ITHACA, N.Y. — The city of Ithaca’s eight historic districts encompass about 10 percent of the city’s total area, holding 650 homes, businesses and accessory buildings. On Wednesday, the city’s Common Council started discussions over whether those numbers should be capped, at least temporarily.

Like with plenty of other urban planning policies, historic districts are something of a double-edged sword. On one hand, they can preserve a neighborhood’s architectural and aesthetic character, and help prevent development from disrupting the local context.

On the other hand, historic districts can create a regulatory burden with additional taxpayer costs that enforcement and bureaucracy require. They have also been occasionally characterized as a tool of gentrification, where the increased cost of home upkeep caused by the regulation forces out lower-income families in favor of higher-income households.

In a city like Ithaca that struggles with housing supply and has seen a rapid rise in home values, while also being very sensitive to changes in aesthetic character, the conversation around historic preservation can be a tense debate. That was on display in Common Council’s chamber in City Hall last night, when Fifth Ward Alderperson Clyde Lederman introduced a resolution calling for a five-year moratorium on the creation or expansion of historic districts within the city limits.

Lederman said the moratorium, as proposed, would last for either five years or until the introduction of a revised Comprehensive Plan for the city, whichever comes first.

“I’ve never heard a kind word from anyone in the city about the benefits of historic preservation in their neighborhoods,” Lederman said. “It incurs a lot of costs, it makes development or updating existing homes harder, especially for folks who don’t have a lot of money or resources as Cornell might have.”

Lederman said he’s received pushback from constituents about expanding historic districts, and particularly regrets voting to accept a $17,000 state grant in October to study expanding the boundaries of the DeWitt Park Historic District.

“I know we have tax credits that people can be eligible for if they’re compliant,” Lederman said. “But as pointed out to me since then […] they can be clawed back, they’re very difficult to obtain, and they’re only really easy to obtain if you’re spending a lot of money on a project, so my sense was that it would be good not to expand historic districts more, given our housing shortage, until the next Comprehensive Plan was completed.”

Mayor Robert Cantelmo asked that the discussion on Wednesday be preliminary and no votes be taken, to allow for further discussion when Planning Department staff could prepare materials for council to review, and Lederman agreed.

Alderperson David Shapiro, of the Third Ward, said he agreed with Lederman’s overall point but countered that he has heard from several constituents about the value and importance of historic districts and preservation.

City Historic Preservation Planner Bryan McCracken was on hand to field questions from council, and expressed concerns that if passed, the grant awarded last fall would be rescinded, and that owners of locally but not nationally historic properties would not be eligible for tax credits. McCracken also worried that it would interfere with city plans to hire a consultant to design an Accessory Dwelling Unit compatible with Historic Districts — to note, there are existing ADUs designed for Historic Districts, like 201 West Clinton Street.

Fourth Ward Alderperson Patrick Kuehl asked what number of buildings in the district have used historic preservation credits. McCracken said he didn’t have that information, as it was a state decision to award credits and is not handled locally.

Lederman said he appreciates the work of the Ithaca Landmarks Preservation Commission (ILPC), the body that primarily handles historic preservation matters for the city and can approve or deny certain renovation or development efforts in historic districts, and values historic preservation overall. But he said the downsides outweigh the benefits at this point.

“We’ve got a real housing crisis,” Lederman said. “Going through the commission for folks just really slows things down immensely. Any change to the exterior goes to the commission, it often takes multiple meetings. For anyone who’s got a job or isn’t prepared to spend enormous amounts of money on the exterior of their home […] it really becomes extremely burdensome.”

Lederman argued that further expansion of the city’s historic district would make more homeowners have to shoulder the costs and administrative challenges that can be associated with historic preservation of a house. He said 10 percent of the city being historically designated is “excessive” already.

In response to Lederman’s comments, McCracken stated that most minor projects are approved at the staff level — of about 100 historic district renovation or construction projects reviewed last year, only 23 were upgraded to ILPC review, and most of those only needed one or two meetings.

Cantelmo was more circumspect. He asked if the city’s planning staff could provide data on what impact historic preservation has had on housing development, its costs and its impacts.

“Anecdotally, Bryan has told us that there are many ways for us to do historic preservation that do not run contrary to our broader development goals,” Cantelmo said, specifically requesting documentation on best practices and cost analysis.

