Honoring vets and their service

  • By Oscar Halpert Enterprise editor
  • Tuesday, June 2, 2009 10:00pm

When Chuck Wright knocked on doors during his 2007 City Council campaign, he says military veterans asked him a simple question that made him think.

“They said ‘why don’t we have a monument here?’” Wright said. “They said ‘if you get elected, will you do something?’”

Wright lost his bid for a seat on the council but pushed forward as a friendly agitator in an effort to bring a veterans memorial to Mill Creek.

By Veterans Day 2009 — Nov. 11 — if all goes according to plan, the city’s first memorial to veterans will open at Library Park.

“It’s generally a central location,” said Public Works director Tom Gathmann, who will direct construction of the new memorial.

The council’s Arts and Beatification Board visited the site in April and selected it as the best place for a memorial, especially because the library’s closed on holidays, when veterans related events are most likely to take place, Gathmann said.

“It has the advantage, of course, of being downtown and already having a bit of a stage there where children’s events are staged during the summer,” said Tim Masterson, a liaison to the Arts and Beautification Board from the city’s Parks and Recreation Board.

After viewing several sites, board members decided on a veterans memorial with a flag pole on a raised base or monument that will include plaques or emblems for each of the five military services — Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

“My guess is that it’s going to be circular and somewhere between 12 and 20 feet in diameter, with the ability to (be expanded)” Gathmann said.

A construction contract hasn’t been approved but the council was expected to vote on a final design this month.

Wright twice urged the council in 2008 to back a new veterans memorial and worked with the Arts and Beautification Board, encouraging them to look at other memorial sites for comparison.

“They wanted it more in the corner,” Wright said. “I said it needs to be more in the path of the sidewalk, so people don’t have to walk over to it.”

Wright said the memorial will likely fly an American flag plus a flag for vets missing in action. Paver bricks will also be available for purchase, likely as part of a name sponsorship program similar to the one Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1040 has in place at Veterans Memorial Park in Lynnwood.

Wright said Councilwoman Donna Michelson told him she was “quite moved by what I had to say.”

On December 9, the council, acting on a motion by Michelson, directed the Arts and Beautification Board to find a site and create a design for the memorial.

Councilwoman Mary Kay Voss, liaison to the Arts and Beautification Board, said the brick sponsorship program adds an important dimension to the memorial.

“With memorial bricks, as the Little League did at the sports park, you can memorialize a veteran in your family,” she said. “That we, we’ll get more community involved in it and ownership than just the city pouring money in.”

The board, which has a Municipal Art Fund budget for projects, will pay for the veterans memorial after it gets the council OK.

Over the summer, the city will improve drainage at the site, Masterson said.

“I think this memorial as well as the (veterans) parade will begin to make this a focus for the community,” he said.

Wright said he’s happy to see the project moving ahead.

“All politicians support veterans, but they do it verbally,” Wright said. “It just took someone to come forward and say ‘let’s stop the verbal stuff. Let’s make a monument.’”

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