Veterans Advisory Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright. I hereby call this meeting to order. Would everyone please rise and 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 for all. You, everyone.

Would you mind calling the roll, please? Sure.

Mr. Mikkelsen?

Here.

Mr. Selficool?

Here. Mr. Hughes?

Here.

Mr. Burgess?

Here.

And Ms. Sedansky is absent.

Correct. Thank you. Did everybody get a chance to review the minutes from last month's meeting?

Yep.

Any Yeah. Corrections? Any issues? No. No. Do we have a motion to approve?

So moved.

A second? Second. All those in favor? Say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Minutes are approved. See, we have several people from the community in here tonight. That is great to see. We definitely would love to see more people in here regularly. So, do we have any citizen comments? Please step up to the microphone and introduce yourself and

Hi, I'm Brandon Wade. So I live on 1267 Cedarwood Way. I'm also on the board of Summit Art Space downtown Akron, and we're doing a veteran themed art walk. Quarterly, we have these art walks where we kind of bring the community in to learn more about Summit Art Space and the artists. And we're looking for veteran artists to participate in this and possibly future exhibits. So if you guys know any or if you want to share my email address that I wrote down on the sign in sheet any veteran artists you guys might know can reach out to me, and we'll try to work on that. We want to build this into something more reoccurring. So thanks.

That's great. When that be taking place? Sorry. Yes, it's going

to be September 11. Somehow the art walk fell exactly on September 11. We've been talking to Warrior's Journey Home and a couple other veterans organizations about how to incorporate the veteran experience into this because the theme is supposed to be around recovery grief. And so we thought that would be a good theme to add in more veteran stuff as well. Absolutely. All right. Thank you.

Would you have something like a booth or a table? Or how are you promoting this the way the artwork how does the process work?

So right now the curator, they're still working on that bit and I don't have the full details of what they plan on doing. But I told them I would reach out to other veterans organizations to get a pool of veteran artists that maybe they could pull from and include in that.

Is that open to families, too?

Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, Downtown Akron, behind Akron Art Museum, you see a seminar space there. Any other questions?

The site of your exhibit is where?

Summit Art Space. It's going to be what's the exact street address? I'm sorry, I'm blanking exactly street address. How am avoiding Is the

old Goodrich facility?

It's where the old Akron Library was.

Oh, the old Akron Library? Yes. All right. That's fine.

Okay. Yep. Perfect. All right. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Any other citizen comments? No? Okay.

So I know we don't have it on the agenda. There are a couple of unfinished business items I wanted to give the commission a heads up on and some updates on. I did reach out to the SAM Center today about the, veteran resource fair at MAPS and potentially getting a table for us there. If it is too late for us to get in on that, though, Bob Beasley from the American Legion has already reiterated to me multiple times that the American Legion post there in Greentown is more than happy to share a table with us and would actually like to share a space with us so that they can be pointing people towards us and kinda help us build our reputation in the veteran community and get us introduced to more people. So I will give you guys an update on that as I have it, but we definitely have a space no matter what

Good.

For that. Yeah. That's great. We'll just need to work out who's gonna be there, when, and what times, and how we're gonna keep that manned with all of us. But figured that should be a pretty easy thing. Next day the dates there are? I wish I had that for you on hand. I wrote it down and left it in my other notebook at home. So I will get that texted out.

Alright. Thanks.

I have too many notebooks going all the time. And Christine gave me an update on looking at doing the veteran friendly business thing. She's reaching out to the chamber of commerce, and she is starting communications with them so we can kinda coordinate that with them to start coming up with a a plan of attack for recognizing veteran friendly businesses in the community and coming up with some way for them to be able to to identify themselves and for us to help promote them within the veteran community in Green.

See if we can get them added to the schedule, have them come out to one of our meetings.

Yep. Yeah. That's I'd definitely love to see that. I think that would be beneficial. Mister Soficole? Yes, sir.

Circling back, the Veterans Resource Fair at MAPS is Friday and Saturday, September. Thank to 3PM.

From when to when? Ten to three.

Ten to three? Okay.

Perfect. So we'll all talk offline and figure out what days each of us are available to help cover down on that.

K.

Let's see. Mister Spate and mister Elkins, I had asked a question. I wasn't sure if you two had gotten a chance to look into it at all in the last email I sent. We had discussed the idea that we, as a commission, like the idea of trying to do a veteran sports league if possible And, you know, getting veterans together at the new core facility for, you know, basketball or things of that nature. But we weren't sure would that be something where they'd have to have memberships. How would all that work if we wanted to try and set something like that up? I know a lot of that's still being figured out because the facility is not even open yet, but wasn't sure if you guys had a chance to look into that.

