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Battle of the Wilderness rages on as Walmart dispute continues in Orange County.
COMPLETE WALMART COVERAGE:
Battle of the Wilderness rages on - view previous stories and multimedia. Date published: 10/13/2009
STEVE SZKOTAK
Associated Press Writer RICHMOND(AP) _ Orange County officials asked a judge today to dismiss an attempt to block Wal-Mart Stores Inc. from building a Supercenter near an endangered Civil War battlefield. The filing by the Board of Supervisors contends preservationists and residents who filed the legal challenge have no standing in the issue and defended the county’s Aug. 25 vote approving the store near the Wilderness Battlefield. “Plaintiffs want to prevent use of land that they do not own, and this suit is a contrived effort to enable them to do so,” the county filing states. A judge had not scheduled a hearing on the motion, a court clerk said. Preservationists have opposed Walmart’s plans to build less than one half-mile from the Locust Grove battlefield where 30,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were injured or killed 145 years ago. They contend supervisors brushed aside concerns about the negative impact the store would have on the battlefield and approved the special use permit Wal-Mart needed to build the big box store. The retailer described the preservationists’ legal challenge as having “no merit or basis in fact.” It was filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Friends of Wilderness Battlefield and six residents of Orange and Spotsylvania counties. They did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. Their challenge asked a judge to declare supervisors’ vote “unlawful and invalid” and to block any further county action on Walmart’s site plan. Construction has not begun at the site about 50 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. The planned store generated a national effort by Civil War buffs and historians to block its construction. More than 250 historians, including Pulitzer Prize historian James McPherson, added their names to a petition opposing it. The Wilderness Battlefield is where Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant first met in a battle considered a turning point in the war. Residents and supervisors who supported the store said it would not diminish an area that already has two strip malls. They welcomed the hundreds of jobs it would bring to the rural community, the shopping option and the estimated 800,000 annually in tax revenue for the county of approximately 32,000. Wal-Mart argued that the site is zoned for commercial use and the store will not be within sight of the battlefield’s 2,700 protected acres.
The store will not be on top of the battlefield. The fighting took place further south on Rt. 20. No actual fighting took place at the intersection of 3 and 20. If you stop and read the signs you will realize that. We already had a fair hearing, several times in fact, outsiders were allowed to yap their gums at those hearings. The BOS is not bound by law to be fair to everyone, they try their best to be as fair as possible and when their constituents speak, that's how they will vote.
Walmart claims that "the store will not be within sight of the battlefield’s 2,700 protected acres," when the store will be, quite literally, across the street from protected battlefield land. Not to mention located directly on top of the battlefield itself. When misinformation is tossed so casually around, and when county leaders are so obviously biased toward outside interests, going to court is the only way to get a fair hearing for the people of Orange County.
The group presenting the legal challenge has every right to do so. Let's make sure that the county is held responsible for their lack of objectiveness during this issue.
Let's let the judge decide whether the case has merit, not Walmart and county officials. Of course they are going to claim the case has no merit, because admitting the case has merit would be admitting the county made multiple mistakes throughout this process. The county knows they didn't handle this above the board, and now they are trying to just make it all go away. I applaud the plaintiffs for holding the county responsible for all its missteps.
Do you have stock in Wal-Mart?
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