Thanks, Jon Kukla, for posting this information. The Civil War Preservation 
Trust has good reasons to be careful about how it lists Fort Monroe. This 
very morning, for example, CWPT has Gov. Kaine keynoting a press conference 
near Fredericksburg concerning battlefield preservation. Gov. Kaine, of 
course, is principally responsible, more than anybody in Virginia or the 
Pentagon, for the envisioned mediocritization of Fort Monroe. If those in 
favor of financially unnecessary overdevelopment do win out, and if Fort 
Monroe really does become McFort Monroe, it will be largely thanks to 
Governor Kaine's leadership, or lack of it. But Gov. Kaine in other contexts 
is genuinely a preservationist, not only of historic lands but of green 
space. So it's no surprise that the CWPT would phrase things very cautiously 
this year. A clearer picture of things can be seen, in my view, in this 
timeline:

October 2006: Civil War Preservation Trust resolution calls for a 
sustainable national park at Fort Monroe encompassing all of Old Point 
Comfort (http://www.cfmnp.org/pdfs/1014040630.pdf)

February 2007: Gov. Kaine's Hampton-dominated approach to planning post-Army 
Fort Monroe wins out in the General Assembly, ensuring that there will be a 
Fort Monroe reuse plan heavy on development that is financially unnecessary 
for Fort Monroe's self-sustenance, and light on establishing appropriately 
high-level stewardship for this national treasure.

March 2007: CWPT lists Fort Monroe "at risk" for the first time, saying 
"This important Union base, the scene of the battle between the Monitor and 
Merrimac and a refuge for freed slaves, is slated for closure as a result of 
the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure report. Local preservationists are 
determined to save it from development." (Note that this is much stronger 
language than the Civil War Preservation Trust has been willing to use in 
2009.)

March 2008: CWPT lists Fort Monroe "at risk" for the second time.

May 2008: Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park (CFMNP.org) offers 
criticism of the Fort Monroe reuse plan 
(http://www.cfmnp.org/comments_on_the_reuse_plan.htm) while noting that it 
does contain some codification of the good things that everybody has agreed 
on all along.

August 2008: Gov. Kaine officially approves Fort Monroe reuse plan.

March 18, 2009: CWPT lists Fort Monroe "at risk" for the third straight 
year.

March 24, 2009: Gov. Kaine serves as keynote speaker at a CWPT news 
conference to promote battlefield preservation in Virginia. 

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