A veterans clinic is city infrastructure, too

In August 2013, the federal government dedicated the new Milo C. Huempfner Department of Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic on Green Bay's east side.

The project had been announced in 2009 to replace a much smaller west-side clinic. Reporting republished by U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin's office described the new facility as a $60 million, 161,000-square-foot clinic at 2851 University Avenue.

The scale of the new building reflected a practical regional need. Veterans in northeastern Wisconsin had long traveled to Milwaukee or other distant locations for types of care the smaller Green Bay facility could not provide.

At the opening, the clinic was expected to employ approximately 200 doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals and serve as many as 20,000 patients a year. The reported services included mental health, radiology, dental care, optometry, and minor outpatient procedures. Services were to be introduced in phases after the dedication.

Those figures were projections reported when the clinic opened, not a claim about current staffing or patient volume. They show what the facility was designed to provide at that time.

The opening also reflected years of work by veterans and veterans' organizations. The report described local veterans and group leaders pressing for improved health-care access in northeastern Wisconsin. Federal officials, including Senator Baldwin and former Representative Steve Kagen, participated in securing and opening the facility. Veterans Affairs personnel were responsible for the health system, staffing, and care.

I joined the dedication as Green Bay's mayor. The city did not operate the VA clinic, and a mayor could not direct federal medical services. The local role was to recognize the facility's importance, work with the agencies and partners involved, and represent the community in which veterans and employees would use the clinic.

That distinction is important when public records assign credit. The federal government funded and operated the facility. Veterans and advocates spent years making the case. Medical professionals would deliver the care. Local officials were partners and participants, not owners of those responsibilities.

The clinic belongs in Green Bay's city record because essential regional services shape daily life just as transportation, utilities, schools, and public safety do. The location of care affects travel time, family schedules, follow-up, and whether veterans can receive more services closer to home.

The 2013 opening created a substantially larger outpatient facility in Green Bay and expanded the range of care the VA planned to provide locally. The dedication brought veterans, federal officials, medical leaders, and local representatives together around that documented result.

It is a limited but meaningful example of intergovernmental work: a federal health-care responsibility delivered through a facility located in the community, after years of advocacy by the people it was built to serve.