The Orange County Board of Supervisors voted early this morning in favor of a long-debated Wal-Mart store near the Wilderness battlefield. A special-use permit was approved 4-1 just before 1 a.m.

As about 400 people crowded the Orange County High School Auditorium last night, more than 80 speakers took turns at the microphone to talk about a proposed Wal-Mart store near a Civil War battlefield. Most identified themselves as local residents, and most favored building the store. The five members of the county Board of Supervisors sat mostly silent on stage at the public hearing, after which they were to vote on whether to allow the store to be built near the battlefield.

The Chesterfield County Planning Commission rejected proposed new rules for electronic signs last night. A key issue is how quickly the signs are allowed to change messages. The commission’s vote leaves in place the current practice of considering such signs on a case-by-case basis. But the commission also voted to try to come up with a new policy on such signs so that the county has a standardized approach to the devices.

When Ken Germain thought about expanding Ken’s Cycle Center on Nine Mile Road, the logical place to build was an alley used as his driveway. A year and a half later, with the economy collapsed to the point that he doesn’t want to expand right now, he finally has the rezoning approved by the Henrico County Planning Commission. The Board of Supervisors will vote on it in August.

There’s a photograph I took on Osborne Turnpike, southeast of the city. It was early and the low sun gilded the fur of a fox lying dead on the shoulder of the road. Behind the creature spread a 40-acre field that I’ve passed every day for a decade. The land used to spend half the year covered in corn, the other half in flocks of gleaning geese. On the day of the picture it was bare orange clay crisscrossed by backhoe tracks. Today it is crowded with dozens of houses and wide paved roads.