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Council approves $100,000 for Memorial Park renovations

Posted at 12:18 PM, Aug 23, 2017
and last updated 2017-08-23 21:08:57-04

The iconic monuments at Memorial Park along Dodge Street are set for renovations.

The monuments honoring the men and women in World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War are starting to fall apart.

On Tuesday, the Omaha city council voted 7-0 on Councilman Pete Festersen's amendment for the city to provide $100,000 to the nearly $350,000 project. The other $250,000 would be privately raised.

It's a project many local veterans want done soon, "The whole colonnade needs to be scraped and painted and cleaned up," said Army veteran Dave Smith. 

Bricks are falling off of one of the monuments, paint is chipping away at the colonnade along with some of the curbs deteriorating. 

Festersen said last Memorial Day he heard major concerns about getting the monuments cleaned up again, "I had several constituents say 'hey the ceremony was really great but the monuments are not in the shape we want it to be in to honor our veterans'".

Mayor Jean Stothert said there's a private donor wanting to remain anonymous to pay for this project which is why she didn't want public money going towards the project. 

Stothert has until next Tuesday to veto this amendment.

The goal is for the project to be completed in 2018 marking the 70th anniversary of when the World War II memorial was dedicated by President Harry Truman.