The 100-plus nursing-home and short-term beds would remain, said Charles Battaglia, the CARES commissioner who led the hearing here in October.

"Since most of those patients come from between the Canandaigua and Rochester area, we thought it best they remain there, " said Battaglia today. "Therefore, we are leaning toward recommending that most of those, if not all of them, remain there at Canandaigua. "

The commission will make its final recommendations to the VA Secretary Anthony Principi by early February, Battaglia said. Cost-benefit studies are still a work in progress and might not be complete until the recommendation is submitted, said Battaglia in an interview this morning.

Under the plan as it stands, most of the 700-plus staff at the Canandaigua VA Medical Center would remain, but some would be transferred, laid off or offered retirement.

"Would all of them go, I don't know, but they would certainly need staffing up there, " said Battaglia.

Sharlene Sacco, VA behavioral health care manager, said she is hopeful that the 32 staff in the psychiatric department will keep their jobs and that most patients will be able to stay in Canandaigua.

According to VA spokesman Dan Ryan, of the 192 patients now in the medical center, 79 are receiving inhouse psychiatric care. Most of those are from the Finger Lakes area, said Ryan.

Sacco said that in a conversation a few weeks ago William Feeley, director of the Canandaigua's VA network, said the VA staff would have input into any decision to restructure and that the hospital would still serve psychiatric inpatients even if some beds were moved. Sacco said that the long-term care facility could take a portion of those patients, and Feeley said a small short-term psychiatric unit would also operate.

"As long as we are part of the planning, I am hopeful, " said Sacco. The uncertainties surrounding the Canandaigua VA campus since August's bombshell announcement have led to rallies, petitions and the involvement of virtually all the area's elected officials. Battaglia said the agonizing process will end soon

"Hopefully, we'll advance the ball forward on this thing. We put an awful lot of thought into this thing here. We know this is not something you address in a haphazard basis, " he said.

If the VA stays open, the question of what to do with the underutilized property still remains. The CARES Commission suggests the VA and Canandaigua leadership figure out how some of it can be leased.

"We think the VA and the community really need to get down and establish a working group to decide how to proceed on this, " Battaglia said.

Back in August, the CARES Commission had recommended that the hospital be closed, its staff of about 700 be relocated or laid off and the remaining 251 inpatient beds be transferred to other facilities. The recommendation was part of a $4.6 billion nationwide restructuring program that would have closed seven veterans hospitals while increasing services at others.

The tempered news Thursday drew immediate reactions from elected officials. Mayor Ellen Polimeni said the news lent to optimism but said she was unsettled about the prospect of losing the 50 psychiatric beds.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. said this morning in a phone interview that he would fight to save the 50 beds.

"They waved a white flag to keep the VA open, " he said. "Not to end it or chop it up. That gives us a real platform to keep the 50 psychiatric beds. " In a news release Thursday afternoon, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., said that while the recommendations are much improved, she was disappointed by the suggested transfer of the psychiatric services. "The VA has done far too little to address the economic impact on the community these changes would have due to the loss of jobs suffered at the Canandaigua facility, " she stated.

One local veteran, Mike Doran, said this morning from his home in Naples that he hopes the psych beds remain. The Vietnam Veteran suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a state of anxiety suffered by some combat veterans and other persons who have been in danger of death or experienced intense shock.

Doran was a psychiatric inpatient off and on for several years after returning from Vietnam in 1967.