Wal-Mart’s director of corporate affairs for New York City, Mia Masten, is a native of Arkansas who worked in President Clinton’s administration. She spoke with The New York Sun’s Daniela Gerson last week about the world’s largest retailer’s plans to open for business in the Big Apple.

Q. Wal-Mart announced plans for its first New York store last December in Rego Park. Within months, reports surfaced that the developer had pulled out of the deal. What happened?

A. We never had a deal. It never should have come out that way, because there were negotiations going on with developers with us, and it just didn’t come through. … The way it all came out was one of our real estate managers was at a conference and shared some of our ideas about moving into metro markets. … It is one of the areas we are interested in because we know customers are already shopping in our nearby stores. In Valley Stream, which is near Queens, about 60% of our customers are coming from Queens, and so we know that area is ripe for a retail store.

Did your decision to pull out of the deal have anything to do with the “Stop Wal-Mart” alliance of organized labor, elected officials, and small businesses?

No, we never even had a chance to go through the process. … We never had a deal, never even got to that point. We’re still very interested in the New York market. From looking at our stores and also from looking at other retailers – K-Mart, Target, Home Depot – we know that this market is ripe for customers, and we also know that from our stores alone, $98 million worth of consumer dollars came from New York City shoppers just last year to our nearby stores. So we know the customer base is here.

Where are you looking to build stores in New York?

We’re looking at all five boroughs at this time. Manhattan will probably be the last one, just because there are so few sites that would be amenable to our format. We don’t have any deals signed, and so I know there is a lot of speculation about various sites. Whenever there is a large space, we’re asked, “Are you looking, are you looking, are you looking?” We’re looking everywhere, but until we have a deal signed we’re just not going to comment on any specific site.

Just before the Rego Park deal collapsed, a City Council hearing had an empty seat and a cardboard figure with Wal-Mart written on it. Before the meeting there were protests. At the hearing, I did not hear any positive voices from the Council about Wal-Mart. Have you been surprised by this type of backlash?

You know what’s interesting about that hearing? Number one, we didn’t have any stores here; we didn’t have a deal; we were notified at the last minute. I did provide testimony. The councilman’s staff said they appreciated us providing testimony and they had reached out to others who did not respond. That was unfortunate. … Why is it that other retailers in town have a similar format and product size and similar labor practices who are in town had no protests?

We should have the opportunity to discuss any proposed project as anyone else would, and then the consumer should decide where they shop. When is the line crossed that it becomes a tenanting issue, rather than a project specific issue?

The bashing of Wal-Mart is becoming a cottage industry right now. Everybody is jumping on the bandwagon. We open over 300 stores a year. We have over 100 million customers coming into our stores. We know that Wal-Mart is successful. People do want the stores.

How do you know that New Yorkers want Wal-Mart? Have you conducted any polls?

We found that 62% of New Yorkers do want Wal-Mart; more than 50% go outside to the suburbs to do their shopping. … People like the fact that the stores provide jobs, they like the convenience. Why go out to Long Island or to New Jersey when you can have it here? Keep the tax revenues here, keep the disposable income here.

One of the most vocal criticisms that the “Stop Wal-Mart” campaign is presenting is that in other communities the store actually cost communities money because low pay and benefits will force employees to go on public assistance.

A lot of information is not true. … Yes, some people in retail do need that additional help. Yes, some of our associates do. But we’re no different than other retailers in the number or percentage of associates that do need public assistance…. We do offer health care benefits. Keep in mind, this is retail. We have a lot of people who are either first job opportunities, they have their parents’ health insurance, or they’re second-income providers. A majority of our associates are actually second-income providers. … It also begs the question if you’re employed, with the option of health care benefits, your chances of being on Medicaid are less than if you’re unemployed.

What would be the starting salary for a Wal-Mart employee in New York?

We will do a salary survey when we come into the area to make sure our salary is going to be competitive with other retailers. However, in the metro markets the average salary is about $10.30 an hour.

Hillary Clinton once sat on the board of Wal-Mart. Has she reached out to you at all?

No.

Have you reached out to her?

No, we haven’t.

You placed an ad recently in the New York Review of Books. Why there, and what’s the general advertising strategy in New York?

For far too long, others have had the lead in telling something about Wal-Mart, rather than us telling our story. And so we started a “Just the Facts” campaign, in ads across the country, and we launched a Web site. We’re telling our story…. There was an editorial written in the Review of Books that was really just chock-full of misinformation. It was one of the things where that was a way for us to fight back in the same publication, and we will be fighting back more aggressively, or I should say getting our message out. You’ll see more New York centric “Just the Facts.”

No Wal-Mart store in America has a union. Would you allow one to form at a New York City Wal-Mart?

If they want to, they have the option to do that. … But at this point our associates don’t want a union. We don’t think unions are necessary. Our associates have said that time and time again, that they appreciate the open-door policy that we have, whereby if an associate has a complaint, a concern, or a recommendation, they can go directly to their manager, their district manager, all the way up to the CEO. They don’t think third-party representation is necessary.

Why are you coming to New York now?

If you look at the growth of the company, it started out in Arkansas in rural environments where at that time there weren’t any shopping options. Forty years ago people were already in the cities, retail was already there. Then people were moving out to the suburbs. That’s where the customers were. Now things are shifting. Some people are moving back into the cities. Some of the other retailers have already come back into the cities. We want to be a part of that as well.

When do you see the first Wal-Mart being built in New York?

It takes at least a year to build a store. Probably 2007.