It ain’t over ’til it’s over. (R.I.P. Yogi Berra, 1925-2015)
Earlier this month on September 10. the Robley Rex Veterans Hospital held a “Town Hall” to provide a forum for VA beneficiaries. I went to see what was being said about the replacement hospital being constructed at the intersection of Route 42/Brownsboro Rd and the Waterson Expressway. A tag-team of residents in the area have joined forces with University and business advocates who are still lobbying to have the hospital built downtown. These groups have been trying to scuttle the process including using the same strategies employed successfully by River Fields and others to delay and modify the construction of the new East-End bridge across the Ohio River. For example, the big push now is for a second even more extensive environmental impact study or to try to find a possible burial site somewhere on the property!
The current partnership combines tenacious forces of anywhere-else-but-here with no-where-else-but-here and which have had some limited success. It doesn’t hurt their efforts that the local Courier-Journal newspaper and city government aligned themselves with the downtown-only forces over 12 years ago when the replacement hospital initiative began. Lots of free editorial ink has been assured. As for the Veterans themselves, they have been largely unanimous in expressing their wishes to stay-where-we-are-now, or to go anywhere-except-downtown! The local and Washington VA authorities are being pushed and pulled in every which way. One can easily feel sorry for them! I have chronicled the process extensively elsewhere in these pages. Continue reading “Replacement Robley Rex Veterans Hospital– On Track Or Not?”