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BREAKING: The Irvine City Council has voted unanimously to donate a 125-acre parcel in the Great Park to the State of California to construct a long-awaited Veterans Cemetery. And if you see these guys there, they’ll be celebrating.
(Greg here — borrowing Tyler in Irvine’s story and renaming author as Admin. Hope he doesn’t mind!)
OCVMP members (left to right) Robert Brower, Gil Flores, Richard Ramirez, Bill Cook, Zeke Hernandez, and Louie Quezada fall for the old “I’m done taking photos now, you can relax” trick. In fighting for a veterans cemetery, though, they never led down their guard.
This was not supposed to happen. The OCVMP was more or less promised at various points that their struggle — in Bill Cook’s case, one that began back in 1999 — was valiant but futile, because you just don’t get past determined developers like Five Point, which was dead set against setting the dead near their new homes. But you pack a room with enough veterans and most any City Councilmember will listen to them.
OJB’s correspondent on the scene, “Valery Forge,” reports that Jeff Lalloway committed to support the resolution fairly early on. Christine Shea and Steven Choi have been expressing concern — I am toning down the verb used in the original report — about environmental cleanup on the site. She is particularly … expressive … about the special committee (which ended up never giving a report) never reporting back on the cleanup. City Staff has patiently explained that it’s the federal government’s responsibility either way.
Original story by Tyler in Irvine:
Orange County Veterans started gathering at Irvine City Hall on Tuesday afternoon, even though the public comment period will be after 6:30 pm.
I believe these four gentleman represent all four service branches.
Overflow seating for the expected large turnout.
I can’t make tonight’s meeting, but I already spoke in support of a Veteran’s Cemetery for the Great Park at the March 11th meeting. I encourage you to come to Irvine tonight and support our veterans. As Allan Bartlett pointed out, it’s inspiring to see so many men and women continuing to serve the greater good even after they’ve completed their “Service.”
I would expect the veterans to start addressing the council for an hour or more starting around 7 pm, but this can vary a lot.
*That Greatest Generation better start to Dig Deep!
Thanks for the prompt update and for making my original post current.
My pleasure — and extremely so.
So… COOL! Good work everybody, and thanks to the whole council. NOW WHAT’S NEXT?
Let’s take over the Water Boards!
Meanwhile, in Anaheim…..well, you’ll find out.
*The Colonists? Nah……those Fullerton Indians need the rehab! And their water boards too….of course!
If this issue moved you… I am going to need you to do this: 1) go to Voice of OC and read the article by the NEW member of their Ed board Dr. Richard Ramirez, 2) then read it to a 29 year old veteran who is homeless with PTSD, and 3) then sit in a corner and think about what you did!
FIRST, take care of vets while their alive.
Shame on you SQS, shame, shame, shame! ugh!
DSL, lotsa people who never gave a damn about a veteran before climbed onto this bandwagon.
Really, David? Name some.
OK I went and read that. I don’t get it. I looked for anything in that piece about how Veterans Affair chair SQS has been neglecting living veterans. Didn’t see nothing. What’s all this shame shame shame ugh about? You wanna elaborate?
Daniel: what?
Starting from the bottom, here’s a quick test: what steps has Sharon Quirk-Silva taken as Chair of the Vets Committee to “take care of vets while they’re alive”? Do you know? And, if you don’t know, why on earth are you trying to shame her for (you apparently think) doing nothing?
By the way, when’s the last time you read anything to a 29-year-old homeless veteran with PTSD?
Let’s just get this in writing, if the cemetery turns out to be a flop (highly likely) and Larry Agran ends up just swooping in on development dollars, I want you all to buy me dinner.
And it is desensitizing! Y’all think that you are so smart, and that you are the only ones who see through this emotional mumbo-jumbo. But you, we, are not; most people see it for what it is, get grossed out, and give up on politics. Or they just assume its BS because everything else they have heard is BS.
And Greg, what I do, or don’t do, has no bearing on my argument. That is what I am talking about… How do we compel people to reason if we ditch that top half of our brain every time it is politically advisable.
Bravery is contagious, so be brave!
BTW, I saw SQS this morning at Los Amigos. She turned her back on me when I asked the question about spending priorities in veteran services. I was way, WAY, harder on Tom Daly and he, to his credit, engaged. She is rude.
DSL what you encountered was the schoolmarm dealing with an unruly child. There is no democracy in a third grade classroom.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=marm
OK — and if it’s not a flop, I want you to buy all of us dinner. Fair is fair.
It won’t be a flop. The Senate will pass it, the Governor will sign it, and the design and construction will be overseen by (as I recall) both the state and the Feds, so there will be no swooping.
Your middle three paragraphs are not registering with me.
Sharon does know how to control a room. Daly’s not facing any competitive race this year, so why should he care to?
I hope that it succeeds. I bet some more hurdles will pop up.
Well, she should have been polite. I am trying to do the right thing, and my activism has brought me nothing but poverty, isolation, and worry. Great example team!
*Yep, we can call it “Pick a Plot”……..and start with oldest soldiers, sailors and marines….oh – an Airmen of course first. Give them five years be buried there or turn it over to the next guy on the list.
Question: Who has access to edit my posts?
I ask because I signed on just now and found a new, more inflammatory, photo added, and changes in the text. Changes that constitute errors.
Which post are you talking about? If it’s “Monument to Waste,” I don’t think that I’ve touched it.
I do and Vern does. The main reason I’ll add a photo is if someone didn’t put up something in a way that it gets included in our “top stories” roster, which requires more than a cut-and-paste from the web.
Wow, way to care about veterans after they’re dead.
You know what is REALLY annoying?!?! Hardly anyone gave the OC Supervisors credit for doing something that will really help vets. Once final, OC’s first year-around homeless shelter will be a truly monumental achievement. If anyone is keeping score, unseemly as it is, the party of government, waste, and abuse is not working for our vets.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/22/homeless-veterans-sketches_n_5609749.html?ir=Impact
(Speaking of government waste) Just to point out what will become obvious: if that homeless shelter in Santa Ana ever gets built it will cost three times what it needed to – and that will have fed a whole bunch of people.
For the Supervisors a homeless shelter has always just been a vanity project; unfortunately there was no competent staff oversight. Which was why the Fullerton proposal was so ludicrous and the SA shelter rehab is projected to cost $2.3 million – an astonishing $1000 per square foot.
And you’ll notice it’s far away from all those sensitive noses in Building 10.
*Yeah, goes to show even a broken clock is right twice a day. Yep David, another Real Estate boondoggle. It goes like this: The Property is $3.2 million dollars and the annual upkeep is $3.6 million dollars and it houses 200 transit guests who will be unceremoniously dumped out of there to make room for the next 200 with 30 days…..is our guess. So, how many MRE’s and bandages could you buy for $3.6 million dollars a year and how many people could be fed throughout the year. Current guess-ta-ments are that “The Greater OC” has about 12,000 homeless citizens, most without cell phones and too many with Shopping Carts.
Generally, it’s Democrats that have favored increasing homeless services. If you must make this partisan, and I don’t recommend that you do, take a look at who was voted for, and who has blocked, veterans’ services bills in DC.
Are caring before they’re dead and after their dead mutually exclusive?
I see this as a matter of keeping commitments to veterans, of which this was one. If a country can’t keep its commitments to veterans, it should strive not to create more of them.
*Dr. D., excellent comment and spot on. One final thought you might wish to reprise: What ever happened to a Veteran’s Home in Orange and SD Counties? If they have them….they are the best kept secret we have ever heard of …….