Urgent! Sepulveda VA Medical Facility, 16111 Plummer St., North Hills, CA – Veterans vs. Enhanced Use Lease by and between the VA, New Directions And A Community of Friends
by Peggy Randall Burgess
Dear Sir:
I am a homeowner-stakeholder and member of the North Hills West Neighborhood (NHWNC) Land Use Committee.
I am writing to you because the situation here is serious and needs your immediate attention. It is crucial that you and the President step in to save the Sepulveda VA medical facility. Conversion of urgently needed medical buildings to apartments is unacceptable and must not be allowed.
As I’m sure you know, your predecessor signed 75-year Enhanced Use Leases with New Directions (ND) and A Community of Friends (ACOF). These leases allow them to convert two medical buildings at the Sepulveda VA (SACC) into 149 low income apartment units on 7.05 acres of largely undeveloped land on VA property, under the guise of sober living housing for homeless veterans. In order for ACOF to receive federal and state funding housing grants, current law prohibits this conversion from being exclusively for veterans. Therefore, civilians, albeit homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, could be living on VA property.
The 2004 estimated cost of this conversion was $40 million and there is no competitive bidding. It is undoubtedly at least double that today. According to local contractors, ACOF could build from scratch anywhere else for about $100,000 per door.
Financially, the Leases benefit only the Lessees since they will have title to the buildings and improvements plus 90% of the film revenue which, according to your Asset Management Dept., is estimated at $4,271,129 for 2009 and $5,766,025 in 2010. (Of course none of that money benefits veterans since Asset Management apparently doesn’t have to account for it.) Further you, as the Secretary of the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (DVA), have the option to simply transfer all right, title and interest in the land to the Lessees at any time during the 75 years. All other financial information was redacted from the leases which we had to obtain under the FOIA, but it appears the VA gets nothing for the leases but services in kind, whatever they are. Bottom line, none of it is of any benefit to the majority of veterans who need a full service medical center.
Since the sole purpose of the Enhanced Use Lease program is to allow the DVA to lease, sell or deed federal lands to the private sector and clear the way for the VA to divest itself of unwanted properties, this amounts to nothing more than a massive land grab that is a slap in the face to the heroes who fought and died for it.
The two buildings, 4 and 5, were the psychiatric and spinal cord units. Both buildings are in very good condition, clean and floors are waxed. They can easily and fairly inexpensively be refurbished and staffed as medical buildings which are urgently needed. In fact, that could probably be accomplished for less than the amount of the 2009 film revenue. Those buildings would house 300-350 veterans undergoing treatment at any given time. Homeless vets can be housed anywhere, vets in need of medical care must be treated on VA property. So, even if those apartment units were for vets only, they would only serve 147 permanently while as medical buildings they would serve thousands. The choice to us seems pretty clear.
The Sepulveda VA was designed, designated and zoned for a hospital and full service medical facility to serve the needs of Veterans in this area. The land on which it stands was donated to the U.S. Government in 1953 for the veterans. The hospital facility was completed in 1955. It currently serves some 150,000 California veterans as far north as Santa Maria, northeast to Lancaster-Palmdale, the entire San Fernando Valley and much of the Antelope Valley. Tens of thousands more veterans will shortly be returning here. They will need and are entitled to the finest medical and psychiatric treatment and care money can buy. Treatment which they are entitled to receive in their immediate area. If you do not rescind those leases, re-commission buildings 4 and 5, and restore the Sepulveda VA to the vibrant full-service hospital and medical center it was, you will deny our veterans, our heroes, the urgently needed care to which they are entitled! Not to do so in a time of war would be criminal!
Because the Sepulveda VA has been allowed to systematically downsize, dismantle, gut and convert urgently needed medical buildings for use as film and TV studios and other non-veteran related uses, our veterans in need of hospitalization or urgent medical treatment must travel at least one hour further, and in most cases substantially more because they leave and return to the area via the world’s busiest freeway interchange (405 and 101) to the Westwood VA in West Los Angeles (WLA). Forcing veterans to spend from two hours to six hours driving for a medical appointment is criminal. The WLA facility is not equipped to handle the veterans in their own area, let alone all those from the Sepulveda VA area. There are no emergency facilities left now at Sepulveda, so when veterans in the assisted living/nursing home building have a stroke, heart attack or other life threatening emergency, 911 must be called and they also must be transported to the VA Westwood, at a time when seconds may be the difference between life and death.
The land on which the Sepulveda VA stands belongs to the Veterans, bought and paid for with their blood, and no one has the right to lease, sell or give it away without their approval. The veterans do not approve of the proposed use of their land.
