FLS Editorial Eloquent But Wrong
2009-08-05

Wal-Mart editorial: Eloquent but wrong

August 5, 2009 12:36 am

Free Lance Star

 

Your July 24 editorial ["Orange, arise"] was one of your most eloquent.

As a longtime resident of Lake of the Woods, I deeply appreciate your desire to preserve the battlefield.

I have visited every Civil War battlefield from Petersburg to Gettysburg, so I am not unaware of the value of preservation.

In the newspaper that same day, there was an aerial view of the Wilderness battlefield and the surrounding area.

During the lush summer months, the area is pristine. That photo, along with the editorial, would give readers the idea that the construction of Wal-Mart on the proposed site would completely destroy the historical and rural environment.

If I did not know the area firsthand, I might, at the editor's request, carry a sign to Orange to vehemently oppose the Wal-Mart.

In fact, at that famous intersection of State Routes 3 and 20 now stand the following: Sheetz, McDonalds, 7-Eleven, a used car lot, Divine Nails, Coffee Cafe, an ABC store, Tobacco World, Value Dollar, a Chinese restaurant, Subway, Nails/Tanning, Dance and Karate, a tailor, and a barber shop.

Eleven of these establishments are in strip malls, "little box" stores that don't have to comply with the building and landscape requirements that a "big box" such as Wal-Mart would have to.

The area near the Wilderness Battlefield upon which Wal-Mart wants to build has already been zoned commercial. Something will be built there.

I am not a huge fan of Wal-Mart, and I understand the hostility toward such giants.

But it is not a something (Wal-Mart) or nothing. It is an either-or.

We can choose between a menagerie of little boxes with no building or landscape restrictions, or a big box that has to follow the rules.

We have enough of the former. I choose the latter.

Pat Ivey

Orange

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