Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Okay. Okay, I'm going to call to order the November 3rd, 2025 regular meeting with the Haywood County Board of Commissioners. Our first uh order of business will be our pledge. I don't see the sheriff here this morning, so we'll have a moment of silence after that. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay. So, this morning, uh, we have a probably a pretty short agenda. We we do not have a public hearing. We do not have anyone signed up for public comment. Correct. Okay. Make sure of that. Okay. Does anyone have any constituent concerns? We need to talk about anything. Do you have Okay. All right. I appreciate everyone's the staff taking care of most of those anyway. Um then next will be administrative agency reports and presentations. We do not have anything there. I do not have a discussion or adjustment to the agenda. Does anyone else have anything? Okay. Is there anything on the consent agenda that anyone has any questions about? There are 11 items on the uh consent agenda.

Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion we approve the consent agenda as presented. Second. Second. Any other discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Okay, that's unanimous. The next item will be a the only item we have is on the regular agenda and it's the request approval of a resolution supporting operation green light for veterans 2025. We have our veterans officer uh Stephen already this morning. Hey Stephen. So, Stevens, it says CPT. What does that mean? Captain.

Okay. I'm sorry. [laughter] Oh, that's right. That makes sense. Okay. Yeah. I retired as a captain in 2017. Okay. Great. So, since then, I've been off the hook as far as the government's concerned. And some point I'll get to draw retirement from it. But until then, I got some VA disability coming in and and things like that. I had service in Iraq. And uh back in the 90s I was in Bosnia. So just a fun stuff. Uh in the cavalry we got tanks and Bradley's and whatnot instead of horses. Okay.

Same unit. So as you can see on my hat, I got a uh a two up there. That's the second cal from my active duty unit. But Oh my my grandfather was in the real Calgary in 1929. Yeah. You told me that. You told me that. And uh if you ever have any of his his uh I guess stuff that you want to display, let us know. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. We have kind of a bit of a museum there in our office that we're putting together from donations from our veterans here in Haywood County that that we're able to display in that office. So,

okay. So, if anyone has anything like that, they can bring it by. And of course, we'll take care of that forever because Yes. We're going to have that veterans office forever. Exactly. As far as I'm concerned, definitely uh something we enjoy doing now that we have the space. Um we didn't have here. So, that's very good. So, uh well, and I just want on a personal note, I appreciate all you did for my dad. He was a veteran and y'all really took the veterans office really took good care of him and I really appreciate everything you did too, Stephen. You really helped out many times. So, thank you for that. Thank you.

So, um I'll read this uh resolution and then I was a able to update our info and that's what you have there in front of you and I'll and I'll share some of that with you afterwards as as far as what we've got going on and what we've done over the last year. So, all right. Without further ado, um, resolution supporting Operation Greenlight for Veterans 2025. Didn't need my glasses last time I did this. Whereas the residents of Hwood County have great respect, admiration, and the utmost gratitude for all of the men and women who have selflessly served our county and this community in the armed forces. And whereas the contribution and sacrifices of those who served in the armed forces have been vital in maintaining the freedoms and way of life enjoyed by our citizens. And whereas Hwood County seeks to honor individuals who have made countless sacrifices for freedom by placing themselves in harm's way for the good of all. hand. Whereas veterans continue to serve our community in the American Legion, veterans of foreign wars, rel religious groups, civil service, and by functioning as county veteran service officers in 29 states to help fellow former service members access more than 52 billion in federal health, disability, and compensation benefits each year. And whereas approximately 200,000 service members transition to civilian communities annually. and an estimated 20% increase of service members will transition to civilian life in the near future. And whereas studies indicate that 44 to 72% of service members experience high levels of stress during transition to from military to civilian

life. And whereas active military service members transitioning from military service are at high risk for suicide during their first year after military service. And whereas National Association of Counties encourages all counties, parishes, and burrows to recognize Operation Greenlight for Veterans. And whereas Hwood County appreciates the sacrifices of our United States military personnel and believes specific recognition should be granted. Now therefore, be it resolved with designation as Operation Green Light for Veterans County, Haywood County hereby declares November 4th through 11th, 2025 as a time to salute and honor the services and sacrifices of those transitioning from active service. And be it further resolved that in observance of Operation Greenlight, Hwood County encouraged its citizens in patriotic tradition to recognize the importance of honoring all those who made immeasurable sacrifices to preserve freedom by displaying green lights in a window or their place of business or residence from October 4th through 11, 2025. Adopted this third day of November, 2025. That's November 4th. I think you said October, I believe. So,

I think Sorry, November. November. Yeah. Okay. So, if a citizen wants to put green light in their windows, they can do that. Yes. Citizen can. Okay. Absolutely. All righty. Great. All right. Can

And I've got the uh the data here to share with you um that we're able to update. So, if you refer to your packets that I brought, I noticed you given that to us and it has really great information about veterans in our county. Uh, so you've got over 5,000 veterans in our county per the 23 count uh 2023 and then that's 8.1% of our population is Yes. are veterans.

