The Wilderness Alert !!!!

[tater_cuffie]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Boy's I called Each phone nmumber that was listed up there and left em all a message, so hopefully they'll check their messages I told em that I was a hardcore Civil War livin historian, I didn't think buildin a walmart on that sacred plot of ground was right or even moral for that matter. I also told them that without the men on either side of the war, this country wouldn't be what it is today. I said that we need to honor and respect that plot of ground and those men and buildin a walmart would even come close to honorin or respectin them. I HOPE ALL OF YOU BOYOS READIN THIS THREAD WILL CALL AND GIVE EM UR 2 CENTS! HELP ME OUT!

[Busterbuttonboy]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Be advised, the last set of phone numbers are listed on a County web-page but however are their home lines. The following e-mail addresses are listed on the County Gov website, which may be more profitable so we arent taking the fight to their living rooms. (however appropriate I think that is...)
The next series of meetings from what I understand will be on August 12th. This is open to the public.


Chairman R. Mark Johnson
rmj142@yahoo.com

Supervisor Zack Burkett
zburkett@orangecountyva.gov

Supervisor Teel Goodwin
Teel.Goodwin@vabb.com

Vice Chairwoman Teri L. Pace
tpacedist4@aol.com

Supervisor Lee Frame
leeframe@orangecountyva.gov

Letters should be addressed to:
Board of Supervisors
Gordon Building
112 West Main Street
Orange, VA 22960

[GreyRider]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Thank you to all in this matter. Thank you Drew for the information. Writing as we speak.

[WoodenNutmeg]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Haha...I shouldn't laugh, but the irony is too much: CLICK HERE

[Busterbuttonboy]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

All
Here is a link to tommorow nights meeting.

http://orangecountyva.gov/OCBOS/AGENDA_FILES/08/08-12-08/Agenda.pdf

The only thing on here on note concerning us I beleive would be the be the large real use design guidelines. It is an action item.

http://orangecountyva.gov/OCBOS/AGENDA_FILES/08/08-12-08/Large%20Retail%20Guidelines.pdf

I am not to sure whether or not they will be receiving any critism during the public portion of the meeting. Maybe someone closer or more educated on the situation can tell us if its worthwhile to head over and chime in.

Regardless we should keep track of the development of the 50 acre lot and then the adjacent Wilderness Crossing 900 acre development cited in the Free Lance Star Articles.
Drew Gruber

[Dignann]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

The CWPT has created a webpage on this issue

Stop the Wilderness Walmart

Eric

[SavageReb]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Fellers, I know this is kinda off the Subject, but Me being in the SCV, quit supporting Wal-Mart ALONG TIME AGO. I live in a SMALL town, and go in there, ONLY WHEN I HAVE TO. Our Camp had a Christmas Party planned, a lady called W-M, to have a Cake made with the Battle Flag on it, They Agreed to make it, but when she went to pick it up, the said they said that the Battle Flag was VERY INAPPROIATE, and they could not make that cake. Luckily, she went in the morning to pick it up, so she then proceded our friendly neighborhood Kroger. Who not ONLY MADE THE CAKE, it was $8.00 cheaper. SCREW WAL-MART, and all they stand for!!!
Joey Savage
Huwald's Battery
Tennessee Mountain Howitzers

[Corporal Jay]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Sending a letter to Wal-Mart via the CWPT website is quick and painless. Please join the fight.

[Wolfster]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

There is a great letter on the CWPT web site from a coalition of groups opposing the Walmart. Glad to see Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield are fighting the good fight!

Wilderness Battlefield Coalition Letter

Jim Wolf
New Oxford, PA

[hiplainsyank]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

As another problem with Wally World, I have it from a church member who works there that they have discontinued lay away and now push for people to get their credit card and charge it.

Nothing they do surprises me.

[Dignann]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Groups want to sidetrack Orange project

National, regional preservation groups come out swinging against retail center, anchored by a Wal-Mart Supercenter, proposed at The Wilderness

By CLINT SCHEMMER

The Free Lance-Star [Fredericksburg, Va.]
August 22, 2008

Preservation groups have fired the opening salvo of a battle over development proposed in the Wilderness battlefield area.

