LYNN — The City Council voted unanimously, (10-0), Tuesday night on a resolution proposed by Council President Jay Walsh, opposing a proposed moving of the city’s Veterans Affairs (VA) Clinic from 225 Boston St. to another location.
Ward 2 Councilor Rick Starbard was absent from the meeting.
Walsh’s resolution asks for the city’s law department to send correspondence from the City Council and Mayor Jared Nicholson’s office to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs and to U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton’s office to express the council’s opposition to the proposed moving of the clinic — citing accessibility issues for veterans who live in Lynn.
“It is not fair for veterans to have to travel to another city for care,” Walsh said to the council.
Following the resolution, Nicholson, members of the City Council and all members of the Lynn State House delegation signed a letter on Thursday, which was sent to the Department of Veteran Affairs, Moulton, and Joan Clifford, the Medical Center director of the VA Bedford Health Care — which manages the Lynn clinic.
The letter asks the parties to work alongside Lynn’s Director of Veteran Services Michael Sweeney and the rest of the city staff to come to a consensus on the matter.
Sweeney said that 2,000 patients are enrolled in the clinic, according to VA Inspector General report No. 21-002-60-232, dated Sept. 9, 2021.
Sweeney said he did not know where the proposed relocation site would be.
Sweeney said Veterans Services was told by the landlord of the clinic that the department is changing the five-year lease on the clinic to a one-year lease.
“As soon as we found out about that we contacted Congressman Moulton’s office,” he said. “What we were told by the congressman’s office then was that there are no plans to move the clinic.”
Last week, a representative from the VA sent a letter to the landlord saying that the clinic is moving due to, “changing veterans population in the area surrounding Lynn.” This prompted the resolution and the letter signed by elected officials in Lynn.
Sweeney said the process is the problem and the letter highlights a lack of communication between the parties and considers it a decision they made institutionally without any input.
“We want to get them to stop and communicate with us about the process,” he said. “To see this happen once again makes me so angry.”
Sweeney said this is not the first time the city was faced with the possibility of having the clinic relocated, as the department tried to relocate the clinic to Gloucester 15 years ago.
He said veterans and city officials demanded and held public hearings on the proposed relocation and were successful in convincing the department not to move the clinic.
“They did not engage with the veterans of Lynn 15 years ago and they are doing just that again,” Sweeney said. “They simply can’t do this.”
State Rep. Peter Capano (D-Lynn) said he was part of the efforts to convince then-congressman of Moulton’s district, John F. Tierney, to stand up to the department’s efforts to relocate the clinic 15 years ago. The result was Tierney opposing the proposal and a victory for patients of the clinic.
“It is arrogant and bureaucratic they have not communicated with anybody,” Capano said of the Veteran Affairs Department.
He said he hopes Moulton will do the same and stand in solidarity with the veterans of Lynn.
