Editor’s note:
This Blog has covered this issue previously in an entry titled:
“With Wal-Mart sneezing, will Yelm catch a cold?”

Mayor Harding with the approval of his then all-complacent City Councilors, pushed getting a super Wal-Mart in Yelm against the city’s own requirement to have had a funded By-pass to be built within 6 years of Wal-Mart’s July 18, 2007 opening to mitigate the store’s traffic. Of course, that did not occur – funding finally passed in 2015, with construction expected in 2021, 14 years AFTER Wal-Mart opened in Yelm.

This Blogger has discussed here several times about how the city expects Wal-Mart sales-taxes to boost city budget revenues, yet relying on one retailer to do so is with great peril. Now, this may be becoming true.

– “Walmart’s first-ever revenue drop: end of an era?”
* “For the first time, giant retailer’s revenues shrank from the year before”
* “Its shares have fallen below retail competitors and the broader market”
* “Has the company reached its growth limit?”
By Shelly Banjo, Bloomberg News.
Read more


This is yet another dark cloud on the horizon to Mayor Harding’s legacy here, which is under threat of further being eroded and tarnished with just over a year-and-a-half left on his term. After-all, getting Wal-Mart shoved through the city’s approval process by by-passing the By-pass rules of their own traffic mitigation plan, garnered Harding what he thought was one of his crown jewels being built in Yelm. The Yelm City Council and Staff should be aware Wal-Mart’s sales-tax revenue engine has reached a peak.

The public has become wise to the poor wages, sacrificing quality for price, and lack of service across the spectrum; in banks, airlines, the fast food industry, etc. and Wal-Mart is no exception.