Perryville right to hold firm on roadway

The Perryville town commissioners do their town a service by standing firm on the issue of whether the town will end up being financially responsible for a road that becomes a major truck access route for the Perry Point VA Medical Center.

The federal veterans installation has been in place at Perry Point for decades, and truck access has long been a problem. As the years go by, trucks get bigger, but the space under the railroad bridges in Perryville doesn't grow. It's trucks that bring in the substantial loads of supplies needed at Perry Point, and for a number of years getting trucks under bridges and onto the facility has been a growing problem.

It isn't Perryville's problem. While the town and its residents, like all of us, have an obligation to our veterans and the agency whose purpose is to serve them, it shouldn't become the maintenance shop for an access road to a major federal installation.

To some extent, however, that's what the federal government has been expecting. A proposal rejected last week by the town commissioners would have made truck friendly improvements to an access road to serve the VA, but the town would have ended up being responsible for road maintenance.

This hardly seems fair as the only major beneficiary of the road would be the VA hospital. It would be outrageous if a private company asked the town for a local taxpayer funded service road, and it is really not much different for the VA to be asking for the same thing. If the VA needs an access road for truck traffic, it should pay for it and maintain it.