The battle over Walmart proposed store near a Civil War battlefield in Virginia has resulted in a local government official losing his job. Bill Rolfe was an Orange County administrator, until recently, but apparently the Orange County Supervisors weren't going to tolerate any discussion of where the proposed Walmart store would be located. Just a few days ago Bill Rolfe was fired for suggesting, rather reasonably it seems, that Walmart not build across the road from a protected and important historical battlefield, but instead build slightly farther away.

It seems pretty strange that the County Supervisors would make such a drastic move. After all, it's not as if Mr. Rolfe was the only one to suggest that Walmart build in a different location. In fact there has been a huge group demanding this change including conservationists, local residents, historians, activists, actors, elected officials and more.

That the Orange County Supervisors would resort to firing an employee simply for offering a different opinion is a shame, and we're not the only ones who think so. Check out these articles from the local Free Lance Star and US News & World Report calling out the supervisors, even suggesting that, "come the next election, Orange County voters should fire them."

From US News & World Report:

A few weeks back, I wrote about the ongoing controversy in Orange County, Va., where Wal-Mart wants to build a "supercenter" shopping mall on the ground where the Union and Confederate armies clashed in the battle of the Wilderness during the Civil War. Here is a disheartening update: A courageous and wise public official has been fired for suggesting that Wal-Mart choose a different site.

Wal-Mart needs a special permit to build its big box, with its flock of accompanying stores. When the Orange County planning commission held a public hearing on the permit, two thirds in the audience said sure, they would like to have a Wal-Mart in the county—but why does it have to be built on the battlefield?

County Administrator Bill Rolfe, who had "worked hard for two years to clear the bureaucratic thicket for Wal-Mart," according to the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, was impressed by the citizenry's logic. And he was moved by commentaries written in the newspaper by local residents who had fought a similar fight with Wal-Mart back in the 1990s—when it wanted to build a store next to George Washington's boyhood home in Stafford County, Va. In that case, the county officials persuaded Wal-Mart to build on different land, and everyone was happy. The Wal-Mart property was improved, and added to the tax rolls; the preservationists protected Washington's home, and the local economy continued to prosper as tourists came to see where George chopped down the cherry tree.

Rolfe's level-headed suggestion did not, unfortunately, persuade a majority of the Orange County board. Instead, after a closed session on Friday night, in the middle of the Fourth of July weekend, they fired him.