The Parks and Recreation Committee met 06/09/2025 and spent nearly 90 minutes discussion Resolution 4-R-25 which calls for Appleton Memorial Park to be renamed “Veteran’s Memorial Park” and for a plan to be developed to relocate select existing memorials to the park and to add memorials that currently do not exist for recent conflict.
The resolution was driven by feedback from some members of the veterans community as well as Mary Beth Nienhaus and was prompted by the inadequacy of the current Veterans Park to host community events as well as the lack of any dedicated space in the city to honor veterans.
There was some discussion about the proposal to rename the park with the singular possessive “Veteran’s”. There was some reasoning behind that proposal, but the committee ended up voting to amend the proposal to use the non-possessive plural “Veterans” under the belief that keeping it as originally proposed would cause the public to think the City of Appleton didn’t understand basic rules of grammar and spelling.
Some members of the committee were in favor of referring the resolution back to staff in order to get a better idea of the costs associated with updating signage as well as a clearer picture of which memorials would potentially be moved and how much doing so would cost, but the committee ended up voting 3-2 to recommend the resolution with the updated name of “Veterans Memorial Park” be approved.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:
There was a general sense from the committee members and alderpersons present at the meeting that the City of Appleton could do a better job of recognizing and honoring its veterans through the placement of monuments and the care and thought of spaces dedicated to them. Monuments currently are scattered throughout the city in ways that aren’t necessarily accessible or organized. Soldiers Square downtown is impinged upon by parking spaces and dumpsters, and the fact that it is not a more contemplative and honoring space is a source of bad feelings for many in the community. The monuments in Pierce Park are out of the way and not well known. The monuments on Memorial Drive are not particularly accessible. The current Veterans Park itself is a neighborhood park with limited parking, no plumbing, and no ADA access.
Two representatives of the Veterans Council and the alderperson who introduced the resolution responsible for the naming of the current Veterans Park 40 years ago, spoke to the committee.
Jack Voigt had served as an alderperson 40 years ago and was responsible for the park next to Memorial Bridge being renamed “Veterans Park”. Since that time, nothing had changed with the park and no improvements or enhancements had been made and he felt something needed to be done. He was in favor of renaming Memorial Park Veterans Memorial Park saying, “I think past veterans, current veterans and future veterans would really be honored to have this big park as called as Veterans Park.” He thought it would be more in line with the veterans parks in other communities. He finished up by saying, “Money is not the issue. The issue is honoring fellow veterans who have fallen, who have served, who is serving, as well as in the future, and we certainly, as veterans, give a lot to this community.”
Tim Cody and Jonathan Plypiv, both representative of the Fox Valley Veterans Council also spoke. Mr. Cody disagreed that money was not an issue, but he felt the costs to change the name would be nominal, “But more importantly is what is it worth to honor our veterans? What is it worth to this city? We’ve got Soldier Square, where we have one of the most beautiful monuments in this state, and it’s hiding behind trash cans and a parking garage because sometimes Appleton decided to take a boulevard, a beautiful boulevard, and turn it into parking, but left that statute there. We have the Spanish War memorial sitting in a corner of Pierce Park that nobody even knew was there ’til someone started weed whacking. We had our dough boy that almost fell apart before there was a great movement to fix it back up and put it there. That’s kind of a sad commentary on what Appleton treats in those veteran memorials.”
Mr. Plypiv said, “I see the memorials through our city, and I see we do place a lot of prominence to, like a magician, Harry Houdini, that Houdini Plaza very prominent, but Soldier Square is kind of hidden. […] We have a lot of community members that do care about our veteran support, many in this room too. But I think that changing that name, adding to that, really helps amplify that. It shows that veterans are remembered. It’s not just a word; it’s their service, it’s their family and everything that they we stand for as a nation, which is our freedom that’s earned by our veterans.”
Alderperson Martyn Smith (District 4) wondered if the name of Appleton Memorial Park needed to be changed, given that the name Memorial Park already implied some connection to veterans. He wondered if it would make sense to simply dedicate a specific part of the park to veterans.
Alderperson Katie Van Zeeland (District 5), the author of the resolution, responded, “what I thought was most important is that Appleton has a lot of areas where we honor veterans, but it’s sort of passive honor. You know, if you don’t go read what the statue is about, or you might not even know that the statue is part of the park, you might not visit that part because you’re on the playground. You know, this is really giving veterans the honor that they deserve, and in in doing so in a way that isn’t going to cost the city a bunch of money to change signs or do anything like that.”
Alderperson Chris Croatt (District 14) asked about the cost of changing the signage. Director of Parks and Recreation Dean Gazza thought that on the existing signs inside the park, they would be able to simply replace the word “Appleton” with the word “Veterans”, and it would cost probably no more than $250. Changing the signs at the entrance of the park could cost as much as $1,000. The only other thing would be to update the city’s website.
