To the editor:

I think I was the first person to write a letter to the editor opposing locating a Wal-Mart at the Free State High School locale. I also own Wal-Mart stock, and it finally has gone up a little! So, I want something good for Lawrence and Wal-Mart.

Thank you to the three commissioners who voted against the Wal-Mart design. Wal-Mart can do better, and I have seen it in person.

On a trip to Boston a couple of years ago I was flabbergasted as my friend drove by a shopping section of a Boston suburb. There sat this beautiful, white colonial Wal-Mart, with green grass around it, beautiful fencing – if I hadn’t seen it, I would not have believed it!

Lawrence isn’t Boston, and colonial would seem out of character. What might be a good fit is something like the trend to develop more urban, bungalow-type neighborhoods. The design Wal-Mart presented was simply taking a stucco shopping center that is at every intersection in Overland Park and dropping it in Lawrence.

Wal-Mart has a great opportunity here to show the country a desire to be good neighbors by working hand-in-hand with a community to have buildings that enhance the location. Seems shortsighted to not see the value in that.

C’mon, Wal-Mart! Don’t reinforce the bully perception. It doesn’t increase my stock.

Karen Anderson,

Lawrence