Veterans Affairs Commission - Regular Meeting

Ready, set, and ready.

Hey, listen up.

I didn't get a rump out of that man. We're going to call the Veterans Affairs Commission meeting to order at 1201. Stand face the flag of our nation.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

You're going to have to explain that note to me later because I wasn't offended by anything you sent me. All right. Thank you, everybody. Welcome to the... July meeting of the 250th year of United States of America. If you'd please silence your cell phones before we get going here. And then if the clerk could do a roll call, please.

Is this on? District 1, Commissioner Smith. District 1, Commissioner Fischer. Here. District 2, Commissioner Reynolds.

Here.

District 2, Commissioner Mullins-Becker. Here. District 3, Commissioner Colvern.

Here.

District three, Commissioner Aguilar. District four, Commissioner Welch. District four, Commissioner Thompson. District five, Commissioner Norton. And district five, Commissioner Milham. Thank you.

He is back there. Thank you, ma'am. All right, moving on. Oh, okay. At this time, the commission will make any necessary additions, deletions or corrections to the agenda, determine the matters to be added or removed from the consent calendar and one motion to adopt the agenda and approve the consent calendar. Anybody have any changes, additions, deletions? Okay, any public comment?

We are now taking public comment on the adoption of the agenda and approval of the consent calendar. Individuals will have three minutes to address the commission. Public comment will be taken first from those participating in the commission room and then from those participating through Zoom. For those participating by Zoom, please make sure you unmute yourself when called upon and please raise the hand button. Please voluntarily state your name for the record. Any public comment in the room? Any public comment online? No public comment.

Since there's no further discussion from the commission members on this item, I make a motion that we adopt the agenda and approve the consent calendar.

I second that. And roll call vote.

District 1, how do you vote?

Aye.

District 2, how do you vote?

Aye.

District 3, how do you vote? Aye. District 4, how do you vote? And District 5, how do you vote? Aye. Motion passes. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Moving on to the agenda items. First agenda item will be item number 26-1131. Review and approve the draft Veterans Affairs Commission annual board presentation and select a commissioner to present to the board of supervisors on Tuesday, September 15th at 1030 a.m. All right.

You're up.

I'm up, up, up and away. So actually I've had an opportunity to work with Lynette and Amy. Thank you very much. And Courtney for all your help on this. So do I point it at my screen or just point it in just in general? All right. Of course, this is not the absolute, absolute final. We have narrowed it down to meet the time allotment. So we have cut down quite a few of the original slides that we had in, and we're still looking around for some pictures. I know that we've got a couple of more and I promised Lynette and Amy, I would not add slides. I would only add pictures. So with that, who's gonna present this? I think we should elect Todd since he's not here to defend himself. And he's the vice chair, right? All right. Well, there. Solved that problem. So this is going to be presented to the Board of Supervisors, and I assume we're going to go. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the opportunity. This is going to be a PowerPoint presentation for the El Dorado County Veterans Affairs Commission, an overview for 2026.

Do we want to take a vote on? Oh, we'll take a vote on Todd.

Okay.

Did I bump ahead? Here we go.

All right. Just a general photograph of some of our fellow veterans. Moving on, this is towards the general purpose and objective of the Veterans Affairs Commission, where we are here to act as advisory capacity to the Board of Supervisors. So with items that come before the Board of, correction, before the Veterans Affairs Commission, we review and we recommend and forward on to the Board of Supervisors. I'm not going to read this because everybody in here can read and nothing irritates me more in a PowerPoint presentation than somebody droning on Right, is that okay with everybody? Or Amy, do you want me to read it? Okay, good. Promoting, aiding and encouraging public benefit.

Thank you.

I guess I have to point it up. This is the commissioners and something I added this year because I know that a lot of times we have people have said, oh, well, they weren't on them. They're political appointees. They were never in the military. That's why I reached out to everybody except Mr. Fisher, whose email does not work. It does. It does not. At least the email that we have on record for you? That's possible. Okay, yeah. That one didn't work. So I'll get with you afterwards, and I'll add you to the list. That's fine. Yeah, because you weren't on there. So what they did is they reached out to everybody and got their military, what they did in the services. And so it's going to be hard for someone to come back and say, well, that's not fair because, yeah, so-and-so. As a lot of you know, there was a certain group that said that we're all political appointees. We were never honorably in the military or we never served in the military. Jonathan Brown, we just assume that he is in the military and he was vetted by somebody else other than a political appointee.

Might have been.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. With a hair and a beard like that, you know he was in the military. So if there's anything that anybody would like to see changed on this, it has, as I said, just our terms, what we did in the military, and our rank. We only have one officer in the rank. That was Tim Thompson, if anybody noticed that. Moving on, this is gonna be a summary of what we do for the Veterans Affairs Commission, the standing committees. We just kind of went over very briefly. We're not gonna go to individual things. One of the big things that we did add is that we're gonna be evaluating the committees to determine their effectiveness and identify any needed changes. We thought that was kind of important and that's actually an upcoming agenda item to review some of this stuff. So it quickly goes into each committee. Especially, I don't want to say the minor ones, but the bigger ones that for me are the TOT and education and employment. Oh, I like that. You added that what we do continued. Very good. So here's the VAC. The one thing that we did add in here, I'm sorry, the TOT, is that we got rid of that extra money. That was something that we really wanted to stress that we were able to bring our balance down to a reasonable amount. So we're not gonna be held to a zero balanced budget type of funding.

