America
VA ‘Mismanagement’ Hurting Veterans
BY JANE BLAKEMORE A
merica’s troubled veterans Administration should get out of
the construction business, says GOP Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado, whose district includes a massive VA construction debacle. A federal panel recently declared
the agency breached its contract with construction firm Kiewit-Turner, which stopped work in January on a new VA hospital just east of Denver. The construction firm
said the VA’s estimate on the job was a bit off — by about half a billion dollars. The VA had estimated
COFFMAN
building the hospital would cost $582.8 million. But design changes and delays drove the price to over $1 billion. VA officials, already facing heat
from Congress due to veterans’ pro- longed wait times, refused to request
additional funding. The judicial panel that reviewed the case declared: “We find that the behavior of the VA has not comported with standards of good faith and fair dealing required by law.” A week later, the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers announced that it would take over management of the con- struction job. Once built, the hospital
would cover over a million square feet and would serve over 83,000 veterans. Says Coffman: “The VA
is clearly not a construction entity, and they need to get out of the business so that we can better meet the needs of our veterans by getting
these facilities built.” Coffman added in a statement that
“every major construction project that the VA is currently working on is dramatically over budget and behind schedule.”
De Blasio Says No to Cellphone Restrictions
BY DAVID A. PATTEN A
cottage industry of sorts will die this month in New York City
when the citywide ban on cellphones in schools is lifted. Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s
administration first issued the prohibition. It was unpopular with some parents, who wanted to ensure they could contact their children in an emergency. Current Mayor Bill de Blasio campaigned on a promise to lift it. With parents insisting their
children carry cellphones, and oficials forbidding them on school property, a cottage industry sprang up providing phone storage during school hours. Each day, box trucks bearing
names such as “Safe N Secure Cellutions,” and “Cell Secure Electronic Storage” pulled up outside New York City schools. Students handed over their phones and the $1 per day “phone babysitter” fee to an attendant.
During the school day, attendants
would mind the hundreds of cell phones safely tucked away inside the truck in numbered pouches or boxes. At day’s end, they would hand the phones back over to their rightful owners. The resourceful cellphone minders
are expected to lose their jobs once the ban is lifted. But it is unlikely the de Blasio administration has heard the last of the controversy.
VA WOES The Aurora, Colo., facility on lockdown after cost overruns shuttered the project. 26 NEWSMAX | MARCH 2015
CELL PHONE, COFFMAN/AP IMAGES / VA HOSPITAL/BRENT LEWIS/GETTY IMAGES
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