Veterans Protest Plan to Close Central Office
A small army of veterans stormed the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday to protest plans to close the county’s only veterans services office.
The supervisors responded to the impassioned appeals by ordering Chief Administrative Officer Harry Hufford to review whether the move to shut a central office and spread veterans affairs bureaus throughout the area would hurt the quality of service.
The veterans thought that it would.
“I am horrified,” said Bernard Dunhom, commander of the Disabled American Veterans Post in Oxnard. “You close that office and I guarantee you, you’ll be out of office.”
County Human Services Director Barbara Fitzgerald, who developed the plan, said the action would save $10,000 in rent on the Oxnard office and an additional $200,000 in expenditures each year.
Fitzgerald said that by putting offices in cities, many veterans might learn of benefits they never knew they had coming.
But veterans oppose the plan because they are convinced that they will get lumped in with other human services clients, and would no longer have confidential counseling and specialized workers putting in claims for them.
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