Tessa Bean via CREDO Action : My campaign on CREDO’s new site that allows activists to start their own petitions.

My petition, which is to Seattle City Council members Sally J. Clark, Sally Bagshaw, Tim Burgess, Richard Conlin, Jean Godden, Bruce A. Harrell, Nick Licata, Mike O’Brien, and Tom Rasmussen, asks the following:

The Whole Foods-anchored megaproject being proposed by developers is wrong for Seattle. Handing over public land to the project would mean good jobs at unionized grocers would be replaced by low-wage/low-benefits, non-union jobs at Whole Foods. I urge you to stand with Mayor McGinn, workers, and Seattle residents, and reject developers’ request to transfer the city-owned alley required for the ill-advised Whole Foods megaproject.

Developers are now pushing Seattle City Council members to approve a massive new megaproject that would snarl traffic, disrupt the local workforce, and require the transfer of public land to create private profits. And despite the presence of multiple grocery stores in the immediate area, including six with well-paid, unionized workers, developers want non-union Whole Foods to be the anchor.

Mayor Mike McGinn has already stood up to the developers, who have demanded the city vacate and transfer ownership of an alley needed to complete the project. Mayor McGinn sent a letter recently instructing the Seattle Department of Transportation to recommend rejecting the street-vacation request, based on city guidelines that require granting such requests to serve the public interest. As Mayor McGinn stated, in this particular project “family health benefits and employee wage scales offered by the proposed anchor tenant are significantly lower than other similar businesses.”

Whole Foods has defended its record, claiming its wages are excellent and its benefits package is more than fair. Yet, it refuses to share the actual wage scale it uses to determine the pay of its “team members.” Its catastrophic health-care policies are also more expensive and provide lesser benefits to workers compared to the health insurance provided to union workers at nearby grocers.

If concerns about threats to the local workforce weren’t enough, it’s also clear that, with dozens of delivery trucks servicing the new businesses, hundreds of apartment dwellers entering and exiting the 370 new apartments proposed, and hundreds more shoppers using the proposed 650 parking spaces, there will be very high potential for dangerous accidents and expensive infrastructure costs associated with the project.

Community development goals are important to communities like Seattle. When government officials sign onto these goals, they help ensure that economic development provides real public benefits and help voters understand where their elected officials stand. If enough of us speak out and demand that the members of the Seattle City Council follow the goals of Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan and reject the street-vacation request the Whole Foods megaproject requires, we can ensure the quality and values of our community remain intact for years to come.

Click here to learn more and add your name to my petition to the Seattle City Council, to demand they stop the ill-advised Whole Foods megaproject by denying the developers’ street-vacation request.

Thank you for your support.

Tessa Bean