In emotional 7-hour meeting, Westminster City Council puts moratorium on all new monuments

Critics of a proposed monument at Sid Goldstein Freedom Park in Westminster say the recent addition of secondary memorials detract from the park’s main Vietnam War Memorial.

By SUSAN CHRISTIAN GOULDING | sgoulding@scng.com | Orange County Register

PUBLISHED:  July 15, 2021 at 3:41 p.m.  | UPDATED:  July 15, 2021 at 5:19 p.m.

A Westminster City Council meeting that started Wednesday night, July 14, devolved into seven hours of bitter back-and-forth – finally closing at 2 a.m. Thursday. And even then, council members reconvened to finish a closed session meeting not open to the public.

“By the way, I have to get up at 4 in the morning for my job,” Councilman Carlos Manzo noted as the debate dragged on,

The dispute was not over homeless shelters or short-term rentals or any of the other usual big-letter controversies routinely witnessed at Orange County city council meetings. Rather, it centered around a monument that, should it succeed, will consume about 12 square feet of Sid Goldstein Freedom Park in Little Saigon.

The monument would pay tribute to the 1972 Battle of Quang Tri, in which South Vietnamese soldiers – with the help of American airpower – reclaimed a province taken by North Vietnam a few months prior.