Friday, February 18, 2011

"Wal-Mart Lady" Challenges Bob Townsend

Ian McCann reported that a single candidate had filed for the May 14th election for each of the seven seats on Richardson's city council. On Thursday, one of the ballot places became an official race, as Diana Clawson filed to run against Bob Townsend in District 1 (southeast Richardson).

You may remember Clawson as the "Wal-Mart Lady." She was one of the principals who fought against Walmart building a Super Center in Richardson at Arapaho and Jupiter. Instead, we got the Block 24 apartments. I've often wondered how much tax revenue Richardson left on the table due to that successful action. Walmart remitted to Texas more than $1.4 billion in sales taxes in 2010. Richardson gets only a tiny fraction of that, from the Neighborhood Market on Buckingham Rd. No word yet on whether Clawson will adopt a NIMBY attitude on future Richardson growth and development opportunities.

1 comment:

Mark Steger said...

Diana Clawson decided to run in Place 7, not Place 1. Why, she has never explained publicly that I know of. Also, she has made a campaign issue of the Tree the Town program. Maybe not a NIMBY position on growth and development, but still, something she's against.