadequate descriptor of what we want. It’s not just geography; it’s scale and ownership and how you treat your workers. Walmart is doing industrial local.

 

Walmart’s sourcing is becoming somewhat more regional, but the change has  more to do with rising diesel prices than a shift in favor of small farms. It’s a sign that Walmart’s Achilles heel — the fossil-fuel intensity of its far-flung distribution system — might be catching up with it.  According to the Wall Street Journal, trucking produce like jalapeños across the country from California or Mexico has become so expensive that the retailer is now seeking growers within 450 miles of its distribution centers.

 

Walmart sees the writing on the wall. They know the cost of shipping from California back to Georgia and Mississippi is high now. This skepticism is shared by many farmers. If multimillion-dollar companies like Rubbermaid and Vlasic can be brought to their knees by the retail behemoth, how should we expect small farmers to fare?

 

Walmart’s promise to increase local sourcing is reminiscent of its pledge five years ago to expand its organic food offerings. They held true to their corporate model and tried to do organics the same way.  For its store-brand organic milk, for example, Walmart turned to Aurora Organic Dairy, which runs several giant industrial milking operations in Texas and Colorado, each with as many as 10,000 cows. In 2007, the USDA sanctioned Aurora for multiple violations of organic standards. Earlier this year, the agency stepped in again, this time revoking the organic certification for Promiseland Livestock, which had been supplying supposedly organically raised cows to Aurora.

 

These days, Walmart’s interest in organic food seems to have ebbed.  What has been observed is that  Walmart sells fewer organic products and produce now than four years ago.  Today, the proportion of their sales that is organic is the lowest of any major supermarket chain.

 

Walmart has renewed its push to get into big cities, after trying and failing a few years ago. This time the company has honed a fresh strategy that goes right to the soft underbelly of urban concerns. In July, Walmart officials, standing alongside First Lady Michelle Obama, pledged to open or expand as many as 300 stores "in or near" food deserts.

 

Walmart sees underserved neighborhoods as a way to edge its nose under the fence and then do what it’s done in the rest of the country: open dozens of stores situated to take market share from local grocers and unionized supermarkets. For example, an analysis by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s office estimates that if Walmart opens in Harlem, at least 30 supermarkets, green grocers, and bodegas selling fresh produce would close.

 

For neighborhoods that are truly underserved, it seems hard to argue with the notion that having a Walmart nearby is better than relying on 7-11 and McDonald’s for meals. But poor diet, limited access to fresh food, and diet-related health issues are a cluster of symptoms that all stem from a deeper problem that Super Walmart is likely to make worse: poverty. Poverty has a strong negative effect on diet quality, a 15-yearstudy recently concluded, and access to a supermarket makes almost no difference. I guess some political figures are unaware of these studies and their effect on communities.

 

Neighborhoods that gain Super Walmart stores end up with more poverty and food-stamp usage than communities where the retailer does not open, a study published in Social Science Quarterly found. This increase in poverty may owe to the fact that Walmart’s arrival leads to a net loss of jobs and lowers wages, according to research by economists at the University of California-Irvine and Cornell.

 

Super Walmart stores have also been linked to rising obesity. An additional supercenter per 100,000 residents increases the obesity rate by 2.3 percentage points. These results imply that the proliferation of Walmart supercenters explains 10.5 percent of the rise in obesity since the late 1980s.

 

Improving the health of a community is critical not only in enhancing residents’ quality of life but also in supporting its future prosperity.  Similar to trends nationwide, issues around obesity—particularly healthy eating and physical activity—are important health concerns in the area that are associated with prevalent chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.

 

Specifically, 25% of Mercer County adults are considered obese, slightly higher than what is seen in New Jersey but lower than national rates. Limited transportation, affordability of healthy foods and recreational facilities were cited as challenges to accessing existing resources.

 

Similar to trends nationwide, issues around obesity—particularly healthy eating and physical activity—are important health concerns in the area that are associated with prevalent chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. Specifically, 25% of Mercer County adults are considered obese, slightly higher than what is seen in New Jersey but lower than national rates. Limited transportation, affordability of healthy foods and recreational facilities were cited as challenges to accessing existing resources.

 

Heart disease was the leading cause of inpatient hospitalization among Mercer County adult patients 18-64 years old (2.95 per 1,000 population) with the largest rate recorded among Pennington patients (9.01 per 1,000 population). Heart disease was followed by asthma (0.88 per 1,000) and diabetes (0.86 per 1,000) in Mercer County, which was consistent with the municipality data. Heart disease was also the leading cause of hospitalization in Mercer County (36.68 per 1,000) for the elderly (aged 65 and older). The inpatient hospitalization rate for heart disease among patients from Pennington was over three times higher than the county at 110.87 per 1,000 population, while Ewing’s rate was smallest at 11.56 per 1,000. The second leading cause of inpatient hospitalization for the elderly in Mercer County was for stroke (20.11 per 1,000 population) with Trenton’s rate notably higher at 78.07 per 1,000 population, followed by fractures (10.59 per 1,000) DATA SOURCE: New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, Office of Health Care Quality Assessment.

