Veterans cemetery proposals advance
Eastern Washington veterans will have a cemetery, perhaps by late 2009, the state veterans’ director predicted Thursday.
Separate bills in the state Senate and House of Representatives are moving easily through the Legislature, and Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposed budget includes about $7.8 million for the project, state Veterans Affairs Director John Lee said. The possible sites have been narrowed to two locations on the West Plains.
“It’s happening,” he told a news conference attended by local military members, leaders of local veterans groups and some veterans’ families.
Recently announced plans by Idaho Gov. Butch Otter for a veterans cemetery in the Coeur d’Alene area won’t affect the Eastern Washington project, Lee said.
Eastern Washington veterans and their families have complained that the closest veterans cemetery is in Kent, Wash.
Their North Idaho counterparts have had similar complaints about their closest veterans cemetery being in Boise, and Otter said earlier this month he’d ask the Idaho Legislature for authority to spend federal money on a Coeur d’Alene-area cemetery and future state payments for annual upkeep.
Whether the region will eventually have two veterans cemeteries instead of none is something that Lee couldn’t answer.
The Spokane area project is on a list from the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department of 18 locations for a state cemetery under a special program, he said.
Coeur d’Alene isn’t on that list, but Idaho might not be as far along in the process, he added.
Veterans from Idaho, Montana and Oregon will be eligible for burial in the Eastern Washington cemetery if they or their families request it, Lee said. “We fully plan to create agreements with sister states if families choose.”
The two sites under consideration are north of West Medical Lake off West Espanola Road and along Salnave Road off Interstate 90 near Medical Lake.
Some who attended the announcement questioned the proposed sites, asking why the cemetery wasn’t going to be built closer to Spokane, the largest population center.
Lee said a committee looked at 15 potential sites, including some closer to the city, but some had too much rock in the soil or had too steep of slope under guidelines set by the VA. Current cemeteries are not built in the middle of a metropolitan area, he added, because “it’s not a reverent, respectful place.”
Under the VA program, the federal government will reimburse the state for some $7.8 million, the cost of designing and building the cemetery.
The state will buy the land – about 80 acres – for approximately $450,000.
The state also will pay the annual operation and maintenance cost, estimated at about $150,000.
Some or all maintenance costs are expected to be covered by the sale of Armed Forces license plates.