The administration has teed up more political appointees to review and potentially approve President Donald Trump’s planned triumphal arch at a key federal hearing next month.
The political appointees replace career officials who have served as alternate members of the National Capital Planning Commission, which reviews federal construction projects and is scheduled to meet Nov. 5 to discuss the planned 250-foot-tall arch.
Ricky Buria and Patrick Weaver, top aides to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, were added as alternate commissioners if Hegseth cannot attend next month’s hearing, according to a change made to the commission’s website. Only one of the two men would attend the meeting in Hegseth’s place.
Kevin Lilly and Aaron Calkins, who help lead the Interior Department’s fish, wildlife and parks division, were similarly added as alternates for Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
Spokespeople for the commission, the Pentagon and the Interior Department did not immediately respond to questions about the staffing change.
The commission’s 12 standing members include the heads of the Pentagon, Interior Department and the General Services Administration, who traditionally send deputies as alternate commissioners in their place. Tammy Stidham, a senior National Park Service official who was among the career officials replaced on the panel, had served as the interior secretary’s alternate commissioner for several years and had voted on numerous past projects.
The vote on Trump’s arch is expected to be controversial, in part because of its location near Arlington National Cemetery. Veterans groups, local advocacy organizations and historic preservationists have called for the administration to shrink the size of the planned 250-foot arch or pick a different place to build it.
Buria and Lilly, two of the newly added alternate commissioners, are military veterans.
Trump previously packed the long-standing commission with allies who have approved his past projects, including the new White House ballroom.
Mark Paoletta, a Trump White House official who chairs the commission, has said that he plans to approve the arch next month.
“The empty Memorial Traffic Circle built in 1940 does not complete the grand design authorized and envisioned by the Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission and by Congress as enacted in the 1925 law,” Paoletta wrote on X this week. “It is a disgrace to our nation and her noble veterans.”
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