The Anchorage Assembly will consider on Tuesday a resolution that would ask the Federal Trade Commission to block a merger between Kroger, which is part of the Fred Meyer empire, and Albertsons, which owns Safeway.
Assembly Chair Chris Constant says that food insecurity and market competition are factors in the food landscape in Anchorage and the state of Alaska that lead him to want to block the merger.
Earlier this month, Kroger and Albertsons announced they would sell off 413 grocery stores across 17 states as part of the proposed merger, in order to ensure that there is enough competition and to avoid a confrontation with the FTC and the unions that oppose the merger.
Some 14 Alaska Albertsons stores would be sold, representing 3 percent of the total number of stores jettisoned in the merger. No Fred Meyer would be sold off in the merger. That compares with 104 Albertsons and Kroger stores that would be sold off in Washington state.
If the FTC approves the merger, the deal “ensures no stores will close as a result of the merger and that all frontline associates will remain employed,” according to a statement by Kroger and Albertsons this month.
The list of stores to be sold to ensure the merger can go through includes:
Kroger released a list of how many stores per state would be part of the divesture:
- Alaska: 14 Albertsons stores
- Arizona: 24 Albertsons stores
- California: 66 Albertsons and Kroger stores
- Colorado: 52 Albertsons stores
- District of Columbia/Maryland/Virginia: 10 Harris Teeter stores
- Idaho: 13 Albertsons stores
- Illinois: 14 Kroger stores
- Montana/Utah/Wyoming: 12 Albertsons stores
- Nevada: 15 Albertsons stores
- New Mexico: 12 Albertsons stores
- Oregon: 49 Albertsons and Kroger stores
- Texas/Louisiana: 28 Albertsons stores
- Washington: 104 Albertsons and Kroger stores
The item is early on the agenda for the Anchorage Assembly, which meets on the ground floor of the Loussac Library on Tuesday, beginning at 5 pm.
I’m not for government leaders getting in the business of private business dealings. Kroger and Albertsons are selling off property to do a legal merger. If we don’t like it Alaskans can grow more food up here looking at more property that can set itself up as little garden spaces for agriculture.
Breathtakingly ignorant.
A total lack of understanding of anything outside your immediate door.
If Constant is for it, I’m against it. He’s a very reliable litmus test.
Fact! And I live in his (completely unrepresented) district!
Now that’s using the ol’ noggin !! 😸
I’d be careful about engaging in any such false dichotomy thinking.
Even a blind, mentally deranged and sexually confused squirrel can find a nut once in a while.
Perhaps. But this particular squirrel is near starvation. 😉
I second that notion, Jefferson!
Just to be clear, A Taxpayer, I am not necessarily saying that I agree with Chris Constant’s position on this matter, only that I would not automatically oppose it just because it was he who took it.
Given that the divestiture would make any input concerning Alaska moot, what makes the Anchorage Assembly think that there’s either anything to vote on or anyone relevant to the transaction that might listen? Will they next convene on Canadian issues?
It’s kind of like those people who don’t live or pay property taxes in Anchorage, but are always testifying at Anchorage Assembly meetings or complaining about how the citizens of Anchorage organize their community.
Like when Anchorage was closed down during Covid and their citizens came to the valley to avoid the restrictions?
Not a damn thing they can do about it.
Not sure why they care. Kroger company is a long time, committed member of the alphabet gang cheerleading section.
Most of us want the merger
Did you take an anonymous poll of anonymous trolls? When Safway bought Carrs, the result was less stores, less competition and higher prices.
Wake up Mark; it’s not a merger; its a buy-out. A take-over if you like. Kroger is absorbing a competitor. Its classic big corporate maneuvering to corner a market. Behold a bit of Kroger’s political-correct propaganda: they pervert our common language by calling employees “associates.” Business partners without wages, or those selling strictly on commission, may be considered associates. Anyone receiving a paycheck is an employee.
Mark you need to change your name or use your last name as I have been Mark for a long time.
I added 88 to his last name. – sd
They’ll get told to stay in their lane
The idiot has a God complex and believes his opinion is the only one that matters. The resolution will be filed in the round file next to the desk.
If the FTC doesn’t do what Chris Constant says, he’ll give them a good slap. (he wrote with a lisp)
Irony abounds..the idiots and policies leftists like Constant support and vote FOR lead to “food insecurities” and the candidates and policies they oppose and vote AGAINST are rooted in “market competition”…File this ridiculousness under “just can’t make this 💩 up”…🤦♂️
assembly donkeys, Kroger & Albertson could care less what constant-pain in the rear thinks!
Remove, you obviously mean to say, “couldn’t care less….”
So let me see if I understand this
The local anchorage assembly believes that their job, duty or tiny power base leads them to have a voice in national commerce. This sounds like the local community council thinking they have a vote at the table on municipal issues. Maybe go back to fixing the roads, helping the Homeless and pick up the pieces that are broken in the city. Then you can be a shining example to the rest of the Republic 🙂
WEF, Klaus Schwab, is merely the “entertainment” puppet. It is the unknown person’s behind him (munarchs and foreign, hostile extremists et al) that are moving this economic conveyance off the edge. Not a good look for play city, Alaska.
