Orange County veterans cemetery location still up in the air

Nine months after voters scuttled the Irvine City Council’s scenario for building a veterans cemetery, supporters still can’t seem to agree on how – or where – to proceed.

Irvine city leaders are now focused on a piece of land in the Orange County Great Park that was planned to be part of a golf course – the third site suggested in the city. At the same time, state Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva said she’s backing the original site on the north end of the park, south of Irvine Boulevard and west of Portola High School.

Separately, Orange County officials are considering an open space parcel in Anaheim Hills near the 91 freeway and 241 toll road interchange for a veterans cemetery.

And now timing is important, because local officials face state and federal deadlines to request funding for a project expected to cost tens of millions of dollars.

Irvine would donate the land; preparing the property and developing at least a first phase of the veterans cemetery could run between about $40 million and $90 million, depending on the site.

The project has already been plodding along with little progress since 2014, when the Irvine City Council voted to build the county’s only official military cemetery on 125 acres of the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, on the northern border of the Great Park.

After learning the extensive site cleanup required would push the cost to as much as $90 million, officials reached a deal to swap the city’s land with developer FivePoint Holdings for a piece south of the Great Park known as the strawberry fields. But a group of residents didn’t like the switch and backed a June 2018 ballot measure that nullified the land swap.

Now the city is looking to the golf course land, but Quirk-Silva – who has pushed legislation that directs the state to create a veterans cemetery – doesn’t want to spend the time or money to study it. The state has already paid out “well over $1 million” to study the northern site and the strawberry fields, she said.

“We believe there’s support for an Orange County veterans cemetery in Irvine, but we don’t want to continue to be roaming around looking for new sites to analyze,” she said.

Quirk-Silva is back to looking at the original site, she said, acknowledging it would cost more to develop.

Irvine Councilwoman Christina Shea disagreed, saying: “Financially and for a lot of other reasons, it doesn’t make sense.”

She thinks a smaller cemetery, about 80 acres, on the golf course land is more feasible, and she may have support from some veterans.

Bill Cook, who chairs the Orange County Veterans Memorial Park Foundation, said he wishes more land was available, but his group is in favor of what Shea suggests.

The property is in the middle of the old El Toro base – and if someone had given him a map and asked where he’d want the cemetery, Cook said, “I would have put my finger right about where the golf course is.”

Several city commissions have reviewed the golf course proposal, but the council has not voted on it, and there’s still a question of where funding will come from.

The first key deadline is likely in mid-June, when state legislators are required to pass a budget bill. State officials have pledged $5 million toward the project, but it’s tied to the strawberry fields site, and Irvine city leaders were hoping for more.

That’s followed by a July due date to apply for federal cemetery grant funding. Missing that deadline would set the project back another year, Quirk-Silva said

At the same time, county officials are proceeding with handing their property over to the Orange County Cemetery District and are exploring options to create a cemetery with space for veterans.

Cook and Quirk-Silva both acknowledged the importance of moving the project forward soon so burial plots can be made available to veterans and their families.

Quirk-Silva said she’s heard from veterans around Orange County who “have said just, ‘Please, can you get this done? I want to be laid to rest there.’”