Elected Officials Fight for the Home

Elected Officials Fight for the Home

By PAUL COOK | , SHANNON GROVEJAY OBERNOLTE and DAWN ROWE |PUBLISHED: May 27, 2020 at 5:08 p.m. 

“A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards,” opined President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903.

It’s safe to say that Roosevelt would be appalled, as are we, by the recently announced plan to shutter the Barstow Veterans Home.

In his latest budget revision, which reflects a deficit brought on by COVID-19 and by the state’s stay-at-home order, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes closing one of the state’s finest and most useful facilities, an idea so detached from reality that it would actually increase costs, while displacing nearly 200 veterans — many with serious medical conditions — and add 200 of the facility’s workers to the already overwhelmed unemployment line.

As your elected representatives, we strongly oppose this closure and will do everything in our power to fight it.