Veterans Advisory Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Good afternoon. I officially call this meeting to order. If you'll please join me in 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, indivisible, with liberty and justice. Nicole, roll call, please. Sure.

Mr. Mickelson.

Here.

Mr. Burgess. Here. Mr. Hughes. Here. Mr. Suffolk is absent. Mr. Moore.

Here.

Okay.

All right. I want to take a minute and introduce our newest commission member, Kyle Moore. Congratulations. Thank you. Welcome aboard. We're excited to have you. Excited to be here. Going forward, did anybody and everybody get a chance to look at the minutes from the last meeting?

Yes.

And thank you for running the meeting last month in my absence. I appreciate that. Does everybody approve the minutes from the last meeting?

Motion to approve.

Second. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

All approve?

Aye.

Aye. First off, I want to take a minute to thank citizens in the community. We appreciate your guys' support as a commission. So I just want to take a minute and say thank you for that. Are there any citizens in attendance that have any comments, notes, anything that they would like to provide to the commission? Okay. Moving on. Unfinished business. Memorial Day recap. Overall, I think Memorial Day went very well. I spoke with Nicole in the back. We're going to order more flags for next year. We're going to look at possibly doing 2,000 instead of ordering 1,000 that we had this year.

Well, how far down the block did we get with 1,000?

If we would have been on both sides, we would have ran out just in front of ACME. Really? Really. We had five, six kids that were handing out flags. So I want to say thank you to the high school kids that took time to do that as well. They all volunteered to do that for us, and they were all eager and excited to do it. To go back on that, Kyle, if you don't know, during the Memorial Day Parade, the Veterans Commission is the second in the parade to lead off, and the city provides flags, and we hand them out to the community as a way to say thank you, and also... helps build our relationship with the community. It's one thing that every time you go by, MAPSIS here provided vehicles for us. That was fantastic. But it's one of those things, as a veteran, to get out there and have other veterans in attendance in the parade. They typically stand up and they say, thank you. They'll run their salute. There was an older gentleman that looked like he was on the verge of tears as we passed by. It was very humbling to see. So it's one of the things that we look forward to every year. So next Memorial Day, we look forward to having you a part of that. We'll look forward to getting maps again on board to provide vehicles, possibly even more, because I know we had to shuffle them up into the front. But everything worked out as it was required.

Yeah, to add to that, I think I can do it to write a letter to Keith and say thank you very much for getting your support and supplying a vehicle for us. We were hoping that we'd get a Humvee or something really rough-looking, but we got a rough-looking truck. which worked out it worked out okay but i but i will do that i think we should uh ask them or tell them that we appreciated it it worked out well absolutely i'm glad i could block the exhaust for you yes yeah i did recommend midas to them after the but yeah overall memorial day i thought was fantastic um

Our speaker, he was fantastic. He did a nice job. If you've never been a part of the Veterans Day or the Memorial Day ceremonies at the city host, I highly recommend it. Honestly, it's very humbling, and a lot of times you'll see people that will move them to tears. It's just something that the city does a fantastic job with giving recognition to the veterans in the community. So to the community and the city members that are here, thank you for that as well, because as us as a commission, we appreciate everything that you guys do for us. So I want to say thank you.

I know we issued, the city issued a new rule sheet for participants in the parade to pay attention to and obey. And in large measure, I suspect that's because of the serious incident we had last year.

Because of the incident we had the prior year, we did review everything and just, you know,

Did you get any pushback from any of the participants to stay on just the west side of the road?

That was a last minute There was some discussion about that, but that they wanted to move to the other side. And I'll have to get back with you on the details. I wasn't at the parade. I know that it was the sheriff and Matt Kress from our parks department that were making some last-minute decisions there and did respond to some residents' feedback, but I don't know all the details.

Okay. I mean, if that's going to be our mode of operation going forward, everybody needs to understand it and probably obey it for both Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

Well, Veterans Day, we don't have a parade, so we should be all right. Yeah.

Okay. Anything else? No.

Do you have anything?

I'm good now. Okay. Thank you.

As far as the Veterans Friendly Business Project update, so to get you in the loop on this, Kyle, what we are trying to do as a commission is we are trying to work with the Chamber of Commerce to identify businesses in the community that are veteran friendly. We have designed a decal. We're working with them to create some sort of format on what that veteran-friendly means. And with that, we want to be able to present that to that business. And they can put it on their door. They can put it on a window. So when you walk in as a veteran or as a family member of a veteran, you can walk in knowing that that business is veteran friendly, whether it's offering a discount, whether it's making donations to different organizations. um, veteran resource programs that are out there. These are things that we're trying to work through. So if you have any ideas or any feedback on that, please get with us. Let us know what your insights are to that. Um, we're looking forward to new ideas. We have a new president with the chamber. Um, so we are gonna sit down with her and we will come together and get this moving. It's something that we've been in works now for approximately a year and a half, and it's just time to finally, as we mentioned earlier, to get it across the last hurdle to get it out there to the community.