The newly formed Wilderness Battlefield Coalition has informed Wal-Mart that it opposes its plan to build a 142,000-square-foot Supercenter near State Routes 3 and 20. On Wednesday, the trust e-mailed a "Take Action!" bulletin to its 20,000-plus activists and friends, urging them to write Wal-Mart President and CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. and express their views.

"This is just the wrong project at the wrong place at the wrong time," Civil War Preservation Trust spokesman Jim Campi said yesterday. "This kind of commercial development is absolutely incompatible with a battlefield park.

"Our principal concern is that this will create a mushroom effect and development is going to explode in that very sensitive Route 3 and Route 20 region, if this is allowed to proceed."

The nonprofit trust, headquartered in Washington, has joined forces with the Piedmont Environmental Council, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield, and the Friends of the Fredericksburg Area Battlefields to create the coalition.

Wal-Mart proposes to build a 141,487-square-foot store on about 15 acres of a 50-acre tract just north of Route 3, according to local officials. The parcel extends from Wilderness Run at the Spotsylvania County line toward Vaucluse Road, wrapping around a 7-Eleven, a Wachovia Bank branch and the Wilderness Center strip mall.

Another group has proposed a 1.65 million-square-foot retail, office and government complex, named Wilderness Crossing, on 846 acres adjacent to the planned Wal-Mart site.

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Kelly Hobbs confirmed yesterday afternoon that the world's largest company intends to build on the smaller site in concert with developer JDC Ventures of Vienna.

"Wal-Mart is continuing our due diligence, and hopes to submit an application to the county within the next few weeks," Hobbs said. "We've been working with county staff for some months on design criteria in hopes our project will be consistent with the look and feel of Orange County."

The tract is within a quarter mile of Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park. It's on ground where some of the Battle of the Wilderness was fought on May 5-6, 1864, but is not within the boundary Congress authorized for the park.

Park Superintendent Russ Smith said the issue is not one of the store's design, but of land use. "It's not appropriate to put a massive development like that right next to a national park," Smith said he told Wal-Mart officials and its attorney in a meeting earlier this summer about the project.

"We would hope that Wal-Mart will consider other locations, both on aesthetic grounds, because of the way a Wal-Mart would change the character of the area, and because of the traffic that would be generated."

JDC's site plan calls for a Wal-Mart Supercenter and four other pad sites large enough for "junior big boxes," Smith said. Such a cluster of large stores could completely alter the setting of the Wilderness battlefield, he said.

The battlefield, only part of which is protected by the Park Service, draws some 170,000 visitors annually and is the largest tourism destination in Orange County.

Hobbs dodged a question as to whether the Arkansas-based retailer would consider sites other than the JDC Ventures property. Under the county's recently adopted big-box ordinance, the developer must obtain a special-use permit.

As to the concerns expressed by the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, Hobbs noted the property has been zoned for commercial development for more than 20 years and is in the Route 3 "growth corridor" that Orange has designated for economic development.

"We certainly respect their mission to preserve the battlefield, but feel our project--in a commercially zoned area--will be the best fit possible for the local economy, while keeping the historical interests in mind," she said of the coalition.

Hobbs said Wal-Mart officials look forward to meeting with Park Service officials, as well as coalition leaders and area residents, as soon as its plans for its store are complete.

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/082008/08222008/404923/index_html?page=1

Eric

[DougCooper]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Now THAT is a coalition. Coalition is not a term CWPT likes to use but it works here - some heavy hitters both locally, regionally and nationally...and of course CWPT is driving behind the scnes. Having the National Trust involved is huge.

Just like the Mall at Manassas, Formula One track at Brandy Station, Manassas Disney, Mullins Farm and other great fights, this will be tough but winnable.

Stay tuned to how we all can help.

[wilber6150]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

As another problem with Wally World, I have it from a church member who works there that they have discontinued lay away and now push for people to get their credit card and charge it.

Nothing they do surprises me.

Oh the evilness of this .... The credit card has an offer for 12 months interest free, so long as you pay it off its the same as a lay away... But this is certainly way beyond the original scope of this thread, which I think is saving the Wilderness not bringing out every gripe that people have about a retailer...

