Hixson residents say NO to new Walmart

Today in Hixson, a community meeting was held to discuss the possibility of rezoning the area to add a new Wal-Mart.

The meeting took place at the Middle Valley Church of God near the proposed location of the new Wal-Mart store. Many members of the community emphatically expressed their displeasure with the idea of adding the new Wal-Mart in the community.

In front of a standing room only crowd, officials tried to answer as many questions and ease as many concerns as they could, but the majority of the crowd didn’t get the answer to the real question.

Jason Walker, a Hixson resident said, "I don’t see anything positive from this. I understand we talked about the revenue, but for the most part, no one even addressed why." 

When I asked Matt Phillips, the Vice President of real estate for the Hutton company the burning question of why he said,

 "It will be a nice grocery store to add to the convenience of the community."

The overwhelming reaction from the room was simple….

"We don’t want it.  If they had taken the time to actually ask the public what they wanted and what they didn’t want, they wouldn’t have had to waste their time on all those studies," said Alisha Pell.

During the meeting, they did take a vote of hands to see who wanted the Wal-Mart, and while officials said it was a 50-50 split, many in the audience did not agree.

"NO! It was way more against," said Alisha.

A petition was started directly following the meeting.

Many of the concerned citizens are planning on showing up at the courthouse on Wednesday morning to let their opinions against the expansion be heard.