You guys.

This moves on to the challenges that basically the, but the VAC is facing. And one of the big things that we have is the individual set aside personal agendas and work collectively toward the common goal of supporting El Dorado County veterans, which is we all know with the last big issue we had with the monument battle, that was an ongoing problem.

Yeah, we all say that.

um also another problem that we run into is just getting the information out there disseminating the information to groups about what is available i know that the vso works on things like that and they probably face the same challenge of hey do you know about this benefit do you know that there's this and this do you know this and this and so something we're working on i know that uh we have it through our social aspect of it reviewing did you guys rearrange these on me you did I trusted you too with that.

Wow.

I see sneaky little doubles. Okay, so here's the review of the governing documents, who and what we are, which I guess they want. And here's the goals, something that we've stressed again. Did you take out the employment and education slide? I'll be honest, I didn't look at it since I sent it to you. We had just the one slide of the one committee of education and employment because you asked this question about the veteran-owned business program. I guess bullets. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. Um, one of the things that we wanted to stress and that we talked about with the education and employment that Mr. Fisher and Donna are doing a very good job on is making it more aware for a solo proprietorship business education as compared to moving away from a scholastic type of education. That was something that I think that we really need to work on. Um, Again, boosting the visibility and the engagement of Veterans Affairs Commission by posting local events and veterans focus support resources, helping things and the grant program and also get more involved with state, local and federal agencies. And also we would like to know how the mini grants are being used and be great to see photographs from that. Any questions?

Didn't I change that picture?

No, I didn't, that's right, nevermind. That was it, last slide. So I said it's condensed down, they wanted it shortened, so we did the best we could for that. Comments, suggestions? Wait, do we do that now? Any comments, anybody like to see anything added, deleted? Within reason, Amy, Lynette, you all good?

Okay. Donna. Donna.

I think it needs to be jazzed up a little bit, you guys. It's a lot of words. It's slide after slide after slide of words.

Well, I'm working on getting pictures. Okay.

Can't you take and zoom in certain things from time to time? I mean, it's yours, but... Yeah, just something to... You realize that the board receives so many... Make it a little jazzier. Just all words and a few pictures just to entertain them.

Yeah, we could probably... Yeah. We're going to get more pictures. You want something like the, the, the word slide into the image. Okay.

You want to animation and hesitate. And then the next slide comes in. I think it captures their attention a little bit more. It's an interesting what you're saying as opposed to a slide full of words.

Oh yeah. Yeah. And I agree. This was more just the structure of it. If there's like, well, Hey, you know, how come you didn't say anything about the, I don't know. It's called the dog programmer along that line.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I think what we may do, thinking about that, is make a script for it. Just for that purpose to say, oh, with $90,000, we were able to give $30,000 to here and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

That's what we did last year in the presentation. We had a slide that just broke it down in basic terms.

Yeah, you're right. I mean, it would be better if we could script it out. And we will. That's a good idea.

Yeah.

Anything else? I got animation, script, back row. I'm looking at you, Tom.

The only thing that I would offer is that I would treat this like a budget. It's a working document and can be amended as we go along. Because there's obviously things that are going to come up in the future that we haven't thought about or we haven't addressed on this. It just seems to me that, oh, well, something's going to happen next month, next week, next year, whatever. And we need to incorporate that into it. So I don't know the proper terminology for it, but the way I look at it, it's like a budget. Here you have your goals of how much money you want to bring in and how much you want to expend. But during the year, you're going to have certain incomes that you didn't expect and you're going to have certain expenses that you didn't expect. Same idea as that, but

Okay, thank you. And again, it's not going to be that stoic. We'll have Todd do it. Okay, thank you. Anything else, anybody, any other comments or suggestions, deletions? Courtney's going to say something.

Do you want me to open it up for public comment?

Oh, yes, I'm sorry. Yeah, okay, yeah, please.

we are now taking public comment on agenda item 26-1131 for the draft veteran affairs commission annual board presentation um individuals will have three minutes to address the commission public comment will be taken first from those participating in the commission room and then from those participating through zoom for those participating by zoom please make sure you want to meet yourself when called upon and please raise the hand button please voluntarily state your name for the record

Hi, David Zielinski again. I like the idea of having Todd Smith present it. Sorry, Todd, but isn't he the longest serving on the commission right now?

Yes, he is.

Yeah, so there you go. He's earned it. And I can't help myself, but I do remember the time when the county board of supervisors honored him for saving the life of a medic. And so it's good to have him up there. Thank you. That's good to know.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah.

Any public comment in the room? No additional public comment in the room. I do have public comment online. Jack?

Yeah, Jack Babbitt. I've given so many PowerPoint presentations. It's like stars and stars of admirals and generals. And one thing was those talking points were that. They were talking points. And I always... gave an example after every single, not every single, after every bullet line. Just a quick example so they have something to relate to. That's all.

Yeah, that's a good idea to add that to the scripting. And I'm making notes as we speak. Thank you.

Any additional public comment online? No additional public comment.

call for a motion to adopt? Do we do that for this? I mean, is there really a, I don't think we really need, do we need board members? I'm looking up and down, do we? I make a motion we approve the VAC Annual Committee Commission presentation as presented.

