APPLETON, Wis. (WFRV) – A popular Appleton park may soon have a new name that will help the city honor those who served.
On Monday night, the Appleton Parks and Recreation committee approved a resolution that will change ‘Appleton Memorial Park’s’ name to ‘Veterans Memorial Park.’
“Many communities have a veteran park, we have a veterans park, but it doesn’t provide the services that are needed for a good veterans park for Appleton,” said Appleton veteran Jack Voight.
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The city already has a park called ‘Veterans Park’ on South Memorial Drive. However, it’s a small park with minimal parking, so it’s hard to host any substantive ceremony to honor veterans there. Local veterans said they think the city could do a better job of honoring those who served using the city’s public spaces, and that’s why they are getting behind this resolution.
“It takes some effort from different advocates to create an environment that this is a needed thing for our community,” Voight told Local 5 News. “Having this opportunity to have a new space to recognize veterans, I think, is important.”
The resolution also directs city staff to develop a plan to relocate existing veterans’ memorials throughout the city to what would be ‘Veterans Memorial Park.’ It would also add new memorials to honor veterans who fought in more recent conflicts.
At the committee meeting, there was a robust discussion about the details of this resolution. There are still some questions that need to be answered, including the costs of the project and how relocating the memorials would exactly work.
Now that the resolution has passed through the committee, it will go before the full Common Council at a future meeting.
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“We have a great foundation (at Memorial Park) and I think it would look amazing to have additional monuments in that area, it’s very peaceful out there, there’s great parking for those with accessibility issues,” said parks and recreation chairperson Patrick Hayden. “I see a lot of wins there.”
