Wilderness folly

April 21, 2009 12:35 am

THOSE SHARP RETORTS heard recently from the direction of the Wilderness battlefield were the sounds of Orange County supervisors shooting down a proposed planning study for the county's eastern gateway. Alas, their shortsightedness made them miss the target altogether.

The "target," of course, is the overall good of Orange County, their principle purpose. Charged with the hard job of balancing the county's budget, most of them have eyes only for the immediate re-wards offered by Wal-Mart, which proposes a 138,000-square-foot store near the intersection of Routes 3 and 20. So the supervisors rejected an appeal from the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition and a major county landowner to formulate a plan for the eastern gateway that would cover all corners--including economic development.

Chairman Lee Frame, in a letter to Jim Campi of the Civil War Preservation Trust, wrote that the supervisors don't reject the goals of a comprehensive planning project, but that they won't hold up Wal-Mart's pending application for that process. That's a classic "ready fire aim" view. Because once the big-box store is planted, others will sprout up, and the chance to "plan" obviated. As a witness, we call to the stand the Salem Church battlefield site--dwarfed now by commercial development and the attendant roads.

Some of the Orange supervisors are miffed at the interest in the Wilderness Wal-Mart from outside the county, including a flood of e-mails from Civil War buffs and an unprecedented proclamation from the Vermont legislature. Apparently, parochialism isn't dead.

True, Vermont lawmakers aren't going to pay for a new school in Orange, and many Civil War enthusiasts will never spend a tax penny in the county. But it's also true that attracting interest from around the nation could be a benefit via tourism. Establishing the county's reputation as a preservation-conscious historic destination could bring in outside dollars, maybe even increasing traffic at Montpelier.

No county is an island. The Orange supervisors may hope to entice a few Spotsylvanians to their new Wal-Mart, and no one with an out-of-state license plate would be refused admittance to the place. So why shouldn't others weigh in on the county's plans?

Rejecting the reasonable request of the Wilderness Coalition is foolish. Orange supervisors should rethink their position. The target of the public good still stands. Only they can hit it.