 

The bottom line for poor families is that processed food is cheaper than fresh vegetables — and that’s especially true if you shop at Walmart. The retailer beats its competitors on prices for packaged foods, but not produce. An Iowa study found that Walmart charges less than competing grocery stores for cereals, canned vegetables, and meats, but has higher prices on most fresh vegetables and high-volume dairy foods, including milk.

 

We stand to lose a lot if Walmart keeps tightening its grip on the grocery sector. Signs of a revitalized food system have been springing up all over — farmers markets, urban gardeners, neighborhood grocers, consumer co-ops, CSAs — but their growth may well be cut short if Walmart has its way.

 

People need to keep an eye on the values that are at the root of what is driving so much of this activity around the food system.

 

Walmart is pushing us toward a future where food production is increasingly industrialized, farmers and workers are squeezed, and the promise of fresh produce is used to conceal an economic model that leaves neighborhoods more impoverished. Are we going to let it happen, or are we going to demand better food and a better world? This also has an extremely negative effect  on the cost of healthcare as well. 

 

 The six Waltons on the Forbes 400 list—Christy, Alice, Jim, Rob, Ann, and Nancy—are worth a combined $148.8 billion. According to the most recent data available, they have the same wealth as the bottom 42% of American families combined. Walmart associates, in comparison, have been risking arrest in their fight for $25,000 a year for full time work.

Here are the facts.

Fact: Walmart is a job killer.

Walmart store openings destroy almost three local jobs for every two they create by reducing retail employment by an average of 2.7 percent in every county they enter.

Walmart cost America an estimated 196,000 jobs – mainly manufacturing jobs – between 2001 and 2006 as a result of the company’s imports from China.

Fact: Walmart jobs are poverty jobs.

Walmart workers average just $8.81 hour. This translates to annual pay of $15,576, based on Walmart’s definition of full-time. This is less than two-thirds of the poverty line for a family of four, and well below what most families actually need to get by.

According to the company, most workers make less than $25,000 a year. In a presentation, Walmart US CEO Bill Simon included the fact that out of all Walmart associates in the country, only 475,000 make more than $25,000 a year.

Walmart pays less than other retail firms. A  study found that Walmart workers earn an estimated 12.4% less than retail workers as a whole and 14.5% less than workers in large retail in general.

Last year, Walmart slashed already meager health benefits again, dropping health insurance for new hires working less than 30 hours a week and leaving more workers uninsured.

Fact. Super Walmarts are built in areas that Walmart where Walmart depends on the poverty in an area to drive their profits. They do very thorough analysis of the areas they enter. Walmarts executives obviously understand what is really happening in Hamilton more than the executives that run the town.

Fact: Taxpayers are paying the price for Walmart.

Taxpayers subsidize Walmart’s low wages and poor benefits. Just one Walmart store costs taxpayers an estimated $1 million in public assistance usage by employees, according to a new report from the Democratic staff of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce. In many of the states across the country that release such information, Walmart is the employer with the largest number of employees and dependents using taxpayer-funded health insurance programs. A few examples:

In Arizona, according to data released by the state , the company had more 2,700 employees on the state-funded plan.

The company also topped the list in their home state of Arkansas, with nearly 4,000 employees forced onto the state’s plan according to data released by the state.

In Massachusetts, taxpayers paid $8.8 million for Walmart associates to use publicly subsidized healthcare services.

Despite all the damage they have done to US workers and communities, another study found that, as of that date, Walmart had received more than $1.2 billion in tax breaks, free land, infrastructure assistance, low-cost financing and outright grants from state and local governments around the country. This number has surely increased as Walmart continues to receive additional subsidies.

So, how much is this Walmart really costing Hamilton taxpayers in the end? Does Angarone and Yaede know the answer to this....clearly not.

 

 

AMAZON: How Do Are They Doing?
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

 

 

 

 

 

AMAZON: How Do Are They Doing?

 

 

 

By Virginia Monson

 

 

 

How does Amazon differ from other American companies? If you ask their employees, not by much.  The corporate behaviors evident at Amazon resemble those of the  found at the beginning of the 20th century.  Remember the shirtwaist company of the early 1900's? Amazon is like them.

 

On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City burned, killing 145 workers. It is remembered as one of the most infamous incidents in American industrial history, as the deaths were largely preventable–most of the victims died as a result of neglected safety features and locked doors within the factory building. The tragedy brought widespread attention to the dangerous sweatshop conditions of factories, and led to the development of a series of laws and regulations that better protected the safety of workers.

