A group seeking to block a veterans cemetery from being built in Anaheim Hills’ Gypsum Canyon has filed a lawsuit against the city, hoping to instead get a veterans burial ground in Irvine, where years of efforts to locate one failed to come to fruition.
The lawsuit filed Aug. 21 demands the rollback of approvals the Anaheim City Council granted the cemetery project in July.
The lawsuit argues the city never presented “a realistic range of alternatives to cemetery development” at the Gypsum Canyon site and failed to comply with state environmental law.
Harvey Liss, an Irvine resident who filed the lawsuit and heads the group Build the Great Park Veterans Cemetery, said the best place to put the veterans cemetery would be in Irvine.
“We’d like to put off the activity toward building a veterans cemetery at Gypsum Canyon,” Liss said. “If the city of Anaheim is required to file a new (environmental impact report), that could put this off substantially, hopefully until we get the veterans cemetery back in Irvine.”
Mayor Ashleigh Aitken said in a statement that the time to talk about having a veterans cemetery elsewhere has passed and the city stands by its actions.
“Our veterans deserve better than this,” Aitken said in a statement. “A cemetery in Anaheim has widespread support from police, firefighters, veterans and Orange County residents. A veterans cemetery in Anaheim reflects our city’s values, which are America’s values. We are honoring those who gave all for us. To delay our veterans the dignity of a final resting place is not an option.”
The approved cemetery sets in motion a plan to split a 283-acre plot of land in the Anaheim Hills into two cemeteries, one for the general public and one for veterans. There were years of discussions and studies to develop a veterans cemetery in Irvine, but its advocates moved on after no single site could get universal support.
Nick Berardino, a Marine Corps veteran and president of the Veterans Alliance of Orange County, VALOR, which has pushed for the veterans cemetery, said, “We are extremely confident that the lawsuit will be resolved in our favor, but most importantly it will not stop or slow down the construction process.”
Berardino called the lawsuit politically motivated.
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Orange County is the largest county in the state without a dedicated veterans cemetery.
CalVet recently submitted a federal grant application for more funding for the veterans cemetery. The project has secured $50 million of the $126 million needed to build its first phase, though that estimate is without savings expected from the two cemeteries sharing some development costs.
The county is running low on casket burial plots stressing the need to get the public cemetery built in the coming years. The public cemetery will be the first new one since the El Toro Memorial Park opened in 1896.
The public cemetery could open as early as 2027. There has been no timeline set yet for when the veterans cemetery would open.
Orange County Cemetery District General Manager Tim Deutsch, who’s named in the lawsuit as a defendant along with the city, declined to comment, saying the agency is still reviewing the lawsuit.
