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Letter to the MetroWest Daily News
To the editor:
Your editorial "Stalled clinic" (MetroWest Daily News, November 20) got it half right, but you failed to point out the many good reasons why the clinic is stalled.
Yes, we need to do a better job or serving the uninsured, and yes, community health centers are important. But we can only deal with the health care crisis in this country efficiently at the federal level. Until we do that, subsidized community health centers like this one are merely a band aid on a hemorrhage.
Yes, the Framingham Community Health Center has served many people. But it could serve many more just by opening longer hours. It is closed far too often, and when open, it is often empty. Perhaps this is because they have misinformed the community -- at least one Framingham resident was told she was not welcome because she does not speak Spanish or Portuguese. Clinic officials deny they only allow non-English speakers, but who knows how many people were told they were not welcome?
And yes, the approval process can be a headache, but there is a good reason for this. Yes, Great Brook Valley has made major revisions in design and parking of the clinic, but they are still significantly under the number of parking places the Framingham police recommend for the facility, and have not adequately addressed safety in the underground garage, which is walking distance from the wet shelter with its assortment of drunks, drug addicts, and sex offenders.
In fact, what you call "stalling" has given the community time to speak out. Just recently, the board received a petition opposing the clinic from a downtown resident with the signatures of over 100 downtown residents and business owners. Community opposition has also led to the Board to raise the issue of payment in lieu of taxes. If they succeed in requiring PILOT money from Great Brook Valley, it would increase funding to Framingham instead of decreasing it as yet another commercial property is taken off the tax rolls and replaced by yet another nonprofit.
Now THAT would be "good for the health of downtown Framingham -- and of its residents."
Peter C.S. Adams
November 21, 2005
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