Jacob Dimond / jake@yelmonline.com
With the conclusion of Washington’s legislative session on Sunday, April 27, the City of Yelm learned $600,000 of state funding was included for its planned Veterans Memorial Park on Mill Road.
Yelm’s Public Works Director Cody Colt said the funds would not have been secured without the help of state Reps. Matt Marshall and Andrew Barkis and Sen. Jim McCune.
“We’re really excited about it. We were hopeful that we were going to get it, and it looks like we were able to,” Colt told the Nisqually Valley News on Friday, May 2. “Big thanks to our state representative and state senator that were able to push it through. Barkis, McCune and Marshall really helped us out with that, and we’re really thankful. It will get us through and get our starting project off the ground.”
Colt added the $600,000 in funding should get the City of Yelm through the full design stage and through phase one of the veterans memorial itself. He anticipates a parking lot and an entryway to the veterans memorial to be constructed in phase one. He noted there initially will not be a restroom unless Yelm can secure more funding.
“We’re going to be searching for (more funding). But ultimately this will get us through phase one. This makes the project way more likely to get other grants, too, since it is partially funded,” Colt said. “Design will happen through this year, with construction starting early next year.”
According to previous interviews with Colt, the park would include a reflection walk, which intends to honor and highlight veterans of the Korean, Vietnam, Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan wars as well as World War I, World War II and smaller conflicts.
Each war and conflict would feature three pillars, with the center pillar providing a description of the war, how the United States became involved and more. The pillars on the left and right would honor local veterans, prisoners of war missing in action and those killed in action who served in each specific war. Colt said previously he would like to make half the memorial a marble wall and the other half granite.
“The hope is while we’re going through design, we’re able to land more funding and build all of the phases at once. If that doesn’t happen, we’ll have to go through phasing as grant funding comes in or as the city budget is able to support it,” Colt said. “There will be updates at council consistently coming through. We’ll also have different opportunities for people to get involved, who would like to be involved, to give input at open houses and whatnot throughout the process.”
In addition to the new Veterans Memorial Park planned for Mill Road, the veterans memorial located at Yelm City Park — originally constructed in 2006 — will be relocated to the newly funded shrine.
“What we’re going to do is assemble a temporary memorial of what the previous memorial was with the bricks at Yelm City Park,” Colt said. “It’s hard to say how it’s going to look exactly, but that memorial will be there at city park until we have an actual spot to put it at the new spot. It will be modified in some ways too. We’re going to expand it and make it bigger.”
Colt, a military veteran and junior vice chair with the VFW, said he’s working actively with local veterans groups and the city to ensure “everything is perfect, and exactly how it needs to be.” He added that bricks for the new memorial will be available for purchase in six months or so.
“I don’t want to have people purchase bricks and then have it be over a year until they get to see them,” Colt said. “We’re going to wait until we’re a little closer to opening before we start having an opportunity for people to help and invest. We will be looking for members and citizens to actually help with the design group, too.”
