If you’re a veteran in Northwest Georgia, you’ll want to click HERE to read Phil’s latest update on the Rome VA clinic –scheduled to open this fall.  The link will also take you to breaking news about the state-wide, annual VA Supermarket event that will be coming to Rome in December 2007. 

The Rome News Tribune today reports on this exciting news:

The veterans outpatient clinic in Rome will be in place and operating four- days-a-week this fall, Congressman Phil Gingrey pledged Monday.

..Making a stop at Rome’s American Legion Post 5, Gingrey said the clinic would eventually employ two doctors, a physician’s assistant and several auxiliary staff members…

The clinic will have X-ray facilities, and Gingrey said he is confident the center will eventually include mental health services.  “This is real, comprehensive care that will cover most of the medical needs of our veterans,” he said.

The Rome News Tribune also posted a video of Phil discussing the pressing need for a clinic in Northwest Georgia. Click HERE to watch that video.

We are rapidly approaching opening day!

Last night, I hosted a very successful telephone townhall meeting with citizens in Cobb County.  Tele-townhalls are a new way I’m working to communicate with residents of Georgia’s 11th District and hear their thoughts on today’s pressing issues. Here’s how it works: each month, I choose a county and place phone calls to the residents who live there.  I invite them to join in a live, toll-free tele-townhall meeting, and then conduct the meeting over the telephone.  Those who are listening can ask me questions or share their thoughts on a particular issue.

So far this year, we’ve called Floyd, Chattooga, Bartow, Paulding, Cobb, Polk, Haralson and Carroll Counties.  We’ll continue hosting a tele-townhall meeting each month, so if you missed me the last time I called your county, you can be sure I’ll be calling again in the upcoming months. For those of you who weren’t on the call last night, here are the topics we discussed:

Immigration reform and ending chain migration
Tax relief and the Fair Tax
Gas prices
The War on Terror and our efforts in Iraq
Healthcare reform
Combating drug abuse, especially methamphetamine abuse

I really enjoy these opportunities to hear your thoughts and concerns. But you don’t have to wait for a tele-townhall to let me know what’s on your mind. Feel free to email me by clicking HERE, or click HERE to get contact information for my offices in Washington, Marietta and Rome.

Meet Michael Butler of Cartersville. Michael is living in Washington, D.C. this summer, where he serves as a Congressional Page in the U.S. Congress.   Michael moved to Georgia when he was 9, and while he lives in Bartow County, he attends Calhoun High School – where he is ranked first in his junior class with a GPA of 4.0.  This isn’t Michael’s first time in Washington, D.C.  When he was in the 7th and 8th grades, he came to the nation’s capital for the Junior National Young Leaders Conference.  Michael is a smart, driven student and our district is fortunate to have him serving as a Page in Congress.

Sharing a few laughs with Cartersville Mayor Mike Fields

I want to thank everyone from Cartersville and Bartow County who came to Washington this week for the Chamber’s annual fly-in. As always, it was wonderful to see so many friends (and some new faces, too). For those who couldn’t make it, here are the issues we discussed:

Manufacturing
Education
Transportation
Immigration
The airport
Water issues
Energy

Discussing the issues

Thanks again to everyone who made the trip, and I look forward to seeing you soon back in Georgia.

I am proud to announce that Luke Pye of Cartersville, Georgia has accepted an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy.  Luke, the son of Keith and Linda Pye, is a senior at Cartersville High School. I was honored to nominate him to the academy.

Luke is an ideal candidate for appointment to one of our military academies. He has shown impressive commitment to academic excellence, hard work and community service. He’s an honor roll student, Eagle Scout, and active volunteer with organizations including the Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity. He is also captain of Cartersville High School’s football, wrestling and soccer teams, as well as president of the school’s Christian Athletes club.

I want to offer the entire Pye family a heart-felt “congratulations.” Luke, thank you for your dedication to serving our nation.

The Rome News Tribune this morning reports on the new VA clinic being established in Rome (including the photograph above). The paper quoted Hartwell Nolan, one of the veteran leaders who worked tirelessly to make this clinic a reality, on the importance of the new facility:

“This is one of the greatest blessings God has ever given to me,” he said. “Everybody took this as a personal challenge to get the veterans of this area the medical care they need so badly. I think that is what got it through.”

Nolan began pushing for a local VA clinic in 2005. He organized area veteran groups and gathered more than 1,500 signatures in support of the clinic.

The 73-year-old Navy vet estimates about 73,000 veterans in Georgia and Alabama are in need of a local clinic for health-care services. He is one of them, having to drive more than an hour to the Atlanta VA Medical Center as many as seven times a month.

To read the complete article, click HERE. See below for previous blog posts on the clinic location and details.

Two more maps to help you visualize where the new Northwest Georgia VA clinic will be located. This map should help those familiar with Rome:

And this map should help those traveling from Bartow, Polk, Gordon and Chattooga counties:

Today, the VA announced it has selected a site location for our new Rome VA clinic. The site, 30 Chateau Drive, is a perfect location. First of all, the facility is a former medical clinic, so it can be quickly transformed to meet VA specifications. In fact, the clinic should be open this fall. Second, the location has plenty of parking, and its proximity to Hwy. 411 means veterans from Bartow, Polk, Gordon and Chattooga counties can easily access the facility. Below is a map of the new location:

I am truly inspired by our community’s effort to bring a VA clinic to Northwest Georgia. A big thank you goes out to every veteran and veteran supporter who wrote a letter, helped raise money, drove someone to a clinic, and supported this important cause.

