County Vets Fighting Forced Move

By far the most interesting topic discussed at the Board of Supervisors meeting this past Tuesday, Jan. 9 was not even on the agenda. 

It arose during public comment, when numerous military veterans addressed the Supes regarding a recent decision by CEO Darcie Antle and Dr. Jeanine Miller, who oversees both the Public Health and Behavioral Health Departments, to relocate the Veterans Services Office (VSO) to another facility. According to the CEO, the reason for the move was to turn the space over to the Air Quality Management District that reportedly had lost its lease at its offices. 

The Vets were all united in their opposition and outrage to a decision to relocate the VSO from its longtime location in a small house on Ukiah’s Observatory Way (near City Hall) to a receptionist’s office with two, 10’ by 10’ offices in the old Public Health Health Building. 

One of the Vets addressing the Supes was Carl Stember, who identified himself as the County’s former Veterans Services Officer. Among other things, Stember told the Supervisors the “CEO and her staff have been untruthful and sneaky as this county treats its Vets with hostility and dishonesty. I am requesting that this ill-conceived decision to move the VSO office be halted, and put on next month’s agenda. Do the right thing.” Stember also noted, “And through my whole speech the CEO didn’t look up once, she was doing something else.” 

The optics of the reality of evicting the Vets Services Office from its long-time headquarters to makeshift space in the old Public Health Building was completely lost on the bureaucrats who didn’t bother to provide the Vets or the Supes with any advance notice of their decision.

And the beat goes on.

Here’s a statement issued today, Jan. 10, to the Supes in the words of one Vet, Kennedy Cooper, of Willits, who explains the issue from a Vet’s perspective.

To the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors,

I am writing to express my strong opposition to the proposed relocation of the Veteran’s Service Office from 405 Observatory Avenue to 1120 S Dora Street. As a veteran and a resident of Mendocino County, I am deeply concerned about the negative impacts of this move on the Veteran community and the quality of service they receive.

The Veterans Service Office provides vital assistance and support to the Veterans of Mendocino County, such as helping them access their benefits, health care, education, employment, and housing. The office's current location is convenient, accessible, and comfortable for the veterans and their families. It offers privacy, tranquility, and security for the veterans, who often must deal with sensitive and personal issues, such as physical and mental health, trauma, and disability. The current location also has a history and a legacy of serving the veterans, as it displays memorabilia and photos of the Veterans and their organizations.

The proposed relocation of the office to the public health building is unacceptable and detrimental to the veterans and their well-being. The public health building is crowded, noisy, and chaotic, which is not conducive to the veterans’ needs and preferences. The public health building also poses a safety and privacy risk for the Veterans, as it is frequented by a known “Public Citizen” who has been harassing and filming the county employees and the private citizens seeking services. The public health building also lacks the space and facilities to accommodate the Veterans and their documents and equipment.

The county decided to relocate the office without proper consultation and communication with the Veterans and their representatives. The county gave zero direct notice to Veterans, and by the time the handful of Veterans found out, they had less than three weeks’ notice of the move. This lack of communication is insufficient and disrespectful to the Veterans and their rights. 

The county also failed to provide a clear and reasonable justification for the move and did not address the concerns and objections the Veterans and their advocates raised. The county also showed a lack of respect and appreciation for the veterans and their service, as the county’s employees external to the Veteran’s service office packed up the current office in an inappropriate and careless manner, throwing away veteran memorabilia and photos in the trash piles. One such photo picked out of these trash piles is that of Veterans from various VSOs throughout the county (American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars) standing hand in hand with previous County Supervisors.

I urge the county board of supervisors to reconsider and reverse the decision to relocate the Veterans Service Office and keep it at 405 Observatory Avenue. I also request the County Board Of Supervisors to apologize to the veterans and their organizations for the mishandling and mistreatment of the Veteran’s Service Office and its contents. I also demand the County Board Of Supervisors engage in a transparent and respectful dialogue with the veterans and their representatives and address their needs and concerns promptly and effectively. 

The veterans of Mendocino County deserve better than this. They deserve to be treated with dignity, gratitude, and honor. They deserve to have a Veteran’s Service Office that is convenient, accessible, and comfortable for them. They deserve a voice and a say in the decisions that affect them and their service.

DO NOT make the mistake of thinking that continuing the move of the Veteran’s Service Office to the proposed Public Health location is in any way an acceptable outcome for this situation. No amount of beautification or mediation will right the disruption caused by your actions.

As I said in the public expression on 01/09/2024:

As Veterans – 

It Is Not That We Can And Others Cannot 

It Is That We Did And Others Did Not

Thank you for your attention and your hopeful action.

