Long Beach Naval Hospital

Surrounding communities may not like it but it appears as if Long Beach may finally be allowed to build a hotly contested shopping center on the grounds of the closed Long Beach Naval Hospital. The Navy Department released a final environmental impact statement Friday recommending retail use as the best development choice for the parcel. City officials hope to build a 1-million-acre shopping center, which they say will generate about 3,000 jobs and $2.

It was a time when heavy drinking was the center of macho, old salt rituals in the Navy, sustaining the image of the drunken sailor. The drinking was condoned until it got out of hand. Then the punishment could be as severe as a court-martial. Back in 1965, newly recovering alcoholic and retired Navy Cmdr. Dick Jewell wanted to know why the Navy wasn't doing more about alcoholism. He took his questions to Dr. Joseph J.

Lakewood officials who have been feuding with Long Beach over how to use the site of the vacant Long Beach Naval Hospital will spend $50,000 to draft their own plan. The city's redevelopment directors voted unanimously recently to hire a Diamond Bar-based consulting firm, GRC-Copenhaver Inc., to prepare alternative proposals for the Navy to consider.

After years of seething rivalry, Long Beach and Lakewood decided Tuesday night to bury the hatchet over how to use the site of a former Navy hospital. Under an accord approved by both city councils, officials will permit Long Beach to convert the site into a shopping center with discount retailers such as Price Costco, but no factory outlets.

The U.S. Navy disbanded its Long Beach fleet last week with a short ceremony of speeches, a prayer and a 15-cannon salute. Capt. Harry E. Selfridge, group commander, ordered the fleet "disestablished" before an audience of about 200 officers and enlisted men and women. Selfridge also left the base a civilian. He retired after a 35-year career. The ceremony marked the end of the Long Beach fleet as a unit.

In an unusual act of open rebellion, a group of doctors at the Long Beach Naval Hospital say they have ceased admitting seriously ill patients because of what they say are major and potentially hazardous inadequacies in equipment, services and personnel at the hospital. The six physicians, from the hospital's internal medicine department, detailed their concerns in a recent memo to their commanding officer that was made available to The Times.

The Times' recent story (Dec. 16) on Lakewood's efforts to educate federal officials about the Long Beach Naval Hospital needs clarifying. It is a shame that Lakewood must spend even one penny to get a fair hearing by federal bureaucrats of our objections to Long Beach's proposed mega shopping center on the Naval Hospital property. The cost, however, is only a tiny fraction of the multimillion-dollar cost to state taxpayers if the Navy approves Long Beach's plans for the property.

Clutching her father's hand, a little girl in Mary Jane shoes entered a federal courtroom here this week as the co-plaintiff in a $55-million lawsuit against the U.S. government. Maureene Emiko Gaffney, 6, is the sole member of her family to escape infection with the virus that causes AIDS. She and her father, Marine Chief Warrant Officer Martin F.

Kimberly Graftenreed, 23, was forced to give up her Hermosa Beach apartment to cope with the pay cut. San Diego anesthesiologist Winnie Varley-Maneclang, 49, moved in with her daughter in Orange County to lighten the daily commute. And Mohan Vallabhapurapu, 35, missed his chance to serve as a line judge in the U.S. Open tennis tournament, now under way in New York.

In a harsh attack, Long Beach officials have accused the Lakewood City Council of waging a "malicious" and "devious" campaign to sabotage a plan to build a shopping mall where the Long Beach Naval Hospital stands. The U.S. Navy plans to close the hospital at the end of the year and dispose of the property, about 70 acres in east Long Beach, just across the street from Lakewood's boundary.

Surrounding communities may not like it but it appears as if Long Beach may finally be allowed to build a hotly contested shopping center on the grounds of the closed Long Beach Naval Hospital. The Navy Department released a final environmental impact statement Friday recommending retail use as the best development choice for the parcel. City officials hope to build a 1-million-acre shopping center, which they say will generate about 3,000 jobs and $2.

The U.S. Navy disbanded its Long Beach fleet last week with a short ceremony of speeches, a prayer and a 15-cannon salute. Capt. Harry E. Selfridge, group commander, ordered the fleet "disestablished" before an audience of about 200 officers and enlisted men and women. Selfridge also left the base a civilian. He retired after a 35-year career. The ceremony marked the end of the Long Beach fleet as a unit.

A formal decommissioning ceremony, complete with brass bands and Navy dignitaries, was scheduled for 10 a.m. today to end the Long Beach Naval Hospital's nearly 30 years of service. The hospital, which treated its last patient in December, is among the casualties of military cutbacks. Officials from Long Beach and neighboring cities are waging a heated battle over how to use the site.

Lakewood officials who have been feuding with Long Beach over how to use the site of the vacant Long Beach Naval Hospital will spend $50,000 to draft their own plan. The city's redevelopment directors voted unanimously recently to hire a Diamond Bar-based consulting firm, GRC-Copenhaver Inc., to prepare alternative proposals for the Navy to consider.

The Times' recent story (Dec. 16) on Lakewood's efforts to educate federal officials about the Long Beach Naval Hospital needs clarifying. It is a shame that Lakewood must spend even one penny to get a fair hearing by federal bureaucrats of our objections to Long Beach's proposed mega shopping center on the Naval Hospital property. The cost, however, is only a tiny fraction of the multimillion-dollar cost to state taxpayers if the Navy approves Long Beach's plans for the property.

In a harsh attack, Long Beach officials have accused the Lakewood City Council of waging a "malicious" and "devious" campaign to sabotage a plan to build a shopping mall where the Long Beach Naval Hospital stands. The U.S. Navy plans to close the hospital at the end of the year and dispose of the property, about 70 acres in east Long Beach, just across the street from Lakewood's boundary.

Sharper than any bayonet, the Pentagon's pens on Friday recommended carving 11 California sites--seven of them major ones--out of the nation's military network. First among them is Ft. Ord, for half a century the Army's stalwart West Coast base, where 50,000 recruits at a time once trained for combat in its steep valleys and cold sand dunes.

It was a time when heavy drinking was the center of macho, old salt rituals in the Navy, sustaining the image of the drunken sailor. The drinking was condoned until it got out of hand. Then the punishment could be as severe as a court-martial. Back in 1965, newly recovering alcoholic and retired Navy Cmdr. Dick Jewell wanted to know why the Navy wasn't doing more about alcoholism. He took his questions to Dr. Joseph J.

The federal government Tuesday was ordered to pay $3.5 million to a Marine warrant officer who claimed his family contracted AIDS through the ineptitude of doctors at a Navy hospital in Long Beach. Chief Warrant Officer Martin Gaffney, who is based at the South Weymouth Naval Air Station in Massachusetts, has lost his wife and son to the disease and is infected with the virus.

Sharper than any bayonet, the Pentagon's pens on Friday recommended carving 11 California sites--seven of them major ones--out of the nation's military network. First among them is Ft. Ord, for half a century the Army's stalwart West Coast base, where 50,000 recruits at a time once trained for combat in its steep valleys and cold sand dunes.