Pedestrian bridge good for trail, park

A pedestrian bridge is expected to connect the Heritage Rail Trail with Mine Falls Park soon.

We learned this week the project will likely go to bid this autumn with little cost to the city taxpayers.

Despite some initial concerns from homeowners in the area, this project will be a positive step for the neighborhood around Ledge Street, offering runners, bicyclists and folks just out on a stroll the opportunity to conveniently reach the 325-acre park to Nashua’s downtown.

It may seem like just a small bridge, but it serves as a major connector to our city’s best assets.

A perfect example of handgun safety

Carrying a loaded handgun is similar in some ways to carrying a pot of boiling water, or carrying a baby, or even crossing the street.

You need to be perfect at it every time.

Consider this:

If you’re carrying a pot of boiling water and drop it, the results can be extremely painful. If the water splashes over you or anyone else, the result will be painful scalding.

If you’re carrying a baby, dropping that precious little bundle of joy can result in temporary injuries, permanent brain damage – or far worse.

Even when crossing the street, misjudging oncoming traffic can be disastrous. Sure, New Hampshire has laws about yielding to pedestrians, but say, isn’t that oncoming driver on his or her cellphone?

And, when you’re a state representative, such as Milford Rep. Carolyn Halstead, and you’re carrying a loaded handgun into a hearing on full-day kindergarten – of all things – you’d better make sure you don’t drop it with fellow representatives, parents and children nearby.

Halstead had a legal right to bring the handgun to the meeting. Whether that is appropriate is another debate entirely.

Thankfully, the gun didn’t go off. Had that been the case, the story we ran in the Friday edition of The Telegraph surely would’ve been far different.

Shulkin will have his hands full with VA

Few Cabinet officers head agencies based almost solely on promises. But Dr. David Shulkin, nominated to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, will be one if he is confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The VA’s mission is to keep the promise we Americans make to everyone in military service. It is that once they leave the armed forces, we will provide them with certain benefits, including health care.

Many veterans are lavish in their praise of VA health care. But too many others have been let down badly by a system that sometimes places them on wait lists for care they need urgently.

It is not that the VA lacks resources. The agency’s budget has skyrocketed during the past five years, going from about $125 billion in fiscal 2012 to $167 billion now.

With that, the VA uses more than 370,000 employees to provide a variety of services to veterans, including health care. The agency operates nearly 1,300 health care facilities throughout the country.

But waste and inefficiency are rampant.

This week, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office revealed it will place the VA on its "high risk" list because of waste, fraud, mismanagement and "structural flaws."

Shulkin will have to tackle those problems, for the good of the more than 9 million veterans who rely on the agency.

It is critical for Americans upset with the VA to understand Shulkin will not be able to reform the agency alone. Congress needs to become a partner in the process – not just demanding reforms, but also enacting legislation to make them happen and repealing bureaucratic protections that are obstacles to true accountability. The GAO’s concern about "structural flaws" makes it clear the VA as it exists now is virtually designed to fail.

A top-to-bottom overhaul of the VA is the only way Americans can ensure we are not breaking what ought to be considered sacred promises to veterans.