Letter: Small-town cry: Don’t nourish corporate titan

As a River Falls downtown commercial property owner, I’m appalled to hear of the tax-increment property development scheme. I disagree with this paper’s editorial that it would be an improvement.

Nash Finch is the largest food warehouse in the United States. Do small town shoppers need to stuff the pockets of this powerful corporate giant?

I prefer to support locally owned and operated small businesses, like the unique services of a hardware store over anything a super mega mart offers. People come to small towns because of the small-town atmosphere.

It’s my understanding that if the City Council gives its blessing, the Nash Finch corporation will receive about $600,000 in freebies and grants plus have its taxes frozen for something like 18 years.

What other businesses up and down the street can bask in such luxury?

My favorite River Falls grocery store is Dick’s Fresh Market. Can it compete against a huge mega mart? Will River Falls food shoppers then soon be under the thumb of a monopoly?

Does Nash Finch plan to use a type of “eminent domain” to take over neighboring family-owned and operated small businesses, such as the only remaining pump service and auto repair station, and the Dairy Queen?

In my town of Cannon Falls, Minn., Nash Finch owns the only food store and drugstore. So it does happen once these giants get their foot in the door.

Plus the Lund’s Hardware mid-1800’s building is historical with a rich heritage beginning as a carriage shop. It should be preserved.

The council should work just as diligently to curb the expansion of Nash Finch downtown as it did to keep away WalMart.

One creates a gradual death of the Main Street while the other is more instant, with the actual demolition of buildings! Both destroy small towns.

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