Very Respectfully,

Kennedy A. Cooper 

SGT, USA 

Retired

Willits

(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, observer@pacific.net, the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District, and is also chairman of the Laytonville Area Municipal Advisory Council. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org)

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On Line Comments

I listened to Jacob Brown talk to the board on- line about the relocation of the Veterans Service Office. Everything he said was so right on. I was in tears. The whole thing is disgusting. A detail I missed at first: the veterans originally went out and got this building ON THEIR OWN for the exact need of a non -clinical government building!! And now the county is taking it!! My father is a veteran and damn near flips his lid at every clinical appointment. It’s the rushed atmosphere, the lights, the masks and halls and chaos and parking lot and phones and them asking if he’s got his health portal set up. He can’t even use a cell phone. I’ve seen him jump out of his skin at the ring of a phone. He doesn’t trust government buildings. Why would he? Our local veterans are now on a line fighting for the realization that health is connected to ambiance. Afterall, isn’t it the ambiance of war that causes PTSD? These veterans are fighting a fight for all of us right now, which is the absolute NEED to connect emotional and physical health. They are fighting for the dawning of a realization that the two aren’t separate. They are fighting for all of us who feel like our doctors don’t see the bigger picture of our bodies. They are fighting for the mastectomy patients who just get sent home willy-nilly in out outpatient procedures with no emotional support, for the foster care kids who distrust authority and find doctor’s offices scary, for migraine sufferers that can’t handle florescent lights and buzzing hvacs, for our elders who don’t want to heal in a room of machines beeping with the sound of your fellow patients screaming. For the caretakers and CNAs who’s own sanity and health depend on the calm provided by places like the Veteran’s Building on Observatory. Our local veterans are fighting right now for the right of ALL of us to demand that our health-saving spaces are actually healthy and not based soley on the efficiency of the bottom line… This is the fight of our time.

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Todd Schapmire: Veterans must be cared for and listened too. They are to be valued. Not cast aside by this BOS. Years ago, Shari and I created Guitars for the Troops when she was Ukiah Rotary President. This allowed me to meet many of our Veterans. We gave many of them guitars as a form musical therapy for PTSD. I was able to travel to the VA in Long Beach, CA and deliver guitars and sound equipment. I was invited to watch a practice session Rock For Vets, a forty-person band of Veterans and active military rehabbing at the hospital. Men and women who served our great Country jamming rock n roll classics. You could see the smiles on their face and the rare occasion to forget the PTSD or the wheelchair they were sitting in. It was emotional and rewarding.

Thanks to Jacob Brown for his letter that reminded me of these awesome memories. And keep up the fight for these amazing people, they must be heard and taken care of.

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“Supervisor John] Haschak said the county lost its lease on the building where Air Quality Management is currently housed, so Air Quality will be moving into the building on Observatory Avenue [where the Veterans Service Office was] as soon as possible. He says there will be quarterly meetings with the department heads, the leaders of veterans organizations, and him and Supervisor Glenn McGourty, so that vets aren’t abandoned to ‘an institutional morass’.”

— Sara Reith, KZYX reporter

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Sarah Kennedy Owen:

Re the abandoning of the Veterans to make way for Air Quality Management District: two questions: (1) how is the (current Veteran’s office on Observatory necessary for AQMD to meet? There are currently 4 members. Question (2): How and/or why is AQMD “losing” their current building which is directly next door to Redwood Quality Management, which is, I gather connected to Jeanine Miller, who made the decision to kick the veterans out of the building now being claimed by AQMD?

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Our veterans pleaded with our board and were completly ignored, i’ve never been so ashamed of our county.

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This Board of Supervisors has made a huge mistake. They are not concerned with how this affects our veterans! Change the decision. Put Air Quality Management in the Public Health building. Veteran’s Services may be under Social Sevices, so what. Quit making bad decisions over and over again. Listen to your constituents!!!

Right The Wrong!

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Really shameful the way the corrupt bos does business. Smh. I don’t remember this being broadcast to the public before today. Seems like this is another thing the corrupt bos did in the middle of the night.

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Can’t “Air Quality Management ” be stuffed in an obscure office somewhere? What a crock!

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It honestly makes sense to move the building if it’s part of behavioral health and public services. Sounds like they’re making accommodations to make a private entrance and to make it as welcoming as possible. They’ve even said they’ll accommodate moving the garden. It sounds like the building will be nicer than the one they have now.

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Nicer? I don’t think so. It’s hard enough for a veteran to seek assistance when the atmosphere is safe and inviting, like the 405 house. Now the BOS expects a vet to feel comfortable going into a maze of corridors and sit down tiny, claustrophobic office. They don’t understand the VSO office is able to pull off their mission at 1/3 staff precisely because the current office space allows it. The majority of all contact with VSO is walk in, the current space allows that because of the reception area where they can read information will they are waiting to speak to the ONE staff. Maybe they have an opportunity to speak to other vets while they wait, how is that going to work in two small 10×10 offices? No, not nicer.

For many Vets, myself included, this article is the very first we’ve heard of this move. In typical BOS fashion, it seems like another bad decision in a long line of bad decisions. Personally, for the last decade or so I’ve been trying to get myself to to go talk with the VSO about filing a claim but it’s hard. I don’t see the current change making that decision any easier.

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Sorry to read this. Our board of sups just suck.

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It’s all about our veteran’s comfort and to get the help they desperately need. Not the Board of Supervisors, or Incorporating veteran’s services into the Public Health Building. Once again, the veterans concerns are not considered, nor was the public notified about this, before the bad decision was made. Veterans needs and concerns are critical to them and our country they fought for and continue to fight for.