Council pledges land for proposed Lubbock veterans cemetery

Lubbock’s Town Council this week lent its help to a proposal to build a condition veterans cemetery close to the Hub Town, pledging about 100 acres of town owned land for the bring about.

The go comes as place veterans advocates and teams have been lobbying area and state lawmakers to discover state or federal funding to construct what could be a person of 5 condition veterans cemeteries in Texas.

The City Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to support a resolution declaring a commitment to designate and express the roughly 100 acres of town owned house south of 50th Road and east of Loop 289 to the Texas Veterans Land Board for the purpose of setting up, working, and protecting a Texas Condition Veterans Cemetery.

“The land has been proposed and provided by the City of Lubbock to the Texas Veterans Land Board, for the function of developing, operating, and preserving a Texas Point out Veterans Cemetery,” reads a proposal from the resolution. The land would be designated to the Veterans Land Board on the problem that the State of Texas selects Lubbock as the location for a Texas State Veterans Cemetery.

The land is just north of what will be Canyon Lake No. 7, a metropolis water project in southeast Lubbock County.

Councilman Steve Massengale praised the cemetery as a worthy job and credited the late Maj. Gen. Edgar Murphy, between other military services leaders from Lubbock, for commencing the drive for the cemetery, thanks in part to the lengthy length to the closest point out veterans cemetery in Abilene.

“The application for a veterans cemetery is a reasonably arduous method, but just one point they want before publishing the software is to have secured the house,” Massengale explained. “And so this satisfies that need.”

Growing aid

Point out Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, who has been performing with location veterans advocates on the task, has accept there is work to be performed in securing condition funding and assistance.

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He and advocates have explained it will just take time, dealing with state and federal politicians and bureaucrats alongside the way, in accordance to Avalanche-Journal archives.

“This possibly is just not a a few-calendar year offer, much more of a 20-year initiative, but we are working on it,” Perry advised the Avalanche-Journal last August, when WWII Medal of Honor recipient Woody Williams was in the Hub Metropolis to lend his assist for the proposed cemetery and the recently installed Gold Star Monument. U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Lubbock, has also expressed his help for the proposed cemetery, but explained to the Avalanche-Journal editorial board final week he thinks pursuing a condition-designated cemetery – alternatively than a federal veterans cemetery – would be the far more practical possibility, although he’ll carry on to force for federal funding.

Woody Williams, through his Hub Metropolis visit, and Lubbock region veterans advocates such as Danny Koch have stated that obtaining a veterans cemetery deeper into West Texas and the Panhandle/South Plains location would make the support much more obtainable to veterans and their households as significantly away as Japanese New Mexico.

Presently, the closest veterans cemetery is near Abilene – about 160 miles absent.

It was crafted in 2009 and is one particular of five condition veterans cemeteries in a procedure that point out leaders far more than two many years in the past stated need to have 7.

Perry reported the Texas Standard Land Office environment has been allotted about $7 million in its finances to assistance condition cemeteries as nicely as other features together with veterans land packages and aid solutions. As it is, the funding is currently being employed by the current cemeteries and other providers, Perry explained, so the funding mechanism isn’t really simple.

There’s also competitiveness from other areas, like the metropolis of Tyler, which Perry and Koch reported also make a solid situation for obtaining a veterans cemetery in much East Texas, the A-J claimed final tumble.

The path ahead is uncertain, but there are numerous choices, including pursuing federal funding for what perhaps would be a nationwide veterans cemetery – and Perry credited Arrington as an advocate.

Koch claimed getting the pledged land from the town is vital, as any point out or federal veterans cemetery would stand a superior opportunity if there’s local funding and expenditure.

This posting initially appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Council pledges land for proposed Lubbock veterans cemetery