Veterans Advisory Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright. I officially call this meeting order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, an individual with liberty and justice for all. Alright. Thank you. Roll call, please.

Sure. Mr. Burgess? Here. Mr. Hughes? Here. Mr. Suffolk? Here. Mr. Sonopoli?

Here.

And Mr. Mikkelsen is absent.

Hi. Did everybody get a chance to look at the minutes from the last meeting in February? Yes. Everybody approve? Yeah. Motion to approve. Second. Alright. Okay. And any citizen comments today?

Do you want to speak? Okay. Alright. Unfinished business. I spoke with Kittles last week. We are on the clock for April 7 from six to 8PM doing a veterans outing. We'll come up with the name. We'll put it out, invite all the veterans in the community. Kittles also told me that they would like to do this monthly. Okay.

So our thought is to immediately after our meetings here monthly, go over there, support them from six to eight, invite the community, just make it a get together for the veterans, find out what the veterans in our community need. And then from there, we can decide what the next steps are as far as community outreach and what the community would like for us to

Where is Kittel then?

You know where Menchus is?

Yeah. It's right in that plaza right in the corner. Oh, okay. Yeah. So if you go

through the corridor and you come past that inside entrance on Menchie's just past it on Yes, the right hand

they have a sign out, so you can see.

Call it Booze and Battle Buddies.

Oh, that's not bad.

And that's April 7?

Yes, April 7, six a. M.

From six to eight p. M. The Veterans Friendly Business Project. Thank you for the recommendations on these stickers there, Kyra. We appreciate it.

We will get together. We'll decide which one that we all like, and we'll see about trying to get those into production. Also with that, we need to start reaching out to the businesses and reaching out to the Chamber of Commerce and try to get this rolling. As was discussed last month, this is something now that we've been talking about almost a year and a half. We need to get it rolling and get the community involved and find out what we would like to see from them and all come in agreement, and that way we can be able to recognize these businesses.

I'll have a conversation with the city about possibly creating a link onto our Veterans Advisory Commission and acknowledging those businesses that are veteran friendly in the community. Think that's great advertising for them as well.

Yeah. I think we need the Chamber of Commerce to buy in on it. I mean, we got to get them then when we go, to the retailers and say, look, Chamber of Commerce says, this is okay, and we're not and I think that helps us get into it.

Well, I think we've already got that from them, right? Correct.

Oh, did we? Correct. Yes. Okay. We don't have to have something that says that, you know, we are certified

to see So we something may in need to we actually may need to present some formal letter asking for their support and getting that pushed out to the businesses.

Yes. Just think that has some more credibility if you're going in and say, Hey, I want to put a sticker in your house. My question would be for The the retailers does that mean, veteran friendly? Do you offer a discount parking space? Like Lowe's has a parking space for veterans. That's going be Define what that means. Veteran friendly.

Yes. Yes. Those are these are the topics that we need to discuss. So we can set a meeting on the outside, and we can all try to get together and discuss something.

But think if we get the chamber that will go along with this, and when you go into the retailer, you make a suggestion and say, you know, you can do what you'd like, but here are some things that I think would benefit you. And so you have a kind of a sales pitch to go with. Right.

Suspect you have a thought over there?

Yes. I was just thinking, I think you should definitely leave some flexibility in the criteria because I know, for instance, Menchez does military Mondays. They do 50% off on Mondays. But any other day of the week, you don't get anything. So I think it's think that's Really? Every Monday? Yes. To me, that meets the criteria. See if they have one of these logos

I know where I'm

going every Monday now. Yes. There you go.

Our next meeting will be on a Monday. Same same as safety. No, I think you're right. We have to be that's why if we go in and present what we want to do and say, it's your choice, of how you want to handle it, but we'd like you to tell us or put out something for us, and you can e mail us, you know, on that.

And I think definitely that partnership with the chamber is critical. Mr. Wein is, I'm sure he will push this out once something formal. So a nice letter, he'll send it out to all his members. And suspect we'll see these stickers all over. And cadet Sophocool, fantastic job. Great job on these. Yeah.

So let's focus on that. If we can get somebody to draft a letter, and we can all look at it, have the city review it, make suggested changes. And once that gets approved, we'll push it out to the chamber, have the Chamber of Commerce approve it, and then we can start pushing that out to the businesses and the community.

I can probably do that. Okay.

Awesome. Thank you.