I haven't. So let me take that to director Carr and Matt Press,

the program

supervisor, and Then we'll kind of go from there.

No problem. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Any specific sport you're looking at?

The idea of basketball had been thrown a little thrown around a little bit. I think that was the only one that we really talked about.

Do have we currently do have a men's basketball program over at the schools. So that will be making its way likely over to the core as well. Perfect. We'll take a look at that.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Any other unfinished business we need to address?

How about financing? We're going to talk about

So I'd send an email over to the distinguished gentleman to our right with what our request was.

Thank you for that request. We are going to run it through the finance department, and then hopefully we will see it attached to council's budget. But the appropriate steps was taking it to the finance director, the mayor, and going from there.

Will this be for next year, or will we have some money between now until the new budgets are set?

The official budget wouldn't be until next year. However, we would like to I believe there should be funds accessible if needed.

Okay. We're just going

to figure out where those are coming from.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Okay. Any other unfinished business?

One item, at our meeting in July, I asked for the commission members to begin thinking about, veterans that we might be able to recognize and honor during the Veterans Day ceremony this year. And if you have any names, just as a reminder, forward those on to the mayor's office.

Thank you. Alright. If there's no other unfinished business, we'll move on to new business. We have Sarah Harring from community development for the student municipal representatives. Did I say that right, did I put your last name? Pretty good. Are you? Enough that it wasn't too offensive. Herring. Okay. I apologize for that.

Good evening. My name is Sarah Herring. I am the community development administrator for the city. On Friday, the city will hold its ninth orientation for the student municipal representative program. That is the handbook that I just gave to you.

About nine years ago, we noticed that government teachers often assigned their students the task to come to city council and observe their local government in action. City council is a very meaningful exercise, but it isn't the only thing that happens at the local government level. There are in the city Of Green 10 other boards and commissions that do a lot of work, that make a lot of decisions, that promote many initiatives before they ever get to the city council level. So, we developed the program that you see before you for sophomore, junior, and senior green high school students. Every year on January 1, the application goes live on the city's website.

It's open the entire month for high school seniors to apply to be student municipal representative. We place somewhere between thirty and thirty three students every year on all of our boards and commissions. And as a new commission in the city, I wanted to come before you and talk just a little bit about the program, the why, and what it looks like, and how you are going to be involved as the Veterans Advisory Commission. So, thank you very much for giving me some time tonight, and also, thank you for your service. I grew up in a family that had no context for military at all, And now I have two daughters who are married to the army and the air force.

So I have a big appreciation for what you do, and I'm really happy to be able to spend a few minutes with you tonight. This year, we have assigned three students to your commission. Two of them are juniors, Emily Lesko and Chloe Haim, and the senior is Kira Suffolkul, which is a name that you might be familiar with. And by the way, you know, this is not out of the ordinary. Over the years, we've had several parent student pairs on commissions.

Both generations really love that. They have a point of context. They have things to talk about. It's always worked out really well. So we're we're excited to have all three of these young ladies participate with you. Their year is from September to May. So the first meeting with you will be in September. The way in which you incorporate them into your work is up to you. Every board and commission looks different. When they have their interview, they apply and then they have an interview in the mayor's office.

We tell them every board and commission is a little bit different. So design review board, for instance, the students sit here and they actually introduce agenda items. The board of zoning appeals, which is our only quasi judicial board and a little more formal and applicants are actually sworn in. The students don't talk too much, but that chairman spends time with them a little bit ahead of the meeting to explain what they're going to see, and their questions are usually answered after the meeting. But in a group like Drug Task Force, it's flow, conversation back and forth all the time.

So the most important thing, I think, for the students as you're incorporating them into your work is the relationship between you and them. Be friendly. Introduce yourself. They're often very intimidated just to walk into this room, to sit up here. If they never say a word in the entire time they're here, that's fine, and we've told them that.

Their level of involvement is a personal choice. If they want to ask questions, they know they need to be respectful. They know they need to ask when that's a good time to have that happen. If they never say anything at all, just being exposed to you and to your process and to the things that you do for our city is the message that we want to share with them. We we think it's really important that they understand that someday I'm sorry, Nicole, because Nicole sits in all of these interviews with me, and so she's heard this spiel over and over.

