The City of Parkville is relocating its long-awaited veterans memorial due to a technicality.
At the Tuesday, Aug. 1 meeting of the Parkville Board of Aldermen, the city approved the relocation of the yet-to-be-built veterans memorial from Ballfield No. 1 – formerly Grigsby Field – to the area of the “Spirit Fountain” located at the historic train depot.
In 2018, the city issued a request for qualifications for design of the memorial and later that year signed SFS Architecture for the engineering design services.
Since, the veterans memorial committee has worked to raise funds to build the memorial until 2022, when the city encountered a glitch.
Ballfield No. 1 was funded through Land Water Conservation Funds and as such had to remain in use as an active recreation area – such as a ballfield – instead of a passive memorial use. The city began negotiations with the Missouri State Parks Association to look into available options.
Instead of attempting to change the ballfield’s status, which would be a lengthy and perhaps unsuccessful process, the city opted instead to move the memorial.
After exploring other options for placement of the veterans memorial, the city and committee members determined the area by the train depot to be most desirable. Also, because the new location is smaller, the veterans memorial committee can begin construction of the memorial right away, as funds have been raised that would cover the scaled-down memorial.
Also at the meeting, the city approved the purchase and installation of security cameras downtown to monitor activities in the downtown parking lots and in Platte and English Landing parks.
The cameras will cover the city parking lots and both railroad crossings, the parking lot and entrance area to English Landing Park and the boat ramp and parking lot near the dog parks in Platte Landing Park.