The definition or criteria of what a veteran-friendly business is that Who gets to make that decision? Is that us? Is that the Chamber? Is it a joint decision with the Chamber?

It would be a joint, more than likely. Ultimately, it would probably be up to the Chamber of Commerce, though. But it would be definitely a partnership.

Probably up to each individual business, too.

Well, yeah, it would be the individual business, but we want to coordinate it to the Chamber of Commerce, because then that kind of verifies and says, you know, this is okay, that we are able to go in and do that. and I think it was going to be in the green newsletter, too, that when we start that up that we can promote it through there.

Sure, yeah, why don't you guys keep going. Yes.

Yeah, and again, like I said, it's something that we're with them, and I know the Chamber would be glad to put it on their website as well. So that's one of the things that we're looking forward to. Hopefully, as we move forward, Not that I'm wishing summer away, but as we move into the fall, that this is one of those things that we can finally get across, because it's been something that's been in conversation for a number of months now, so it's just time to get it. Any new business going forward? I have a few things, but I also know that Val has something, so Val, if you'd like to come forward.

I just have a couple of things. One, I wanted to, I know we just finished Memorial Day, but it's a good time to talk about Veterans Day as well. We're going to have a couple of changes with Mike Elkins, no longer with the city. He was a fabulous emcee. DID IT GREAT AND WAS THE RIGHT PRICE AS WELL. SO WE NEED TO KIND OF THINK, WE WERE BRAINSTORMING A LITTLE BIT IN THE MAYOR'S OFFICE ABOUT THIS AND WE COULD DO A GUEST MC EVERY TIME OR PERHAPS THERE'S A VOLUNTEER THAT'S JUST AS SPECTACULAR AS MIKE WAS THAT WANTS TO MOVE FORWARD. SO I'M PUTTING THAT OUT INTO THE UNIVERSE TO SEE, YOU KNOW, It will be here before we know it, and we're like, oh man, we're going to need somebody. So kind of give that some thought. And if you come across people in your travels, that might be a really good thing. They love to public speak, or they're just really eloquent. Then we should possibly consider them. So just keep that in mind. The other thing is with Veterans Day, we honor a veteran from the city as part of that ceremony. We will push that out as we get kind of closer when people start thinking about those things. But also something to consider throughout the summer as you kind of get down to that point. There's plenty of people, we just, when it's time, sometimes it's hard to think of the exact person. So give that some thought. And then the other thing, and I think this has been brought up before, about the MAPS Air Museum recently started a resource hub. It's called Resource Hub Connection. I don't know if Mike had brought this to your attention or not. They have a meeting on June 18th from 10 to noon, and it's veteran resources from around the area, Akron-Canton area, and... I THINK THEY MEET SORT OF MONTHLY WITH SOME TIME OFF IN THE SUMMER. I HAVE ALL THE DATES HERE, BUT IT WOULD BE GREAT IF SOMEBODY COULD ATTEND ON A REGULAR BASIS BECAUSE ONE OF THE THINGS I'VE HEARD YOU WANT TO DO IS PROVIDE RESOURCES. Yes. Well, here is a group that's trying to provide resources, and if we're disconnected in, then we're not reinventing the wheel. Correct. So I don't know if there's anybody that wants to attend on a regular basis. I'm not sure if we can find somebody here at the administration that can attend on a regular basis. I'm getting the emails, but that would be a great thing for us to be a part of.

Is this once a month or just...

It's once a month, so it's June 18th, then August. They're skipping July, September. They're all from 10 a.m. to noon. It looks like all on Thursdays. They also have listed here the SAM, S-A-M. I don't know what that stands for. It's an acronym. Center Veterans Resource Fair is October 1st and 2nd. Yes. And I think you guys, you did that last year, right? The Resource Fair? Yes.

SOME OF US WERE THERE, YES.

SO THAT'S FRIDAY AND SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1ST FROM 9 TO 4, SO WE PROBABLY NEED TO GET THAT ON THE SCHEDULE.

SO THE FIRST MEETING FOR THIS RESOURCE IS WHEN? JUNE 18TH. JUNE 18TH FROM 10 TO 12. YES, AT MAPS. THAT'S GOING TO BE AT MAPS? YES. I CAN DO THAT.

I CAN ATTEND THAT AS WELL. I ACTUALLY TOOK THAT WEEK OFF WORK, SO I CAN ATTEND THAT AS WELL, IF THAT WORKS.