A condition of the Leases is that the lessees obtain a Zoning Variance from the City of Los Angeles in order to proceed with their project. The L.A. City Zoning Administrator held the first public hearing on the Zoning Variance February 20. Over 200 people attended that hearing, it was SRO and people were being turned away. Over 150 veterans, community members, representatives of three Neighborhood Councils and the LAPD all testified in opposition. Over 500 letters and hundreds of petitions in opposition were also presented. That decision is pending. However, whatever the decision it will be appealed to the North Valley Area Planning Commission (NVAPC) by one side or the other. From there, it will no doubt be appealed on up the ladder a process that could take many, many months, if not years. Meanwhile, our veterans will be denied medical treatment and care and you could expedite the process by simply rescinding the leases.
General, I’m sure you are aware, as are we, that if that Variance is ultimately approved, it will open up not only the 7.05 acres on which buildings 4 and 5 stand, but the entire 160 acres of Sepulveda VA property to further undesirable development of all kinds by the private sector and you can bet none of it will be for the benefit of our veterans.
FYI, both the project and the Variance are opposed by the North Hills West Neighborhood Council (NHWNC), in whose boundaries the Sepulveda VA stands and the veterans it serves are stakeholders in the NHWNC. It is also opposed by the Granada Hills South Neighborhood Council (GHSNC), the Foothill Trails District Neighborhood Council (FTDNC). Combined the aforementioned Neighborhood Councils represent over 210,000 taxpaying stakeholders. Before the month is out the Northridge East and Chatsworth Neighborhood Councils will have declared their opposition formally as well, bringing the total to over 250,000 stakeholders in opposition. The project is also opposed by the Los Angeles Police Dept. Devonshire Division which covers the Sepulveda VA, San Fernando Valley Historical Society, the 5,000 members of The American Legion – 20th District, Department of California (including retired veterans, active and reserve military members), the local branch of Viet Nam Veterans of America, VT Network and dozens of other Veterans Organizations.
Note: The North Hills West community and the NHWNC have studied this project for over four years. Two separate NHWNC Land Use Committees and two separate Boards have voted to deny it.
General Shinseki, our tax dollars support the DVA so there is no need for it to enter into Enhanced Use Leases with the private sector or divest itself of unwanted VA properties. May I remind you that:
· According to Congressman Bob Filner in January, 2009, the U.S. Congress increased your budget by an unprecedented 40% in 2008 primarily for mental health care.
· The stimulus package includes $1,000,000,000 for “medical Facilities for non-recurring maintenance, etc. Said funding to remain in effect until Sept. 30, 2010 provided that not later than 30 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of DVA shall submit to the Committees on Appropriations of both Houses of Congress an expenditure plan for funds provided under this heading.
· On Feb. 24, 2009, President Obama promised the Nation and the Armed Forces that “we would give them the expanded health care and benefits they have earned.”
· According to PBS Front Line on Feb. 24, 2009, there are over one million U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and one out of every six is suffering from PTSD.
· Feb. 27, 2009 President Obama addressed the troops at Camp Lejune and stated that he wanted VA facilities increased and upgraded with state of the art diagnostic equipment for our returning vets. He wants our Vets treated for PTSD and other injuries associated with this war, and set August 2010 as the date most military people will be returning from Iraq and the last 50,000 by January 2011. He promised that “Veterans would be taken care of, that additional facilities would be built across the Nation to provide for them and that our debt to them will never end!’
Well, Sir, there is no need to build a new facility here, just restore and upgrade the one we have. The taxpayers in North Hills, CA and throughout the San Fernando and Antelope Valleys take the President at his word. Make no mistake General, the line is drawn in the sand right here at the Sepulveda VA. We want buildings 4 and 5 refurbished, staffed and used as medical buildings. We want the hospital re-built and the entire property restored as a full service in and out patient medical center. And we want it done now so that our returning troops are guaranteed the care and benefits to which they are entitled and which our President has promised they will have.
We expect the Department of Veterans Affairs to stop pursuing its own agenda and start representing the veterans, which is what it’s supposed to do. We expect you to fulfill the promises made by our President and restore the Sepulveda VA to the veterans.
Thank you and I look forward to early receipt of a favorable reply.
Sincerely,
Peggy Randall Burgesscc: President Barack Obama
Congressman Brad Sherman
Los Angeles City Councilman Greig Smith
Senator Barbara Boxer
Senator Dianne Feinstein
David K. Rehbein, National Commander American Legion
Tammy Duckworth, VA
Paul Ricchoff, Commander IAVA
PEGGY RANDALL BURGESS can be reached at peggy8960@aol.com
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