Plans for a veterans cemetery in Irvine are shut down yet again

Irvine leaders this week rejected yet another plan for a veterans cemetery at the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro.

On Tuesday evening, the City Council chambers was packed with residents, veterans and others who wore coordinated shirts to signify which side they were on. A wave of sky blue shirts emphatically declared their support for a veterans cemetery in the Great Park area of the city. But they were up against a wall of orange shirts unwavering in its opposition.

And just after the clock struck midnight, the majority of the council rejected a request by Mayor Larry Agran to revive the debate.

Here's the backstory

Orange County is home to an estimated 130,000 veterans. The nearest cemetery dedicated to military personnel is the Riverside National Cemetery located more than 40 miles away.

Talk of building a veterans cemetery in Orange County goes back over a decade and includes AB 1453, a bill calling on the state to build and maintain a resting place for veterans in the area. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation to bring an Orange County cemetery to fruition.

But efforts to build it at the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro stalled again and again due to debates over politics, a property developer, site options and ballot measures. Fed-up veterans finally took their plans to Anaheim’s Gypsum Canyon.

That location quickly won support from city, county, state and federal leaders.

Construction at the Anaheim site is set to begin in 2026.

What's the conflict?

Everyone agrees that Orange County needs a veterans cemetery. The debate centers around where it should go.

Agran remains unconvinced the veteran’s cemetery will materialize in Anaheim.

“ I want to level with you. It ain't gonna happen at Gypsum Canyon. I'll tell you why. There is no money for it. None,” he said Tuesday night.

But Orange County Supervisors Don Wagner and Katrina Foley — typically on the opposite end of the voting spectrum — put on a united front at the Irvine council meeting this week to reiterate that they have secured funding and the Anaheim site is a go.

What the debate is really about

For veterans in Irvine, the cemetery represents a broken promise.

And a city’s changing demographics.

When the marine base was shuttered back 1999, the population of the city was just over 130,000 and the Great Park idea was nonexistent. Irvine was talking about the Millennium Plan and the county wanted an airport in the space.

For veterans and their families, however, the former marine base seemed like the perfect resting place where they could receive their last rites for their service to their country.

And some are still holding on to that hope. This week, their sky blue shirts carried white lettering that spelled out “Build it now.”

Some of the supporters of a veterans cemetery in Irvine turned out at the meeting wearing coordinated shirts.

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Yusra Farzan

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LAist

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What has changed?

In the years since the debate began, Irvine population has more than doubled to more than 300,000 people.

Many of those residents were drawn to the area by the $1 billion Great Park expansion plan that includes an amphitheater, retail and dining options. The site eyed for the veterans cemetery is also near an elementary school, which did not sit well with many of the young families nearby — some of them immigrants who believe living near a cemetery is bad luck.

Some children attended the meeting carrying orange balloons and said they didn’t want to go to school next to a cemetery.

Parents added that gun salutes at the nearby cemetery would normalize the sound of gunshots for young students, harming youngsters’ mental health while disrupting their school day.

Why the debate might not be over after all

So is there a possibility we will hear of the cemetery in Irvine again?

Agran isn’t shutting the door completely.

“ What do we tell the widows, the sons, the daughters who are holding the ashes of their loved one, and in some cases they've given me instructions, ‘Please, when there's a veteran cemetery here in Orange County … please see to it that my ashes are properly placed at that site,” Agran said on Tuesday.

He said he feels a responsibility to keep pursuing the project.

“I'll tell you, if we bring this matter back next year or the year after, and I think we probably should, we should get a status report on where we are (with the Anaheim cemetery),” he added.