Veterans Day wreaths? Yeah. So talked with Dan Barry at the JROTC boosters. He and the boosters were more than happy with the idea of purchasing those wreaths for us as a thank you for partnering with them last year on the Raider Run-in the Veterans Honor Walk. So myself and mister Spate actually had some text going yesterday.

Yes, sir.

And he was placing the order for all of those wreaths. Okay.

Yes. That order actually was placed. Yep. We found a vendor through Etsy, that is custom making all of these wreaths, and we will have them before, Memorial Day. Fantastic.

It's already been paid for by the Booster Club. And as a reminder, this was, from the proceeds from the Honor Walk at last year's Raider Run. So they committed to making a donation, and I appreciate the good thought on, Hey, this is a great way to make that donation. And ironically, it came out to less than $100 from what they were planning on, so within $100 I think originally, they were hoping to donate $500 and we hit just around $600 for the REIT. So I know the Booster Club is happy to do this, and I think that's a great way to take that donation and do something memorable for Memorial Day.

That's another thing that we need to do. I think we should do. We should generate a letter just thanking them for their support and being able to present that to them as well. Agreed. So we need if if you get it right, and would you like to write that, mister Burgess?

I was writing the other one. I'll shoot it. You can do whatever you want. Do you want me to write that one?

Please.

Yeah. Send me the who I'm supposed to send it to. Okay. We'll get that information. Send me the email. And, you know, also to the chamber of commerce, do you have that, info? Who is it addressed to? Yes.

Yes, we

have it. All right. Just send that to me. We'll get that. I'll whip it up. I can do that.

And then along with those Memorial Day wreaths, I will talk with the American Legion about trying to get a veteran from each branch because we talked about having all those wreaths get laid at the same time that the mayor lays his wreath. Yes. So I'll talk with, maybe the American Legion this year. Maybe we try VFW next year and kind of flip flop the veterans organizations to get vets from each branch to lay those. Obviously, Space Force would be a difficult one for us. Yes. There aren't a lot of veterans coming out of Space Force yet.

Correct. So I would almost

do we want to maybe say, you know, send us two Air Force veterans?

I would say two Air Force.

Actually, I think we will have a newly commissioned Space Force lieutenant that will be at the Memorial Day parade.

Even better.

Oh, yeah. Fantastic.

Would be perfect. Cadet Cade Veneta commissions May 16.

Okay.

And he should be he normally helps with the Memorial Day parade. So newly commissioned Space Force lieutenant.

And if he is interested, I think that would be a, a good one to to lay the wreath there.

I will talk to him.

Perfect. Thank you.

As was previously mentioned, I'm working with mister Elgins tomorrow to start working on drafting our recognition for the veteran hall of fame for the city. We have to get in contact with some people on the outside to get more information about that person. That way, we can help generate the entire package. The deadline for that is the June 1. Okay. So it's gonna be fast approaching. Any new business that you guys would like to discuss? I have a couple

of things. Well, before we do that, I wanna comment on the the slice of the battle of the slice Yeah. Over the weekend. I don't think that's something that works for us, I guess. First of all, we were in we were in the alleyway. Everybody else is inside. There are kids and plaything the families come there for that. It really wasn't a gathering where we could pull individuals in like WIP maps or the American Legion, that sort of thing. I just don't I just I don't know how much it costs.

I heard

they ran out of food, too. That, I don't know. It's a fact that when we were on the exit where they've already got their pizzas and the kids are ready to go home and we were snagging people once in a while, but if you've got the banner and the brick, you need to have the people that need to see that. And that would that's not a I don't think that's a good venue for us to continue to do that.

So I actually had quite a bit of traffic the first half of the day from eleven to two.

Early in

the Yeah.

I had quite a few people that were stopping to talk, not just about the banner and the brick, but also about the commission as a whole. We actually we had a lot of really good responses. In fact, there was a veterans motorcycle group. One of their members came and stopped and talked to Mike and I for a while. Okay.

And

they were interested in partnering with us on on a few things. So, maybe it was just maybe it was time of day. Maybe it will

it could be. Okay. Tim, let's take another step. How do we get inside?

So I don't know that that's an option because I think they were trying to keep all the city stuff on the edges there.

All right.

