Is new military memorial headed to Wauconda?
A failed plan to honor the troops and emergency personnel who've served in the war on terror with a memorial in Gurnee may have a second chance in Wauconda.
Former Gurnee Trustee Kirk Morris announced on Facebook this week the Heroes of Freedom Memorial first proposed in 2005 "is moving to Wauconda."
An official announcement is expected Thursday at a Wauconda ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. That's scheduled for noon at Memorial Park, which is on Route 176 at Main Street.
"The Mayor of Wauconda, Frank Bart, has made the right moves to have a dedication this time next year," Morris said on Facebook.
Neither the village board nor the Wauconda Park District board has commissioned or reviewed plans for a memorial, however.
Officials have discussed building a memorial around a large beam from one of the fallen World Trade Center buildings that Morris has acquired and offered to display in Wauconda.
A committee consisting of village and parks officials and other interested community members has met to discuss establishing a new memorial. But the group has met only once and no decisions have been made, park district Director Nancy Burton said.
"There has been no final determination of location," Burton said. "It's so preliminary."
Bart sounded optimistic a new memorial will be built.
"Everybody's in agreement that we're going to do it," he said. "We just haven't decided what we're going to do."
Morris said the project being discussed in Wauconda is much smaller than what was supposed to be built in Gurnee.
The Gurnee memorial was designed to honor the soldiers from Lake County who'd served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Morris' son, Geoffrey, was a marine who died in Iraq in 2004.
Statues and other elements were proposed. The plan was approved, and work began on a site in town, but the project wasn't completed.
In 2009, after Morris was elected to the village board, he began publicly feuding with Gurnee Mayor Kristina Kovarik about the memorial plans.
Kovarik accused Morris' charitable foundation of being incapable of building the memorial.
Morris sued the village in 2010 after his foundation was removed as leader of the effort.
The case was settled in 2013. As part of the settlement, the village agreed to remove the Heroes of Freedom Memorial Park name from the property and return the rights to Morris and his foundation.
Morris, who unsuccessfully challenged Kovarik for mayor in 2013, hopes the beam from the World Trade Center will be incorporated into the existing memorials at the Wauconda park. The statues planned for Gurnee aren't being considered this time, he said.
When asked about the controversy surrounding the original memorial proposal, Wauconda's Bart said the political conflict that had arisen in Gurnee "is not our concern."