Last night, the Council majority made it clear that they do not intend to honor the citizens’ Initiative and subsequent Ordinance declaring the “ARDA” site at the Great Park as the exclusive location of Irvine’s future Veterans Memorial Park and Cemetery. Instead, Mayor Khan and Councilmembers Carroll, Kim, and Kuo either stated or implied they will defer to CalVet’s recommendation on the matter of site selection. Only Councilmember Agran expressed unequivocal support for the citizen-selected ARDA site.

The positions were taken in the wake of a presentation by CalVet who provided a report to Council on their timeline for completing a state-mandated study of the “Golf Course” and ARDA sites. CalVet explained that the purpose of the study is to make a recommendation to the City as to which site the State prefers, but the final decision as to which site the City chooses to offer to the State rests 100% with the City.

In response to this presentation, Councilmember Mike Carroll asked the Mayor and Councilmembers how they will respond to CalVet’s recommendation. Here are their responses:

• Councilmember Mike Carroll: “I’m Councilmember Mike Carroll and no matter the site that CalVet decides is the preferential site, I will be supporting that site.”

• Councilmember Larry Agran: “I support building the Veterans Memorial Park and Cemetery at the site that the people of the City of Irvine have decided it will be at. That is the ARDA site. It is not the state of California that selects the site. It is the people of the City of Irvine.”

• Councilmember Tammy Kim: “I too will support what Calvet decides. This is a state cemetery. We will give the land. I want to, again, do what makes the best sense for this city as a steward of this city, while making sure that the veterans can get what they need and what they want, which is a cemetery. I have a lot of veterans saying they want a cemetery and they want it quickly, so I will support what Calvet decides.”

• Councilmember Anthony Kuo: “I hate to give a non-answer answer, but this is an issue that I have been very clear about with my three positions which are: I believe that we should have a veterans cemetery in Irvine; I believe it should be at the former Marine Station, El Toro; I don’t know why we are still fighting about this. I hope to wait for this study because as we talked about during my turn for questions the study is paid for, it’s almost done, and the project is not shovel ready, so it’s not like anything can happen before May.”

• Mayor Farrah Khan: “There is a process in place that we have been following, we are very excited that we have come to a place where we will have our numbers before us, come May, and I think that’s when we have to make that decision. We need to know exactly what we’re getting into, and that’s important not only for us but our entire city and our residents.”

The results of the CalVet study will be provided to the City Council in May 2021.

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