I also want to thank architect Mike Page and engineer David Culp Jr. of P & C Design Build. These two men have generously donated their services to design the new VA clinic. This will help the clinic get up and running as soon as possible. Both of these men understand what this clinic means to our veterans, because both are the sons of veterans. I know their fathers, Franklin Page and David Culp Sr., must be very proud.

I plan to tour the VA site later this week, and I’ll report back with an update. This is an exciting day for our community, and I eagerly await opening day.

The Campaign for Children’s Health recently honored two 11th District students who showed great insight into the importance of access to health coverage for our children. These students won a state-wide essay contest discussing children’s health. As you may know, Congress is working to reauthorize the S-CHIP program, which in Georgia is known as PeachCare. The state of Georgia has done an exemplary job enrolling children in the PeachCare program, and this essay contest underlines the importance of that effort.

Winning the ages 9-13 competition was Kalley McMuller, a 7th grader from Marietta. Kalley wrote:

“My brother Trent has been very blessed to have a wide variety of doctors available. He has fractured several bones, including his wrist, arm, pinky finger, and thumb…. A broken bone may be a minor injury to Trent, but for numerous children out there, a broken bone is a major and devastating setback…. Around the world, many young people do not have the luxury of healthcare, but every single child is worthy of it.”

Winning the ages 14-18 competition was Casey Butler, a senior from Cartersville. Casey wrote:

“I am a senior in high school and I am doing an apprenticeship at a local medical facility… The problem of a lack of health care compounds itself. A small problem such as a fever or something, if left untreated, could escalate to maybe pneumonia or bronchitis. This is unfortunate because if the problem was treated to begin with and caught by a health care professional them it would not have gone to the extreme of one of these problems.”

Congratulations to Kalley and Casey for their thoughtful insight on the health of our children.

In today’s papers, Phil gives us his take on President Bush’s speech last night. The Associated Press reports on Phil’s appeal for bipartisanship on Iraq:

“It is so important to give this a chance, to give victory a chance,” Republican Rep. Phil Gingrey of Marietta said of Bush’s plan to send more troops and money in an effort to stabilize Iraq. “The president I think is making a very reasonable request of the Congress.”

In the Cartersville Daily Tribune, Phil calls the President’s comments on Iraq courageous:

President George W. Bush delivered his sixth State of the Union Address Tuesday night to Congress and the country with what has been declared the lowest approval ratings of any president since Richard Nixon.

That shows just how much courage he has, according to Rep. Phil Gingrey. Attributing the low poll numbers to the negative news about progress in Iraq, Gingrey said the American people are tired of losing. However, he feels reassured that “the president is committed to victory.”

But in the Marietta Daily Journal, Phil explains he didn’t see eye-to-eye with everything the President had to say – especially on immigration:

“I am concerned the President’s guest worker program amounts to amnesty for illegal immigrants,” Gingrey said. “The state of Georgia has felt the full impact of illegal immigration on our health care, education and social welfare systems, and amnesty would only exacerbate these problems.”

To read more of Gingrey’s comments, click HERE.

Yesterday, I hosted the first 11th District Listening Session in Cartersville.  It was a great event, with nearly 40 people coming out to discuss today’s pressing issues with me.  I appreciated hearing so many opinions from around the Bartow community.

If you don’t live in Cartersville, don’t worry – there’s a Listening Session coming soon to a town near you.  Click HERE for a complete list.  Next week: Carroll and Paulding counties. I look forward to seeing you there!

Last week, I had the honor of meeting with cancer survivors from Georgia who were visiting Washington to advocate for increased research funding for this disease. Cancer survivors and their supporters included Linda Picklesimer of Carrollton, Ann Hook of Rome, Keri Perez of Cartersville and Trish Hussey of Columbus. Click HERE to read a Rome News Tribune article on the visit.  It was very encouraging to see so many people working together to eradicate this disease.

In today’s Cartersville Daily Tribune, reporter Sung Choe writes about Phil’s trip to the U.S./Mexican border:

The group visited three different areas of the border: The San Diego sector — which is 61 miles from the Pacific Ocean along the California-Mexico border; the Arizona sector — which is all of the Arizona-Mexico border; and the El Paso sector — which includes El Paso and all of New Mexico.

Gingrey stated security is getting better thanks to the H.R. 4437 bill (The Border Protection, Anti terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005). Three layers of fences, cameras, virtual fences and roads have already been added or will be added along the border to deter people from crossing the line.

“The signature point of the H.R. 4437 bill was the construction of more fences, which will help stop the hemorrhaging [of illegal immigrants],” he said.

Gingrey also co-authored an amendment to the bill that provided surveillance technology and high-tech border fencing to help boost security. This trip provided a first-glance look at the amendment Gingrey helped propose.

All is not well, however, as immigrants continue to find areas along the border that allow easier access across the line.

“Outside El Paso, there is a spot where it’s a 200-yard dash to housing and the town. After they reach the town, there is no finding them after that,” he said.

Click HERE to read the rest of the aritlce.