Veterans Cemetery coming to Irvine

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Irvine?s tried for years to build a veterans cemetery, will it support a new location?
https://www.ocregister.com/2021/10/...rans-cemetery-will-it-support-a-new-location/

After years of discussion and political battles that stalled progress, every city council in the county but one has passed a resolution backing construction of a veterans cemetery on a county-owned site in Anaheim Hills. Now in what is likely the most symbolic vote, the last council to decide on whether to offer its support will be Irvine, where three different cemetery sites have been proposed and two ballot measures failed to get shovels in the ground.

Irvine officials will take up the issue Tuesday, at the request of council members Tammy Kim and Michael Carroll.

The key disagreement in Irvine has been whether to build on a property referred to as ARDA on the northern edge of the Great Park or somewhere else in the city. While the debate dragged on, Kim said, ?houses were built and life continued and people started moving into the Great Park ? and where we?re at today is a very bad situation for both the residents and veterans who want a quiet, serene resting place? that?s not in the middle of a neighborhood.

That wouldn?t be a problem at the location proposed in Anaheim Hills, which is in Gypsum Canyon next to the 91 freeway and has no immediate neighbors. It?s property that was once planned for homes, but instead was gifted to the county for open space by the Irvine Co. in 2014. County leaders later decided it was a good place for a much-needed public cemetery.

County staff are working with Anaheim to rezone the roughly 260 acres (half for veterans, half for civilians) for cemetery use and to complete the necessary environmental review. They?ll also need state legislation to formally designate the site as a veterans cemetery and request a study by the state veterans affairs department, known as CalVet, which would operate the cemetery once it?s built. ?We just need to wait for the legislature to return to session and get the change that?s necessary? to push the veterans cemetery project along, said OC District 3 Supervisor Don Wagner, a former Irvine mayor. About $24 million in state funding has been set aside for a veterans cemetery, and the county has pledged $20 million, but more funding will be needed.

While a sizable coalition of local leaders, as well as veterans groups and OC state and federal legislators, has coalesced behind the Gypsum Canyon site, they?ll face an obstacle Tuesday: a group of Irvine residents and OC veterans who still believe the ARDA site is the best and only place for the cemetery. That view is shared by Irvine Councilman Larry Agran, who helped spearhead the two ballot measures intended to ensure ARDA would be the chosen location. ?The efforts have only moved on to other sites because the prevailing council majority now has chosen to defy the will of the people and has refused to move forward with construction? at ARDA, Agran said Friday. Asked why so many council members from around the county voted in support of a different site, Agran said it?s because they weren?t given a choice. He also suggested the Anaheim Hills property is ?unworkable? and ?unaffordable,? in part because he believes it will be found to be geologically unstable and at risk of landslides.

County real estate staff said so far they?ve found no evidence of geologic concerns. Wagner said none of the local officials he spoke with asked about other site options and added, ?it?s not exactly like the opportunity to put it in Irvine on the ARDA site is news to anybody.?

Nick Berardino, a Vietnam War veteran and head of a veterans group that?s been lobbying for an OC cemetery, said the support that?s already been marshaled ? which he hopes Irvine will join ? shows it?s a regional and not a city issue. ?What it says is that the people of Orange County and their elected representatives are 100% behind veterans finally getting a respectful and dignified place to rest,? he said.

The Irvine City Council meets at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 26, at 1 City Center Plaza, Irvine. The meeting can be viewed on the city website.
 
https://www.ocregister.com/2021/10/...n-on-trying-to-build-veterans-cemetery-in-oc/

"On Tuesday night, a majority of the Irvine City Council voted to join the county?s other 33 cities in supporting a location in Gypsum Canyon, where county officials propose putting civilian and military cemeteries side by side.

The vote was 4 to 1, with the opposition coming from Councilman Larry Agran, a longtime champion of a proposed site on the northern edge of Irvine?s Great Park."
 
Not neccessary, there are tons of developments going on right now in Irvine that will bring CASH and TAX to the city. This is what motivate policies maker. When the projections of projected tax revevues, generate you bet it get approval faster than lightning.

Residential properties, this is obvious. Then you have entertainments and advendtures parks. Next, shops and dinning. Business parks. All of these are happenning concurrently. So decisions is not slowing in term of developments that generate big bucks.
 
Kangen.Irvine said:
As Irvine grows, it appears politics will slow any type of decision making?sad day.

I'm not surprised by this outcome. Most of the Irvine politicians never wanted a cemetery. They knew if they could delay long enough, it would die. There was too much money and votes at stake.
 
The City of Irvine is starting the tarmac removal process at the ARDA site to make way for the Veterans Memorial Park & Gardens project at the Great Park.

Out of an abundance of caution to avoid disrupting students and staff at Cadence Park School, demolition work has been purposefully planned to occur when school is out of session. Residents can expect to experience noise and ground vibration while construction crews remove the 12-inch-thick concrete tarmac.