 

It was a true sweatshop, employing young immigrant women who worked in a cramped space at lines of sewing machines. Nearly all the workers were teenaged girls who did not speak English, working 12 hours a day, every day. In 1911, there were four elevators with access to the factory floors, but only one was fully operational and the workers had to file down a long, narrow corridor in order to reach it. There were two stairways down to the street, but one was locked from the outside to prevent stealing and the other only opened inward. The fire escape was so narrow that it would have taken hours for all the workers to use it, even in the best of circumstances.

 

On March 25, 1911,  a Saturday afternoon, there were 600 workers at the factory when a fire began in a rag bin. The manager attempted to use the fire hose to extinguish it, but was unsuccessful, as the hose was rotted and its valve was rusted shut. As the fire grew, panic ensued. The young workers tried to exit the building by the elevator but it could hold only 12 people and the operator was able to make just four trips back and forth before it broke down amid the heat and flames. In a desperate attempt to escape the fire, the girls left behind waiting for the elevator plunged down the shaft to their deaths. The girls who fled via the stairwells also met awful demises–when they found a locked door at the bottom of the stairs, many were burned alive.

 

Those workers who were on floors above the fire, including the owners, escaped to the roof and then to adjoining buildings. As firefighters arrived, they witnessed a horrible scene. The girls who did not make it to the stairwells or the elevator were trapped by the fire inside the factory and began to jump from the windows to escape it. The bodies of the jumpers fell on the fire hoses, making it difficult to begin fighting the fire. Also, the firefighters ladders reached only seven floors high and the fire was on the eighth floor. In one case, a life net was unfurled to catch jumpers, but three girls jumped at the same time, ripping the net. The nets turned out to be mostly ineffectual.

Within 18 minutes, it was all over. Forty-nine workers had burned to death or been suffocated by smoke, 36 were dead in the elevator shaft and 58 died from jumping to the sidewalks. With two more dying later from their injuries, a total of 145 people were killed by the fire. The workers union set up a march on April 5 on New York ’s Fifth Avenue to protest the conditions that had led to the fire; it was attended by 80,000 people.

 

Despite a good deal of evidence that the owners and management had been horribly negligent in the fire, a grand jury failed to indict them on manslaughter charges. Still, the massacre for which they were responsible did finally compel the city to enact reform. In addition to the Sullivan-Hoey Fire Prevention Law passed that October, the  New York Democratic set took up the cause of the worker and became known as a reform party. Both were crucial in preventing similar disasters in the future.

 

When did life  begin to change?  When did working environments change?   I’m not talking about the aesthetics, I’m talking about the mental challenges.  In the mid to late 1980’s, down-sizing came into vogue.  Then right-sizing happened sometime in the 90’s.  Some corporations would have said, "Everything is ok, there are no issues."   Tell that to all the people who were laid off, working two to three jobs just to make ends meet.  These same people found themselves making less money today than they did when they held a 40 hour work-week job with benefits. (paid vacations, holidays, healthcare, sick days, pensions and matching 401k’s. 

 

How many of those benefits remain in existence today?   How many full-time jobs exists in the company you work at today?  Is there company loyalty today?  How old are the employees? If you hit the magic age of 45 years old you are in trouble.  You're nearing that infamous mark, the BIG 50.  Time to think about moving on…insurance is too costly, getting older, lost production. Upper management  and HR will concoct ways to get rid of them.  In their eyes you are too old and not cost-effective to keep you employed in their company.  As individuals you need to think of your golden  own parachute. The employees of today should always be thinking, I’m number ONE! 

 

While waiting for my late husband while he was receiving radiation for cancer I came across an article in an obscure magazine about Bill Weldon taking over the CEO position at J&J.  In the article he said he was a work-a-holic, and that he expected his people to be available to him 24/7.  He was new to the job and I saw the trickle down effect it would have on everyone.  I tore the article out of the magazine and pinned it to a bulletin board at Ortho Pharm.  I told everyone who could read it that we were in trouble.  I told my peers it would trickle down to the lower levels and it has, not only at J&J, but to the Amazon’s, the Bristol Meyer Squibb’s to the countless other companies who terrorize their employees.  It’s how business is done.

 

How many people do you know today who work 24/7?  How many people do you know take their computers on vacation with them because they must make themselves available to their boss/job?  How many people do you know who work 24/7 are afraid of losing their jobs and too afraid to move on for fear their bosses will know they are looking?  

 

Do you remember the Tylenol scandal in the 80’s? J&J received tremendous respect for the proactive way they handled it.  How many times did J&J have recalls of their products in recent years? How much was defective, how much was recalled?  Did J&J garner the same respect when they were forced to remove product from the shelves in the last few years as they did in the 80’s?  

