Coastal Voices Guest Editorial: Rethink vet monument location

The Highway 101 traffic corridor flowing through a row of national chains and fast food outlets is not Crescent City’s most elegant physical feature.  

It is good to show where the monument (designed by architect and City Councilman Charles Slert) is proposed to be located at the S curve.  However, the white frame mock-up there (now replaced by a sign with flags) was misleading, because the monument is a solid geometrical block on an 80-foot pad with five flagpoles, and upward facing night lighting that cost money daily and is bad for wildlife near Elk Creek.

In urban design terms, H Street is appropriately centered about halfway between the 101 corridors and beautiful Pebble Beach Drive. H Street is slowly becoming an attractive, walkable civic center. From the county administrative offices, one passes the freshly painted veteran’s building, the historical society museum, and the county courthouse. The street has a calm, pedestrian friendly feel with small residences and businesses as one continues on to the Front Street Park with an ocean view vista. 

At the proposed S curve location, the monument becomes a poorly recognized drive-by element in an intersection that is already filled with a variety of visual distractions.  The tail end of the southbound 101 lanes is already awkward for pedestrians and cars. There would not be enough space for it to stand out and gain the civic respect deserved of such a monument.

With the monument easily accessible and at a pivotal corner between the Del Norte visitor’s center and the Battery Point Lighthouse, it would add cultural recognition at a logical intersection.

If the monument is built in the S curve, it not only would add visual complexity to this already bizarre intersection and take away greenery, it would also trigger more signs by Cal Trans and I for one wouldn’t like to see any more billboards or signs.

Town design needs comprehensive thinking — monuments last a long time. Good planning would reserve this city land at the S curve for future uses that require being next to the Cal Trans highway corridor or near the environmentally sensitive Elk Creek. 

Let’s not disturb the S curve site.  For now, the green grass is restful open space that relieves the commercial concentration along the Highway 101 corridor.

Wendy Bertrand is a Gasquet resident.