We think it's really important for them to understand that someday, they are gonna be in a home, in a community. It may not be this one, and it may not function like this one, but we want them to know that there is a way for them to be involved. You don't have to be an elected official to be involved in your community. And so being with all of you and observing the work that you do is going to be a really great experience for them. So I am happy to answer any questions that you might have about the program, about your students.

But I did want to just take a moment to say thank you very much for welcoming them, and they'll be here next month.

Personally, I just wanna say thank you for having a program like this because it's not something you see in a lot of cities, and I think it's great that Green's been doing it for nine years now and getting young people involved in the city. So

Thank you.

So how would how would that work with us? There would be students that would say, well, I'd like to be on this board or

Oh, I'm sorry. So in your book I I always forget the most obvious things. In your book, there's actually a page for Veterans Advisory Commission.

Okay.

Because you're a v, it's close to the end. And it has the pictures of your three students listed, the names listed. So they will be part of your commission

Okay.

From this September through May 2026.

Okay.

You won't have students during the summer. We start the process all over again in January. A new group of students will apply. We have their interviews. Nicole and I and the mayor interview in his office long about March.

We placed them in April, and then the process starts all over again in September. Usually, not usually, always, the application includes the ranking of commissions. So the students rank the commissions according to their interest. We want one, two, and three. So all of the students that you have on your commission chose Veterans Advisory Commission as their number one choice. We really try to give them their number one choice. It doesn't always work out. We give seniors preference. But this time in this case, it happened to work out really well. Perfect.

Anything else?

How often how often do you fall short of applicants, if any? I mean, is there a continuing annual interest in swelling of kids

I mean, I'm

for the

We've been gratified by the interest. This year, have 29. I think we've had as many as 34. So it it stays right in that level. It's a commitment.

And so, generally, we see kids that are fairly motivated. Every now and again, we get a football player, but not often because the schedules really conflict. And in the last several years, we've had an increase in the number of ROTC kids that have applied. And that is because of that over there. I've had to get used to students addressing me as ma'am all the time. But they're what a great bunch. And so we're really we're really thrilled to have them on board.

Other than the fact that we have an ROTC instructor and council member amongst us, Is this program being supported actively by the other advisers at the high school?

You know, we keep this program rather separate from the high school teachers teachers in one sense. So this is definitely a standalone city program.

Understood.

But in the beginning of the year, I have a list serve of teachers that love this program because they have to write letters of recommendation. I also send them the video that the kids have done from the year before, and they share it with their classes. So in that respect, they've been great partners. But the actual mechanics of the program, that's us. Yeah.

The mechanics the mechanics of the program is independent of the school system, and I understand that.

Yes.

But what I was interested in finding out is how well supported and respected is this program after nine years amongst the staff at the high school.

Well, I may be the wrong one to ask because I'm pretty prejudiced about this program. But they've been tremendously supportive. A couple of years ago, some of the a couple of the students made the comment to Nicole and I that being in this program is becoming aligned with being in the National Honor Society. I think that might have been a stretch. I mean, you know, they might have been trying to butter me up a little bit.

But we introduced them not just to board and commission work, but we involve them in volunteer programs. Mayors Junior Council is a subset that has come out of that group that does some field trips with the mayor during the year. So every year, we've grown this just a little bit more. We've tweaked it a little bit more, and I think the reputation speaks for itself.

That's fine. That's what you want.

Yeah. Well, thanks for your time. I appreciate it very much. Enjoy your kids.

Thank you. All right. Believe Ms. Wolford has some things she'd like to talk to the commission about.

Evening, everyone. I'm Valerie Wolford, communications manager here at the city. And I wanted to share just couple of updates. One, I know Mike is going to go back and about the core and see specifically about what you wanted. But I wanted to let everyone know here that we do have veteran pricing.

And so, an individual veteran, it's $75 for the year. If they get their membership between now and November 30. That's a charter member pricing, and then it goes up to the regular pricing for the year, so for the following year. But the memberships are being sold right now. If you and your family want one, you can buy them online or call the parks office at this time. It is opening on November 15.

I do actually have a question about that because I noticed I was looking at the the pricing my family and I were getting ready to buy memberships there. For the charter member, it lists the veteran price with the senior price. But then after the charter period, when it goes to the normal pricing, veteran disappears. Would the veteran pricing still be the same as senior pricing moving forward, or is the veteran pricing only during the charter period? Period?

I believe it's staying the same.

Okay. Okay. Perfect. Thank you.