Even Second Ward Alderperson Ducson Nguyen, arguably the most pro-development council member, found Lederman’s arguments too harsh. Fifth Ward Alderperson Margaret Fabrizio said she isn’t in favor of the resolution, but acknowledged that some of the “hoops” for renovation or development in historic districts could be examined and potentially changed to make them less onerous.

On the other hand, Fourth Ward Alderperson Patrick Kuehl said he felt that the historic district in his ward on East Hill has been used to divide the community and that he considered it damaging. Kuehl made a motion to table the proposal for further discussion, which was accepted by a 6-3 vote.

Going forward, the Planning Department will provide data to council members, who will submit their questions back to staff. When responses are ready to those questions, the next public discussion will be held.

The post City mulls moratorium on expanding historic districts appeared first on The Ithaca Voice.

ITHACA, N.Y. — Some $50 million in federal dollars could be on the line for Tompkins County and the City of Ithaca after President Donald Trump issued his latest salvo against sanctuary jurisdictions Monday night.

Trump signed an executive order instructing federal officials to compile and publish a list of “states and local jurisdictions that obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration laws” within the next 30 days. The order directs the head of each federal agency to identify any funding to that jurisdiction “for suspension or termination, as appropriate.” 

The president has previously issued executive orders scrutinizing sanctuary jurisdictions, but Monday’s order prescribes specific steps the administration will take to implement federal funding cuts.

The City of Ithaca passed its original sanctuary city law in 1985, strengthened it in 2017 and reaffirmed and expanded it earlier this year. Tompkins County also has sanctuary ordinances on the books as of 2017.

Sanctuary laws vary widely among the 12 states and hundreds of municipalities that have implemented them. Typically, such laws limit cooperation between local law enforcement and federal law enforcement agencies, most often related to immigration enforcement. Ithaca’s law currently also applies to cases involving people under persecution for receiving or providing an abortion or gender affirming care.

City Manager Deb Mohlenhoff told The Ithaca Voice that the city was slated to receive about $25 million in federal funding this year across about 20 projects — mostly infrastructure-related — that are in “various phases of completion.” 

Mohlenhoff said the full impact of the order remains to be seen: until the federal government gives further information or officially notifies the city of any cuts, it is unclear what specific projects could be at risk. 

Mohlenhoff said the cuts would not necessarily translate to higher local taxes — at least not right away. 

“These are projects that would just likely not move forward without the funding,” Mohlenhoff said.

Examples of federal grants the city has recently touted include a $12 million allocation from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to implement flood mitigation infrastructure, as well as local bridge repair and rehabilitation, among plenty of other projects. 

Ithaca Mayor Robert Cantelmo said city officials have been monitoring threatened and actual federal funding cuts since Trump began his second term in January. Cantelmo said the City of Ithaca has only had one federal contract canceled since the beginning of the year: a yearly allocation of about $11,000 meant to allow the Ithaca Police Department to replace its ballistic vests on a recurring basis. 

“I thought it was sort of ironic that the administration was ostensibly enacting these policies out of concern for public safety,” Cantelmo said. “Their response to doing so is to cut public safety resources to our law enforcement.” 

According to Tompkins County Legislature Chair Dan Klein, the county receives north of $25 million in federal aid per year as well. Requests for comment from other county officials were not answered in time for publication. 

Tompkins County Sheriff Derek Osborne did not respond to a request for comment, though he previously told The Ithaca Voice in January that the sheriff’s office is not currently slated to receive federal funding this year.

In a statement to The Ithaca Voice, Tompkins County Communications Director Monika Salvage declined to comment beyond saying that the county is aware of the executive order but has not received direct communication from the federal government yet. 

It is also unclear if federal funds administered and distributed by states will be impacted. New York was declared a sanctuary state in February 2017. As with many of Trump’s aggressive early-term executive orders, Monday’s order is likely to face pushback in the courts. 

Even before the executive order was issued, the administration had already begun to trade barbs with state and local governments over federal funding tied to sanctuary laws. 

Last week, a federal judge in California granted a request for an injunction on a similar, previous Trump executive order, ruling the administration cannot “directly or indirectly [take] any action to withhold, freeze, or condition federal funds” based on local sanctuary laws.