And Todd will present it.

And Todd will present it.

I'll second that.

You want me to do a roll call vote?

Have a roll call vote, please.

District 1, how do you vote?

Is Todd online?

No. Is he aware of this? He's sleeping. I talked to him this morning. He just got back from Japan.

No, I understand that aspect, but it would be nice if he was aware of this. Do you want me? No, that's not true. Do you want me to inform him? I'm supposed to debrief him after this meeting today?

How about this? Can we suggest that the vice chair would do it?

I like that better.

Yeah. I mean, technically he is the, he is the vice chair. If I'm not here, he has to do it in my stead.

And I have to debrief him anyway.

Yeah.

So is that okay? I just, I kind of don't want to push, you know, without him, you know, at least having input or understanding what's going on.

Well, technically he is the vice chair. I copy. I totally do. In my stead, he would have to do it. Yeah.

We have August meeting. And I wasn't aware that. No problem. I just wasn't aware of a timeframe. I didn't know if this was immediate. I just felt of the exigency that it was going to happen immediately with, with Todd. And I didn't think it was necessarily the correct way to proceed. And so I kind of wanted to just take a step back and get some more detail and I appreciate it. And I feel more confident about it.

So, yeah. Okay. Yeah. We can, we can bring it up in August. Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. So how about we cancel the motion and wait for an August for a final approval? Can we do that? Please.

Okay. So we're just going to table this?

We need a motion to approve the presentation. You don't have to approve who is going to present it. Okay. Because we have to submit it in legislature so that it's available. Sure. Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Okay.

I make a motion that we accept the commission presentation as it's written.

With the changes as necessary.

We weren't really going to change anything. We're just going to add a script.

I'll second that.

I think there were a few changes, like getting Robert's title.

Pardon?

there were a few small changes, like I think Robert's- Yes. But small changes.

That's really the only thing we have was just- And the spelling of my name, which was incorrect. Is it? Yes. Okay.

I got that off the- It's incorrect. Yeah, because that's on the email list that I had. Well, you didn't have the right email either, son.

Do you want me to take a roll call vote?

Please.

Okay, District 1, how do you vote? Aye. District 2, how do you vote? Aye. District 3, how do you vote?

Aye.

District 4, how do you vote? Oh, did you want to go up there? No? Okay. And District 5, how do you vote? Aye. Okay, motion passes to approve the board presentation with minor changes, and we will...

Okay, moving on to agenda item 26-1133, review and vote on Veterans Affairs Commission Transient Occupancy Tax Committee membership. This was brought before the board that we have too many members. I should say too many districts represented on the board and we have to create a quorum with more than three members. So we need to have just two members on two districts represented on the TOT tax committee membership. Gary has volunteered to step back from the position as the representative from district five. So that would only leave, myself and Roger, the District 2 and District 3 members, with our respective alternates. Is there any discussion? Would anybody want to step up to the TOT committee? Anybody have a desire to? I know Todd has not had any desire to step up to that. Any discussion about it?

I have a question dating back to when I started TOT, which is incorrect on the thing. I was well before 2021. It was around 2015, 2016 when I started on the commission. At that time, and I understand rules change and I understand things like that change. John Palmaru was a commissioner. Kurt Ruffaro was a commissioner. Phil was a commissioner. And I was a commissioner. All four of us served on the commission or on the TOT committee along with alternates. And I'm not totally understanding. I mean, other than that it's a quorum. which I understand the quorum. But is this all of a sudden a major change or are we just coming up to date?

Okay.

Okay. All right. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that because at the time, I guess nobody was following the Brown Act at that point in time. So it's kind of surprising. That was my only question. I just wanted to make perfectly clear that prior, it was pretty much because of the number of people that we had, it was available. Okay. Is that it?

That's it. Any other discussion from the board? Any public comment?

We are now taking public comment on agenda item 26-1133 for the Veteran Affairs Commission Transient Occupancy Tax Committee membership. Individuals will have three minutes to address the commission. Public comment will be taken first from those participating in the commission room and then from those participating through Zoom. For those participating by Zoom, please make sure you unmute yourself when called upon and please raise the hand button. Please voluntarily state your name for the record. Any public comment in the room?

Well, can other... Okay.

Donna Becker, Alternate District 2. I have a few questions for staff, if I may be allowed to do so.

Yeah, sure.

According to the Brown Act, a quorum is, for our commissioners, is three, correct? And you're stating that we can only have two districts. Okay, so the quorum is two commissioners and two alternates. Those alternates cannot vote. So how does that formulate into the quorum equation? Did some research and a standing committee, Brown Act does say a quorum. So if you have five members, you should have three. That makes a quorum because we are a standing committee. We agendize. And we are open to the public. So I feel that, in fairness, we could have three districts. Because three of those alternates, we can't vote.

But I- Because three equals quorum. A committee has to be less than quorum.

Standing committee, that's not true. It says it can be a quorum of five. Three can be a quorum of five on a standing committee. All right. And I brought some paperwork.

So Donna, maybe-

instead of a call to you and county council?