[Dignann]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

Worse than Yankees

Here we go again: Saving The Wilderness from Wal-Mart

Editorial

The Free Lance-Star [Fredericksburg, Va.]
August 27, 2008

TO PARAPHRASE Ronald Reagan, here we go again. It seems like only yesterday when the community was fighting Wal-Mart to keep a big-box store off George Washington's boyhood home. Now another historic property is threatened, and the question is: Who will win the second Battle of the Wilderness?

The original, of course, was the 1864 conflagration between Gens. Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. The first meeting of the two on the field of arms took place in western Spotsylvania and eastern Orange counties, a wild, thicket-laced area along the old Plank Road. The battle involved over 160,000 troops and marked the start of Grant's Overland Campaign, an offensive that took the Union Army clear down to Richmond. Before the smoke cleared--literally: bullets set the dry brush on fire and many wounded burned to death--almost 4,000 soldiers rested in the arms of God.

This year's invaders cannot rightfully be called Yankees, since Wal-Mart is headquartered in Bentonville, Ark., and trades with the world. But the 142,000-square-foot store it proposes could be as devastating as anything Grant unleashed. The site, near State Routes 3 and 20, lies irreverently within a quarter-mile of the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park. Also, Wal-Mart's site plan includes four pads for "junior big boxes." And another group wants to put a 1.65-million-square-foot retail, office, and government complex on 846 adjacent acres. Developments in toto larger than Central Park would lap at the entrance to a national shrine.

Did the people who choose to live out western Route 3 buy their homes there despite the lack of shopping opportunities, or because of it? Slipping the surly bonds of congested, close-in Route 3 retail areas surely provides palpable relief to most residents.

True, the site Wal-Mart wants, within Orange County, was zoned commercial 20 years ago. But times have changed. Shopping opportunities now abound, including online. As a region, we recognize more and more that history paved over is lost forever.

Just this summer, scholars unearthed the foundation of George Washington's home at Ferry Farm. What treasures were found, what insights! Except for the dogged opposition of a group of history-conscious residents, this trove could have been buried under Aisle 8Bof the store Wal-Mart slavered to build.

Fortunately, Orange Country's big-box ordinance requires approval for the Wal-Mart project. The county should manfully repel this invasion from the stateless army of Bentonville--a very small sacrifice alongside that tendered by Americans blue and gray in the bloody Wilderness.

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/082008/08272008/405573

Eric

[Busterbuttonboy]

Re: The Wilderness Alert !!!!

This was posted over on cwreenactors.

The following is the response our association has made to the situation...

Big Box Retail in Orange County.
On behalf of the New Jersey Civil War History Association Inc. (NJCWHA), I am writing to express our deep sadness and disappointment in the recent interest and approval by Orange County for a big-box development at the intersection of Routes 20 and 3 which is adjacent to the Wilderness Battlefield Park boundaries. We have always been pleased with the commitment Orange County has made to its natural and cultural resources in the past and were shocked to have read the recent Freelance Star articles citing the Board of Supervisors interest in such a project.

Alongside preservation-oriented Living Histories and donations, on frequent visits to Orange County, our membership spend overnight stays in your beautiful towns, eat at local restaurants, buy locally produced products and support local businesses. Orange, as you know, provides an escape for the Civil War enthusiast that Spotsylvania and other Northern Virginia counties no longer have due to their sprawling development. The cultural landscape in Orange County is second to none. While we understand your commitment to providing a work base and convenient shopping for Orange residents, we are concerned that these decisions will be counterproductive to the mission your governing body has always stood for, the preservation of a high quality of life for its residents and visitors.

As you know, with large scale development come increases in congestion, degradation of the environment, crime and taxes while the County struggles to handle the cost of new schools, services and utilities. If the Board chooses to continue down this road, you can be sure that our organization, as well as thousands of other historians, tourists and naturalists will have
far less reasons to visit your area.It is our intention to forward letters to the Freelance Star, JDC Ventures, Fredricksburg Spotsylvania National Military Park and the Civil War Preservation Trust. We would greatly appreciate a response.

Respectfully yours,

New Jersey Civil War History Association, Inc.
AKA: 14th NJ Co H


Most Respectfully
Drew Gruber