The Trump administration has also been willing to take a proactive approach in the matter — lawyers for the administration filed a lawsuit last week against the City of Rochester over its sanctuary policies. 

Cantelmo declined to “discuss specific legal strategies” when asked whether the City of Ithaca planned to take the administration to court, either individually or by joining with other municipalities, counties or states.

“The City of Ithaca is not going to stand for the administration harming our residents, and that might mean harm through these policies and initiatives that we don’t support, that might mean harm through what we believe is punitive administrative decision by the government with respect to grant awards or things of that nature,” Cantelmo said.

The post Trump targets sanctuary cities again with new federal funding cuts order appeared first on The Ithaca Voice.

ITHACA, N.Y. — Planning is underway for Tompkins County’s new homeless shelter on Ithaca’s West End. The county is currently without any permanent emergency homeless shelter facility after a 26-bed shelter on West State Street closed unexpectedly last fall.

County leaders have said they wanted input on the project from people who had worked directly with unhoused populations — ideally, the organization that will later run the shelter will also weigh in on its design and development. 

The county purchased a one-acre parcel of land on Cherry Street in an industrial area on Ithaca’s West End late last year for $1 million. The target opening date for the shelter is December 2027. The county has largely utilized motel rooms to house people since last year’s shelter closure.

County capital projects funding will cover $2 million towards construction costs, but long-term operational and some development costs will likely come from Albany.

The contract bidding process opened earlier this month. Bid documents show the shelter is expected to be about 30,000 square feet with up to 100 beds and space for service providers, showers and toilets. The county may also use the facility for an emergency cold weather shelter under the state funded “Code Blue” program. 

Records from the county’s contract bidding portal shows representatives from a number of local and out-of-state organizations have expressed at least some interest in the contract.

They range from Tennessee-based private prison giant CoreCivic to local advocacy organizations like addiction recovery-focused REACH Medical. 

Nearly three dozen companies and organizations have at least downloaded documentation for the contract — though not all appear to meet requirements.

Likelier contenders include St. John’s Community Services, the Virginia-based organization that formerly operated the county’s now-closed shelter; Ithaca’s local Salvation Army branch; Rochester-based Volunteers of America Upstate New York and Eagle Star Housing, a veteran-focused homeless advocacy group in Victor, N.Y. 

It’s not yet clear whether any of the organizations that have expressed interest in the contract will actually submit a bid. Bidding on the contract will close May 12.

The post Planning begins for new year-round county homeless shelter appeared first on The Ithaca Voice.

Jason Myers-Benner wants answers. Most of the time, the Virginia farmer feels “unsettled” by the lack of communication and clarity surrounding the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s funding freeze. During the quieter moments he’s spent staring at an empty inbox, awaiting word about his pending grant, he’s felt “disgusted” by how the government has treated him and many of his peers.

“It’s a sort of powerlessness, that it doesn’t feel like there’s anything that I can do about it,” said Myers-Benner. “Like, can you count on these systems or not?” 

Myers-Benner owns a family-run six acre farm in Keezletown, Virginia. Last spring, the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded him a little more than $18,000 to support the farm’s work breeding winter peas that could increase soil’s ability to trap carbon. The grant is through the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program, or SARE, which has supported farmer-led research initiatives nationwide for decades. The money represented an opportunity to expand work he and his family have been bootstrapping for years, growing crops that help feed lower-income, rural communities like his while preserving the planet.

Then, in late January, the Trump administration began freezing funds for programs across a broad swath of the government. Shortly after, his SARE representative at the University of Georgia fell silent. That’s when he started to worry: Without the grant, which reimburses expenses already incurred, he would need to line up part-time work to pay the bills. “There’s just a deflated feeling of ‘Okay. We were just about getting this rolling,’” he said. “And then … one change at the top has the potential to just completely wipe that out. And so we’ll have to pick up and hard-scrabble our way through it.” 

Myers-Benner finally got an answer on Monday, though one riddled in ambiguity. “You may continue your research or you are welcome to put your research on hold given the uncertainty of the situation, and once we learn more we can communicate that to you,” he was told by email, which he shared with Grist. “If this situation delays your research and outreach per your grant timeline we can offer a no-cost extension if you still have monies left in your budget. Feel free to reach out with any questions. If you decide to hold your project let us know so we can note that in your files. That’s about the best information we can provide at this time while we wait to receive further guidance from USDA.”

