o Who: The post serves as a meeting place for the group’s approximately 400 members, who are dedicated to helping other veterans.
o What: The Vancouver VFW has struggled to raise money to remodel the site for its new post, and to bring the building, the former Heights Tavern, up to code.
o What’s needed: The city council agreed to defer quite a bit of necessary work, but donations of building materials and money are still needed.
o To help: Call the VFW, 360-254-0155, or Roy Billings, 360-798-8827.
o Who: The post serves as a meeting place for the group's approximately 400 members, who are dedicated to helping other veterans.
o What: The Vancouver VFW has struggled to raise money to remodel the site for its new post, and to bring the building, the former Heights Tavern, up to code.
o What's needed: The city council agreed to defer quite a bit of necessary work, but donations of building materials and money are still needed.
o To help: Call the VFW, 360-254-0155, or Roy Billings, 360-798-8827.
It’s been a long march, but the members of Vancouver’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 7824 feel like they can finally stand at ease.
Following the embezzlement of $66,000 by a member, cost overruns and other hurdles, the 400-member group worried it might never have a post to call its own. Among the biggest challenges: Finding a way to raise about $140,000 to meet code requirements for its new post, a remodel of the former Heights Tavern at 400 N. Andresen Road.
But that burden was eased this week when the Vancouver City Council unanimously approved a development agreement that defers about half of that code requirement work for three years, giving the group time to open the post and start raising money to do the work.
The 35 or so VFW members and their families at the meeting Monday stood and saluted following the vote.
“It means the difference between us having a post and not having a post,” said Roy Billings, a VFW member who helped coordinate the code deferrals with the city.
Out of the darkness
After the embezzlement, “it was a very dark day,” he said. “We sat around and thought, ‘We’re going to get in the hole, and we’re not getting out of it again.’”
Among the work being deferred: reconstructing two driveway access points to city standards; paving and striping the parking lot, except for the required handicap spots; landscaping requirements; and installing curbs and landscaping to close two access points through the median on Andresen Road. On Monday, Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt also suggested delaying required stormwater improvements as well, which the council already approved.
The development agreement was an “unusual case,” Planning Review Manager Chad Eiken said Friday. The development agreement, he said, gives the city council a limited ability to be flexible and help groups such as the VFW.
“The thing that makes me feel good is, it is a bunch of volunteers, and really through no fault of their own, they wound up in this situation,” Eiken said. “It was nice to help them make progress toward completing the project.”
Boon to neighborhood
Eiken also said that helping the veterans locate in the former tavern would also be a boon for the neighborhood.
“This allows the VFW to continue making improvement to this building that was really run down and a neighborhood eyesore,” he said. “Otherwise it might have just stayed an eyesore for a lot longer.”
Billings said that for the VFW, working with the city was a good experience, despite what some people say. The VFW also worked with a new nonprofit, Community Military Appreciation Committee, and Councilor Larry Smith, a veteran himself, to navigate the city departments.
“I have found every department within the city to be absolutely supportive of our needs, once they realized what our situation was,” said Billings, 75, an Army and Air Force veteran. “They have stepped up and given us all the assistance we needed.”
Before getting an occupancy permit, the VFW must install two handicap-accessible parking spots; build a sidewalk from the building entrance to the public sidewalk on Andresen; install tree protection fencing around a large Douglas fir in the back; install temporary barriers to close the cut-through traffic from Andresen; and improve two streetlights.
Billings said that since the work has been deferred, they should be able to secure a loan within 30 days and hopefully move in within 90 to 120 days.
Though the group has been meeting at the Elks building, Billings said that the VFW will have to work to reinvigorate its membership once it moves into its new home. Once the group can start earning money from the post, it will be able to do the rest of the required work incrementally, he said.
The VFW, which is dedicated to helping other veterans, is now ready to get back to its original mission.
“We’re pushing day after day, trying to get this going as fast as we can,” Billings said.
Andrea Damewood: 360-735-4542 or andrea.damewood@columbian.com.