You know, that's fine. And I'm not here to argue any of it. I truly am. I just want to understand because I found that we as alternates, we have no voting power on a standing committee. None. which is gonna bring up a separate thing I have to bring forward. But it says that they are generally not a voting member unless they are formally appointed to the committee by the general commission or by bylaws. And we know we're not in bylaws. We know that's not in there. So we can attend the meetings and we can participate in discussions, but we cannot vote. That's very true. But does that play into the membership quorum of that standing committee? Yeah. So if that's true, then we could have a third district here, a third commissioner sitting that would form a quorum and you're entitled to a quorum and a standing because we are a standing committee according to our bylaws.

I like Amy's idea of, because we're getting our guidance from county council. So I think that setting up a meeting with county council, and we could even, if you wanted to try and do it with the ad hoc or with the TOT committee, we could do that. And that way we're getting our answers directly from who's advising us instead of us trying to interpret and maybe giving wrong information.

I think that's a great idea because it states the Brown Act State Substanding Committee is a legislative body appointed by or through bylaws or the commission. So it has a subject matter jurisdiction. And this in case is the TOT and the distribution of the funds to the TOT. So I would really, I think that would be great just to get a better, clearer understanding. And if that's the case, yes, the alternates can be there and we can provide it, but we cannot vote. So here's the second part of this story. You have two alternates sitting on your education and employment. and no commissioner. Not, doesn't follow standing. So there's the easy way, Mayor, in addition to that, if Robert and I are going to stay on as an employee in education, Roger, you have to be on there. And so does Todd, because you are the commissioners.

Why don't we do this? Since you guys have an agenda Why don't we incorporate that?

I think that would be a great, great idea. And that way you can go through it all. Okay.

With county council to go through it and that way get everything ironed out.

And that will help with us redefining our bylaws.

Yeah.

It would really help us to redefine those so that they're more clear and more open for everybody.

That was the reason.

And I mean, really, that's going to happen naturally because any proposed provisions to bylaws will go through county council anyway. Exactly.

And that was part of my reasoning for bringing it up, Kim Lynn. As you well know, you know all the people that were John Pomeru, Kurt, and all them, they were all on the TOT committee. I mean, we had seven people that were on the committee, and now we're down to four? I mean, that's a lot of responsibility to put on four people.

With only two voting.

With only, well.

I mean, I have some ideas, but I think. I do too on that.

I think there's, yeah.

into the review of the existing bylaws. And then we can figure out to the committee.

I think there's a better approach to it. Yes. And I agree with you. Yeah. Thank you, staff. I appreciate it.

So shall we combine the two agenda items into one and table them until review after by county council?

Table the TOT committee one, but I would keep the bylaw agenda item open.

Well, don't we want to just Put them all together because we're talking about creating an ad hoc committee for updating the bylaws is the next agenda item. That's what I was thinking.

So I think that you should table your TOT committee appointing TOT committee members. Table that one. to the bylaws appoint a committee to review the bylaws and that's the committee that can work with county council to look at cot committee and then we can revisit cot committee after consultation with county council that's perfect that'll work okay okay um i'm there's still some public comment there's another public comment i'm sure far away i'm no more public comment from the room okay

Okay. Jack, you're available.

Yes, ma'am. Quick question. Can someone who receives TOT funds be on the committee?

That would be considered. Well, yes, they could be on the committee. However, if it came time to voting for funds for their entity, they would need to refuse themselves.

which makes sense, because you're benefiting from that.

The person who's going to be receiving the funds is a commissioner that is on the committee, and they have to recuse themselves to get two votes down to one.

Oh, yeah.

Which, again, that's what I'm saying.

I think the whole conversation should be taken. Yep, I agree.

So do you want to table the ad hoc committee, too, then?

No.

I want to table the TOT committee, but I want to move forward with the bylaws committee. That's where this conversation should be.

Because then we could pound this out with county council. So I'm going to make a motion that we table agenda item 261133 until further information is found out from county council, and we shall table this until further notice.

Can I ask the question? Is everything going to go back to where like it is? We don't know. I mean, there's five or six different things going on and it don't make a sense.

The TOT is not going to meet now for quite some time because there's nothing to talk about. So I think that's a mute point.

So everything's back to what it normally is and down the freeway somewhere, everything could change. Okay. Okay.

So can I have a second to table lead?

I thought you were supposed to find out from County Council on this one, because we tabled it last month.

No, that was a different tabling thing.

I don't think so.

We'll call vote, please. District 1, how do you vote?

Aye.

District 2, how do you vote?

Aye.

District 3, how do you vote?

Aye.

District 4, how do you vote? And District 5, how do you vote? Aye. Okay, motion passes to table the TOT committee membership until we talk to County Council.

Okay, moving on. to agenda item 261134, review and discuss creating an ad hoc committee for updating the Veterans Affairs Commission bylaws. We talked about this last month and I think we have decided that we need to update them. And with the recent developments, we will include the reevaluation of the membership on a TOT committee or on any standing committee would be a good thing to do. Any discussion from the board? Anybody would like to be on the ad hoc committee? I will be on the ad hoc committee.

I will. I make a motion.

So Donna and Tom Milam will be on the ad hoc committee. You? Me.

Okay.

I don't know if I can make a motion since I'm on the committee.