The USDA administers SARE through four regional offices hosted in universities. Daramonifah Cooper, a spokesperson for Southern SARE at the University of Georgia, which oversees Myers-Benner’s grant, told Grist it is holding all calls for proposals until it hears from its federal funding source. When asked, Cooper could not clarify the funding status for grants already awarded.

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Since late January, the USDA has frozen, rescinded, or cancelled funding supporting everything from donations to food banks to climate-smart agricultural practices. The move aligns with the administration’s goal of rolling back diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates and climate benchmarks. These steps prompted the termination of thousands of federal employees before courts intervened, pressuring the USDA to reinstate many of them, albeit temporarily, and federal judges have repeatedly ordered the administration to release gridlocked funds. Such abrupt and sweeping moves by the agency, and wider administration, have thrown the world of publicly-funded agricultural research into a tailspin. 

A USDA employee, whom Grist granted anonymity to protect them from retaliation, said “basically all” of the agency’s programs that fund agricultural research, including SARE grants, have been put on standstill due to the freeze. This person called the environment within the agency “a shitshow” and said, “It’s all really unknown right now. Even internally.” 

“We know that, yeah, things have been paused. Some political appointee at some level is reviewing our calls for proposals” this person added. “We know that DOGE is in the system, reviewing, doing searches of our databases, but we don’t know like … are they going to massively cut things right now? Things are on hold. But is the shoe gonna drop, and is lots of stuff getting canceled?” 

“Trump doesn’t really care about farmers or delivering services or efficiency or cost-savings. This is all politics. And we’re caught in the middle of it.”

At least 19 university labs have ceased agricultural research work because the Department of Government Efficiency dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development in February, a move one federal judge said may be unconstitutional. These decisions by the administration have impacted research programs nationwide. 

Kansas State University shut down two labs that were developing drought-resilient varieties of wheat and sorghum crops and pest-resistant plants. Johns Hopkins, the largest university recipient of federal research funding, cut roughly 2,200 jobs. USDA staffing cuts forced a federal project in Maryland investigating unprecedented managed honeybee losses to ask others to carry on its work. Seed and crop research being conducted across the nation’s network of gene banks have also been hobbled by layoffs and grant application suspensions, and grape breeding programs and work on crops affected by wildfire smoke in California have reported disruptions. The administration then announced an abrupt withdrawal of millions in federal funds for multiple universities, triggering a new round of layoffs, lab closures, and project suspensions across the country.

The federal government provides roughly 64 percent of the country’s public agricultural research and development funding. “With federal funding, especially research dollars, being on the chopping board for the current administration, the consequences of that, coupled with layoffs … means that at a time when we need innovation the most to deal with climate change, to make our food systems more resilient, that capacity is going to be lost,” said soil scientist Omanjana Goswami of the nonprofit the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

There will likely be economic fallout, too. A study published March 11 finds that the compounding effects of climate change and lagging investment in research and development has U.S. agriculture facing its first productivity slowdown in decades. 

The researchers modelled the eroding effects of climate change on American agriculture and the decades-long stagnation of spending for publicly funded research and development, using the estimates to quantify the research investment necessary to avoid agricultural productivity declining through 2050. To offset an imminent climate-induced productivity slowdown, federal agricultural research spending, which includes expenditures from every USDA agency except the U.S. Forest Service, and state agricultural experiment stations and schools, must replicate the unprecedented boom in public spending that followed both world wars. The government currently allocates approximately $5 billion annually to ag research and development, a figure that grew less than 1 percent annually from 1970 to 2000 before leveling off. Adding at least $2.2 billion per year to that tally would offset the climate-induced slowdown, the paper found.

If the current investment trend doesn’t change, the costly impacts of warming, including higher inputs, reduced yields, and supply chain shocks, will result in lower productivity, leading to more government bailouts and increased U.S. reliance on other countries for food, said Cornell University climate and agricultural economist Ariel Ortiz-Bobea. Without action, agricultural productivity is estimated to drop up to 12 percent with each passing year by 2050. This will cost the U.S. economy billions annually. American farms contributed roughly $222.3 billion to the economy in 2023 alone. 