 

In recent weeks Amazon has been  getting quite a bit of well deserved negative publicity surrounding the unfair practices at their company.  Last Christmas, while I was  at the Post Office in Bordentown , NJ I met a woman. A woman, who was recently widowed.  She said she had to hurry to get to her job at Amazon which had recently opened in Robbinsville.  She added that the working conditions were awful.  To go to the bathroom you had to ask permission.  If you went too frequently you were reprimanded and reported.  She said there was an 18 year old kid reporting and keeping  tally on her bathroom time.  She had to use the bathroom more frequently than maybe the average person.   God forbid if you have kidney problems.  There is a revolving door at Amazon. They may hire 800 people and if they quit, they do not care.  They know that there are 800 more to take their place.  Is this woman in the post office just another disgruntled  Amazon worker?  This could be the case, however there must be some truth to it based upon the numerous other stories in the press focusing the unfair labor practices at Amazon.  

 

 

Amazon would say, "How dare I compare Amazon to the shirtwaist factory of the early 20th century?"  Amazon is not alone, there are many companies using psychological terror against their employees. Companies like J&J, IBM, and Amazon provide great healthy, beautiful facilities to work in.  They say they treat their employees are like family. The reality is, if you treat them this way, they would all run away from home.  Are companies today any different than the shirtwaist factory?

 

In the early part of the 20th century working conditions were atrocious, people were locked into buildings, fire hazards, kids working, kids, young kids.  Their working conditions were deplorable, unsafe, working 60+ hours a week, some probably dying at their work stations.  What’s so different about your conditions today?  Your not locked at your station, your locked to your computer, your cell phone, your office, your boss.  You’re working 24/7, you must be available.  If you are not there is someone in the wings ready to take your place.  Die at your desk.  Everyone is expendable.

 

I wonder, factitiously, how many people today have died at their desks or committed suicide or have had nervous breakdowns because of their jobs?  Are there any statistics available since the 80’s down-sizing craze and the new attitudes of upper management?

 

Work hazards are a common phenomenon and almost all employees who put in long hours at work take the good with the bad and seldom complain. However, the stress continues to build up. Now a census of fatalities at work has revealed a startling statistic; 11 American workers die while at work each day in the United States . Incidentally, just because you are working on a 9 to 5 schedule behind a comfy desk, doesn’t mean you are immune to the threat of dying while at work.

 

Data compiled by the U.S. Department of Labor showed that, an average of 11 Americans die on the job every single day. Another 50,000 or so, die annually because of illnesses they contracted on the job. If you do the math, you will realize that ‘working’ kills about 54,000 Americans every year. Interestingly, this number doesn’t include countless more who are injured while doing their job. So much for “Hard work never killed anyone.”

 

Why are these numbers alarming? These statistics border on sounding unreasonable or unacceptable because as a nation America can no longer digest the fact injuries and fatalities are a routine part of the cost of doing business. With so many policies and safeguards in place, one would surely expect the number to be quite low to negligible. However, the actual figures are quite alarming.

 

The physical surroundings are much better today, but the psychological terror companies put on their employees is deplorable.  Are the companies any better today than the management of the early part of the 20th century?  No they are not.  Back then management wasn’t educated, they were just cruel, greed filled, preying upon the poor uneducated working class.  

 

What has changed today?  Management is educated, well educated at Yale, Harvard, MIT, the Wharton School , and Princeton .  The executive management of today is even greedier than back in the time of the Shirtwaist factory.  They’re highly educated, smarter, and they know where the devil has its litter.  Their need for greed is greater.  It brings them prestige, it brings them respect among their peers.  It brings them the notoriety that they want.  It say’s, “I’ve arrived.”

 

Because of the shirtwaist factory fire, laws were instituted to provide workers with safer working environments, less hours, laws were instituted to protect our children so that they would not be working at tender ages.  Something else has developed.  People started taking thing things into their own hands, they started a revolution, the common people, those little bitty insects that management stomped on formed, UNIONS.  

 

Unions, came into the lexicon of American business in the early 19th century.  Management hissed, they cursed and if they could have they would have damned the unions into hell.  They seemed to sprout up everywhere.  Unfortunately, management in some cases did find a way to damn them into hell.  Many unions formed. These same unions also lost their way  in some instances. The unions became too greedy and too big.  The newly educated management started doing away with them.  How many unions have gone the wayside?  What protection does the average worker have today.  None!  How effective are those unions that still exist today?  

 

The management of today is greedier, less caring of their employees, less caring of the product they produce.  We see that in the car industry.  Why can't managements just do the right thing? Why do there have to be lawsuits and congressional investigations?  Why, why, why?  The answer is pure GREED!  A recent example of massive corporate greed was the over statement of financials by Toshiba.  They overstated their financials by more than $1.2 BILLLION over a 7 year period. These people should be in jail. Those involved at Toshiba, quietly resigned. They do not lose their pensions, which by the way are based on the $1.2 billion in revenue.  Got to love that.  Recently, Olympus was also accused of orchestrating a $1.7 billion accounting fraud scheme.

 

 

Terrorism is rampant in all corners of America , and I am not speaking of the militant terrorism that we see daily on the news, I’m talking about business terrorism, the executives of corporations, the owners of businesses.  You are terrorists at your best.  

