Final Hearing Date Set in Wilderness Standoff

This is it, so don’t get scared now.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors is set to make a decision once and for all on the fate of the Wilderness Wal-Mart - a public hearing has been scheduled for July 27th, which will be the last time the public (and Robert Duvall) will be able to make their opinions known before the board takes the matter for good. Note: As a Civil War vet, Robert Duvall can actually comment all he’d like.

What will they decide? Will Wal-Mart be allowed to desecrate a piece of American history? Will they be denied, and an alternate site be recommended?

There seems to be a divide between the County Planning Commission and Orange County residents - the Commission voted 5-4 last week to approve development on the Battlefield site, yet at previous public hearings, the majority of Orange County residents were against the project (by an estimated 2-1 margin). This public outcry, combined with the history of the land at stake, would make it seem appropriate that Wal-Mart would be eager for a compromise that would still allow them to develop in the area, if one were presented...but to this point, no dice. Which is why County Administrator Bill Rolfe believes it’s now up to the supervisors to make the “win-win” a reality.

“The question that begs to be asked is, ‘Why isn’t the county trying to broker a deal that keeps Wal-Mart in the county and moves it further away from the congressionally approved boundary line of the Wilderness Battlefield?’ Both would be in our best interest,” Rolfe wrote the Board of Supervisors in a June 15 e-mail...He noted two goals--that Orange enlarge and diversify its tax base, and not do anything that would “detract from the [Wilderness] battlefield as a tourism destination for our community.”

Rolfe went on to point out that the coalition of historic preservation groups currently fighting the Wilderness plan would appear to be amenable to a development located farther from the battlefield park. And it just so happens that just such a piece of land could be made available next to a nearby 51-acre retail development. The question is, will County Supervisors go for it, or will they doom the Wilderness Battlefield to witnessing another brutal defeat?

Seeking win-win in store debate [Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star]

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