Top Va. Officials Urge New Site For Wal-Mart

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D) and Virginia House of Delegates Speaker William Howell (R), who don't often end up on the same side in political battles, have jointly written to the chairman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors urging him and the board to help Wal-Mart find a new super-center site rather than build on land bordering the Wilderness Battlefield.

The letter, sent on Monday, adds muscle to the national preservation groups that have run a hard, expensive campaign to rally popular support against a Wal-Mart at the proposed location, across a road from the national park, because of traffic and development issues.

The long running drama has already claimed one victim, when Orange County supervisors fired county administrator Bill Rolfe on the July 3 for publicly suggesting the same thing.

The site of the proposed Wal-Mart store is not within the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, which includes sections of the Wilderness battlefield, but is within areas of that battlefield that have yet to be acquired by the National Park Service. In order for the giant retailer to build at the proposed site, a special permit is needed from the county, because the development is larger than what is allowed there now.

In the letter, Kaine and Howell pointed out that the state and the nation are preparing to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and that Virginia's battlefields are considered the most significant. The Wilderness Battlefield "itself ranks supremely important.... Every acre of battlefield land that is destroyed means a loss of open space and missed tourism opportunities, and it closes one more window for future generations to better understand our national story," the letter said.

They were very careful to say they respect the authority of the board over local development issues, but said the Wal-Mart project "presents a unique opportunity to bring together the interests of battlefield preservation and smart development effectively into balance."

They offered the assistance of "any and all state agencies that could be of help to the County and Wal-Mart" in an effort to find a new location within the county but outside the battlefield boundaries and out of view of the national park.

The county's planning commission has voted in favor of the proposed site, but only if the retailer agrees to a number of conditions. The supervisors, who will hold the next public hearing on the matter on July 27, are not bound by the vote of the commission. The supervisors appear split on the issue but lean toward favoring the current Wal-Mart site.

By Linda Wheeler  |  July 15, 2009; 6:32 PM ET
Previous: Virginia Digitizes Freedmen Records | Next: Slavery Historian Kenneth Stampp Dies

The comments to this entry are closed.