 

To the top executives how long do you think it will be before a new type of union, a revolutionary union comes into existence?  It’s happening, I don’t know where, it’s behind the scenes, it’s growing, it’s a seed that is sprouting.  You don’t see it, but it is happening.  You planted it, you did it.  You did it in your boardrooms, you did it with your think tanks, you did it in private meetings.  Just know that the American workforce is about to take over again.  God bless them when they do.  I hope this new revolution, encompasses the smartest of the smart and can outpace each and every one of you.  And, I hope the little people learn from their mistakes and thrive.

 

 

Little Women at MCCC
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

 

Dog Foundation Event
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

 

Hamilton's Potential Building Moratorium
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

 

 

By Tammy Duffy

 

 

 

 

 

One of the main goals of the 1972  Clean Water Act was to stop “point-source pollution.” That’s the sewage and industrial waste pumped out of pipes and into the nation’s waterways.

 

To help communities build and upgrade wastewater collection and treatment systems in the years after the Clean Water Act’s passage, the federal government handed out billions of dollars in grants. But most of those federal grants are gone, replaced by loans. At the same time, those federally subsidized municipal wastewater systems have aged.

When wastewater treatment plants fail, the environment takes the hit, and so do the people who want to use public waters for drinking water, food or recreation. 

These days, local governments’ budgets won’t cover the improvements needed to control pollution discharges. Many are coping with: 

·           Aging sewer lines

·           Aging or under-capacity wastewater treatment plants

·           Proper plant operation and maintenance

·           New water quality regulations

·           A lack of financial resources

 

This past week the Hamilton Township leadership posted on their web site a multitude of new documents. This was to promote a more transparent government.  Some of the residents took a look at some of the reports and compared 2013 to 2014. Here is what was discovered.

 

The Hamilton Township, NJ, Mercer County, Wastewater Utility (WPC) operates a regional wastewater treatment facility with a nominal capacity of twenty (20) million gallons per day (MGD), an NJPDES permit limit of sixteen (16) MGD and an average daily flow of 8.734 MGD during 2014.  

 

The Utility has been in operation for over 77 years and is currently serving over 100,000 residents from three municipalities. The Hamilton Township collection system for the Utility contains 389 miles of sewer lines and 31 pumping stations in its 40 square mile service area.  

 

Hamilton continues to provide the licensed, operational responsibility of the nine Robbinsville Township pumping stations and are receiving compensation from Robbinsville for this service. The shared services agreement has reduced costs for Robbinsville Township and WPC (through increased efficiency) while improving pump station maintenance.

 

In 2013, based on information from the 2013 Water Treatment Plant report, it demonstrates that the daily flow rate in Hamilton was 7.766 million gallons per day. In 2014, it increased to 8.9 million gallons per day. This demonstrates and increase to the Hamilton Township flow rate of 1.1 million gallons of flow per day from 2013 from 2014.   Robbinsville flow rate had a nominal increase from 1,237,000 in 2013 to  1,291,342 MGPD in 2014.  

 

The original Hamilton plant that was built in 1938 plant was shuttered. According to our sources, it is unusable. However, according to sources, the capacity of the original plant is being used in its annual permitting application. We are investigating what the current plants capabilites are. 

 

The capacity of the plant is reported to be twenty (20) million gallons per day (MGD), and NJPDES permit  limit of sixteen (16) MGD. 

 

The Waste Management Utility has been in operations for over 77 years. and is currently serving over 100,000 residents from 3 municipalities (Hamilton, Robbinsville and an unknown third municipality). During this 77 year period, there have been only two additions made to the plant.  The original plant was built in 1938. The first expansion done in 1954 and a second expansion occurred in 1968.  Since 1968, there has not been any expansions to the plant.

 

Between Hamilton and Robbinsville, the flow rate into and through the plant is more than 10,000,000 gallons per day. What is the daily flow rate from the unknown third municipality? We are currently investigating this.

 

Some people suspect that the water treatment plant is over capacity .  If  this is the case, this would mandate an mandatory building moratorium.  So much for economic development in Hamilton, Mercer County. 

 

The questions we have proposed to leadership are, of which we are awaiting responses:

 

1.   Is the original 1938 plant really shuttered?

 

2.  What is (rather was) the capacity of the original 1938 plant?

 

3.  Is that allegedly shuttered plant's capacity being used in the annual permitting application?

 

4.  What is the daily flow rate of the unknown third municipality?

 

5.  What is the actual capacity of the plant?  We are told that it is 20 MG/Day capacity. This allows for 10 MG/Day for Hamilton and Robbinsville, leaving 10 MG/Day of spare capacity.  The townships permit allows 16MG/day.

 

If the Shuttered 1938 plant's capacity a the Unknown third municipality's daily flow rate exceed 10 MG/Day, there is an issue. However, it would appear that the plant is already  (8.9 for Hamilton and 1.2 MGPD for Robbinsville = 10.1) getting close to capacity. We have only have less than 6MG/day available for all three municipalities. 

