DAVID IAQUINTA | Posted: Friday, January 18, 2008 6:00 pm
It is distressing to see the LJS position itself as the handmaiden of business interests in its patronizing editorial of Jan. 16, “On Hy-Vee, council members crossed line.” I expect better from a community newspaper.
For the record: businesses need customers in order to achieve their primary goal of private profit; neighborhoods need access to basic services in order to thrive and remain vital; government needs access to tools for planning in order to create a stable environment which benefits all members of the broader community whether they are individuals, families or entities; elected officials have an obligation both to represent the interests of those who elect them and to juggle the myriad interests of individuals, businesses and the state for the common welfare.
The City Council was doing its job — not performing “stunts,” as alleged in the LJS editorial — when it attempted to call Hy-Vee to task for rigidly applying a contract codicil to the detriment of the University Place neighborhood. While Hy-Vee’s decision to relocate its business from University Place may indeed have been “savvy business,” its ability to exclude another grocery retailer from the neighborhood for up to four years amounts to de facto urban planning and restraint of trade.
The loss of such a basic service is a corrosive force in a vital neighborhood. It is a major step in the nationwide urban process by which declining “inner city” neighborhoods are created. Personally, I think Hy-Vee is creating a public relations disaster for itself. It is an especial shame since it has been a good corporate citizen in the past. I accept its desire to relocate to other locations as a strategic business decision, but its exclusion of “competition” is a wooden spike in the heart of the University Place neighborhood and one with little real economic gain for itself.
The council members used their forum as elected officials to bring this point home to Hy-Vee. In doing so, they behaved equitably to the entire community, not just to a particular business interest. They have not tried to prevent Hy-Vee from deserting the neighborhood. But they have attempted to safeguard city investments already made to stabilize an important city neighborhood: for example, the upgrading of UpCo Park and pool, positioning of a full-service police station in the area and redevelopment along the 48th Street business district.
In short, they have sent a clear message that the stability of this neighborhood, which serves two major education institutions, houses thousands of students, elderly and families and is predominantly lower income and working class, is important to the whole city.
As distressing as is the Hy-Vee decision, far more distressing is LJS’s abdication of its role as a guardian of the public trust on this issue. Please stop framing these types of issues to the public in narrow “business decision” terms. If we don’t find ways to reconcile business interests and private profit with public interest, then we surely will be paying publicly to clean up the social problems and urban decay on the backside.
How about supporting our elected public officials by actually investigating the issue in depth before succumbing to middle/upper-class bias and furthering the erosion of trust in public officials who are in fact seeing to the public interest? How about becoming part of the solution instead of creating more problems and impediments? Perhaps if the LJS did more investigative reporting, council members wouldn’t have to take the lead in bringing to light stealth attacks on the public welfare. How about if we all try to pull together in the same direction?
David Iaquinta, Ph.D., is a professor of demography and sociology at Nebraska Wesleyan University. He wrote, “I am submitting this op-ed piece as an individual and not as a representative of Nebraska Wesleyan University. However, the facts that I am trained and teach in the area of urban studies and have authored articles on urbanization for the United Nations are not inconsequential to my views.”