FORT BRAGG, CA., 9/17/26 — Mendocino County supervisors met inside Fort Bragg’s Veterans Memorial Building on Tuesday and voted 5-0 to let the city run the hall.
The city will pay the utilities, handle routine maintenance, hold the keys and keep the rental fees, which are set by the county’s fee schedule. Veterans’ groups stay first in line. The American Legion Sequoia Post 96 and the county Veterans Service Office keep their rooms.
Supervisor Ted Williams moved it and Supervisor Madeline Cline seconded.
Board Chair Bernie Norvell, whose district includes Fort Bragg, said the transfer was Norvell’s idea about three years ago, back when he was on the City Council.
“I felt then and I still feel like the city is better equipped at this point to take care of this building, run it more efficiently, take care of maintenance,” Norvell said.
Norvell added that the city has already set aside money to repair the roof.
The item could have gone on the consent calendar, the list of routine items approved in a single vote. Norvell said they decided to put it on the agenda for discussion “just to make sure everybody understood we weren’t trying to sneak something by the veterans.”
At the board’s Sept. 1 meeting, Norvell said veterans’ representatives were “not completely sold” on the transfer. On Tuesday, Norvell said the city’s public works director and police chief had gone with Norvell to three of the veterans’ meetings to answer questions. The veterans had “very few, a couple of concerns that I believe that we’ve addressed,” Norvell said.
“I’ve had several other meetings with some very loud voices in the community that are representing the veterans,” Norvell said, saying that those representatives signed off on the agreement about two weeks ago.
The license covers the building and grounds at 360 N. Harrison St. for three years, and the city can renew it for up to three more one-year terms. The Fort Bragg City Council approved its side of the deal Monday as part of its consent calendar, according to the city’s meeting record.
The city has to keep running the building as a veterans’ hall, with use prioritized for veterans under the rules the board adopted Sept. 1, according to the agreement. Those rules put congressionally chartered veterans’ organizations first in line to use county veterans’ buildings. The city can also open the hall as an emergency operations center during declared disasters, and as a community space for public and private events.
The Legion post and the Veterans Service Office keep about 310 square feet of dedicated space, which they can use without interference from the city. The Legion post must be consulted before any changes to the wall decorations and memorabilia. And the city will hold street parking by the entrance for a mobile medical clinic serving veterans, about 12 days a year.
“The city has demonstrated its commitment over a period of years to see this Veterans Memorial hall improved and preserved,” Deputy Chief Executive Officer Steve Dunnicliff told the board. The city got the board’s approval to seek grants for work on the building, and it maintains the landscaping it installed on the property as part of its Bainbridge Park project, Dunnicliff said.
Either side can end the deal on 90 days’ written notice, but the exit takes effect only at the end of the current term, unless both agree to another date.
Earlier in the day, during general public comment, a speaker told the board that veterans’ halls aren’t meant to host politicking, campaigning or government offices, and that holding the meeting there was “stretching the envelope.”
The city takes over once it tells the county in writing that it’s ready. That notice has to come within 90 days of both sides signing the agreement.
As the District 1 Commander for the American Legion, covering Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte Counties, there is only so much I can say in my official capacity. Here is what I can say.
I was in the Fort Bragg Post 96 meeting this evening, and not one of our members or officers knew this vote was on the agenda, let alone that it had already happened. The County promised myself and the Post a copy of the agreement, and that outreach never came. The County’s own License and Operations Agreement contemplates “the agreement of the American Legion Sequoia Post 96 and the VSO,” yet there is no signature from Post 96 agreeing to anything. That word carries real legal weight. No one can claim the Post’s Veterans were present and therefore agreed to this. Agreement requires a called meeting of the members and the proper process, and none of that happened. The rules are also plain. All chartered Veterans’ organizations may use any of these buildings. They are not assigned to a single post or a single hall, and the presence of a few Veterans at a meeting does not mean the organizations who rely on these facilities were consulted or informed.
Now, speaking as an individual and not on behalf of The American Legion.
The point of this is not to reverse what happened. The point is that clear lines of procedure and communication need to exist. Whatever the merits of the transfer, the Veterans and organizations these buildings serve should never learn about a decision like this after the fact. Get the procedure right, keep the stakeholders informed, and follow through on the promises made to them.
I will also say plainly that I am tired of everything involving Veterans and the Veterans Services Office running through the Department of Social Services. The last department director failed us, and I watch the County point the finger at the current director, who then punts the blame down the chain to the VSO because, yet again, the County cannot communicate. “I want the VSO moved back under the CEO’s office as its own department”, the way it was before. That would give Veterans a direct line of communication to the Board of Supervisors, instead of all this he-said, she-said. That is all any of us are asking for.
One last thing, on the comment that a political meeting does not belong in a Veterans building. There is no rule that prohibits it from the building’s standpoint. The nonpolitical restriction people are thinking of applies to the Veterans organizations themselves, not to the building. The constitution and bylaws of The American Legion say that they shall be absolutely non-political, but that governs how the organization conducts itself. It does not govern the County, which owns these buildings, while the Veterans organizations do not. A Board of Supervisors meeting is government business, not a campaign event.
Kennedy Cooper yes that’s on point. Here’s the thing none of them know how to do anything they’re all completely lost. Don’t know how to read a contract. Misconstrue things constantly because they are not able to navigate through the words or what something actually means. That action in itself causes a lot of ridiculous meeting after meeting after meeting to the next meeting and then the other meeting because nobody knows what’s going on in the meeting. Then the kicker we wash our hands of the falling apart veterans building because we don’t want to have to maintain it anymore because we don’t have the staff or the wherewithal to do it that’s the fact. They ran into the ground didn’t maintain it and now they’re just going to dump it. The veterans building in Ukiah is a deplorable mess has been for nearly a decade. County doesn’t have the best track record of maintaining any of their properties. Every building that the county maintains has a leaking roof. The leaking roofs deeply correlate with the leaking pocketbooks. Keep on it Kennedy they need more poking.