SEAL BEACH – A grassy plot overlooking the ocean at Eisenhower Park is being transformed into a memorial for the vicims of the worst mass killing in Orange County history.

While the trial in the 2011 Salon Meritage shooting is stalled in legal limbo, work began this month on the memorial for the eight people killed.

The heart-shaped memorial will include a walkable path from Ocean Avenue and a seating area where people can reflect. No victims’ names will be on it, but the words “Support in Love” will be. Those were the words that became the ubiquitous symbol for Seal Beach in the aftermath of the shooting.

“I’ve grown to like the idea and the lightness of it,” Bethany Webb, sister of victim Laura Lee Webb Elody and daughter of the lone shooting survivor, Hattie Stretz, said of the memorial. “I like the idea that the memorial will be a heart by the ocean. … It’s light and not something so draining.”

The memorial is about 10 percent complete and is expected to be finished by late summer, said Michael Ho, Seal Beach city engineer.

This site holds far fewer tragic memories for families of the shooting victims than the grassy tuft outside the salon that had once been proposed for a memorial site, family members have said.

On Oct. 12, 2011, Scott Evans Dekraai opened fire on Salon Meritage, where his ex-wife Michelle Fournier worked, killing eight people and injuring one. Dekraai, 45, pleaded guilty to the shooting and awaits a penalty phase trial to decide whether he will receive a death sentence.

Two months after the attack, a committee was formed to begin the process of creating a memorial. Committee members considered the public’s widespread opinions on what the memorial should be and where it should be located.

While many residents opposed a possibly sore reminder of the past, many families and friends of the victims wanted the lives of their loved ones to be remembered.

“So many people were affected that to not acknowledge it was wrong,” Webb said. “To just make it go away – that wasn’t the right answer.”

The majority of the committee voted for the memorial to be built at Eisenhower Park, about a half mile from Salon Meritage.

The City Council voted with the committee majority and authorized a construction contract for $130,852.50 and $10,000 for inspection and management costs, Ho said. The project is funded by the city and from fundraisers. The total cost of the project won’t be known until completion, Ho said.

Charles Antos, a former Seal Beach city councilman and mayor, was in favor of something simpler. Antos sat in on the committee for his wife, Marie, when they took the final vote. He voted against the current plans.

“No offense to the people that have died, but it should be a private thing. The memorial shouldn’t be where it is,” he said. “You have a memorial sitting in a park, nowhere near where the actual tragedy shooting took place, and it’s not going to be respected by all the people that come to the beach.”

Webb is hoping otherwise.

“It’s going to be a place of beauty, love and reflection, and a recognition of eight lovely souls” she said. “Me and my family want to remember the love that was my sister, not the hour of her death..

“There had to be a fine line that lets the city be a place of happiness, rather than always being known for one horrific moment in time. There’s so much more to Seal Beach than that one moment of ugliness.”

Contact the writer: aglander@ocregister.com