NOV 13, 2024:
Middletown leaders reject plan to sell 90 acres of open space for CT Veterans Cemetery expansion
Middletown Common Council—Special Meeting
November 12, 2024 at 07:00 p.m.
Transcript
Commissioner Ronald P. “Ron” Welch (31:54 – 35:37 on video)
Mayor Florsheim good evening and thank you council members for letting me make some brief remarks tonight. To our veterans that showed up, we greatly appreciate your support and the other guests that join us tonight. I’m Commissioner Ron Welch, Commissioner of Connecticut Department of Veterans Affairs. I’m a combat veteran, my oldest son has three combat tours also, and I served about 40 years in both peace and war.
I was appointed back in May 2023 by Governor Ned Lamont and the number one priority that was brought to my attention when I went into the job was the importance of expanding the cemetery. The Federal VA requires us to do an expansion which is called technically, legally, an annex. To try to go someplace else in the state of Connecticut far away from Middletown requires us to establish an entirely new cemetery. The minimum amount of money to do that is $15 million dollars because you have to have an entire equipment set and an entire staff at that other location so we have worked extremely hard with the Department of Administrative Services.
By our state law we have to rely on them. We can not negotiate any property acquisition. We could not talk to any of our veterans. I couldn’t talk to my family, our staff, or anybody about what property was on the table to, for Department of Administrative Services to try to secure for us to do this annex.
So they’ve been working closely looking around the area trying to find the appropriate property and we need a long-term fix for our veterans. We have 150,000 veterans in Connecticut. We don’t want to kick this down the road and do a little, tiny expansion that will last for a few years. This past year we did 755 very dignified memorial services to our veterans. It’s the final thing we can do. The final sendoff for those who have raised their right hand and chose to defend the Constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic. When you think about it, less that one percent of the United States have chosen to serve or are able to serve right now and it is the least we can do is provide a space for a dignified memorial service for them.
Last December I appeared before the State of Connecticut Bonding Commission chaired by the governor and we did a request for three million dollars to start the process. To start the exploratory process to find property to also, if we found a property, to start some of the surveying, some of the environmental assessments and impacts. There’s a lot that goes along with this process. It’s very lengthy and we’ve focused on allowing the process to work its normal course.
We have had an outstanding relationship with the City of Middletown. You really are the hub of Connecticut. You are the central part of the state. You have the Trees of Honor, acknowledging, recognizing, and memorializing the 65 service members from Connecticut who lost their lives during the Global War on Terrorism and you also have the fantastic Military, [Greater Middletown] Military Museum. So, we greatly appreciate your consideration and your thought about this expansion and this potential annex. And, and that is what I have. Thank you very much.
Deputy Commissioner Joseph D. Danao II (36:18 – 41:48)
Test. Got it. Good evening mayor. Good evening City of Middletown Common Council. I am Deputy Commissioner Joe Danao with the Department of Veterans Affairs. And good evening to the attendees here this evening.
I just wanted to provide some information about the cemetery and what the current situation is. But if we could look back to about to 1865 when the Noroton or Spring Grove Cemetery opened one of the first state veterans cemeteries in the country. That opened, at that point, and in 1980 that filled. It took four years of no opportunity for a cemetery in Connecticut for veterans to be in one spot together in our state. We don’t have national cemeteries within 50 miles of us. Long Island is close with some national cemeteries there. The next one is Bourne, Massachusetts. So, for four years, it was that opportunity or go into a local cemetery if that was available to our veterans.
So on November 11, 1984 Middletown opened, 40 years and one day ago, and it has served as a, as just a tremendous resting, final resting place for our state’s veterans to locally go there. What we currently face, at that approximately 21 acres of land is we’re running out of space.
So we did have a master plan. I think it was February 2019. A very publicly worked master plan looking at alternatives. But it also clearly spelled out that the cemetery was going to run, start running out of space in 2027. So, there are a few people that approached me internally and said I don’t think that’s going to happen. Anyone who attended the ceremony yesterday saw what is left of the cemetery for in-ground cremations.
Our federal grants that we get for the state which is currently 960 dollars per veteran burial. It amounts to about 300 thousand plus, which goes into maintenance for the cemetery as well as future grants for the cemetery. The VA provides 100 percent grant on a competitive basis nationally to do upgrades and improvements and many of you saw that happened about three or four years ago and I appreciate everyone dealing with that there was a lot of truck traffic to improve the look of the cemetery.
So with our current schedules that we have and forecasting out based on this past year 273 in-ground cremations burials took place, we have about 738 spaces left. It is from yesterday’s view, that tent times three. That’s all that’s left. So that’s 3.3 years, three years and three months. And that timeframe we’re going to go back to 1980 at least for in-ground cremations. Ah, the other options there are our columbarium. And I appreciate the city’s support back in 2015 to put that in and um, we’re about 30 percent into that. There’s a lot of life there left. And then in the pre-placed crypt section there is also a grant, there is approximately 1,700 of those left. So there is some years for those two options but we’re required to protect three.
And Connecticut, as Commissioner Welch mentioned, the exact number is 152,197 veterans per the federal VA plus its eligible spouses and dependent, one accompanying the veteran in the burial.
Connecticut (I’m close) Connecticut has 93 thousand of the 152 that are sixty years and older. So that number is one of the highest by percentage in the nation. I think we’re fourth or fifth highest at 61 percent. So we’re trying to position the Connecticut Department of Veteran Affairs to continue to provide the three options, protect our federal income source, but most of all, but I am sure everyone agrees we want to keep providing this service here in Connecticut and not go back.
And if I could just end on this, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you on this tonight. We’ll talk more about it anytime. And finally we do absolutely respect and abide by the process that it takes from now until whenever with the City of Middletown. So, thank you.