“This is like a double whammy. They’re both human-caused, inflicted wounds. One because we’re failing to invest in R&D, the other because we’re emitting so much that it is actually slowing down productivity itself. So it’s like it’s being compressed from both sides,” said Ortiz-Bobea, who led the new study. 

Experts worry that the Trump administration is heading in the wrong direction with its layoffs, funding freezes, and efforts to roll back scientific initiatives. House Republicans, for example, have been pushing to cut some $230 billion in agriculture spending over 10 years. Millions of dollars in reductions to the USDA’s research, inspection, and natural resources arms were included in the funding stopgap bill Trump signed March 15. 

Most of the foundational agricultural research that happens in the United States is through some kind of USDA funding mechanism. The USDA is made up of multiple agencies and offices with their own research pipelines that support universities, nonprofits, businesses, farmers, ranchers, and foresters, among others. SARE grants are one of the ways the wider agency has funneled money into agricultural research conducted on farms nationwide, awarding nearly $406 million across 8,791 initiatives from its inception.

Jon Kasza runs an organic vegetable farm in New York’s Hudson Valley and relies on SARE funds to conduct his agricultural research. He doesn’t understand why the agency is still freezing that funding, given all of the administration’s promises to put farmers first. “I can’t say enough about how fragile it all looks to me,” said Kasza. He’s thinking about the excessively volatile bouts of rain that battered his fields in summer of 2023, followed by a smattering of dry periods last year that dried his soil so much he couldn’t plant his cover crops on-time in the fall. That’s where research grants like SARE, which he said allow farmers to bypass the typically “sluggish” timelines of conventional scientific trials to develop things like drought-resistant crop varieties, are critical. 

In November, he submitted his first SARE grant proposal of nearly $30,000 to grow multiple varieties of rice on hillsides in raised beds with biodegradable plastic mulch to conserve water and expand where the crop can be produced. Earlier this year, he was notified by a regional representative that the grant had been approved. “We’re moving forward as if some of the funding is going to be there, but we know that that’s uncertain,” said Kasza, who called the messaging surrounding the freeze a “rollercoaster” of confusion. A local land conservation group has promised to step in to save about 20 percent of the project if federal funding falls through. Still, that is “not nearly enough” to complete the work, he said.

“It’s already hard enough just to have an agricultural business, but then to have climate change as a factor on top of that, and then have this administration who’s wreaking havoc?” he said. “Cutting research, particularly our farmer-driven research, off at the knees, just seems like such a silly and short-sighted thing to do.”

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On the Hawaiian island of Kauai, another SARE grant recipient has also been stuck in limbo. Rancher Don Heacock spent decades working as an aquatic biologist for the Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources before retiring and launching his nearly 40-acre farm in the late 1980s. Ever since, he’s raised a herd of water buffalo, grown crops like taro, and cultivated ponds of tilapia. He does it all with local food systems, soil health, and water conservation at the forefront, maximizing crop diversity, maintaining living roots in the ground year round, and integrating livestock farming. 

Up until now, Heacock had heard nothing about his pending SARE grant, a $59,000 funding proposal submitted last year to expand his farm’s agrotourism education, buffalo raising, and soil conservation work. Then, suddenly, late last week, he was told the proposal was denied. He believes that rejection is linked to the federal funding freeze.

After reaching out to SARE representatives for all four regions and the national arm of the program, Grist has learned that the USDA-NIFA has frozen funding for all pending grant applications this fiscal year, which began in October. When asked, a national spokesperson confirmed those funds were still “under review” while regional representatives told Grist that all new calls for proposals have been paused as a result. None of the representatives specified a timeline for when those funds were disbursed nor whether already-awarded grant funding will be released. 

For farmers like Heacock, the stakes of the administration grounding agricultural research initiatives like his is far bigger than the work happening on one lone project or farm. “Trump has got it all wrong. Climate is a real issue and it’s hitting us right in the face,” he said. “If we don’t become sustainable real quick, we’re dead in the water.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Farmers are reeling from Trump’s attacks on agricultural research on Mar 25, 2025.

Four years ago, family practitioner Dr. Jeff Chappell retired from his post as medical director of the Wayne Community Health Center in Bicknell, Utah. He was excited to undertake a new medical mission, through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to South America where he served as area medical director for Peru, Colombia, Bolivia and Venezuela.

