Parks Board votes against veteran’s memorial at Sea Wall

 The Clear Lake Park Board has voted 5-1 to recommend to the City Council that a proposed veterans memorial not be placed in front of the Sea Wall.
About 60 persons filled the Lakeview Community Room Wednesday night to offer their opinions to the Board and await their recommendation to the City Council, 

which will ultimately decide the memorial’s location. In addition to its recommendation, the Board suggests the Council form a Task Force of veterans, community members and Park Board members, to study possible other sites for a memorial.
Those attending the meeting were overwhelmingly in favor of the Sea Wall as the site for the veteran’s memorial. The memorial would include three flag poles and three five-foot high walls containing the names of Clear Lake and Ventura veterans. The proposed $100,000 project would be funded by donations and grants. 
Those speaking to the Board said the Sea Wall location was the most fitting location for the memorial and said they do not believe it would create any obstruction to the view of the lake.
“This, to us, is the only spot that makes any sense,” Gene Madson, an organizer of the monument, told the Board.
Larry Svoboda called the monument an “overdue honor” for veterans and said members of V.F.W. Post 4868 had looked at City Park as a possible site for a memorial. In discussions with the City, the former water tower location was offered, but Svoboda called the Sea Wall a “far superior site.”
“The problem with the water tower site is the obstruction created by the Clear Lake Yacht Club building, restrooms, the backdrop of the Water Treatment Plant and kids having fun and screaming around a water feature,” he said.
Park Board members expressed their concern that the Sea Wall location would not provide the reverence such a memorial deserves.
“I am for a memorial, but not necessarily there,” said Board Chairman Chryl Bergvig. She said phone calls she received prior to the Board’s vote were overwhelmingly against the memorial’s place - Read More VIa e-Edition