 

If the trend of an increase of more than 1,000,000 gallons per day in Hamilton continues, the residents of Hamilton have raw sewage flowing through their streets, unless the leadership focuses on updating the plant. The last update happened in 1954. Upon review of the new economic development plan (which was posted recently as well on the township website) there are no plans to update the plant. (at least not evident in the report)

 

It is important that these reports are published for the public to see and analyze. The leadership of towns must do more than post them. They must read the reports they post and acutally analyze the data.  This allows for a proactive government vs. a reactive one that wastes tax payers dollars. 

 

 

Hamilton's Best Kept Secret
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

 

 

By Tammy Duffy

 

 

 

WARNING ADULT CONTENT. NOT FOR MINORS TO READ OR VIEW

 

 

The Mayors in Hamilton Township just cannot stay out of the makeshift dance establishments that pop up.  As our readers may recall, Ex-Hamilton Mayor,  John Bencivengo, spent some time on a stripper pole at a basement club on Rt. 130 in Hamilton, NJ.  This past April, in Hamilton township, an event was sponsored by the Hamilton Economic Development Advisory Council, Networking with the Mayor. It was held at a Hamilton Eatery, Villa Romanza. The owner of Villa Romanza is a member of the Mayor's Economic Development Board.  There was a bid process for the event and VIlla Romanza won the bid. They were lowest bid.   Mayoral events are not the only types of events that are taking place at this Hamilton establishment. 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

If you go to Villa Romanza on a Saturday night for dinner, a transformation happens around 930pm. The venue goes through a metamorphosis. There are scantly clad women in the establishment that begin hanging "curtains" to create private areas in the restaurant.  The lights are dimmed, music is blaring and women are dancing in the restaurant in outfits that leave little to the imagination. The regular Villa Romanza bartender is swapped for another woman dressed in fishnets and daisy dukes, as seen in the photo below. 

 

 

 

 

One can only wonder why any political figure would pick a venue to have an event to meet the residents at a makeshift adult dancing establishment. How could they not know this was the case? What is the vetting process for vendors selected to respond to in the township? Is it only to people who financially support their campaigns? Or is this the ultimate betrayal towards the Mayor on the part of one of her board members?

 

During a recent township council meeting the owner of Villa Romanza stated to the township council that he was upset that the neighbors near restaurant have been complaining about the noise from his establishment. Was there any follow up by the township leadership to see what was going on at the club?  A simple input of the restaurants address into Facebook will show a multitude of events that have taken place in the past several years at the venue. Events like a Father's Day bash and others. (see invites below)  How did the township PR and technology directors miss this and allow the Mayor to have a "Meet the Mayor event" at an adult dance club? The Mayor is also the Public Safety director in Hamilton and there have evidently been numerous noise complaints about the establishment. 

 

 

 

There are VIP suites at the new Flame Lounge as seen in the photo below.  This kind of set up could possibly lead one to believe there are other things happening in the club. We are not saying that is what is happening, but the extremely provocativeness of the ads and this white curtain set up, can lead one to think otherwise. There are other establishments in and around the township, such as the Tilted Kilt and Hooters that have women dressed in revealing outfits. The issue is not the revealing outfits, it's the "private white curtain rooms" that seem to establish an invitation for more than a cocktail service.   Flames and Hookah stations are set up throughout the club as well. 

 

 

 

 

 

                          Flames so high they are hitting the ceiling

 

  

 

GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS are everywhere in the club to make your evening more pleasureable. 

 

 

 

 

What is the truth about VIP rooms and the things that happen in them? Why are there curtains that can be closed to other patrons? Why do they need this level of privacy, what is happening in these rooms?   

 

There are some pre-conceived notions on what goes on in a VIP room like seen in the photo above, taken at the New Flame Lounge in Hamilton, NJ. One thing I’ve learned is that most guys who walk into a place like this view the world very differently and an expectation is set....beyond dancing. The restaurant is not promoting the events, the group coming in is. This only intensifies suspicion of what goes on behind the curtains.

 

 

 

 

One can only hope there are not sexual acts, lap dances or other acts,  going on behind these white curtains. The highly sexualized ads for the New Flame Lounge and "VIP" areas do not leave much to the imagination.

 

Below is an example of the different kinds of events at the restaurant.  This cannot possibly be the kind of entertainment that the Mayor of Hamilton wants in her quest to bring more family entertainment into Hamilton. The residents of Hamilton hope not. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you imagine a family is at the restaurant eating dinner late on a Saturday night and accidentally be witness to the transformation? This no doubt would be embarrassing for a patron and their family.  The hypersexual nature of the ads and VIP rooms appear to be going down the wrong road. 

 

A simple Facebook search of the restaurants address disclosed all of this information. Further searches on twitter and Instagram, demonstrated more information that should have been shared with the mayor, prior to selecting this venue for her own event. 

