NEW VETERANS' CEMETERY APPROVED AT MIRAMAR, MAY OPEN BY LATE 2010

May 29, 2009 (San Diego) – Congressman Bob Filner, Chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, announced today that the Department of Veterans Affairs has chosen a San Diego firm, Van Dyke Landscape Associates, to design a newly-approved Miramar Satellite Cemetery.

"Progress at last!” said Congressman Filner, who chairs the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. “We need to move this along as quickly as possible. Veterans’ families should not be required to travel to the Riverside National Cemetery to pay respect to their loved ones.”

The Cemetery contract for $961,004 includes 11,700 conventional burial sites, 4,900 in-ground sites for cremated remains, and 10,300 niches for cremated remains in a columbarium wall, plus a public assembly area, administrative and maintenance buildings, roads, signs, and landscaping.

Congressman Filner was instrumental in bringing about the development of the cemetery annex by working with the other members of the San Diego Congressional Delegation, the Navy and the Department of Veterans Affairs. A Construction Award is tentatively planned for April 2010 and is expected to take two years with the possibility of an early burial section to open by late 2010.