Alderperson Croatt was surprised that the cost was so low because it stood in such contract to the very high estimate of what it would cost to update the signage in the City Center/Fox Commons building. (https://allthingsappleton.com/2025/04/25/finance-committee-approves-use-of-carryover-funds-for-city-center-fox-commons-signage-with-caveat-that-item-will-come-back-for-final-approval-once-dollar-amount-is-known/)
Concerns were also raised about the cost and logistics of moving existing memorials to the park and of potentially adding new memorials that do not currently exist. A straightforward reading of the resolution confirms that the resolution was only calling for the development of a plan for those things, but some alderpersons and committee members wanted to have more details around that piece and what specific memorials would potentially be moved.
The city’s budget has, for a number of years, included $30,000 annually to be spent on the restoration of city memorials and monuments. Alderperson Van Zeeland said that she thought that would be used to cover these costs. Alderperson Alex Schultz (District 9) who is particularly interested in the restoration and maintenance of memorials throughout the city thought that the Gettysburg Address memorial and the Spanish American War memorial (both currently in Pierce Park) were both likely candidates for removal to a newly renamed Veterans Memorial Park.
Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) was not a committee member but did participate in the discussion. He said that he looked into moving cost estimates. Depending on if something got damaged in transit and needed to sit in storage and be repaired the cost could range anywhere from $1,000 to $100,000. He did not like that there were no cost estimates associated with the resolution. He went on to say, “If you want to spend $250,000 or $2.5 million on our veterans, I’m fine with that, but what we do with that money is also important to me. So, if we want to borrow $2.5 million and build them affordable housing for homeless veterans, I’m good with that too. I do think maybe we should. You know, I think about that often. So that’s really important to me.”
The prospect of amending the resolution to just focus on the name change and remove the part about relocating memorials to the park was raised, but when Alderperson Schultz made such a motion it failed for lack of a second.
There was also discussion about the proposed name of the park and the grammatical correctness of using the single possessive “Veteran’s” instead of the plural non-possessive “Veterans”. Alderperson Van Zeeland said that she had researched that issue and decided to go with “Veteran’s”. She read an excerpt from an article she had found online explaining it. “I’d like to use this space to publicly thank a veteran, just one veteran, the one. His name, I do not know. Whether he served his country during World War I or the Mexican American War or the Civil War or the invasion of Granada, I know not, and apparently nobody else does either. So, we just named the park Veteran’s Park. It’s his; all his.” She went on to say, “So that’s why I think that it should remain the way that it is. I think that’s really powerful when you say, ‘Thank a veteran.’ You know, it’s ‘the’ veteran that we’re thanking, not collectively veterans—’the’ veteran.”
Other alderpersons who either were on the committee or attended the meeting did not like the “veteran’s” spelling. Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) felt the piece Alderperson Van Zeeland had read was moving “but there was a lot of ‘he’s’ in there and—or it was a he. And we have a lot of women veterans now, and I think that maybe making that plural makes it—recognizes that fact rather than being the one.” Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) also thought the piece Alderperson Van Zeeland read was moving, but people who looked at the sign would not know the story behind it and would assume that Appleton didn’t understand proper spelling or grammar.
Alderperson Denis Dougherty (District 15) said, “I would just add in there as someone who spent 40 years in journalism, clearly the apostrophe should not be there. I mean, it’s just going to look bad. And anyone who knows the plural possessive and singular possessive and all that kind of stuff is going to notice that. It just would look really bad. I think clearly we should be grammatically correct on this, and that’s without question without the apostrophe.”
The committee ended up voting 5-0 to amend the resolution to remove the apostrophe from the name, but Alderperson Van Zeeland indicated that she would be speaking with the veteran community prior to the Common Council meeting, and if those veterans indicated they wanted it to be spelled “Veteran’s” she’d introduce that change at the Council meeting.
Alderperson Martyn Smith (District 4) made a motion to send the resolution back to city staff so that staff could provide a general sense of the cost of moving monuments to the park, but that motion failed by a vote of 2-3.
The committee then went on to vote 3-2 to recommend the amended resolution for approval with Alderpersons Van Zeeland, Patrick Hayden (District 7), and Dougherty voting in favor of it and Alderpersons Schultz and Smith voting against.
[I think the name change makes sense. The current Veterans Park has always struck me as a really odd and inadequate choice to serve as the park that honors our veterans. It was mentioned during the meeting that it was renamed when the bridge was named the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Bridge, which makes it a little more understandable why that park ended up being Veterans Park. But, still it’s clearly inadequate.
I do think changing the proposed name to Veterans Memorial Park rather than Veteran’s Memorial Park was a good choice. Even if certain veterans in the community would prefer it to be “Veteran’s” I don’t think the Common Council should approve that because the park name does reflect on the entire community and naming it “Veteran’s” would just make us look like morons who don’t know how to spell.
Finally, I was a little confused by the part of the resolution that states “Whereas, the current Veterans Park will be renamed” because it didn’t appear that there was any action underway to rename the existing Veterans Park, and such a renaming would only be needed if Memorial Park was renamed. That part of the resolution seemed more appropriate as a “Therefore Be It Resolved” clause than a “Whereas” clause. Perhaps that is something that should be fixed when it comes before the Common Council.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1305798&GUID=13F3F74D-28FD-4840-B210-342B66E7C7EA
Be the first to reply