Memorial Remains Unresolved: Veterans Still Support Park Expansion

At least one member of the original committee that helped create the Moore County Veterans Memorial in Carthage thinks it is time to renew efforts to transform that area into a park.

Controversy erupted in the spring of 2012 when county officials disclosed that they had been approached by a company wanting to buy land next to the memorial for a Bojangles restaurant. Local veterans and veterans groups demanded that the county preserve land around the memorial and prevent development near it.

That summer, the county commissioners appointed the Veterans Memorial Advisory Committee to discuss the memorials future and how best to use the land around the site.

Meetings often resulted in clashes between county officials and veterans, ultimately leading to a stalemate over two competing plans to create a veterans park. That was in March 2013. The committee has not met since.

Last Tuesday, county commissioners dissolved the group. Board Chairman Nick Picerno, who proposed the action, said the county has no plans to do anything with that property. He called the committee an overreaction to a non-issue.

Rudy Hendrick, who served on the advisory committee and is secretary of the committee that led efforts to build the memorial in 2006, agreed that the advisory committee should be eliminated and that it was probably ill-fated from the start.

To me, it was a frustrating thing from the get-go, Hendrick said. I am not sure it was handled right. It was at a standstill. Daggers were being thrown in both directions.

But Hendrick said it is in the official minutes of a county commissioners meeting that nothing would be done until both sides are satisfied.

I am not going to be satisfied until it is developed into a park, she said.

Hendrick said supporters gathered signatures on petitions in support of developing the entire property into a veterans park. She said they have garnered about 6,000 signatures so far.

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Memorial Remains Unresolved: Veterans Still Support Park Expansion