If you’ve ever wondered why Trader Joes or your favorite big chain store hasn’t come to the Morongo Basin, it’s not the choice of the local government.
Twentynine Palms City Manager Stone James was the guest on the Z107.7 Up Close Show recently, and he explained to host Gary Daigneault that local government is not able to “bring” businesses to an area.
Daigneault kicked off the conversation by asking about common misconceptions people have about local government, saying “The moment anything is announced that it’s coming to Twentynine Palms, we’re going to get a new restaurant, there are 500 comments on social media saying, well, why is the city putting that in? We need a Trader Joe’s or why isn’t the City putting in a Whole Foods? And people seem to have this misconception that the city decides what businesses comes here. That’s not how it works.
“How does it actually work?”
James replied, “In those businesses there are folks in their real estate department and those professionals evaluate communities to determine if there are enough of their type of customers in that community and in the surrounding communities to provide the business that’s necessary for that business to thrive. So that’s why we would never get a Target or Trader Joe’s.”
Daigneault asked, “The city council can’t call Target and tell them they must build a store in Twentynine Palms?”
James said “I think that’s a double-edged sword, right? Because you’ve got a city council that understands, that recognizes, and I think loves and appreciates the fact that Twenyntine Palms is Twentynine Palms because of the small businesses and the mom-and-pop shops. They give it that small town community feel. Bringing in a Costco would be a problem, right? That would really harm the small businesses. So, not only is there a situation where I don’t think that the City Council would want that, but we are demographically kind of a sparse area.
“And those big businesses, they need a lot of business.”
You can hear their full conversation here:
