Three years and $1 million spent, the promise of a Vietnam War memorial at Mile Square Park remains unfulfilled, and now First District OC Supervisor Janet Nguyen is pushing for the demolition of what has been built.
“It’s shameful, it’s a disgrace. This is not how we honor our veterans at all,” Nguyen said Monday, Nov. 10, as she stood in front of the incomplete memorial at a press conference she called. “We are now looking at removing this, and we’re gonna replace it. We gotta do it right, because we owe it to these veterans.”
In 2023, former OC Supervisor Andrew Do allocated $1 million in First District discretionary funds toward the design and construction of the memorial. The project was contracted out to Viet America Society.
Viet America Society, along with another local organization, was also contracted by the county for nutrition programs for seniors and people with disabilities funded by millions more in First District discretionary money, which authorities now allege were largely not spent on feeding community members but instead used for personal gain. Do has since pleaded guilty and is serving prison time for taking bribes to direct funding and contracts to Viet America Society, and Peter Pham, the founder and president of the nonprofit, has been indicted on multiple charges of wire fraud and concealment of money laundering. There is also a civil lawsuit the county has brought that is making its way through the court system.
Meanwhile, located alongside an undeveloped dirt road within the county-owned Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley, the memorial wall is unfinished and in poor condition, with the majority of the engraving left incomplete.
Nguyen said estimates from county public works staff for repairing the wall ranged from $168,000 to $420,000 to reface the granite and roughly $30,000 to $40,000 to complete the engraving.
“There’s not a lot of documents on this site. We don’t know what was spent, we don’t know what materials were used, we don’t know anything,” Nguyen said, alleging a lack of ADA compliance, saying that additional improvements and meeting compliance could cost upward of $1 million. And the large, mounted granite slabs could be a hazard in an earthquake, she warned.
Attempting to relocate the memorial would be difficult, she said, and the pieces would need to be split apart. Because it’s unclear how the granite slabs are pieced together, there’s no guarantee it can be moved safely without risking damage, she argued.
Demolition could cost between $25,000 to $30,000, she said, making it the most cost-effective option. That is what she is recommending to county leaders, though it is unclear when a final decision will be made.
Nick Berardino, the president of the Veterans Alliance for Orange County, or VALOR, whose organization was listed as a co-sponsor for the memorial wall, said he supports Nguyen’s recommendation.
“I agree that the wall should be torn down because it’s enveloped in controversy and corruption, and that is a degradation to the history and the sacrifices of Vietnam veterans. We don’t want our heroes associated with that,” said Berardino, who is a Vietnam veteran.
Nguyen said a future project could become an amenity for the veterans cemetery that is being planned in Gypsum Canyon.
Berardino said that suggestion is a “very possible option.”