VFW Doing Monumental Redesign at Park

The 51 members of Seal Beach’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4048 said they will redesign a memorial they hope to erect in Eisenhower Park.

The group’s original concept, a 6-foot gray granite monolith, was turned down last week by the City Council after members said that it would block the park’s limited ocean view.

Jim Mueller, immediate past commander of the post, had argued that the proposed monument would not block the park’s two-block ocean view any more than do the palms and a 5-foot American Legion monument that are already there.

The VFW monument, projected to cost $6,000 to $7,000, “may be a little more grandiose, and if that offends them we will put up one similar to the one already there. It would help the symmetry,” Mueller said.

The American Legion memorial honors veterans of the two world wars, while the proposed VFW monument would honor veterans from all wars, Mueller said. VFW members have placed wreaths on the existing war memorial for years.

City Councilwoman Marilyn Bruce Hastings said city officials will meet with VFW representatives to come up with a design “fitting and appropriate” to the available space.

“We only have two blocks to view the Pacific Ocean,” Hastings said of Eisenhower Park. “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, but I don’t want that 6-foot-tall monument there.”

In addition to the war memorial, the park also has a monument dedicated in 1970 to Dwight D. Eisenhower, park benches dedicated to or memorializing residents, and a 1969 park dedication plaque.

“We hope to come back with the same plan,” Mueller said. “But we’ll also offer alternatives to what was proposed.”