EYES, EARS, NOSE: A neighbor explains her support for Main Street vet center and urges visit to existing center at 2nd and Ringo to look, listen and smell.

  • ‘EYES, EARS, NOSE’: A neighbor explains her support for Main Street vet center and urges visit to existing center at 2nd and Ringo to look, listen and smell.

Kathy Wells, a Quapaw Quarter resident, former head of the Downtown Neighborhood Association and president of the Coalition of Little Rock Neighborhoods, explains why she voted in favor of relocation of a VA day drop-in center for military veterans at 10th and Main Street. The DNA Board split narrowly against the move, 6-5 Thursday night.

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Wells, in addition to living in the QQA, owns a small apartment building on Scott Street, about one block from the abandoned car dealership proposed as a new home for a center that provides medical, counseling, vocational, educational, legal and other services to military veterans.

It’s a long explanation. It’s thoughtful. It speaks of her experience in working with the homeless and first-hand visits to the existing vet center. She knows whereof she speaks of the VA’s record of delivering quality services to people the country claims to honor and the city’s record of delivering talk but little action.

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She illustrates with facts why public officials — pandering to legitimate concerns — have sold a misleading notion that all veterans in need of services are drunken bums and psychopaths. Kathy might not change anybody’s mind, but she should shame the demagogues, if they had any.

CC: Mayor Mark Stodola and U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin.

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