CEMETERY AT FORT ORD GETS BOOST

The Associated Press announced Tuesday 30 May that a decadelong effort to establish a veterans cemetery at the old Fort Ord Army Base received a boost when a legislative committee approved a plan to establish an endowment fund for maintaining the proposed 130-acre burial ground.

Although the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has suggested a new national cemetery is not needed to serve Monterey County veterans, the federal government has expressed willingness to build a cemetery at Fort Ord, but only if the state takes on the maintenance.

The bill passed by the Assembly Appropriations Committee last week would create a state-run fund that would accept public and private donations for operating the cemetery.

“This is now a clear path to funding the long-sought veterans cemetery at Fort Ord,” the bills sponsor, Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, said in a statement.

Fort Ord closed in 1984 as part of the government’s base consolidation efforts. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimated earlier this year it would cost $16 million to $25 million to build a national cemetery and operate it for one year. Ongoing operating costs would be about $200,000 annually.

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