Letters for Nov. 24

Check out movie on Wal-Mart high costs
To the editor:
   
I urge all Lawrence residents to see the new Robert Greenwald film, "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices." It speaks directly to the issues raised by the L.E.T.’s Stop Wal-Mart campaign which has been fighting for over a year to stop the proposed construction of a Wal-Mart on Spruce Street in Lawrence Township. If you see this movie, which the New York Times says "makes its case with breathtaking force," you will vividly see how Wal-Mart has destroyed the lives of countless families, businesses and entire communities.
   The economic and social consequences of building a Wal-Mart in a largely residential and economically fragile area, such as the proposed Spruce Street site in south Lawrence, are significant. Local businesses, unable to compete with Wal-Mart, the largest and wealthiest corporation in the world, will be quickly steamrolled under by Wal-Mart and its predatory practices.
   Not only will many businesses on Spruce Street and Olden Avenue be destroyed, the Wal-Mart tentacles will reach out further to strangle aging strip malls such as the Lawrence Shopping Center and to hurt local supermarkets, most of which are unionized and offer living wages and benefits.
   Rather than Wal-Mart becoming a tax-revenue generator, as Lawrence officials hope, Wal-Mart will cause a net drain from our tax coffers as area businesses fold and unemployment rises. This tax drain will be exacerbated even more when police costs dramatically rise due to the well-documented increase in crime, particularly when a Wal-Mart is located in a largely residential community.
   L.E.T.’s Stop Wal-Mart members also predict that police costs will further rise due to the huge increase in traffic congestion — even Wal-Mart admits that more than 1,300 cars per hour will enter and leave the Spruce Street lot at peak times — resulting in an increase in automobile accidents in an already congested and accident- prone area.
   It is also ironic that the building of a Wal-Mart on Spruce Street is being considered at a point when Lawrence, Ewing and Trenton have recently joined forces for the first time to develop a Smart Growth tri-community development plan for this area. The irony intensifies in light of recent citizen initiatives, spearheaded by Lawrence Mayor Pam Mount, to transform Lawrence into a green, environmentally friendly community.
   On Dec. 1, the Wal-Mart application will be reviewed by the Screening Committee of the Lawrence Township Planning Board at the Lawrence Township Municipal Building. Join L.E.T.’s Stop Wal-Mart at 4 p.m. for a rally followed by public participation at the Planning Board Screening Committee hearing at 5 p.m. And go see Mr. Greenwald’ s film. You find film viewing sites and more information at www.walmartmovie.com. I guarantee that if you see the this film, you will join me in opposing Wal-Mart in Lawrence.
   For further information, go to the L.E.T.’s Stop Wal-Mart Web site at www.letsstopwalmart.org.
Carol Lerner
Coordinator
L.E.T.’s Stop Wal-Mart
Pine Knoll Drive
Stop the Wal-Mart invasion in Lawrence
To the editor:
   
On Thursday, December 1, the Screening Committee of the Lawrence Township Planning board will hear a proposal by Wal-Mart to invade the southern end of Lawrence.
   By now, everyone knows that Wal-Mart pays poverty wages, pollutes our streams with pesticides, and bankrupts local businesses. Everyone has heard that Wal-Mart’s prices are often not cheaper than other retailers, that they are responsible for shipping jobs overseas, and that Wal-Mart discriminates against women.
   What everyone might not know is that Lawrence has committed to a Sustainable Lawrence Initiative, in which the township’s goal is to produce goods locally, build energy-efficiency, and be pedestrian-friendly.
   But how can this happen if Lawrence allows Wal-Mart to invade? How can we have local production when our biggest store imports the majority of its merchandise? How can we sustain ourselves when Wal-Mart’s workers are not paid a living wage and if Wal-Mart forces our local merchants into bankruptcy? How can we be pedestrian-friendly when Wal-Mart encourages a car culture and empties its customers onto an already crowded road?
   Please join us at 4 p.m. Dec. 1 at the Lawrence TownshipMunicipal Building. We will ask these questions, and we eagerly await the township’s answers.
Laura Lynch
Chairwoman
Central Jersey Group
Conservation Chairwoman
NJ Chapter Sierra Club
Lumar Road
Democrats leave mess behind for citizens
To the editor:
The Lawrence Ledger, always a consistent bastion of fair and balanced reporting, ran one of its typically liberal cartoons on the Town Forum page of the Nov. 17 edition depicting two donkey Democrats discussing the Democratic wins in the recent elections. "Then why aren’t you happy?" asks one. The other one replies, "Who wants to clean up their mess?"
   Interestingly, another local liberal funny paper ran a front page column on Nov. 19 with the headline, "N.J. Debt: $25.6B." The article tries, unconvincingly, to justify the record debt rung up in the past couple of years by the democratic administrations of Gov. James E. McGreevey, arguably one of the most corrupt politicians in recent New Jersey history, and acting Gov. Richard J. Codey.
   Whose mess?
Dan O’Brien
Karena Lane
Simple solution for organ shortage
To the editor:
   
The Ledger’s story about Paul Lazovick (Nov. 10) highlighted the tragic shortage of human organs for transplant operations.
   More than half of the people who need an organ transplant in the United States will die before they get one. Most of these deaths are needless. Americans bury or cremate about 20,000 transplantable organs every year. Over 6,000 of our neighbors suffer and die needlessly every year as a result.
   There is a simple solution to the organ shortage — give organs first to people who have agreed to donate their own organs when they die.
   Giving organs first to organ donors will convince more people to register as organ donors. It will also make the organ allocation system fairer. About 70 percent of the organs transplanted in the United States go to people who haven’t agreed to donate their own organs when they die. People who aren’t willing to share the gift of life shouldn’t be eligible for transplants as long as there is a shortage of organs.
   Anyone who wants to donate their organs to others who have agreed to donate theirs can join LifeSharers. LifeSharers is a nonprofit network of organ donors who agree to offer their organs first to other organ donors when they die. They do this through a form of directed donation that is legal in all 50 states and under federal law. Anyone can join for free at www.lifesharers.com. LifeSharers has 3,361 members, including 76 members in New Jersey. Over 300 of our members are minor children enrolled by their parents.
David J. Undis
Executive Director
LifeSharers
Cornwall Drive
Nashville, Tenn.