Ohio Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial being hijacked
They have removed from the memorial all information regarding the veteran shot down
Jim Davis, President, Veterans for Change
The Ohio Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial, located in Clinton, Ohio, has been hijacked right out from under the Veterans of Ohio, that is was dedicated to, and the families of the 3,095 listed on the Memorial Wall, who gave their lives in Southeast Asia while in service to their country.
The current Board of Directors refuses to manage and operate this memorial with the long overdue respect and honor it so richly deserves.
They have removed from the memorial all information regarding the veteran shot down in Vietnam , which was the original inspiration of the Memorial and forced out his brother, Dan Delarosa, who designed the park and worked for years to get it started.
- They not only blatantly ignore: their own by-laws, Internal Revenue 501c3 regulations and grant stipulations but have also managed to stop the construction of a fully funded POW/MIA Reflecting Pond that was scheduled to be dedicated this past Veterans Day. In the process, they managed to make the final $20,000 grantfor the POW/MIA Reflecting Pond go AWOL for six months until the Ohio Attorney General was called in to investigate. That POW/MIA pond is being held hostage in order for the board to continue to solicit funds using fraudulent, grossly inflated figures, to be used for “other things”.
- The directors are raping the memorial by refusing to permit competitive bidsinsisting all contracts for monuments ($308,000 to date) go to a conflict of interest board member, Ken Noon, who owns Summit Memorials, Akron , Ohio . We must save this memorial for the Ohio Veterans it was dedicated to; by dismantling the entire current Board of directors of the Ohio Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park and replace them with Veterans who supported it with both their heart and their pocketbook.
Read next: On This Memorial Day
Email Us | Reader Friendly | Comments
Guest Column——Bio and Archives
Items of notes and interest from the web.
