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Military veterans in the Tri-Valley are growing increasingly worried about the future of their federal healthcare close to home.
Livermore Valley’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7265 has taken to social media in recent weeks in a campaign pushing to keep the veterans medical campus in Livermore open and to demand answers from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which has long contemplated relocating operations from its property in wine country.
“Here’s what’s concerning: there is no published plan, proposal, or timeline for the future of the Livermore VA campus,” the local VFW said in a call-to-action post on Facebook last week.
“That silence is the problem,” the VFW post added. “Veterans and their families deserve to know what’s being considered before decisions are made, not after. Uncertainty with nothing concrete to respond to leaves our community unable to advocate for itself.”
Closure of the Livermore campus remains “many years away”, as its final day depends on factors such as the establishment of a new outpatient clinic in the Pleasanton area, the Department of Veterans Affairs confirmed to the Pleasanton Weekly last week.
Built in 1949, the VA Palo Alto Health Care System – Livermore Division is a 112-acre federally operated medical complex offering primary care and specialty health services to veterans.
The VA was initially recommended over 20 years ago to close the facility, followed by an internal report in 2022 reaffirming the suggestion due to facility aging and its location in a purportedly inconvenient site for veterans.
Meanwhile, select services have been cut in recent years from the campus, according to Michael Gilmore, adjutant of VFW Post 7265.
He is among the decades-long line of veterans who have opposed the closure of the Livermore site. Gilmore also expressed concern to the Weekly regarding the future use of the VA land.
“It affects people that don’t even realize it affects them yet because you get a whole ‘nother generation of veterans that are in the up-and-coming ranks that are gonna be looking for help and we need to make sure that that help is there for them,” Gilmore said of the situation.
The VA denies the cutting of any services at the Livermore Division in recent years, except for the closure earlier this year of the site’s community living center, whose residents were relocated this year to the VA community living center in Menlo Park.
The VA has not made any decisions regarding the “disposition” of the campus, VA officials told Pleasanton Weekly.
“Full closure of the campus is still many years away,” according to the VA website. “VA Palo Alto health care will continue to maintain current clinical operations at Livermore until the full realignment of services to the new outpatient clinic.”
Leading up to this moment, the independent Capital Asset Realignment for Enhancement Services Commission in 2004 recommended the closure of the Livermore campus, according to the VA website.
A 2022 report from the VA dubbed Asset and Infrastructure Review Commission Report supported the closure and the shifting of services to other VA facilities or community facilities, the website states.
According to the report, the Livermore facility does not meet current design standards. Deficiencies are valued at about $63.9 million with annual operations and maintenance costing about $6.2 million, the report states.
The campus is “not easily accessible from nearby population centers where Veterans live”, the report states.
Additionally, the campus has one road for entrance and exit, parking limitations, outdated buildings unsuitable for modern healthcare and an aging sewage treatment plant, according to the report.
“A new (multi-specialty community-based outpatient clinic) in the vicinity of Pleasanton, California, will improve access to primary care, mental health and outpatient specialty services at a location close to where Veterans live and eliminate the need for those services at the Livermore (VA medical center),” according to the report.
In recent years, no services have changed at the facility other than the community living center, VA officials told the Weekly.
But Gilmore said he has seen some services cut in recent years.
The pharmacy is closed and dental services have stopped within the last few years, he said. A tooth cleaning, he added, takes up the majority of a day because the appointment is at the VA center in Menlo Park.
“It’s definitely an inconvenience and I know there are veterans out there that choose not to take care of their health because of the inconvenience of travel,” Gilmore said.
Among its most recent calls to action, the Livermore Valley VFW asked members, supporters and others on social media to request help from federal and state legislators to keep the facility open, including both U.S. senators from California and State Sen. Jerry McNerney.
“It’s calling on our elected officials from the bottom up to stand up to these other politicians in the hierarchy and letting them know that we want this in our community,” Gilmore explained. “We need to keep something in our community.”
In an email interview with the Weekly, McNerney confirmed his support for keeping veterans services at the Livermore site.
“I have long advocated for maintaining the Livermore veterans’ health care property as a facility serving veterans,” McNerney said. “Our local veterans served and sacrificed for our country and deserve a facility right here in the Tri-Valley.”
Although the veteran community in the Tri-Valley wants to keep the hospital open, Gilmore said he would settle for the land’s reuse if it was maintained for supporting veterans.
“If we can’t keep the VA hospital open in Livermore because of age and infrastructure, we definitely want to keep the land in veterans use of some sort, some way,” he said.
Surrounded by nature, the site could be used for a rehabilitation center for veterans recovering from drug, alcohol and post-traumatic stress disorder, he said.
Meanwhile, three campuses within the Palo Alto VA Health Care System are poised for upgrades, given the VA’s commitment of $4.8 billion in one-time funding nationwide during fiscal year 2026 to modernize, repair and improve health care facilities.
The Livermore Division is set for an X-ray machine replacement, according to VA spokesperson Michael Hill-Jackson.
For updates regarding the Livermore Division, visit www.va.gov.
Editor’s note: Pleasanton Weekly associate publisher Jeremy Walsh and Embarcadero Media Foundation Peninsula staff writer B. Sakura Cannestra contributed to this story.