I make a motion that... We have to do public comment first. Public comment, yes. We are now taking public comment on agenda item 261134 for the ad hoc committee for updating the Veteran Affairs Commission bylaws. Individuals will have three minutes to address the commission. Public comment will be taken first from those participating in the commission room and then from those participating through Zoom. For those participating by Zoom, please make sure you unmute yourself when called upon and please raise the hand button. Please voluntarily state your name for the record. Any public comment in the room?

Yeah.

Any public comment online? No public comment.

Any further discussion from the commission members? Do a roll call vote, please.

We have to have a motion.

Oh, I thought you made a motion. Well, you said hold off for a second.

I make a motion that Seth, Donna, and Tom be the ad hoc committee to go before along with to review the Veterans Affairs Commission, TOT committee?

No. Bylaws.

Bylaws. With county council.

I need a second. I second it. Okay. I can't do it.

Okay. And to confirm your review in the bylaws with county council, that's the motion you made? Correct. Okay. You want me to take a roll call vote?

Roll call vote, please.

District 1, how do you vote? No? That's not the motion.

I don't think you want to include county council now. At this point, we're doing a review.

We're looking at what we would like to see changed or how we think it should change that would better our commission and the veterans we serve. Then it would help the staff. Staff's more important to be a part of this.

Right. All right, then. Correct it, Donna. Would you correct it for me, please?

So we'll need a new motion, I believe.

I will make a motion that myself, Donna Becker, Tom Mellon will be on the ad hoc committee to review the bylaws for the Veterans Affairs Commission.

I'll second that.

Call the vote, please.

District 1, how do you vote? Aye. District 2, how do you vote?

Yes.

District 3, how do you vote?

Aye.

District 4, how do you vote? Aye. And District 5, how do you vote?

Aye.

Motion passes for Donna, Tom, and Seth to, I guess, form an ad hoc committee to review the Veteran Affairs Commission's bylaws.

Okay, moving on to agenda item 261135. Review and discuss creating an ad hoc committee to work with the county regarding the upkeep and improvement of the El Dorado County Veterans Monument. This was brought up by Joe Thusen. It's just some of the things they would like to see cleaned and corrected at the monument up there. Basically just beautification and cleaning. So I think it would be nice if we had another ad hoc committee that would be able to get involved with that. We have discussed bringing in outside organizations such as an arborist, a landscape designer, to just review and make suggestions that come back to us, and of course we'd bring it to the Board of Supervisors to take care of the monument up there. Would anybody be willing to be on the ad hoc committee for that? Looking left, looking right?

I will. Thank you.

Anybody else?

I will.

Thank you. Wow. You're a Mars mouse in here. Um, you'd be working mainly with Joe Thuzen on this and Joe and copy and no, no problem.

Yeah.

Yeah. And Jack, I think you're still out there and you, you're kind of aware of some of the things they're talking about doing.

Yeah. And so is Peter, Peter Wolf.

Yeah. Peter Wolf as well. I said, the idea would be is to bring in as many people as we can to get involvement of this, even possibly some of the organizations to help. So is there any public comment on the ad hoc committee?

We are now taking public comment on agenda item 26-1135 for an ad hoc committee to upkeep an improvement to the El Dorado County Veterans Monument. Individuals will have three minutes to address the commission. Public comment will be taken first from those participating in the commission room and then from those participating through Zoom. For those participating by Zoom, please make sure you unmute yourself when called upon and please raise the hand button. Please voluntarily state your name for the record. Any public comment in the room? Any public comment online? No public comment. Okay, thank you.

I'll call for a motion. I make a motion we create an ad hoc committee made up of Roger Reynolds and Robert Fisher to work with outside organizations for the El Dorado County Veterans Monument, improvements to the monument.

I second that motion.

Roll call vote.

Can you amend your motion for recommended improvements?

I'm sorry, recommended?

Recommended improvements because CAO Facilities is in charge of improvements.

Yeah, recommended improvements, yeah.

Roll call?

Roll call vote, please.

District 1, how do you vote? Aye. District 2, how do you vote? Aye. District 3, how do you vote? Aye. District 4, how do you vote? Aye. And District 5, how do you vote? Aye. Okay. Motion passes to make the ad hoc committee with Robert and Roger to work with El Dorado County for recommended upkeep and improvements to the El Dorado County Veterans Monument.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to the ex officio report. LROC veteran services update. Our summer virtual conference has completed. The veteran service reps got a lot of knowledge they'll be able to use to assist veterans. On June 24th, myself along with office assistant Bonnie Stewart attended an outreach event at El Dorado Hills Heritage Oaks Community. Mac Adams put on a good honor guard with the salute and everything on August 4th, 2026, myself and at least one of my staff will attend a car show that is being held at the red hot casino parking garage. It's a vets for vets car club car show that they hold every year. And the proceeds benefit veterans. I look forward to attending it, not only to see the good vehicles, but also, uh, the opportunity to assist veterans that might not even know we exist. Also, on August 24, 2026, myself and office assistant Bonnie Stewart will be attending an outreach event at the Placerville Senior Center. It is located at 937 Spring Street. We will be there from approximately 1 to 3. And currently, the office is preparing for the semi-annual audit that is conducted on January 31st and July 31st each year. Looking at the pre-audit conducted by VetPro, there are only a few minor adjustments needed in order for us to be into full compliance with CalVet. Right now, I don't have any legislative updates. I will be attending a meeting with California Association of Veterans Service Officers Legislation Committee tomorrow. I'll gather any information provided and put it in my next report. If anything is time sensitive, I will send an email to Seth, and he can put it out to the other members. Monthly contact report. We had 349 phone calls, 110 scheduled appointments, 62 walk-in visitors, and we approved 38 CalVet college fee waivers. Awesome. South Lake Tahoe. We've returned to regular hours of operation in South Lake Tahoe as of July 14th, 2026. And that completes my report.

