{"id":461920,"date":"2025-12-21T09:27:40","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T09:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/461920\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T09:27:40","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T09:27:40","slug":"bay-area-officials-demand-answers-on-unfathomable-cancellation-of-395-million-alameda-veterans-clinic-the-mercury-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/461920\/","title":{"rendered":"Bay Area officials demand answers on \u2018unfathomable\u2019 cancellation of $395 million Alameda veterans clinic \u2013 The Mercury News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Veterans Affairs\u2019 cancellation of a long-awaited $395 million VA clinic project<\/a> that was to be part of Alameda Point\u2019s redevelopment is drawing fire from Bay Area elected officials who call the decision \u201cunfathomable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beginning in 2014, the city of Alameda, the VA and the Navy began planning construction of a veterans health care center at Alameda Point, which served as a critical base for naval operations during World War II. The proposed plans would establish a modern outpatient clinic, a columbarium with 25,000 niches and offices on 112 acres.<\/p>\n

With more than 42,000 veterans<\/a>, Alameda County has the largest number of veterans across any county in the region \u2013 but there is no dedicated VA clinic located in the East Bay \u2014 resulting in complicated medical referrals that can make seeking care more difficult, according to a 2022 VA report. The report affirmed that a new VA hospital was needed in Oakland or Alameda Point.<\/p>\n

In August, however, the Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs published a memo stating that the VA no longer \u201cintends to construct and operate\u201d the Community Base Outpatient Clinic, the official name of the Alameda Point veterans project.<\/p>\n

In a letter to VA Secretary Douglas Collins last week, Rep. Lateefah Simon, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Adam Schiff and Sen. Alex Padilla demanded an explanation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we found out that we were on a list of legacy projects that the VA essentially jettisoned us, we were shocked,\u201d Simon told Bay Area News Group. \u201cIt\u2019s unfathomable, particularly with an administration that claims to want to support our veterans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Padilla criticized the stated intention of the VA to \u201cdispose\u201d of the site \u2013 a break from more than a decade of planning.<\/p>\n

\u201cHundreds of millions in funding and years of restoration work have already been dedicated to this critical project to ensure those who dedicated their lives to our country have their health and burial needs met,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cI call on the Trump administration to immediately reverse this cancellation and explain their decision to turn their backs on American heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The August memo cited sea level rise, \u201cinaccessibility\u201d to Alameda Island and contamination of Alameda\u2019s groundwater by PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals, for shutting down the project, which puzzled stakeholders.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a thorough review of site conditions and Veteran population data, we believe this area is not suitable for these projects as it is contaminated with PFAs,\u201d VA Press Secretary Pete Kasperowicz wrote to Bay Area News Group.<\/p>\n

But local officials involved with planning the Alameda Point project said PFAS are a moot point, as the environmental review finalized in 2021<\/a> did not flag them as a public health threat that would impact the project. The city of Alameda, including Alameda Point, does not even get water from the ground, Alameda Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re waiting to hear back on the PFAs study \u2013 which they\u2019ve never shared with us \u2013 they used in (the) list of reasons for terminating this project,\u201d Ezzy Ashcraft said.<\/p>\n

Project stakeholders and Congressional representatives did not receive the VA\u2019s explanation \u2014 which the letter from Bay Area elected officials described as \u201copaque\u201d \u2014 until mid-September, Ashcraft said. The remaining project funds were canceled on Sept. 30 and were transferred to the VA.<\/p>\n

Simon questioned the memo\u2019s disregard for the regional plan to address Bay Area veterans\u2019 needs for health services, which can often involve months-long waits for appointments.<\/p>\n

She said she has raised her concerns about the suddenly canceled project with the House Committee on Veterans\u2019 Affairs Chair Rep. Mike Bost, an Illinois Republican, and learned that numerous other long-term projects across the Bay Area<\/a> had been had been terminated in similar fashion.<\/p>\n

As of Thursday, Simon\u2019s office still had not received a response from the VA.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy goal is to have the full attention of the Veterans Affairs Committee in Congress and the office of Veterans Affairs to push to reverse this decision and others,\u201d Simon said.\u00a0\u201c(Bost) was completely unaware of the project being jettisoned and canceled. He just he had no idea, and vowed to work with me to figure out what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Department of Veterans Affairs\u2019 cancellation of a long-awaited $395 million VA clinic project that was to be…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":461921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[15172,15173,276,16055,18825,2556,15175,210,1141,1142,2765,1370,728,8629,50,20909,80,67,132,68,2512],"class_list":{"0":"post-461920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-alameda-county","9":"tag-bay-area","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-california-news","12":"tag-california-politics","13":"tag-development","14":"tag-east-bay","15":"tag-health","16":"tag-health-care","17":"tag-healthcare","18":"tag-keywee","19":"tag-latest-headlines","20":"tag-local-news","21":"tag-local-politics","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-pm-report","24":"tag-politics","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-veterans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115756849491387133","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}