Orange County board postpones hearing on Wilderness Wal-Mart

ORANGE -- Supporters and opponents of a Wal-Mart planned for a site near a Civil War battlefield learned yesterday that they have at least three more weeks to prepare their arguments.

About three hours before the scheduled beginning of a public hearing to discuss the proposal, the Orange County Board of Supervisors called off the meeting after discovering that an earlier hearing conducted by the Planning Commission may have occurred illegally.

The June 25 hearing, which included public comment and a vote on Wal-Mart's request for a special-use permit to build a 133,481-square-foot store by the Wilderness Battlefield, went on as scheduled despite the fact that it wasn't properly advertised.

Under state law, such meetings need to be advertised twice. County officials say they placed orders for ads in consecutive weeks in a local newspaper but that the second ad did not run. The mistake was discovered yesterday, said Lee Frame, chairman of the Board of Supervisors.

"It was an honest mistake, and one we hope to fix as soon as possible," he said.

He said rescheduling the meeting will be discussed during tonight's regular meeting. Because the local weekly newspaper's ad deadline is also Tuesday, he said, placing the ad couldn't happen before next week.

"We're sitting around with egg on our face," Supervisor Zack Burkett said. "But I don't think anyone did it intentionally."

The hearing was expected to draw a large crowd, including contingents from out-of-town Civil War and historicpreservation groups opposed to the store's construction. The sentiment in the county has been more benign.

"You can't fight progress," said Conway Faulconer, the third-generation owner of Faulconer's Hardware in the town of Orange, 23 miles from the proposed Wal-Mart site.

She said the store would siphon business but that she isn't worried.

"I just don't want it in town," she said.

Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or .