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Virginia Beach — More than a year and a half has passed since 12 people were murdered and four severely wounded by a city engineer at Virginia Beach’s municipal center.
While the pandemic has raged on, the city has delayed building a memorial to honor those who were impacted.
On Tuesday, the council took its first step toward building a permanent memorial for those victims, voting 10-0 to create a “5/31 Memorial Committee” — the date of the mass shooting — and to hire two consultants to work on the project.
The city will use $115,000 to hire the third-party consultants. One will solicit input from the public; the other will communicate with the survivors and the victims’ families to ensure each is appropriately remembered.
The committee will consider everyone’s feedback, create a vision for the memorial and determine possible locations for it. It will then oversee the design and building. The council said the committee will provide a progress report by June 2021.
Debbie Borato, the sister of Missy Langer, who was killed, told the council on Tuesday that it is unnecessarily spending money on consultants when the families could provide their own ideas. She said her emails to the city go unanswered and she feels the city has disrespected the families.
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Jason Nixon, the widow of shooting victim Kate Nixon, urged the council to act swiftly and said hiring consultants wastes tax dollars that could be spent on building the actual memorial. Nixon would like to serve on the committee and already has pitched building a statue of a saddened King Neptune with 12 broken turtle shells. He often carries a drawing of it with him.
“We don’t need outside people coming in and getting paid consultant fees,” Nixon said during the meeting. “Why can’t we come up with our own plans?”
Nixon wants the memorial to be built in a public park located where the tragedy occurred and he would like the building to be torn down. The city has declined demolish it and plans to renovate Building 2 for a new police headquarters.
None of the council members responded to the two families’ comments about hiring consultants, but Mayor Bobby Dyer said COVID-19 created roadblocks for plans the city had to honor the victims on the one-year anniversary and for a permanent memorial. The city decorated Building 2 ahead of May 31, but cancelled the in-person remembrance ceremony due to the pandemic.
Dyer assured the families that the city would consider their input and that building a memorial would be an inclusive process.
“Given the emotions and the magnitude of this, and all of the people involved, we are going to try to do this in the best, most caring and empathetic way.”
Alissa Skelton, 757-995-9043, alissa.skelton@pilotonline.com.