 

We confirmed the information in this article by speaking to people who actually have been to the club and reviewing all the information that is readily accessible on the internet and social media.

 

Here’s the fact: any sexual activity that happens in a club or VIP room is highly illegal. In order for an establishment to have adult entertainment, they have to have an adult entertainment license. No club/restaurant owner should want to risk having his operation shutdown simply because one girl thought any sexual act behind a white curtain was good for business. The stuff that men want to have happen in a VIP room is called “prostitution,” and prostitution is illegal in our state.  Paying for sex inside of a club is illegal. You come to your own conclusion we are only reporting what was seen, posted and promoted.

 

 

 

 

 

  

Is There Crime or Not?: Part Two
Topic: COMMUNITY INTEREST

 

 

 

 

By Tammy Duffy

 

 

 

 

 

In January 2015, Duffy's  Cultural Couture wrote a column, Is There Crime or Not? as a direct result of a press release sent out by the Hamilton township leadership. (link to Duffy's original article is below

http://www.tammyduffy.com/ARTFASHION/index.blog?start=1422147900&topic_id=1130212

 

This week again, as a direct result of a demonstration in front of the municipal building, focused on crime, the same press release was sent out again.  This press release touted," Hamilton has the lowest crime since 1977." 

(see link : http://www.hamiltonnj.com/featured/?FeedID=1178)

 

The Hamilton Township Police department also recently released a report (http://hamiltonnj.com/filestorage/228428/228430/229525/252291/Police_Division_2014_Annual_Report.pdf).  In their report, The Hamilton Township Police department demonstrated the following:

 

Total Summonses: 2014 --- 8110 and in  2013 --- 7369

Total ARRESTS: In 2014: 3393 arrests

Total ARRESTS In 2013: 3355 arrests

CONFIRMED SHOOTING INCIDENTS: In 2014: 8 shootings and in 2013: there were 12 shootings.

 

However, the statistics are not adding up to the lowest since 1977 as the Mayor is stating nor what is demonstrated on the recent crime reports from the state.  The old saying, "Garbage in = Garbage out" seems to be the strategy utilized by the Hamilton township leadership when developing their crime reports.  The FBI and NJ State Police Data only goes back to 1989. We seriously doubt the township of Hamilton has their data from 1977-1989. We have been to their records department, its a disaster.

 

In 2014, the report states there were only 9 robberies in 2014 in Hamilton. Just nine? Down from the double digits demonstrated since 1989.  

 

See All the data since 1989 below for Hamilton Township. 

 

 

Hamilton Township Crime Data: Source Nj State Police Reports
Year	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997
Crime index total	3019	2801	2916	2794	2678	2411	2605	2445	2147
Violent crime	130	137	135	132	115	151	165	147	157
Non Violent Crime	2889	2664	2781	2662	2563	2260	2460	2298	1990
Murder	1	3	0	0	1	2	3	0	1
RAPE	5	2	2	6	5	15	15	14	9
Robbery	67	80	80	77	64	68	75	67	70
Aggravated Assault	57	52	52	49	45	60	72	66	70
Hamilton Township Crime Data: Source Nj State Police Reports
Year	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
Crime index total	2151	2080	2373	2624	2260	1882	1904	1876	125
Violent crime	139	150	161	169	158	118	162	172	17
Non Violent Crime	2012	1930	2212	2455	2102	1764	1742	1704	108
Murder	0	0	1	1	1	1	0	2	0
RAPE	3	3	3	7	7	3	7	9	3
Robbery	65	93	89	99	89	77	83	93	6
Aggravated Assault	71	54	68	62	61	37	72	68	8
Hamilton Township Crime Data: Source Nj State Police Reports
Year	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
Crime index total	1925	2083	1922	2076	2015	2189	2073	1039	868
Violent crime	198	177	208	189	186	199	190	90	91
Non Violent Crime	1737	1906	1714	1886	1829	1998	1883	949	777
Murder	0	1	0	2	0	0	1	0	0
RAPE	8	9	10	3	10	8	4	9	9
Robbery	103	93	107	101	82	100	78	9	35
Aggravated Assault	87	74	91	83	95	81	103	28	47

 

In 2013, there were 0 rapes in Hamilton. In 2014, there were 4 and in 2015, year to date, there have been 9.  This is not representative of a decrease in rape in the township. Does rape not matter or count as a crime by the township leadership?

 

In 2013, there were 78 robberies in Hamilton. In 2014, there were 9 according to the report submitted by township officials, and in 2015, there have been 35 thus far. Again, not representative of a decrease in robberies in the township. Do robberies not matter or count as a crime by the township leadership?

  

In 2013, there were 102 aggravated assaults. In 2014, there were 28 according to the report submitted by township officials. In 2015, there have been 47 thus far. Again, not a representation of a decrease in aggravated assault. Does aggravated assault not matter or count as a crime by the township leadership?

