Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/nick-berardino/)
The California Department of Veterans Affairs told local officials it would be examining two sites in Irvine, choosing to pass over the city’s decision and make their own choice.
Nick Berardino, Vietnam Combat Veteran and President of VALOR (Veterans Alliance of Orange County) writes that the Irvine City Council is violating the spirit of Voting Rights Act.
The state senate’s Veteran Affairs chair is looking to examine multiple sites for the cemetery weeks after the Irvine City Council chose a location.
The Irvine council approved the initiative without sending it to the ballot and can now search for funding, but the city attorney raised concerns that the initiative is not binding.
Nick Berardino, president of VALOR (Veterans Alliance of Orange County) appeals to Irvine city council members to include two sites for a Veterans’ Cemetery on the upcoming November ballot. The two sites are commonly referred to as, respectively, the “ARDA Site” and the “The Golf Course Site.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva’s bill allowing a cemetery to be built on one of two sites in Irvine, which could ultimately be decided by Irvine voters if a citywide ballot initiative is successful.
Nick Berardino, a former general manager with the Orange County Employees Association and OC fair board member, reflects on a decade of muckraking by the journalists at Voice of OC.
The county is transferring property on the eastern edge of Anaheim for potential development as a veterans and civilian cemetery. Supervisors clashed over whether it would let Irvine “off the hook” for a proposed veterans cemetery at the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro.
The location of Orange County’s first veterans cemetery remains unclear after the Irvine City Council directed staff to identify a site in or around the Great Park and put the project through the planning process. Councilman Jeff Lalloway brought a motion Tuesday night to reinstate original cemetery site near the heart of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, adjacent to the Great Park. But, before it could go to a vote, Mayor Don Wagner introduced a substitute motion that directs different commissions and city staff to start studying the original site and explore other city-owned land. “Give me a site,” Wagner told Voice of OC after the meeting. “You tell me where it can be … is it a golf course (that’s slated to be built in the Great Park)?
Orange County’s first veterans cemetery could be built next to the 91 freeway and 241 toll road in Anaheim Hills, after county supervisors, in a public meeting Tuesday, directed staff to begin studying the roughly 290 acres of county land.