Veterans plead for no commercialization
WEST L.A. Sandwiched between the congested I-405 Freeway and the high-rise Wilshire Boulevard buildings is more than 380 acres of land held sacred by the men and women that served their country.
The West LA Veterans Administration campus is one of 18 sites across the country currently being reviewed by the Department of Veterans Affairs in an effort to modernize healthcare facilities. The Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) study process assesses the campuses and their inventory of buildings, identifying possible consolidation of services and the reuse, renovation and construction of facilities.
This could also include more lease agreements.
Following a two-year hiatus, a local CARES advisory panel comprised of experts and city officials reconvened on Thursday to hear on four different proposals to prepare the West LA campus and its healthcare facilities for the next few decades.
The meeting hardly touched on the designation of three buildings for homeless veterans services.
The presentation, prepared by consultant PriceWaterhouseCoopers, was a snapshot of a 177-page report released last month detailing the four so-called Business Plan Options, each of which would take at least 13 years to fully implement. The four plans range from the basic yet time consuming option one, which would renovate existing buildings to meet safety standards, to the heavier construction projects laid out in the three other options, which includes a combination of new research facilities and nursing homes. The VA will collect public input on the four proposals for the next few weeks before presenting them to outgoing VA Secretary Jim Nicholson.
Some veterans in attendance criticized the findings in the report, specifically one line that stated the number of enrolled veterans would decline by 23 percent over the next 20 years.
“That can’t be in light of what is going on in Iraq,” said Jackie Freedman, co-president of Coalition for Veterans’ Land.
But the theme of the day was anti-commercialization. As expected, the meeting was a contentious one, well-attended by veterans of wars dating as far back as the Korean War, many members of local veterans groups, many donning wedge caps.
These veterans demanded that no part of their beloved 387-acre campus be commercialized, leased to private entities. The campus currently houses a storage lot for rental cars and the Wadsworth Theater is leased for private events.
In many cases, the veterans are excluded from these private events whose ticket prices are far out of reach, according to one speaker, Keith Jeffries.
“They are sitting on the outside treated like second-class citizens,” Jeffries said.
Several county officials and representatives of state and national elected leaders read statements denouncing any further moves to commercialize the VA property, eliciting an ovation from the audience.
The CARES panel voted unanimously to recommend to Nicholson that the campus have no enhanced use leases for commercialization and not sell any piece of property for commercial development.
“You must carry back the message there can be no such thing as surplus or excess until (you’ve cared for) every last veteran,” said Mike Eveloff, the treasurer for the Coalition for Veterans’ Land.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 8, 2007. Read the original PDF.