Veterans Gardens Receives Final Recreation and Parks Approval

By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief

After several board and task force meetings, the Board of Recreation and Parks Commissioners voted unanimously to approve a proposed amended and restated agreement with Your Palisades Park Improvement Corporation, including revised military branch recognition panels, at Veterans Gardens at Palisades Recreation Center on October 21.

The amended agreement included modifications to an original agreement between the Department of Recreation and Parks and Your Park that was approved in August 2019 for the development and donation of the Veterans Gardens project to the city of Los Angeles.

Five proposed military branch recognition panels were approved that will recognize the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard. The panels are designed to “honor all of the city’s veterans by highlighting select individuals from the community, and thank and acknowledge certain donors for their contributions to Veterans Gardens,” according to the board report.

Part of the panels will be a QR code that directs parkgoers to a third-party website, maintained by Your Park, that features additional information about the branches not available on the panels.

The language and QR code on the military panels that pertains to the recognition of donors and honors one or more certain veterans will be retained for a period of 10 years. The original agreement allowed the donors, honorees and QR codes to be on display for 30 years—a number that was amended to 10 years after several discussions.

“It should be noted that Your Park has communicated concerns that this proposed change may negatively impact donation commitments for future maintenance,” the board report stated.

During the October 21 meeting, Sr. Management Analyst of RAP’s Partnership Section Joel Alvarez explained that should the military recognition panels be allowed to remain in place beyond 10 years, a subsequent board action would be required at the time.

“On August 7, 2019, the board approved Report No. 19-162 approving a gift agreement between Your Park and the city for the construction and installation of park improvements to be known as Veterans Gardens at Palisades Park and Recreation Center,” according to the board report. “Per the terms of the original agreement, the Veterans Gardens improvements were constructed and installed by Your Park at Your Park’s expense, made possible through various charitable contributions received by Your Park from various community members and supporters.”

Following actions taken by the board in July, the only remaining item needed to fully accept Veterans Gardens was the approval of the revised proposed amended agreement and approval of the revised military panels.

“As the board may recall, subsequent to the approval and execution of the original agreement, Your Park proposed certain, updated language for the various recognition panels presented in the original agreement, including that of the military panels,” the board report continued. “Following multiple, and lengthy discussions with Your Park, RAP staff presented updated donor recognition language to the Facility Repair and Maintenance Task Force on May 6 and August 19, 2021, then to the full board on July 15, 2021, at which time the board expressed strong and serious concerns regarding the language and format of the military panels, which design had deviated from the conceptual design previously approved by the board and included in the original agreement, and staff received further instructions to address such concerns before returning to the board.”

The revised military panel designs, which now include military song lyrics, were then presented to the Facility Repair and Maintenance Task Force for consideration at two meetings: October 6, which only had one commissioner present, and October 21.

Sylvia Patsaouras, president of RAP commissioners, raised concerns about future donor recognition within city parks that will need to be clarified going forward when considering projects of this nature.

After additional discussion, Recreation and Parks Commissioners voted to approve the final elements of the project.

“I thank everyone for all of their effort,” Palisadian and RAP Commissioner Joe Halper said during the meeting. “This has been a real team effort to get this through the hoop.”