Thank you. Moving on to community reports.

John, can I ask the question on that car show? What cars are you actually allowed to go to there?

When I mean British cars, American? It's a Corvette. It's a Corvette car show.

Oh, it's a Corvette car show. Oh, that's for that.

That's for bets.

OK, moving on to committee reports.

TOT any report new report.

Rules no report.

Housing.

The thought of anything for you remember?

Oh, I'm sorry. No, nothing to report.

He didn't say anything to me either. Sorry. That's okay. Legislative. No report. Transportation.

Good.

Thank you. Can I ask him a question?

Sure.

Oh, last time you were here, you were talking about problems with transportation. Oh, I'm sorry. Last time meeting we had, you were having difficulties with veterans getting transportation. And my wife gave you that from El Dorado Transit Company. Well, we checked and there's a gentleman over there that would love to come by if we make an appointment with him and can explain everything in detail what El Dorado Transit has to help out veterans. All you got to do is go by their office, or one of us can, and make arrangements where he can come here with Courtney.

Can you talk offline on that?

Oh, yeah.

Budget?

I have nothing done.

Education and Employment?

I have CalTAP workshops update for the upcoming virtual workshops. July 9th today, the discharge upgrades. CalTAP will be presenting in partnership with Veterans Legal Institute for virtual event focusing on discharge upgrades. Representative will discuss eligibility, the process of upgrading a discharge and changing your character of service. July 30th, emergency preparedness resources support. CalTAP will be hosting a workshop, disasters, emergency readiness. This event will highlight the understanding your risks, staying informed through alerts and warnings, personal preparedness, and other emergency preparedness resources. Nothing more to report at this time, sir.

Thank you. Outreach.

Outreach, we reached about 1,500. We're between 1,500 and 1,600 people now. Most of them are from the county here. Unfortunately, most of them are above the 50 age. I'm posting about every three to four days, although there has been a couple of weeks where I haven't been able to find articles. All the recent articles that I've received from Tim and the other commissioners have been posted. I'll probably be reposting some of them since part of it is the stand down and ones like that. So I'm also reaching out to the organizations. They don't seem to be responding, so I'll try to bring that up at the next House Council meeting. That concludes my report.

Thank you. We'll open the reports to public comment, please.

We are now taking public comment on the committee reports. Individuals will have three minutes to address the commission. Public comment will be taken first from those participating in the commission room and then from those participating through Zoom. For those participating by Zoom, please make sure you unmute yourself when called upon and please raise the hand button. Please voluntarily state your name for the record. Any public comment in the room? Any public comment online? No public comment. Thank you.

Moving on to communications report. Veterans Memorial Building.

There was no House Council meeting for July due to the 4th of July weekend. Next meeting will be held the first Thursday of August at the Veterans Memorial Building. Thank you.

American Legion Service Officer.

Hi, I want to start off with the South Lake Tahoe thing. Usually I bug Tom Milham and he has to do all the work. But this time, City of South Lake Tahoe Housing Authority contacted me, the 80 year old reservist. He had a three-day quit or leave, whatever it is, notice. And they said, so basically, I put a check in the mail at Placerville post office yesterday. And they've contacted the landlord. And hopefully, he will back off because the check is literally in the mail. So it's good that they, you know, I've got that contact directly. I gave to, through about three hands, it's now in Tom's hands, the name of the worker at South Lake Tahoe who referred me to the veteran, and I don't have the contact information for the veteran. I don't have a phone number or email, so she's her only contact. I do have a copy of the DD-214. He seems to be a reservist who served two or three months of active duty. And so I said, can we please set up an appointment with Tisha Holy going up to the lake? And I got some weird feedback. It was like, oh, no, there's two or three people. So it's changed. Yeah, tell me, John.

Three of the vet reps are swapping out month by month. So it could be Tisha, it could be Chris, it could be Sharon. So just have them make an appointment for Tahoe and they will see whatever.

