Street talk: Cheap imports bite BARC By Tom Murphy News-Chronicle Last week, this space brought up the effect - often deleterious - of Wal-Mart on the wonderful world of retailing. It's not a new story. It's not always a happy story. Sure, the Arkansas Argonaut creates jobs when it arrives or expands. Sure, it gives some money to some deserving local groups. Sure, it provides low prices...though not always the lowest as chain often brags. Wal-Mart dictates to manufacturers. Sometimes its speficiations are so onerous as to cost vendor jobs when the mandates cannot be met economically. Yet another chapter has come to the attention of Street Talk. It's not all because of the Arkansas Argonaut. But the Bentonville buster does play a role. Not too long ago, Algoma Net, the "smallish" company in the Lake Michigan community, had a contract with the Brown County Associated for Retarded Citizens (now Aspiro) for more than 80,000 hammocks a year. Jim Westrich, Algoma Net vice president, general manager and all-around on-site chief honcho, was happy to provide the contract to BARC to help its clients. BARC could handle the order. But imports helped put the kibosh on the Algoma Net/Aspiro agreement. Algoma Net now needs only 5,000 hammocks per year from that supplier. Cheaper imports have hampered domestic production of hammocks. The Wal-Marts of the world have forced companies that contract with charitable organizations to go elsewhere for product or disappear. Algoma Net, unlike Wal-Mart and Costco and Kmart, didn't forsake the less fortunate. The manufacturer now contracts with East Shore Industries, Inc., a smaller version of Aspiro in Algoma. East Shore, an agency with the same goals and aspirations as Aspiro, has been handling smaller assignments from Algoma Net for years, Westrich said. Hammock "ends" and hardware bags were among the contracted items. East Shore will mark its 30th anniversary this year. It began as Kewaunee County Development Center with 10 clients and one employee in Algoma in 1974. Ron Opicka, now East Shore's chief executive officer, was the first employee. The agency now serves more than 100 individuals with disabilities with 32 full- and part-tiime staff members. In 1977, East Shore received funds to build its own building on Rabas Street. It since has doubled in size to 32,000 square feet. COURTHOUSE We hear the city is dickering with owners of properties in the 100 block of North Monroe Avenue to create a site for the new federal courthouse. Quite correctly, Mayor Jim Schmitt sees no reason for the Eastern District's second home to be located at Washington and Walnut streets on the Fox River. So the old Firestone Tire Store on the corner of Monroe and Walnut, now held by Gannett Corp., and/or its local outlet, and the Village Inn, the motel to the north, are likely the spots for the federal courthouse. The motel has seen better days. There's plenty of parking on the western half of that block. Parkers now there could move across Walnut Street to the locations of the old Walnut Cafe (a former service station that might have soil remediation problems) and the one-time old home and law office just to the west. The restaurant was razed last fall. The law office went down at Christmas time. If nothing else, an enclosed pedestrian overpass in the 500 block of Walnut could link a parking facility and the courthouse. Curbside: Broadway Enterprises Inc. has purchased the Hertz Rent-A-Car agency in the Wausau/Stevens Point area. The agency, Hertz of Mosinee, in fact operates out of Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee. Broadway also has the Hertz franchise at Austin Straubel Field in Green Bay. Broadway Automotive in Green Bay and Pulaski are principal operations of the corporation operated by the third generation of the Cuene family...St. Vincent Hospital will open its new Outpatient Dialysis Center on Monday at 1920 Libal St. in Allouez. The site has been remodeled and expanded (with 21 patient care stations vs. 15) and includes a canopied entrance. It is on the north end of Allouez Central Plaza. The center, serving Northeastern Wisconsin for 30 years, was located on South Webster Avenue.