Virginia Beach City Council approved spending millions more on the construction of a memorial for the victims of the 2019 Municipal Center mass shooting.
Some said they think the money could be better spent helping people still dealing with the aftermath.
James Moore, a former city worker who was there May 31, 2019 when an employee killed 12 people and injured five others, addressed council on Tuesday.
“I am not opposed to honoring my colleagues whose lives were tragically lost that day. Their memories deserve to be preserved. We must never forget that horror, the horror of what happened,” he said.
“Those millions could be better spent addressing the real ongoing needs of the victims, those who are still struggling every day to overcome the trauma they experienced.”
Moore still deals with PTSD and seizures. He opened up about his ongoing health issues in an interview with VTVCare, a nonprofit founded after the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting to help fund medical care for other mass shooting victims.
VTVCare posted a series of interviews with Virginia Beach survivors in May, the fifth anniversary of the shooting. Moore, and others who participated in the interviews, were critical of the city’s support in the years after the shooting.
In the face of criticism, the city has cited its investment in the memorial and other tax-payer funded initiatives as addressing the aftermath as best it can for employees and citizens. The city’s “Love for VB” group organizes annual remembrance events as well as the development of the memorial.
Moore pointed to a now-closed Sentara program dedicated to helping those affected by the shooting, the VB Strong Center, as an example of where the funding could have gone. The VB Strong Center was funded through federal grants, which were extended beyond their original 27-month mandates, before it closed in September.
Tara Reel, another city employee at the time of the shooting, also spoke to council on Tuesday.
Reel participated on the May 31 Memorial Committee, a 13-member committee convened in 2021 to plan for a memorial. She said many other city employees are only now able to talk about what happened that day.
“My only hope is that the legacy of this memorial ends up bringing them peace and solace, a place to reflect, and that when they see it they know they were never forgotten,” she said.
The city approved $9.7 million for the design and construction of the memorial and contracted with Dills Architects in April last year. The additional money approved Tuesday was to cover a shortfall in the construction cost estimates, bringing the total expected cost to about $14 million.
The memorial is due to open May 2025.
