Seek compromise at battle site

A modern-day battle at the Wilderness just got considerably wilder.

For months, a large group of historians - including best-selling authors David M. McCullough and James McPherson - has been urging Wal-Mart to reconsider plans to build a store less than a mile from a national park commemorating the 1864 Battle of the Wilderness.

Now, as the Orange County Board of Supervisors nears a decision on the project west of Fredericksburg, some unusual troop maneuvers are taking place. The tactical strategy is rife for second-guessing.

After a closed meeting July 3, the board voted 3-2 to fire County Administrator Bill Rolfe. The timing was interesting, to say the least. Rolfe, an Old Dominion University grad who grew up in Portsmouth, had recently sent board members an e-mail suggesting they seek a compromise.

"The question that begs to be asked is, 'Why isn't the county trying to broker a deal that keeps Wal-Mart in the county and moves it further from the congressionally approved boundary line of the Wilderness Battlefield?' Both would be in our best interest," Rolfe wrote to the board June 15, according to The (Fredericksburg) Free Lance-Star.

Rolfe's critics on the board objected to his recommendation of a specific site nearby for the Wal-Mart. They said other, unspecified matters also played a role in his dismissal.

Some preservationists disliked the details of Rolfe's e-mail, too. They say the site he pitched is still too close to the park.

But Rolfe's general call for a compromise was certainly reasonable - one, in fact, that Wal-Mart accepted in the mid-1990s to end a fight over plans for a store next to George Washington's boyhood home at Ferry Farm, on the outskirts of Fredericksburg.

Orange officials would be wise to remember that bit of recent history, as well as more distant history, before they rush to approve a project that would do lasting damage to the county's tourism appeal - and to a national landmark. All the combatants involved need to find a solution that protects property rights as well as the battlefield.