I agree, their power has gone to their heads. Their opinion is neither solicited nor relevant. Maybe if they solve the problems they have created they could get local respect at best. Probably not going to happen. What an arrogant lot.
So we will have 3 or 4 large vendors like Amazon, and Walmart controlling the supply chain prices and choices. No to the merger.
Trader Joe’s
The company slated to take over the Carrs-Safeways is the same owner of Piggly Wiggly.
Maybe CC missed that memo.
I did not realize that there was a grocery chain named after Felix Rivera.
Jefferson, Classic comment!
Anchorage Assembly is way outside of its lane in what it believes it has the power to do. What a joke! If they are trying to stop a merger, this really does mean that people of Alaska should be for the merger. Anyway, both chains are owned by Blackrock/Vangaurd.
If the Assembly opposes it, it must be good for Anchorage.
.
Besides, what difference doe it make? This is just more whining from the leftists.
What’s next, Klaus? Fi dancial insti tutes? So did you know more “fraud” (load your word there) is committed by people who do transactions telephonically? Did you know that? So hire police detectives as “customer service reresentatives”?
Of course people with mobility issues, elderly, poor people without internet use and minorities in good faith do their financial business exclusively by telephone. Way to discriminate, harrass, intimidate and impede financial goals of Alaska’s housebound. Do you like this, in principle, Alaska? Can you be any more hostile to your evaporating state population Alaska?
Frankly, if the Anchorage assembly is against the merger, then the merger is probably a GOOD thing.
As we return to the days of Robber Barons.
Kroger and Albertsons executives are accountable for their fiduciary duty to shareholders.
.
Kroger and Albertsons store managers are accountable for their stores’ financial success.
.
Anchorage Assembly members’ voting records indicate they’re not accountable for anything.
.
So, why should anyone take seriously what Anchorage Assembly members say about the Kroger-Albertsons merger?
.
Maybe because Assembly Chair Constant’s inchoate babble about food insecurity and market competition being factors in the Anchorage food landscape could mean city-owned grocery stores to serve Anchorage’s neighborhood bum-housing may be in the planning stage, may be upset by a Kroger-Albertsons merger?
.
Can’t happen here? Look at “Exploring a municipally owned grocery store is part of the Johnson administration’s goal of promoting food equity and accessibility for all Chicagoans.”, September 13, 2023 (chicago.gov/city/en/depts/mayor/press_room/press_releases/2023/september/MayorJohnsonAnnouncesTheExplorationOfAMunicipallyOwnedGroceryStore.html)
.
Remember Assemblyman Cross, a real-estate developer, who’s rewriting Title 21 to allow more apartments and condos everywhere in Anchorage? Who, in this era of Bidenomics, can afford to live in those apartments and condos, pay utilities and taxes, without government subsidies? Who might have the most to gain if government-subsidized tenants were able to buy their government-subsidized food from government-owned stores?
(https://mustreadalaska.com/is-there-really-a-housing-crisis-in-anchorage-a-look-at-the-data/)
.
Is it possible these two things taken together may be something Anchorage residents should know more about, but probably won’t because it’s not in Anchorage Assembly members’ best interests to tell them yet?
15 minute zones just knocking on Anchorage’s door and the Anchorage Assembly is trying to get the door open to let the evil in.
I doubt very many stores will actually close. And wouldn’t it be cool to have Piggly Wiggly back in Alaska? I remember when they were in Fairbanks: Do you?
The Anchorage Assembly needs to be looking more closely at what would make Anchorage safer and better and voting on appropriate matters rather than things they have no influence over.
Examples of overreaching time and resource squandering:
– Voting to move Mount McKinley
– Voting on the Kroger-Albertson’s merger
– Voting to cover atty costs for disgruntled MOA employees (the employee bears that risk and cost)
Examples of useful time and resource efforts (listen closely boys and girls):
– Voting do disallow DMV inclusion of your physical location on your registration such that the next of their disenfranchised drug addled dirtbags steals your car he doesn’t know which house the garage door opener works at. Yeah, it’s a State thing but it’s far closer to home than a multi-national grocer and one of our asleep at the switch State employees will wake up and carry the ball further.
– Forcing the ARR to schedule their gravel trains such that they don’t impede traffic for ten minutes during rush hour in the South of Anchorage. This happened as recently as today at 4:50p on C Street and has gone on for years. It inconveniences hundreds if not thousands of Anchorage drivers and all for the convenience of two people; whomever drives the train and whomever runs the tipple at AS&G.
Focus damnit! Focus!
If you ever want to have an opportunity to move up in the political arena you’ll have to do something to indicate you have merit and nothing that has come from the Anchorage Assembly yet is even marginally indicative of merit. Disassociate yourselves from the bum nonsense and make Anchorage a non-Sanctuary City. If you’ve gotten good at spending taxpayer money to support that nonsense you’ll need to express extreme effort to counter the impression others have of you.
Start now… before someone holds you personally responsible for your poor decisions.
I was thinking I bet they are doing the merger because of online shopping and Amazon, it need to compete with online stores such as Amazon. Kroger-Albertsons has always had smart people working in its corporate headquarters from when Safeway merged with Carrs.
Good to see the assembly voting on things that they can have a true impact on……….
Comments are closed.