By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
The city of Florence will be embarking on a mission to renovate the Veteran’s Memorial on the city’s campus on Ewing Boulevard.
Within the last year the city has formed a Florence Veterans Commission, and with the initiation of this group, Florence agreed to maintain the memorial into perpetuity.
The initial memorial, which was built starting in 1995 as an addition to the 44-acre campus of the main city government building, was suggested by H.B. Deatherage, who is the chairman of the board of the Kentucky Veteran’s Hall of Fame and the Kentucky Veterans Hall of Fame Foundation. A Vietnam veteran himself, one of his missions was to have a Veteran’s memorial in Florence that all veterans could come to. The memorial was built by funds raised for the purpose.
Infrastructure Support Services Superintendent Greg Clift is the commission’s liaison to the city, and since they are responsible for the memorial, he and his crew took a hard look at the structure.
“The memorial looks nice, but it definitely shows wear,” Clift said. “There were some areas that could be trip hazards, and needs to be updated since it has been over 25 years since it was built.”
The fountain on the campus immediately in front of the memorial has been having pump problems, and the Public Works team has been trying to fix the pump that motors the fountains in the reflecting pool. Unfortunately, they found the pumps are not fixable, and the cost to fix them is not currently in the budget.
So it was decided to take out the reflecting pool structure, but leave in the conduit leads for the piping in case the city would decide to revisit the idea of a fountain and a pool. The original drawings included a smaller water pool with step down plantings, but the demise of the pump for the fountain, and the extreme cost of a replacement which exceeded the original $1.1 million cost of the project caused the team to revamp the plans and put the fountain on hold for now.
“We had three bidders for the project of the Veterans memorial and the removal of the pool structure,” said Clift. “We chose the lowest bid which coincided the best with our estimate of the project and the bid is from Beaumont Building Group or company.”
The actual construction should soon. Originally, Clift said, they wanted to start construction July 8, but the costs of materials are high, and that caused a return to the drawing board.
“We will take out the existing marble structures that have all the names on them, so that we can work on the base,” Clift explained. “Then we will put them back, and we will be adding another monument, which will be from the Kentucky Veterans Hall of Fame. It will be a good addition to the memorial.”
Clift said they will also be putting in more benches, so that those who come to visit don’t have to always have to sit on the marble benches. Sometimes, he said, people consider the marble benches part of the memorial. They will now have the choice of metal benches.
“We will still have the stage, but it is portable, not permanent,” said Clift. “We feel like the stage is only there when we have ceremonies, such as on Memorial day, but we want the memorial itself to be a place of peace and contemplation, where people can come and reflect.”
Since the project is about a month behind, the completion date is now about mid-November.
They hope it will be done by Veterans Day, November 11, but with weather variances, it is difficult to pin down an exact date.
“We would like to hold a veteran resource fair in October,” Clift announced. “But that is still in the planning stages. We don’t want to put a geographic location on the veteran resources. We want veterans from all over to be able to come, and we want to provide any help they need.”