Yeah. Any other questions about the CORE? Awesome. It's coming together. It's just, you know, a few more months. I wanted to reiterate about Veterans Day. I've started to think about it, but really won't dive into what we're you know, the mayor's going to say and all those things until we get closer. But keep in mind, any input is welcome, so please share whatever you have. The theme this year for the Veterans Administration is service to our nation. They're trying to take the approach of all our you know, all branches, of course.

And so, that is the theme for the year. This year is also the 200, your birthday, of the Army, Navy, and Marines. So, there'll be some nod to that. Also know that the city city council just approved a resolution saying that we'd like to be an Ohio two fifty city. Basically, that just means we're listed on the Ohio two fifty website.

Because of next year being the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our country, we'll be doing kind of an Americana patriot theme with all our events. So, we're just going see a little bit more of that. And they will help they provide some, you know, basic branding and sharing of information that way. It's a good thing to be evolved. We're going to brand most of our events, you know, very patriotic next year.

I think will start to see that out in everywhere a little bit more patriotism next year because of that. If you remember, you know, 1976 I don't, but I was alive. So, the same thing happened. So, I think we're going see that. And then, now, my team is working on the RTOWN newsletter.

We will have in there the nod to have the public nominate a veteran. So, we'll have a form on our website for that. It's not up yet, but it will be here shortly. With that, we'll also, you know, say if you want to sign up to receive information, that will also be a part of that form. If, say, somebody is, you know, filling it out for a family member and they want to receive information as well, they can sign up there. So we should see a little uptick in that. And I think that's all I have. Any questions for me?

If we wanted support from you for getting flyers together at events, how much lead time would you and your team need?

So the more the better. But we can turn around pretty quickly. Two months is nice. Six weeks is good. We can turn it around in three weeks. But if we're only promoting within the two weeks before the event, it gets hard to get people there. A little lead time is helpful. Okay. Yeah.

And what about handouts to be able to give out at events? How much lead time for something like that?

About the same. About About the same.

VANILA STEPHENS: M.

So that we're not every year we kind of know we have a list to pull from.

Okay. Talk with me afterward, please.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Yep. Anything else for me? All right. Thank you.

Appreciate the update. Thank you very much.

All

right. Do we have any other new business? Mike looks like he's got something to say. What you got, Mike?

Just an opportunity for some public engagement. The recreation staff puts together a senior expo at Raintree each and every year. This year, it's scheduled for September 4 from ten a. Till noon. So it's an event that attracts senior citizens. There's local businesses. Other service providers are there. If you're interested, please contact Matt Kress at 896-6621, and, he can help you with information on maybe getting the table set up at the senior expo.

Perfect.

You said 89666621?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. I definitely think that'd be something good if we could get a couple people there for. September 4? Yeah. September 4, ten to twelve. I will not be able to be in attendance, but

we can get Yeah. Put me then. Perfect.

I will I'll reach out to Yeah. I'll reach out to Matt and make sure that we've got a table there for that. If you can be there, I'll check with Christine if she can do it. Would that be something you'd be interested in helping out with too, Carl?

Yeah. Right as of right now, the calendar is clear.

Okay. Perfect. I will I'll coordinate with him and let you guys know about that one. Any other new business from anyone? Yeah.

I had a gentleman approach me. His name is Jake Bowman, and he is the owner of Sustainably Fresh. And this is a new mindset of a old warehouse that they are turning into industrial guarding. And he would like to team up with possibly us and save twenty two as a outreach for veterans that are in need. I spoke with him and asked him to attend one of our future meetings.

He's in Chicago currently. So I will work on getting him out here probably in the next month or so. But the idea of having a program that teaches urban gardening and takes the attention off of the veteran, the psychological side, and promotes a new train of thought and gives them a new sense of a purpose, I thought was outstanding. And he seemed really eager to work with us, so I'm hoping to have him here in the next month or so.

The facility he's intending to convert is where?

He did not say where the facility is at currently. I know he's starting them across He has one in Chicago currently. I believe he has one out in California at the moment, and he's looking at possibly in the Canton area of having another one.

Okay. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Perfect.

Yeah. Just let us know what meeting he's able to attend, and we'll Absolutely. We'll make sure he's got got some time to speak because be interested in hearing more about that one. Absolutely. Okay. Anything else from Egon? No. No? We're all good? All

good? Yeah.

Alright. Well, with that, do we have a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? This concludes our meeting for the month of August. Everybody have a great month.