After five years of meetings in American Legion halls, numerous false starts and dashed hopes and of changes during the application process, developers vying to build a veterans clinic in Elk River or Ramsey have until Monday to complete a final questionnaire before the Veterans Administration makes its selection this month.
Julie Stout, the VA official overseeing a nonpolitical sweepstakes that is being monitored by U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and officials from Anoka and Sherburne counties, told two developers each from Elk River and Ramsey that she hopes to award a contract by the end of April, officials from both cities said.
The Community Based Outpatient Clinic, which will serve northwestern suburbs, including an estimated 31,000 veterans in Anoka County alone, is scheduled to open this year. That seems more unlikely with each passing week. But three months after developers made what they had hoped were final presentations to since-departed VA contract officer Lee Wiech, any progress in the clinic quest is viewed as a shot in the arm by befuddled veterans and county officials.
In the dark
"Whenever the conversation turned to this new clinic, veterans would ask me the same thing: 'What the heck is going on?'" Duane Krueger, the recently retired director of veterans services for Anoka County, said recently.
"We're completely in the dark -- and we're getting very anxious," said Anoka County Commissioner Dennis Berg, a Vietnam veteran.
The state-of-the-art clinic could serve as an alternative for veterans who travel to the VA hospitals in Minneapolis and St. Cloud.
Stout and her staff contacted the city of Ramsey about a proposed site at the half-vacant Ramsey Town Center and got in touch with developer Jim Deal about a site near the Town Center, Deal and Ramsey Mayor Bob Ramsey confirmed. The addition of the clinic would enhance the city's argument in seeking funds for a Northstar commuter rail station.