I got you. Thank you. So she told me the right thing. Okay. I was thinking of this crowd of three peoples coming up to Tahoe. One at a time. One at a time. Thank you. All right. I had an excellent visit at jail the Tuesday night. And he is my kind of guy. Other than honorable discharge, he's only there because of self-medication. He uses methamphetamine. When he was arrested in Rio Linda, the sheriff's deputies let him hug his six-year-old pit bull for a while. So we could cry a little bit. That's his person. And they let him hug the dog for a while in the backseat before they took him away. He was in Rio Cosumnes Correction Center, but they brought him up here. He has a little bit to deal here. It looks like an Air Prop 36, which means... We, the people, passed a proposition. We want to make that third charge be a felony. And it's done no good at all because they have to be released. But they're supposed to be released to a program. But the legislature didn't like it when we, the people, passed Prop 36. So they refused to fund the programs. So he will have no money, no connections, no nothing. And he'll hit the street probably Friday. And I'll probably be driving him around. So we'll use some of our money to put him in a motel. I'll try and keep him there long enough so he can get a free phone from the upper room. And he is willing to not be reunited with the dog a little bit. So it'd be a little bit easier to help him. But I... I explained to him that even with the OTH, he can still do HUD-VASH. He can still do SSVF with Volunteers of America. So we do have some cards we can still help him get housed, even with the dog. And I turned in paperwork so that Sharon can work on it. And So hopefully we'll be able to come by. A discharge upgrade might be considered. He has almost two full years in the Navy. He loved being in the Navy, but they kept throwing him into the fire detail over and over and over again because they had to have a quorum, not a quorum, that's what we're using here, a a minimum amount to run the class, he was always the one picked. And one more time, smoke room, one more time, mask comes off so you can feel what it feels like. And other people weren't being picked. So he finally said no, and they got rid of him. And so I'm hoping we can get a discharge upgrade on him and help him get his life back and a lot of trauma issues. And then this morning, we've got a combat veteran. We're trying to get him into vet court. And we're finding that to get him into vet court, you have to have a program that the Veterans Administration, Veteran Justice Outreach Specialist has assessed the person and here's what the program is. If they don't have a program, it's hard to get them into vet court. And this is the second time in like in a month that we've had this. He did not assess for the arts program. It isn't so much the alcohol or drugs or anything like that's the problem. He has moral injury. Kid was playing by the side of the street. Kid's not there anymore. He has survivor's remorse. He's carrying his buddy on his back. Buddy's not there anymore. And that's his issues. So his interaction with other people isn't always very good. So he's getting, there are some programs the VA can give him for that. Whether or not he will cut muster with everyone to get him into vet court, we're not sure. but we did get at the last vet court meeting someone to use the vet center as their program for vet court, and that was accepted. So I've told the alternate public defender that's an option for this one. So hopefully we can do it. And so there's probably other stuff I'm supposed to talk about, and I forgot, and you're lucky. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, David. Veterans Alliance.

Jack, I'll be available.

All right. Thank you. Our next meeting is on the next Tuesday at 8 o'clock in the Memorial Building Lounge. And it would really be great if this new ad hoc committee would please come to it because we always discuss what improvements we can and where the money is coming from mostly. And also, there's a lot of... things that need to be fixed around there. An example would be if we didn't have another backup generator, the ceremony and Memorial Day would have gone downhill with no speakers or anything. And a while back, somebody removed a power plug on the side of the building, and that's what we used, and we're trying to get that one back. We're prepping for Vet Day, and we made some small progress on that center map in the honor circle. The design we're working on, of course, where the money is coming from, but we got one more step toward it. We had some people looking at it, and possibly designs and bids will be coming soon. Any other questions?

It's 8 o'clock at the Vets building, correct?

Yes, sir. Yeah, please come. Thanks, sir. It's getting down to there's just three of us doing everything, which is not bad, but it's nice to have other people's input, especially with this ad hoc committee. It'd be really nice to have some other people looking at it. We used to do it all ourselves in-house. Paul Moreau did most of it. Yeah. That's it.

All right. Thank you, Jack. Yes, sir. time to that meeting again it's going to be two o'clock eight o'clock yeah on tuesday the upcoming uh am or pm am yeah those those guys get up early in the morning it's 8 a.m down at the butts building down by the playground that'd be the 14th july 14th uh edvr mfsg tim i have you unmuted

Tim.

Yeah, do you have me?

Yep, there you are.

OK, hi everybody. Our next stand down meeting for eating VR MFS G is this is the committee meeting is July 22nd on Wednesday. 9 AM to 11. And that's going well. We're getting putting all the puzzle pieces together slowly but surely. Um? If you know the various veteran service organizations would like to attend or or participate, please attend the meeting or contact any one of us. They all know us. It's at the House Council also. See. As far as events going on on July 15th of Wednesday, the Grass Valley County Veterans Service Office is having a health of Veterans Health and Wellness Fair. at the Brass Valley Veterans Hall. That goes from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. And then just for your knowledge, the State Fair Veterans Appreciation Day is July 29th, Wednesday. I guess that's going from 1,600 to 2,200. Yeah, 1,600 to 2,200. So four to eight for the Veterans Fair. And I think that's all I got. Okay, thank you.

Do you have any posters on that?

Which one?

Tim, on the State Fair or Grass Valley?

Yeah, I can send you the Grass Valley one. I don't have anything on the State Fair.

Okay, thanks. Yeah, send me the Grass Valley. Thank you.

And then I have a question for John. What date was that? Vets for Vets at Red Hawk?

August 4th.

Awesome. Okay.

Okay. Thank you, Tim. Moving on to regional veteran events. We just have the stand down information. Any other regional veteran events coming up?

I'm not going to get it exactly right, but the Marine Corps League is putting on dogs and hogs or hogs and dogs.

Yeah, I've got that.

You already got it?

Well, yeah, I've got it. I'm going to put that under good of the order. I'm out of here. Okay, you're out of here. Okay.

Do they have a poster on there?

I'll ask him if he does. Okay. Public comment for communication reports.