OKAY. I CAN SEND BOTH OF YOU THIS. YEAH, PLEASE. The person who sends it out, I can make sure you get on the list too. They have quite an extensive list.

Absolutely.

All right.

That is all I have.

No, last I heard, we were not moving forward with that. And we were talking aside with that. And actually, that's one of the new things that I was going to bring to the commission, so I'm actually glad that the mayor is in attendance. So does anybody else have anything for Val or anything, other new notes that they'd like to add? So speaking about the Ohio Hall of Fame, we actually discussed doing a Hall of Fame here in the city. and we were kind of, it was brought to us, and we thought it was a really good idea, and I actually had made a note that I was gonna reach out to the mayor to put something together, and we'd have to meet with the parks as well, and kinda, this is another baby, again, that we'll have to see through. So if we're gonna do this, this is gonna take, it's not just gonna be the commission that does this, it's gonna be the parks, It's going to involve the mayor's office. It's going to be all hands on in the city. And then we need to come up with what the criteria would be. It would have to probably more than likely be approved through city council, all that, because I mean, it's going to require funding. You know, what do we want this to look like? Could we already have the Veterans Park down there. So, you know, what do we want to see out of it? You know what the criteria is? How do we want to pay respect? I think if we put something together like this it would also help Find members for the different events that we do where we need speakers and things like that because it'll help identify some of those and it'll pay more respect to the local community here in the city, because we have a strong fellowship for the veterans here in the city, and it would be nice to be able to recognize the veterans here in the city that have done more than possibly some other service members in the community have done. It would be nice to recognize that. So this is something that we'll keep on your guys' mind as we go forward, and now that the mayor's here and we can share it with him, we can set up meetings and go that route and decide what we want this to look like.

The state level, this was something that we, an opportunity popped up and we decided to not engage with that, or?

So we had a member selected. Oh, okay. And... To nominate to the state level? Yes. We'll talk outside because I don't want to put that person's name out. From last I heard, and this was as of last week, was it didn't seem like we had enough material to provide. So I don't think we are moving forward. Actually, the deadline was the first. So I can almost guarantee that we didn't move forward with it. But we were all excited because we thought we had a member and We met with that member's family, and we just weren't getting the resources back from them that we felt that would have made a strong packet to present to the state for that member. So we're... You know, and possibly next year, we can sit down with this family again, because this person absolutely deserves to be recognized. That person's story is very touching, and at the end of the day... The fact that that person is still here speaks a lot. So definitely worthy of being in there. We just need more information to give to the state to put that member in.

To push it forward.

Yes. Another thing that was discussed possibly was adding possibly two more seats to the chamber.

to the commission.

I kind of want to know what your guys' thoughts are. It just, there's been times where I've been absent and there's things that have been voted on. There's been times where other members have been absent and I just think adding two more seats to it also gives a stronger push out to the community. I kind of want to get your guys' ideas and see what your guys' thoughts were that

I think correct correct. So I or the mayor, yes.

And I've already had some inside talks about this and I just kind of want to know what your guys's thoughts are for so from going from a chamber 5 to a chamber 7.

We're not out there making decisions on how to spend money. We're making recommendations. The wider the set of ideas that we can present and discuss, formulate, and establish a common ground to go to the city, to go to the administration, with an idea that we'd like to see pursued, the better I

Yeah, I would like to see that happen.

I'm probably too new to have an opinion. It's my first meeting. Well, if I kick you, you know you're wrong.

Okay.

I just hope that we can keep going.

Absolutely agree. Absolutely agree with you on that. As far as new business, I want to take a minute and also recognize Mr. Elkins. I know he's not here, but he has been a huge asset to us as a commission, and I just want to say thank you formally to him for everything that he did for us. He was fantastic. He's going to be missed. Whoever steps into his shoes, they're going to have big shoes to fill. I hope they're ready to come in running because he ran for us every single day. So I just want to take a minute and thank him. Also, summer recess. This was brought up to me. Typically, most of the other commissions and the council and the boards in the city, they usually have a summer recess. So they take the month of July off. We would reconvene again in August. I kind of want to know what you guys' thoughts were on that, if you guys are okay going forward with that. And after we approve yes and no on this, I have another thing that I want to bring that's in line with that.

I recommend that we do that.

Okay. Motion to approve?

Here, Carl. Well, I'm just thinking. Okay.

So it's a no-brainer.

I agree to have a recession tonight.

Okay.

