USS Hornet provided an appropriate setting for Dec. 18's public information meeting about the US Navy and Department of Veteran Affair's plans for the land once home to the runways at the now-shuttered Naval Air Station.

A pair of former mayors — one from Alameda and one from Oakland — led the charge for Bay Area veterans speaking in favor of an outpatient clinic, a hospital to care for the veterans and columbaria as a final resting place for the men and women who have served our country.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) plans to build a 53-acre columbarium at Alameda Point. In its materials the VA prefers to use the plural, columbaria, because the niches to hold the deceased veterans' cremated remains will be in a series of self-standing outdoor units, rather than inside a single building. The units at the VA's columbaria at Alameda Point would contain niches low enough for visitors to touch.