Val Lerch, former District 9 councilman and veterans’ advocate, dies at 69

Val Lerch, the erstwhile District 9 councilman and iconic North Long Beach nonmigratory who was honored astatine the city’s Veterans Day festival earlier this month, has died. He was 69.

Lerch, who served 12 years with the U.S. Coast Guard and different 30 successful the reserves, died connected Sunday evening, Nov. 21, astatine his home, according to his daughter, Vicki Lerch. The erstwhile councilman had spent the past fewer years trying to past cancer, but successful October, helium learned the crab had dispersed again and was terminal. Lerch went into hospice care.

Earlier Sunday, Lerch’s household gathered astatine his North Long Beach location to observe Thanksgiving with the patriarch.

About a week earlier, Lerch was honored arsenic the expansive marshal astatine the North Long Beach Veterans Festival.

Lerch, who served 2 presumption arsenic a councilman from 2002 to 2010, had been a person of the Long Beach Veterans Day Parade — which this twelvemonth became a festival lone due to the fact that of the coronavirus pandemic — since its inception.

But helium was incapable to permission his location to be the ceremonial successful his honor.

Instead, firefighters astatine Station No. 12, which Lerch helped rebuild during his eight-year tenure connected the City Council, took it upon themselves to guarantee the antheral who had dedicated himself to advocating for veterans, would beryllium celebrated successful person.

The full station’s brigade pulled up to Lerch’s curbside connected the greeting of the Veterans Day Festival to wage their respects.

Lerch helped signifier the Compton Stand Down, wherever veterans could find assorted services, from a haircut to occupation placement. In 2012, helium helped motorboat the Veterans Independence Day Celebration, which serves a Fourth of July barbecue luncheon to astir 3,000 veterans astatine the Long Beach VA Medical Center.

This communicative is breaking and volition beryllium updated.

Staff writer Rich Archbold contributed to this report.

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