Just in Time For Gaudy Billboards and Gil Moore's Beer Cave, McDonald's Suffers a Slew of Bad Publicity



January 22, 2015 |

Some of the more laughable moments, and there have been several in the last few years, coming from the Elk Grove City Council dais have centered on Gil Moore's forthcoming AM/PM gas station-McDonald's-yogurt shop-beer cave and the justification used to rezone the Sheldon Road-East Stockton Boulevard parcel.   

Notwithstanding the tens-of-thousands of jack that Moore lavished on the Elk Grove City Council members and their favorite charities, when granting his rezone the council members did it in the name of economic development. We give city council member props for keeping a straight-face and not bursting out in laughter at the absurdity of characterizing a gas station-McDonald's-yogurt shop-beer cave with minimum wage jobs as real economic development.

Instead of coming up with realistic goals to attract businesses that play on our strengths - think of our agricultural heritage - we passively let Mayor Gary Davis to continue his delusional pursuit of Major League Soccer expansion franchise at the expense of building soccer field that could actually bring the city economic benefit, or watch city council members pass-off the opening of fast food outlets as economic development. 

In retrospect, we now can see where former economic development director Randy Starbuck got his marching orders from. Let's hope if the city hires a replacement for Starbuck, it is someone of substance, independent thought, with a track record of success, and who understands the city needs to play to its strengths - did we say agriculture - and not some hair-brain scheme cooked up on an all night coffee bender.

From our perspective, it is ironic that McDonald's - driver of Elk Grove's economic engine according our city council, has suffered a slew of negative publicity. 

Among the long list of negative publicity for the junk food behemoth includes the plastic Japanese chicken nuggets scandal, falling sales and profits, and just today, a lawsuit from former employees alleging systematic sexual and racial harassment.

Undoubtedly, McDonald's is not disappearing anytime soon, but it seems their best days are behind them. We just wonder how long it will be before we see McDonald's real estate representative Susan Green, Gil Moore and mammoth billboard impresario Bruce Bishop trot back to the city council seeking a rezone or another change in the original highway billboard ordinance pitching, more gaudy billboards topped with plastic stage coaches and more McDonald's. Where is Morgan Spurlock when you need him!    

So there you have it, thanks to the Elk Grove City Council hitching its supposed economic development plans to the fortunes of a global, yet failing, purveyor of fast food and local business man Gil Moore, we will get some big, gaudy elk-topped billboards that  make us indistinguishable from every other dumpy city up and down Highway 99. Now that's real economic development! 

As for Elk Grove's future prospects, as long as McDonald's franchisers like Steve Ramirez and C. C. Yin cough up money for Elk Grove City Council members, the Hamburglar and Ronald McDonald will be having a growing presence in the ever expanding boundaries, and waistlines, of Elk Grove. Call it our economic development plan. 

So it goes in Elk Grove - just call us Hooterville!      

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8 comments

Warren "buffet" said...

Let's not be partial to Mickey D. Recall this event last October!

"COSTA MESA, Calif., Oct. 9, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, El Pollo Loco (Nasdaq:LOCO), the nation's leading fire-grilled chicken restaurant chain, celebrated the grand opening of its newest restaurant located at 8428 Elk Grove Florin Road at Calvine Road in Elk Grove. The festivities included remarks by elected officials, including Congressman Ami Bera, representatives for Senator Darrell Steinberg's office and District Representative Don Nottoli's office, community dignitaries and El Pollo Loco Director of Operations, David Aguilera followed by kitchen tours and a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

A photo accompanying this release is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=28300

"As the representative for the residents of the 7th District of California, I'm excited to welcome El Pollo Loco as a new partner in the Elk Grove community," said Congressman Ami Bera, M.D. "El Pollo Loco is a good example of a business that invests in the local community it serves by providing career growth opportunities for its employees and giving to local charities. I'd like to personally thank David Aguilera, Jason Lucero and his staff, as well as the community representatives and constituents of my district who came out today to welcome El Pollo Loco to Elk Grove."

Anonymous said...

(Sing to the McDonalds, "Love is Endless" commercial - see link below...)

Cash!
Cash! Cash! Cash!
Cash is endless!

One for freeway signs and
Two for quick rezones and
Three for wrappers in the wind!

Four for Beer Cave permits
Five for stagecoach toppers
Six for low paying EG jobs...
Cash is endless!

Cash!
Cash! Cash! Cash!

Seven for Hawaiian shirts and
Eight for grinning pols and
Nine for dirty backroom deals

Cash is endless!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQboscYOV3Y

Anonymous said...

