ENTERPRISE — The saga of Dollar General’s establishing a store in Wallowa continued Wednesday, March 6, when the Wallowa County Board of Commissioners approved a request for an easement for the store to have access from Frontage Road.

The store, scheduled to open in April, sits at the corner of Frontage Road and Highway 82 just outside the Wallowa city limits.

But the very presence of a chain store such as Dollar General has prompted hostility from county residents who don’t want such a franchise here.

According to Wallowa Mayor Gary Hulse, it appears to be about a 50-50 split between those who oppose Dollar General and those who approve it.

Opponents speak

Wednesday’s meeting saw two of the most serious opponents to Dollar General address the commissioners. Sweyn Wall of Wallowa, who leads a group of county residents who have appealed the Planning Department’s approval of permission for Dollar General to build on the outskirts o Wallowa, said the company that owns the store predicts about 677 vehicles a day coming into it. He’s basing his opposition on the traffic problems he predicts.

“There aren’t any public turnarounds beyond that point, so we’re pretty concerned about those ripple effects on the area and we’d like you to consider asking Dollar General to exhaust their options with direct access onto Highway 82 before considering driveway access onto Frontage (Road) and all of those effects,” Wall told the commissioners. “I understand they’re offering to pave a section out to the road, and that does alleviate some of the alignment concerns, but if you’ve seen the way the driveway intersects the road, the traffic is coming from the north, that’s a difficult turn to make and their delivery vehicles can’t make that turn without going on into Wallowa to be able to come back and make the turn from the south, we’re going to have the same issues as with all of our visitor traffic, all the RVs, as well as oversized trucks and trailers.”

He mentioned a “Dead End” sign just beyond the store on Frontage Road that leads traffic to slow down.

“That’s a single-lane road and I’m concerned about safety for our kids and the bike-riding that they’re doing. … I don’t think that this road is appropriately designed for that level of traffic,” he said. “We have an option for ODOT (Oregon Department of Transportation) to consider a direct access (from Highway 82). It seems like that would be the prudent approach. … As a county, we need to provide access. I’m not asking that you not provide access.”

Commission Chairman Todd Nash agreed to consider other options.

“The thing about paving that portion of it is that it doesn’t preclude exploring other options, as well,” Nash said. “So it’s not one or the other. … It becomes an ODOT decision on (access from Highway 82.)”

Commissioner Susan Roberts addressed another issue Wall mentioned — that the corner of Frontage Road and Highway 82 is a regular school bus stop.

“We’ll also consider asking that they allow the school bus to come in for their unload and offload,” she said.

Lostine resident Michael Eng also is in Wall’s camp and urged the commissioners to postpone any decision on the easement.

“If paving the access is approved, it would create momentum to develop Dollar General and access to their parking lot through Frontage Road,” Eng said. “I think that you need to look at the big picture and it would be great to … and ask for some analysis from someone neutral — an analysis for safety considerations.

He described the difficulty in making the turn from the highway onto Frontage Road and then into the store’s driveway.

“Anyone driving that can see if you’re coming from the north from Interstate 84, like all the delivery trucks will be doing, there is no way you can safely make a right-hand turn onto a 35-degree angle from the road,” he said. “They don’t address this in their traffic-impact assessment. Essentially, they’re saying, we’re going to drive right past that, go into Wallowa, make some kind of loop through Wallowa, come back and approach it from the south, because then it’s a more approachable angle to get in.”

Eng also noted that there are already numerous large vehicles such as recreational vehicles, horse trailers and logging trucks in the area that Dollar General delivery trucks would have to contend with.

Other options

As Nash said earlier, approving the access to Frontage Road did not preclude a similar access to Highway 82, it’s just that the latter must get approval of ODOT. Roberts, he said, is the chair of the North East Area Commission on Transportation that was going to meet Thursday and she planned to bring the issue up then.

Regarding the appeals to the Planning Department’s approval of Dollar General’s building permit, the county Planning Commission agreed at its Jan. 30 meeting to not close testimony and set a schedule where more testimony and rebuttal could be accepted Feb. 20, Feb. 27 and March 5. The commission plans to deliberate and possibly make a decision on the appeals at 7 p.m. March 26 at the courthouse. No further testimony will be accepted at that time.