We are now taking public comment on communication reports. Individuals will have three minutes to address the commission. Public comment will be taken first from those participating in the commission room and then from those participating through Zoom. For those participating by Zoom, please make sure you unmute yourself when called upon and please raise the hand button. Please voluntarily state your name for the record. Any public comment in the room? Any public comment online? No public comment.

Thank you. Moving on to go to the order. Commissioner announcements.

I have something. Certainly.

Last month, I was volunteering at El Dorado County Food Bank. Prior to that, I received an email from the food bank asking if I wanted to be a driver for veterans to medical appointments. I kind of, you know, got interested, piqued my interest. So I went in, that was like on a Thursday. And then the next Monday I went in, was actually volunteering, talked to staff at the time of the El Dorado County Food Bank and asked about this email. I was told by Kim and she is at the front desk. She had been approached by Eddie from EDBR, who most of us are familiar with. and was asked a request to ask for vetted volunteers that El Dorado County Food Bank had. I thought it was genius. They have hundreds of folks that are very committed and help at the food bank. She was going to provide this list to eddie edvr for potential rides for veterans so it's in the works i will give an update um it's it's out there it's ongoing i haven't received a final final status but her intention per kim was to give the list back to eddie edvr for rides for veterans for el dorado county thank you many anyone any other commissioners i got a question

Well, we're good of the order.

Okay. Since old Ralph Brown's got his fingers into everything and causing nothing but headaches, seems to me you three ladies should be here every month. Because every time a question came up, Donna and the rest of them, everybody's looking at you. Oh, you're three. That seemed to know what's going on. So that's my suggestion until we can get rid of this idiot. But that's my, excuse me. That's my position. Okay.

And I, I, I'm pretty sure the Brown act is for Willie Brown. I don't think it was for Ralph Brown, right? Willie, you guys remember Willie Brown?

Yeah.

Okay, yeah, I'm sure that was for him.

I think some of them are a little young, but they may remember from their childhood.

Good Willie Brown. I have a few things for the commission. One of it is a shout-out to our Marine Corps League. Here we have our Skymote Detachment 697. They have won the number one spot for the National Toys for Tots local community organizations throughout the nation. They are number one out of 870 nationwide toy frittat programs. Joe Thusen, their commandant, will be attending a ceremony in St. Louis to pick up the award for the Marine Corps. So that's pretty awesome that those guys did it. Stacey Walls is really the driving force behind that, and so we've got to give her props. Also, they're having your fundraiser, Dogs and Hogs. Dogs is in DAWGS, and Hogs is in HAWGS. For the Toys for Tots program, which will be October 4th at the Veterans Building, it starts at 11 a.m. More information will soon be available. I'll text him and ask if he's got a flyer or something like that. That's all I have.

I'll see him, too.

Yeah, we'll see him before then. Any other commission events? No answer. Moving on to open forum. Clerk will read public comment for open forum.

We are now taking public comment for open forum. Individuals will have three minutes to address the commission. Public comment will be taken first from those participating in the commission room and then from those participating through Zoom. For those participating by Zoom, please make sure you unmute yourself when called upon and please raise the hand button. Please voluntarily state your name for the record. Any public comment in the room?

David Slonsky again.

Bob, there are some unclaimed medical rides that Eddie has in her inventory.

It means I don't understand what you're attempting to tell me. I don't understand the significance.

Oh, I'm sorry. Did you say you were interested in volunteering to provide medical transportation?

Okay, I... I don't understand what you're attempting to ask of me.

So he was saying that he went to the food bank and found out that Eddie had asked him for a list of people that could provide rides.

Oh, she's creating a list for Kim from the El Dorado County food bank. Kim is creating the list to give to Eddie for potential rides for veterans of El Dorado County. That's what I just reported. Anything else?

Thank you, Bob. Okay. Sorry. No, no problem. And it did make me think if anyone has any better ideas. We've got a fellow who's probably going to be evicted. He's a client of Towel Coalition for the Homeless, and he's County code enforcement is probably going to properly get him out of there because it's not really suitable for human habitation. He's on oxygen. He's got COPD. He has a bench warrant from about 12 or 15 years at Placer County because, you know, it's hard to get there when you can't breathe and all that. And we took him to the El Dorado County Jail, but Placer County didn't want to come and get him. But the bench warrant's still there. We can't get him housed until we get rid of the bench warrant for all kinds of different reasons. So I might have to be hauling him to Roseville in late August so we can finally get his bench warrant gone. I can't even do it by remote appearance. They won't let us do it.

Can you get the warrant moved to El Dorado County?

I like the idea.

Usually, if it's a small misdemeanor warrant, which it probably is, if they're not going to come pick him up and not going to extradite him, yeah, ask the court for a change of venue to an El Dorado County court.

God bless you, Seth. Thank you. You're very welcome. Okay, let's see if I can do it. Thank you.

You should be able to do it. You've got the warrant information and all that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's on the website for the Placer County Court.

Court will be glad to get rid of that. They don't want that warrant.

I realize they don't want him. They don't want to put him in the medical ward for, you know, and all that. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you, sir. Request a change of venue. Anything else in the open forum?

Any public comment online? No additional public comment.

Going once, going twice. All right. I adjourn this meeting at... Next meeting. Next meeting will be... Oh, yeah, adjourn at the end. Next meeting will be August 13th at 12 o'clock in this here building and chambers. I adjourn the meeting at 1308. Hallelujah.