Dan, sad but true comes to mind in reading this. Pat Hume did a Q&A over on Elk Grove-Laguna Forums.

http://www.elkgrove-laguna.net/forums/showthread.php?7694-Q-amp-A-with-Elk-Grove-City-Councilman-Pat-Hume&p=103877#post103877

Hume was questioned about his legacy. Is this what he has in mind, given his family’s history in Elk Grove? Rooftops is a given, but a city full of monument signs and fast food restaurants as well? Is this making Elk Grove, as Hume stated, “the best city it can be?”

Capt. Benjamin Willard said...

Mr. Buffet,

Thank you for the huge exclamation point on by Mr. Gougherty's comments.

How pathetic are we as a city, a state, and a nation when the opening of chain restaurant is recognized not only by city leaders, but a powerful State Senator and a U.S. Congressman?

Leaders of past generations who build cross country railroads, built entire industries, put man in space, built the bridges and the interstate system that opened up commerce and so many other great things that defined the American Dream must be rolling in their graves.

We are reduced to a grand celebration for the opening of chicken stand like we are opening a new highway or research university. How sad.

Career growth opportunities? Now really Dr. Bera, have you been drinking the same Kool Aid as our city council?

Connie said...

Most of us who are invested in Elk Grove want our city to be the best it can be.

Of late, I keep reading about Folsom getting this and getting that. Even their shopping centers – there seem to be no strip malls in Folsom -- seem to be better designed and certainly have the sought after occupants. Toby Keith’s restaurant gone and in a matter weeks, Nordstrom Rack is going in that location.

Even the county of Sacramento is doing better with Macy’s taking over the old Campbell Soup plant for distribution and shipping of online store purchases with 175 jobs. Kudos were given to the county’s office of Economic Development and Marketing. What a huge boast for the area of Sacramento to avoid future blight!

What is Folsom, and now the County, doing that Elk Grove isn’t?

Anonymous said...

Just a two bit hick valley city.

Proud Heritage, Bright Future?

Elk Grove Thriving?

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2014/09/25/elk-grove-may-be-paying-more-than-double-value-of-land-for-proposed-soccer-stadium/


A City by the developers, of the developers and FOR the developers!

Increase in armed robberies, assaults and various street crimes

More sprawl, horrendous congestion and smog.

$100 million soccer stadium

Paid $6 MILLION for a piece of land that sold for $700,000 three years prior.

Garish 70 - 100 foot tall lighted freeway monument signs

Sister city to the Kingdom of Zamunda

Octopus Civic Center

Amusement park right across from single family homes in Madeira "the Jewel of Elk Grove".

Visions of the Olympic Trials.

3,600 units of high density very low and low income housing on the way to "Meridian" (the Southeast Plan Area) - Hood of the future to be known as Mack Road South.

Trash blowing in the wind,flat, bland, hot, windy sprawling, fast food joints, nail salons, gun stores, smoke shops, vape palaces, strip malls, cheap looking high density low income apartment projects, lack of symphony light opera and ballet, very few upscale restaurants, dollar stores, cookie cutter houses.

Texas?

No, Elk Grove brought to you by the rubber stampers.

Stockton and Modesto have performing arts centers, orchestras and other cultural amenities.

Stockton and Modesto have high quality local restaurants.

Elk Grove has fast food joints, chain restaurants and convenience store cuisine.

Bring on more garish 100 foot tall freeway signs, low income housing projects, liquor stores, fast food joints, shooting ranges, gun stores, smoke shops and nail salons.

Elk Grove Thriving!

Proud Heritage, Bright Future?

Anonymous said...

The problem with this city is that they have no long term vision. Someone rides into town with a plan...any plan, and it's rubber stamped. Some more beige houses and a few plants thrown up against the foundation and we're GOOD! Kids need a swimming pool and a sports field....heck how about just going for the GOLD, Olympics & the MLS. I just hope someone doesn't come before the city with being tired of driving to the airport in Sacto and want our own.

Me? I just would like to be able to do most of my shopping local and stop having to leave Elk Grove to do that. Maybe if our Planning & Council would take the $$blinders off, we could fix that. I know...a dreamer.



Mayor McCheese said...

The last time I checked, mad cow disease is still a problem for the meat supply and the agricultural industry.

Who eats at El Pollo Loco?
The name of the company translates to 'the crazy chicken.'
I wouldn't eat a mad cow.
Or a crazy chicken.

The fact that a congressman, a state senator, and the local county electeds gave attention October 2014 to such mediocre business endeavors demonstrates governments' sycophantal alacrity to collude with these entities.
These politicos fall over themselves to be first in line to endorse and fund such banality.

So, kids, study hard for that shot at flipping crazy chicken flesh in a neighborhood near you.
There are 400 such joints in the state of California.
Turnover, as they say in the grilling trade, is high.

s//Colonel Klink
PS The McDonalds/Kroc empire is a Methodist cum Salvation Army fundamentalist institution.
McDonald's doesn't like gays, women, or minorities; and it's openly that way.

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