Federal funds for a state veterans cemetery in Augusta haven’t materialized, but that’s not stopping organizers Bob Young and Don Clark.
Young, the former mayor, and Clark, the commissioner-elect, return before the Augusta Commission Tuesday with a request:
Augusta should take a long, hard look at whether it wants a state veterans cemetery.
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If it does: The commission should include $13 million from Sales Tax 9 to build it.
Young spearheaded an effort to build a veteran cemetery at then-Fort Gordon more than 20 years ago when he was mayor. The project was sidelined after 9/11 by new security concerns.
Young and Clark, then-deputy director of veteran support organization Forces United, returned to the commission Sept. 10, 2019, with a proposal to build a state veterans cemetery here.
The plan made perfect sense. Augusta may be within a two-hour drive of Fort Jackson, S.C., and Milledgeville, both homes to veteran cemeteries, but metro Augusta’s 70,000-plus veteran residents warrant a cemetery of their own, they said.
Immediately a state-owned site at Gracewood State Hospital seemed an ideal location, and state government responded with $1 million in seed money. As construction costs continued to rise, the hard part began.
Augusta had to compete with jurisdictions all across the country for the Veterans Administration grants that typically fund construction of state-operated veteran cemeteries.
Augusta had made it to No. 22 on the list, then fell to No. 35 last year, Young said.
Later on the brink of losing state support, the effort drew busloads of Augusta veterans to the state capitol earlier this year. State officials later expressed that funding the cemetery would set a costly precedent for other communities that want their own, he said.
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In May, Clark won the District 5 Augusta Commission seat. City officials continue work on a Sales Tax 9 project list, while Sales Tax 8 collections are expected to be complete in 2025.
Building Georgia’s third state veterans cemetery is a “good investment” for the city, as well as a revenue generator, Young said in a letter to commissioners.
It’s not unlike the city’s investment in construction of a parking deck to support the Georgia Cyber Center downtown, he said,
Augusta will pay the Georgia Department of Veterans Services to build the cemetery at Gracewood, then GDVS will own and operate the cemetery “in perpetuity of GDVS,” he said.
