Four Councilmembers Vote Against an Irvine Veterans Cemetery

On May 27th, four Irvine Councilmembers — William Go, Melinda Liu, James Mai, and Kathleen Treseder — voted to break a promise that the City of Irvine made to veterans and their families 11 years ago to build a Veterans Memorial Park & Cemetery on the “ARDA” site at the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station at the northern edge of the Great Park.

When Kathleen Treseder was running for Council in 2022, she filled out the Irvine Community News & Views endorsement questionnaire, stating: “I support a Veterans Memorial Park and Cemetery at the ARDA site. It is the law, and our veterans and their families deserve a resting place in Orange County. My father was a Korean War veteran, and he passed away in Irvine 10 years ago. I did not have the option of burying him in a Veterans Cemetery nearby. It would have been a comfort for me and my family to visit his resting place here. I would like to provide that opportunity for others.”

However, when Treseder had the opportunity on May 27th to follow-through on that campaign promise, she voted NO and then clasped her raised hands in a triumphant pose as the motion failed.

During the City’s Memorial Day ceremony on Monday, Vice Mayor Mai told a number of people that he would be voting in support of the Veterans Cemetery. But the very next day, Mai voted NO, saying: “I feel bad for the promises that were made to people, but this was 20 years ago.” Apparently, Mai’s perspective changes from one day to the next (literally) and he believes that the City’s promises have a shelf life.

Councilmembers William Go and Melinda Liu spent the past week spreading false information through their social media accounts to justify their NO votes.

Let me set the record straight regarding just a few of the many false statements Go and Liu made in the days leading up to the Council’s vote:

The most shameful justification that Go, Liu, Mai, and Treseder used in voting NO was that a Veterans Cemetery would be “incompatible” with other amenities at the Great Park — even though the entire 1,300-acre Great Park sits on a former military airbase.

Throughout my career as an elections attorney and the founding publisher of Irvine Community News & Views (ICNV), I have witnessed candidates promising to support an issue in order to get elected and then immediately breaking that promise once they take office. It’s one of the reasons so many voters have lost faith in our elected leaders.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Mayor Larry Agran — who has advocated as a private citizen, a candidate, and as an elected official — in support of a Veterans Cemetery on the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. He has spent more than 10 years working alongside hundreds and hundreds of Irvine veterans and their families for the establishment of a Veterans Cemetery to honor the service and sacrifice of the tens of thousands of military personnel who were stationed on the former airbase here in Irvine.

I also want to thank Councilmembers Mike Carroll and Betty Martinez Franco for voting YES on Mayor Agran’s resolution to move forward with the Veterans Cemetery. In explaining the vote she was about to cast, Councilmember Martinez Franco said: “I have only been a Councilmember for about a month. . . . I learned about this issue when I started knocking on doors and hearing stories directly from loved ones. I made a promise to them and I don’t want to start my career breaking a promise that I made to the people who voted for me. I feel their pain.” Looking directly at a group of veterans and their families, she continued: “I’m going to keep my integrity. I want you to know that if I make a promise to you, I am going to keep it.”