I currently live in a small subdivision where a Civil War battle occurred, May 3-4, 1863, namely the Battle of Salem Church and part of the Chancellorsville campaign. Today only an acre+ has survived for posterity. It’s a nice community but unfortunately what has been disturbed can never be retrieved!!!!

So now it goes to the Board of Supervisors on Monday with the Planning Commission’s recommendation for approval of the special use permit. Three of the five supervisors are already on record (some of them repeatedly) that they also approve of and will vote to grant the special use permit. It’s looking like a done deal at this point, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a 4-1 vote in favor of the permit from the Board.

All of this, of course, is despite the opinions expressed at the two Planning Commission public hearings, where each time the comments by Orange County residents ran about 2-1 against granting the permit. I went to both meetings and said my piece, for what little good it did. Meanwhile, I keep hearing how–based on a poll commissioned by and conducted for Wal-Mart–the Orange county residents “overwhelmingly” want to see the Wal-Mart built at the Wilderness location.

It was good to see the smugness wiped off the faces of the Wal-Mart reps for a few minutes on Thursday night when they realized that the 4-4 vote would be construed as a recommendation to deny their permit, but that victory was short-lived. At this point, the best we can hope for is that the Board will have enough sense to put some teeth into the conditions imposed on Wal-Mart by the terms of the permit so that at least some of the damage can be mitigated.