Motion to approve? Second. Aye. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion approved. And with that... Going forward, starting in August, unless we have something that would come up that would require us to meet on a more frequent basis, what if we met bimonthly and that would give us more time to work together on the outside with programs, example, the Chamber of Commerce trying to get that whole thing moving. Um, any other programs that we're trying to get moving, say like what brought up with maps being a partner with them. Um, there's some other restaurants here in the community that would love to do a veterans outreach. That's just not the city. Um, I'm kind of trying to pull that back because I want it just to be the city. But if we don't get the following, then I think that might be something that we look forward to. But it'll give us time to do those other details that we don't necessarily do in between the meetings that we host. So the recommendation was to go to possibly bi-monthly or quarterly. I think bi-monthly would be better at first. And if we feel that we need to go to bi-monthly or quarterly after that, then we go to quarterly. I wanted your guys' thoughts on that. We don't have necessarily approved that today. Just put it in the back of your mind. But if you guys agree with it, then we'll put that on the vote for August.

Yeah, I think, though, with some of the things that we're doing, the once a month, I still think we should still be there until we get, like, we have seven more members and we have other things that are progressing, then that might be something else. But I think having once a month where we have needs and things to address, putting it off every two months, I think we'll lose continuity.

Well, we could still meet not necessarily here at the city building, though. I mean, we could still meet at a local restaurant or, you know, a coffee place, something like that, and have the meeting and make it less formal and write down, you know, take those notes and then bring it together.

And we already have an opinion from the law director that says we're not subject to the Sunshine Law. Correct. So that shouldn't be a problem. Correct.

Yeah. My vote is to say once a month, a formal meeting, that we're here and we have things that we can connect with with the city.

Well, this is something we can table for this month, and we'll bring it back up in August. Okay.

FORCE AND WE HAD ORIGINALLY MET MONTHLY. WE NOW MEET FIVE TIMES A YEAR SO EVERY OTHER MONTH BUT WE TAKE OFF JULY AND THE SUMMER AND THEN CHRISTMAS TIME BECAUSE THAT'S ALSO DIFFICULT. So thinking about, especially from my role in communications, what feedback I need for our various events, which would be Memorial Day and Veterans Day, what if you met February, April, so we're ahead a month, right, of Memorial Day, June, August, October, and get five sessions in, it's before. Now, there's a long stretch between October and February, which could be an additional meeting if needed, because you can always call a meeting at any time if you'd like. But that would, you know, it's a time of year that things kind of slow down from an event standpoint anyways. So just a thought.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

I just don't want to lose the momentum. I know summer is slow, and we're going to do a recess in July. So everybody, I guess I think about it and see what happens.

Yeah.

How much work do we do? Is the two meetings enough in preparation for Veterans Day, as an example? Or is that third session leading up to Veterans Day valuable to this commission?

I would say probably at least two formal meetings, and then we do an informal. And typically how we do our meetings is we have our formal once-a-month meeting, and then we meet usually on the second or third Thursday of the month after the meeting and start capturing notes for the next month. So that's one of those things that we could look at in that aspect, too. Agree?

Yeah, we could. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yep. So let's table that for today. We'll bring that back up in August. And that'll give us time if we're going to... Move forward with having seven members. We'll start working that and see if we can get that rolling and possibly, you know, by the end of the year, have two additional.

The president of council just came in. Yes. He needs to be filled in on that, so.

So Mr. Spate, as you and I have talked on the side, possibly adding two other positions to the commission. We were just having a conversation about that and we are all in favor of doing it. We just would need approval from the council and from the mayor to move forward with that. So if you can bring that up in your next meeting, that'd be fantastic. And then

Somebody would have to decide who the appointee or who the appointing authority would be for those additional members too.

Yes. I think if we do it similar to what the city has now, I think it would be a good idea. All right. Any other new business going forward? I just want to take a minute to remind those that are out there, we are meeting again tonight at Kittles from 6 to 8 p.m. for the Veterans Social. It is also open to friends and family. So please spread the word inside of the chamber room and it's on the website as it was shared. We just need to make sure that we can get this out there bigger because As people start coming in, it's going to get bigger, and then we can find out what the veterans in the community truly need, and that's what our push is by having this. And when we get back together, we'll look at talking about having something formal again with the city. What was it, about a year and a half ago, we did coffee and donuts for veterans. That was pretty receptive. So possibly doing something like that again. is another thing to bring forward. Mr. Spate, do you have anything that you want to bring forward? Thank you. I agree. Memorial Day was fantastic. Your cadets did a fantastic job. So again, thank you for all your support. I thank the cadets. From us, please.

How many members of the Corps were actually involved?

Yes, it turned out very nice. It was fantastic. All right. Any other new business? Any old business? All right. Motion to adjourn. Seconded. All in favor? Aye.