Demolition work is expected to last through mid-August and will only occur during permitted work hours, 7 a.m.–7 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m.–6 p.m. Saturdays. No work will occur outside of these hours, nor on Sundays and holidays.
 
Agran is attempting to bring back the Veterans Cemetery. City resources have been spent on a 'report' to be presented Tuesday 5/28/2024 at the Great Park Board meeting.
fishwrapper-may-2024.jpg
 
Waste of tax dollars to generate a report for a cemetary that will never come to Irvine. The State and County have moved on and support the Anaheim Hills site.
 

Irvine officials discussed this week a nearly $60,000 technical review — funded by the city — of a proposed veterans cemetery in Gypsum Canyon in Anaheim Hills — a cemetery that will ultimately be financed largely by the state.

The discussion left some Irvine residents and Councilmember Tammy Kim questioning why Irvine paid for a review of a project happening miles away.
 

Irvine officials discussed this week a nearly $60,000 technical review — funded by the city — of a proposed veterans cemetery in Gypsum Canyon in Anaheim Hills — a cemetery that will ultimately be financed largely by the state.

The discussion left some Irvine residents and Councilmember Tammy Kim questioning why Irvine paid for a review of a project happening miles away.
Our government is spending 1 TRILLION every 100 days, are you or anyone really care 60K spent?

Really?
 
The cemetary belonged at the Great Park/ETMCAS and it’s a shame voters were uneducated with the petition years ago. It’s not worth going back and the 91 freeway location will be beautiful. Voting ignorance will always be a problem and that’s why people must watch “Rocco the Vote.”
 
Thank you HARVEY LISS for continuing the fight for a cemetery on the ARDA!

(Tribune News Service) — A group seeking to block a veterans cemetery from being built in Anaheim Hills’ Gypsum Canyon has filed a lawsuit against the city, hoping to instead get a veterans burial ground in Irvine, where years of efforts to locate one failed to come to fruition.
The lawsuit filed Aug. 21 demands the rollback of approvals the Anaheim City Council granted the cemetery project in July. The lawsuit argues the city never presented “a realistic range of alternatives to cemetery development” at the Gypsum Canyon site and failed to comply with state environmental law.
HARVEY LISS, an Irvine resident who filed the lawsuit and heads the group Build the Great Park Veterans Cemetery, said the best place to put the veterans cemetery would be in Irvine. “We’d like to put off the activity toward building a veterans cemetery at Gypsum Canyon,” HARVEY LISS said. “If the city of Anaheim is required to file a new (environmental impact report), that could put this off substantially, hopefully until we get the veterans cemetery back in Irvine.”
Mayor Ashleigh Aitken said in a statement that the time to talk about having a veterans cemetery elsewhere has passed and the city stands by its actions. “Our veterans deserve better than this,” Aitken said in a statement. “A cemetery in Anaheim has widespread support from police, firefighters, veterans and Orange County residents. A veterans cemetery in Anaheim reflects our city’s values, which are America’s values. We are honoring those who gave all for us. To delay our veterans the dignity of a final resting place is not an option.”
The approved cemetery sets in motion a plan to split a 283-acre plot of land in the Anaheim Hills into two cemeteries, one for the general public and one for veterans.
There were years of discussions and studies to develop a veterans cemetery in Irvine, but its advocates moved on after no single site could get universal support.
Nick Berardino, a Marine Corps veteran and president of the Veterans Alliance of Orange County, VALOR, which has pushed for the veterans cemetery, said, “We are extremely confident that the lawsuit will be resolved in our favor, but most importantly it will not stop or slow down the construction process.” Berardino called the lawsuit politically motivated.
Orange County is the largest county in the state without a dedicated veterans cemetery. CalVet recently submitted a federal grant application for more funding for the veterans cemetery. The project has secured $50 million of the $126 million needed to build its first phase, though that estimate is without savings expected from the two cemeteries sharing some development costs.
The county is running low on casket burial plots stressing the need to get the public cemetery built in the coming years. The public cemetery will be the first new one since the El Toro Memorial Park opened in 1896. The public cemetery could open as early as 2027. There has been no timeline set yet for when the veterans cemetery would open. Orange County Cemetery District General Manager Tim Deutsch, who’s named in the lawsuit as a defendant along with the city, declined to comment, saying the agency is still reviewing the lawsuit.
Read more at: https://www.stripes.com/.../lawsuit-blocks-veterans...
Source - Stars and Stripes
 
It's hard to keep track of all the history on this.. but is the latest that:
- Anaheim wants the cemetery
- Irvine does not want the cemetary
- Some Irvine residents want the cemetery in Irvine and are blocking Anaheim in the hopes of convincing Irvine to change their minds?
 
Aren’t Harvey Liss and Larry Agran connected to the previous Irvine measure that prevented the cemetery from being built on the land adjacent to the El Toro “y”?
 
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