Yeah, if I may, I think that was a learning experience well, obviously, first time we've done it with a combination of a core. Replacing the celebration of education for Battle of the Slice was a big challenge. And I know the city actually advocated to have the city tables over in the core since that's the city owned property. However, that corridor where they were was not very productive for traffic flow. And like you said, it was all aimed towards bringing little kids back there. Yeah. Like, we had a city council table, and I don't think there was much traffic there all day. It was

not well received in that location.

Kids don't yeah, except for the dumb dumbs that were out on the table, kids just ran by and went and played their sports. So I do agree next year when we go to re reposition the vendors and city tables, I think it's definitely something to be taken into consideration.

I wouldn't have a problem with that if we can get inside.

Yes. Yes. The gymnasium was a hop in place. And actually, we had a lot of different actually, it's funny. Before I came here, I was reading all the feedback from because we sent out a survey to everybody who purchased a ticket.

Number one was we ran out of pizza, which we understand, and that was growing pains. We did not expect to sell 1,500 tickets, so we definitely learned that. Also was the there was not signage directing people from one area to another, so some people just went straight for pizza and didn't even know that the court was open or the gym right around the corner was filled with bounce houses or people came and didn't even know we had food going on. So, there will definitely be more communication and signage next year, but I think moving the city tables out into a more prevalent area, is going be key. What that area is now, I don't know, but

But we got a planning. What's the next year? Once a year, does this go?

Yes. We're hoping to make it an annual event.

Got time to do that. Okay. At least a year

to But I agree, though, that I feel like we put baby in a corner on that one. So

As Jared said, the first half of the day, the three of us out there, I think we had good feedback with that. With rolling into the new business on that, the Memorial Day parade, we had a veteran come up to us, and he is very active with his union up in Cleveland, and he's here in the city. And he asked about possibly getting into the parade, thanks off of miss Suffolk's idea of having them follow us. And I went and talked to him, and he was very responsive on it. And when I started talking to him on the side, he was very open to different opportunities to bring into our commission.

So I will be reaching out to him in the coming weeks as well, trying to pick his brain, come up with different ideas that, he may have. Just the one on one conversation, the conversation that you and I had with him, he is very eager to be involved. He's very eager to help us out, and he's super active in the union for the veterans up in Cleveland that he's part of.

Well, it's I got the impression too during our conversation, he's already got kind of a core group of

those GWAT era veterans in the community here locally

that he's kind of tied in with, which is what we've kind of talked about is trying to get the young getting the older generation to come out and participate in events isn't that hard. It's getting the younger ones. So I think he'll be a great resource for bringing in more of the young more recent era.

When I went and asked him about possibly being in the parade and following us, I mean, if you could have seen the excitement on his face, it was it was pretty awesome. So he's super interested in helping us. With that, also, the Ohio Golf Club, mister Elkins introduced them to us, and then they came back and talked to us later. They are interested in possibly doing a veterans golf league here in the city. And when I was talking to him, the initial idea was to do it in the fall.

However, his idea was to do it in the summer because that's their slowest time of the year because everybody's out on the greens typically at that time.

Because they're an indoor golf club?

Okay. Yeah. I didn't know that. So they are down the road on Arlington, and he said that he'll be in contact with me this coming week as well to sit down and bring more ideas together with that as well. So as was said last year with the why being interested in possibly doing, some veteran, activities and now that we have the core, we can possibly do some veteran stuff with that.

It's just another opportunity to get veterans involved and let them know that we are here to bring that camaraderie and be able to find out what we all need. Anybody else have anything?

I actually do. So tonight, we have with us Sharon Snowden. She's from the Daughters of the American Revolution. Sharon, did you want to come up and chat with the gentleman at all? No? Yeah.

No. That's No? No. That's my wife.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Come on, talk. I apologize. I'm

so sorry. I thought that's

what you

If she is, I don't know

it. Disregard. Alright. Never mind, was lying. Sorry. It's my cold meds.

Aren't you glad you came?

Are you sure you don't want to talk to us, though?

One other thing I'm going to piggyback off of the junior ROTC. They are having a fundraiser tonight at Jerzy's. If anybody's interested, that's from six to eight, I believe. And I know where I'm heading after here, so if anybody's interested.

I can't go, but.

Anybody else have anything?

Actually, Sophocle, you want to mention it? Next, or March 16, there's also another Dine to Donate Ed Menches, for the junior ROTC program at Green High School for their senior capstone trip.

Yeah. If information a little earlier. I know you put it out, but, that would probably be something I could probably do. All right.

Okay. Anything else? All right. Motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye.

Have a good night, everybody.