The Cobb County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the allocation of an additional $2 million from excess 2022 SPLOST revenue to the Veterans Memorial project, bringing the total county contribution to $5 million.

The site of the memorial is now in District 2 Commissioner Erick Allen’s district, but for most of the planning process, before redistricting, was in District 3, represented by Commissioner JoAnn Birrell.

Birrell introduced the discussion of the additional funds.

“Just some clarification and input here,” Birrell said. “This was always slated for a county park, the Memorial.”

“The Veterans Memorial Foundation was formed as a 501-C-3 to raise money to fund it,” she said. “It was a community impact project on my list for the 2022 SPLOST.”

“So when I put that on the SPLOST list to get it funded by the county, because it’s a SPLOST project identified on the list that was voted on and approved by the citizens of Cobb that passed the SPLOST, that changed the MOU (memorandum of understanding) and everything because of it being a SPLOST project.

“We have not done a new MOU because we’re trying to get the funding in place to be able to move forward with the project,” she said. “So when we started the revenue above projections, originally we were asking for four million on the list to complete the project.”

“We had three million in SPLOST, and we were trying to get four more to complete the whole project at $7 million,” she said. “The foundation scaled back their drawing, which we’ll be happy to share, but it’s not ours yet.”

Birrell said that an additional $2 million will get the available funds to the amount needed for the scaled back plans for the memorial.

She said that Nancy Gallagher from the county attorney’s office would work with the foundation’s attorney on a new Memorandum of Understanding between the county and the foundation to move the construction of the memorial closer to completion.

BOC Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said, “I would just like to thank everyone for all of their efforts in getting us to this point. It took a number of people seen and unseen.”

“It took a lot of discussion here on this board, took a lot of discussion with the county attorney’s office, a lot of discussion with the Veterans Memorial Foundation, and also with members of the community,” she said.

“This project started multiple chairman terms ago, and that is perhaps one of the challenges when there is a vision of one administration that doesn’t get executed in that time because you are at the will and the mercy of those that follow,” Cupid said. “But the continuing voices of those in the community that have prodded and pushed us to ensure that the essence of the project, the opportunity to recognize our veterans and their sacrifice was not lost in us determining how we would fund this and move this forward.”

The approval for the funding, put forward in a motion by Allen, was passed unanimously.

Donna Rowe, the president of the Veterans Memorial Foundation, spoke to the commissioners during public comments.

“Madam Chairman, I want to thank you so much for taking my comments today,” Rowe said. “I want to start by thanking you, commission chairwoman, for all your time and effort with us.”

“I want to thank a person who has been with us for 10 years, Commissioner Birrell, and I want to thank our new commissioner, Commissioner Allen, for all the hours, phone calls, and emails we’ve exchanged,” she said.

“Again, I cannot thank you enough on behalf of every veteran that has served to keep us all free. Thank you so much,” she said.

Watch the discussion of the funding for the Memorial in the video embedded below