To the Editor:
Once again, the issue for Costco has reared its ugly head with pros and cons from everyone. It is a very contentious issue for our town for a host of reasons.

It is so contentious that Crossgates has a huge sign in the mall, with a QR code that links to a Town Hall email address, asking people to say “yes” to Costco. How desperate and concerned is Crossgates that this just may fail? Maybe they should listen to the opposition and either build elsewhere or pack up and go home.

Folks are still raising issues regarding the traffic, the noise, the environmental factors relating to the size of the project and that there will be 18 gas pumps but only eight charging stations for electric cars. All of these are legitimate concerns and, although our town says this has been addressed, many feel it really has not.

In fact, another lawsuit has been filed [“Neighbors sue to stop Costco, Pyramid says it won’t build without tax breaks,” The Altamont Enterprise, June 1, 2023].

There is the issue of whether this is an appropriate sized building (163,000 square feet) on Western Avenue. Our town boards have all voted in favor, yet it does not seem possible that they think a building this size is appropriate in this area, but they do.

It goes against what the zoning specifies and to put a path around the back of the building to say it is multi-use is poor at best. How stupid do you think we are that we would buy that lie? My hunch is that they care more about their personal shopping needs than the actual needs and consent of town residents.

There are claims of so much increased tax revenue for our town, but let’s look at that. Albany County has a 4-percent tax rate, New York State has a 4-percent tax rate. The only giveback we get is from the county.

The county gets approximately 4 percent of the sales-tax revenues, and it distributes fairly equally approximately 40 percent of this revenue among all of the cities and towns in the county. There are 13 cities and towns that receive this money. This does not work out to a substantial increase for our town. To state that there will be substantial sales-tax revenues because of Costco is basically false.

According to USA Today and the Department of Labor, the unemployment rate for Guilderland is 2.1 percent. If this is the case, where are all these workers coming from?

What this will do is take workers away from other businesses in town and leave our hometown businesses to struggle with an already shrinking workforce and now more competition for goods. This is not always bad, but this is our town selling out to corporate America.

As we know, Crossgates Mall is currently on the auction block for not meeting its loan obligations [“Pyramid defaults on Crossgates loans, debt to be auctioned off,” The Altamont Enterprise, June 12, 2023].

In addition, they are currently suing the town again for a reduction in their assessment. All this corporation does is sue the town over these issues, costing you and me, taxpayers in this town, thousands and thousands of dollars that could be put to better use for our residents in our town.

With all of this, our town boards ignore what a poor risk it is to deal with this group and bend over to give them what they want. Let your town officials know that it is time to say no to any further tax breaks and no to eminent domain requests.

Robyn Gray

Chairwoman

Guilderland Coalition for Responsible Growth