 

 

Effective law enforcement requires accurate crime statistics in order to identify the extent, type, and location of criminal activity. Criminal Justice administrators and planners have long recognized the Uniform Crime Reporting Program as the vehicle to accomplish this objective. The success of the Uniform Crime Reporting System cannot be realized without the cooperation extended by each of the 542 law enforcement agencies of the State, the New Jersey Chiefs of Police Association, and the County Prosecutors Association. It is in the interest of more effective law enforcement to the eight million residents of New Jersey that accurate data be submitted. Falsifying a report, especially in conjunction with an election year, is just criminal.

 

 Source for data in article: http://www.njsp.org/info/stats.html

Trevor Wheatley: graffiti artist turned multimedia artist
Topic: ART NEWS

 

Trevor Wheatley:

Graffiti artist turned multimedia artist 

 

 

                 

 Trevor Wheatley has a way of turning language on its head. His recent public pieces—gigantic typography installations that poke fun at popular culture—have earned him a devoted Instagram following, attention from bigtime design magazines, corporate partnerships with brands like Stussy, and high-profile commissions (including a super-secret piece for the first Wayhome festival outside of Toronto, Ontario). It proves the young multimedia artist is making work that speaks to people—both literally and figuratively.

As a young kid, Wheatley gravitated toward graffiti. Though it was mainly because of how accessible it was, the hobby got him into art school, where his focus shifted to studio work. According to Wheatley, he fits the typical cliché of graff-kid-turned-studio-artist. But unlike some of his peers, he still embraces his graffiti roots: “A lot of graffiti writers who now make studio work don’t acknowledge their past. They think that narrative is something that will bring them down,” he told us. Now, he spends most of his time in an industrial building in downtown Toronto that he shares with his collaborator Cosmo Dean, working on public commissions and contemporary work for galleries. “It’s a 3,000-square-foot dungeon, and I love it.”

 

 

 

 

His public installations started with a commercial edge: “The idea was to critique the place of advertising in the public sphere and construct a hypothetical space where commercial symbols might be neutralized as corporate signifiers.” To Wheatley, the ultimate neutralizing factor is nature, something he learned while travelling in Cuba. “The projects we shot there were all about branding and how its power can be stripped or inverted by creating non-commissioned ads.” By taking commercial logos far away from their typical habitat (i.e. urban spaces), he encouraged viewers to reflect on their relationship with the text. For example, a gigantic Nike logo made of wood scraps, suspended in a barren countryside elicits a completely different emotion than the swoosh on a city billboard. “Cities have a lot of visual noise—my work in visually competitive spaces wouldn’t create the same interruption that it does in nature,” he notes. Ironically, it was after seeing this work that brands like Stussy started commissioning Wheatley to create his own interpretations of their logos.

 

His recent personal projects—sculptures that read things like SQUAD, BLESS, DIME and FRESH—are a cheeky ode to pop culture and our Urban Dictionary era. In addition to being visually stunning and intricate, there’s still a sense of playful contrast: “The pieces juxtapose the urban with the natural through a physical realization of slang, trend and the re-contextualization of popular language. I generally have some sense of how the piece will react to the location.” For instance, carving FRESH out of ice on a beach was an obvious way to access various levels of meaning. Others, like BLESS suspended over waterfall or SQUAD hanging among fall leaves, were left to the observer to ponder. Interestingly, how the installations decompose is almost of equal importance to Wheatley. “It’s been fascinating to see how the materials age and degrade and become part of the landscape over time.” Wheatley is quick to note that he only leaves behind materials that won’t harm the environment—he’s had an intense respect for nature ever since spending childhood summers at a camp near Sudbury.

 

 

 

 

 

Working in the wilderness gives Wheatley a way to control the viewer’s interpretation, but his shoots also rely on nature’s unpredictability. Even with months of planning, his team (which usually consists of Dean and a few other collaborators) is always prepared to welcome the unexpected—like inquisitive horses in the countryside or a torrential downpour. “Weather never dictates the date of a shoot,” he explains. In fact, bad weather can actually make for an even more interesting outcome. When his team shot SNITCH, they were hoping for a calm winter day, but instead got a gusty blizzard. Wheatley ended up wading knee-deep in a stream and almost freezing to death. “The photos came out icy and violent but better than we could ever have hoped.” It’s a testament to his adventurous spirit, and willingness to get a little dirty (or cold and wet), for his work.

 

 

 

 

Despite a strong Instagram presence, Wheatley is cautious about social media—especially the pressure to cater to your fans. “I know what kind of work will be received well on social media, so I try not to let that affect what I do too much.” It’s not surprising then, that he and his partner Cosmo Dean are planning to venture in a completely different direction for an upcoming show this fall—“it won’t be text-based,” he reveals. But blazing new trails comes naturally to the artist, and his fearless attitude keeps fans excited for whatever’s coming next: “As Cosmo and I like to say whenever we agree on an idea: ‘let’s get it.’”

Walking To the Sky
Topic: ART NEWS