But when he returned to Utah, then 63-year-old Chappell was not ready to swap his medical career for the life of a retiree.

“I was 61 when we accepted the mission and I thought, ‘Well, if we’re going to do it, this is the time to do it,’” he recalled. “But when we returned, I found out that I was not ready to fully retire.”

Instead Chappell, now age 65, came out of retirement to accept a part time position on the staff of the Kazan Health Center located in the rural community of Escalante, Utah.

“I wouldn’t want to work in a busy ER, but working a couple of days a week works for me,” he says. “Besides, there is a nurse [at the clinic] who is pursuing a PA designation and my being here gives her more hours to do that – also I think the patients are happy to have me here.”

In its March 2024 report, the Association of Medical Colleges predicted that the U.S. is likely to face a shortage of as many as 86,000 physicians by 2036, compounding the dearth of medical services that is already hitting rural communities hardest.

In response, some retired physicians like Chappell are coming out of full time retirement to mitigate the shortage.

Even so, the current shortfall remains critical, says Dr. Nancy Babbitt who is a director for the Wayne County Utah Health Centers, and the Torrey Utah representative to the Robert Graham Center Steering Committee, which provides advice on policy issues facing primary care providers.

According to Babbitt, rural health care centers are particularly vulnerable to problems connected to medical services shortages because those networks can cover communities that are located miles apart, and are likely to serve patients that are older, perhaps requiring more specialized care than urban counterparts.

“For example, our Wayne County Health Centers cover 7,600-square miles, and we are one to two hours’ drive from an emergency room and three hours away from a tertiary hospital [a hospital that provides specialists],” she says. “And a high percentage of rural residents are older and maybe sicker.”

For Dr. Douglas DeLong, 73, those rural realities have been facts of life throughout his medical career.

“I have never practiced in any area where there is more than one traffic light,” he says. “When I was in Ladysmith, Wisconsin, I might be the only doctor in the [Rusk] county on duty at the hospital that night – I saw it all.”

These days, DeLong practices in Cooperstown, New York, population around 1,853. He tried full time retirement but returned on a limited schedule.

“I retired from full time practice when I was 70 years old, but about a year ago, I unretired,” he explains. “Now I work two or three days a week partly to provide access for patients and because I really enjoy being around these bright young people – but most of them are on their way somewhere else.”

That’s a switch from the time when DeLong was beginning his practice and made a conscious decision to practice medicine in a rural setting.

“I wanted to be a family physician because I didn’t know there was anything else,” he recalls. Also, I grew up in rural settings in Pennsylvania and Washington state – it was a lifestyle choice for me – today though, [rural practice] is a tougher sell.”

That’s because there are economic and other personal factors pressing young physicians to either establish their practices in urban settings, or to forgo family practice altogether for specialty medicine.

“These days, young physicians are racking up educational debt in excess of a couple thousand dollars and that’s on their minds, too and they’re wondering ‘how do I lay these mega debts’?” DeLong points out. “Also your wife has to be happy – something that’s not easy if she is an urban planner for instance.”

At the same time, Babbitt believes that young doctors are not even aware that rural family practice is a career option. So she’s heading to Washington D.C. to tell medical students at Georgetown University that rural practice is a possibility and what it means to establish such a practice.

“Of course there are larger issues facing rural medical providers ranging from state funding resources to insurance costs, but many of them have never even considered it because it’s not something that ‘s even considered by [medical] residents,” she says.

She also plans to tell them that while rural practice is challenging, doctors must be prepared to treat patients for everything from broken bones to heart conditions, and that hours are long, there are perks too.

“You are part of a community – you know the people who come into your clinic and you create long term connections,” she says. “I just got a graduation invitation from a kid that I delivered years ago, and I get wedding invitations all the time – you can’t put a price tag on that.”

While Babbitt makes the case for rural medicine to a new generation of doctors, Chappell says he’s happy that his age and experience allow him to do what he does best and help his community, too.

“You don’t have to run after an IRA, we don’t have the debts we had when we were young and I don’t have to work the massive number of hours, and can do what I enjoy,” he says. “Life is good.”

The post Retired Doctors Step Up in the Face of a Rural Health Care Crisis appeared first on The Daily Yonder.