Exactly. And I also noticed that there was u when when when a veteran has disability, I know you have uh completed some disability and pension claims for compensation. If they do have a disability they believe, what do they do to do they just go to the VA and get that approved? So after we file the claim for them, the VA regional office uh pays for an exam. It could be a contracted one. Uh most of the time it is a contracted u doctor uh

to do the exam and that is basically that doctor is going to say uh their final determination is going to be uh hopefully more likely than not that that condition is related to service. Um, if they say less likely than not, that's a torpedo that sinks the claim. And that's where we have to they come back to us with that denial letter and we have to fight it from there. We have to find some other doctor. We have to help however we can uh assemble evidence that that veteran can take to another doctor to uh help refute that denial. And that's some of our ongoing hundreds and hundreds of claims we have ongoing every year that uh

you're able to help with.

Yeah. We work on continuously pretty much. So um one thing about that GDX report, the geographic distribution of VA expenditures, that's which is where we get our data. Um, you can Google that and uh you'll go to the page and you can see you can open all of the reports for all of the FY back through history there. And one thing odd about this year is that they didn't include the veteran population data on the FY24. Um, so that's why I'm still using that 2023 number there. Um, 539 that you mentioned. So they do however um have on the FY24 report uh that year's number and they they have it a little differently. They put total direct expenditures and it's listed where you can clearly see um uh 44 million 97,000. That right there is what we help to bring into this county through our efforts with these disability claims. This is money that's tax-free. None of it is stripped away to go back to the government. It's all directly spent here um in the area. Veterans pay bills, buy gas, whatever they need to. So um we do all we can to to help get that um for the veterans here. Great.

And as far as what we do, if uh this page here is the numbers of claims that we did over the last 12 months and as you can see, that's an average of 85 claims a month. And that includes appeals and and things like that. Anytime a claim is denied and we start it again, you know, sometimes that's a supplemental claim, sometimes that's a a higher level review, sometimes that's an appeal. We've count all those as as claims in that number there. And uh that's where we land. Some some months are heavier than others, but Okay. And uh

like y'all are busy. You were busy last month, too. So had over a hundred. Yes. October and September. Yeah.

I got that number. Yeah, that was Thursday. So, I'm not sure Debbie may have added to that while I was out Friday. So, um and the next page you can see what the uh disability rate paychart is. And so when someone is given a disability uh 10% or 20 on up to 100, you can see the pay chart there uh for each individual disability. And the VA has a way of combining if someone has multiple disabilities. They have this crazy scheme. They they don't add them together. They combine them and uh pay them like an overall percentage like 40% or whatever. And uh each level of disability has its own set of things it unlocks for for that veteran. So just a 10% disability uh unlocks free health care at the VA hospital. So a lot of times that's the most important most needed thing we can get for a veteran. And that free health care includes free hearing aids for uh veterans that have most veterans have tenitus bringing in your ears and hearing loss at the very least. So I usually start there and and go from that point. And then after that claim, I get access as part of the claims process the I get access to their service treatment records which are often handwritten uh from 50 years ago. And I go through every line of that looking for other things I can work on to file claims, things that the veteran may even have forgot about, twisted ankles, whatever I can find in there. File claims for that too on the next round for that veteran.

Trying to increase them as high as I can up towards that 100% mark. Um, at the 100% actually that's uh back down to 50 uh 50 if you're a retiree. At that 50% mark, you get both your full military retirement and your full VA check. So, that's a huge win for them. Um 70% is nice. If that veteran ever decides to go in a nursing home, the VA will pay for that. And as everyone knows, that's tremendously expensive to uh your estate. Y

um 100% is is cool because your uh dependents get free health care at 100% rate. Uh that's called Champ VA. It's like Triricare. If you've ever heard of Triricare, it is it's excellent healthcare that's honored just about anywhere. So that's that's what we try to get, you know, high as we can. keep filing claims. It keep coming back. We we file claims and a lot of times the claims are denied. We don't take no for an answer. We, you know, if it's legit, you know, it's not a frivolous claim, we keep fighting it for them and help guide them, steer them, you know, collecting evidence and resubmitting. And that's what we do every day. And I can't keep this stuff straight in my head. So, I have a vast Excel spreadsheet where I keep all this data and notes on everyone and hundreds of times I've talked to each person and phone calls and emails and personal visits and and uh we do our best kind trying to keep track of it and uh somebody pops in I haven't seen for a year and a half, I look at my notes and ah that's where we left off. [laughter]

Okay. So

when a veteran uh passes away, the widow um could get the dependency and indemnity compensation. As you see there, it pays out at 1653 a month. That's if the veteran was 100% or if one of those service connected things finds its way onto the death certificate. So when a veteran has something like es schemic heart disease or PTSD PTSD that's enough uh if it's on the death certificate as a contributing factor to the death you know the death could be struck by lightning but if PTSD is a contributing factor on the death certificate that's enough for that widow the VA will award 1653 a month tax-free to that widow. and which is nice cuz a lot of times that uh income that the veteran was bringing in is turned off upon that veteran's death. So we do help a lot of widows try to maintain some of that VA income that way. So um other than that uh like I said before the uh the health care it unlocks is tremendously valuable. So, um, that's all I can think to share. If there's any other questions, I'd be glad to try and answer. Anybody have any questions at all?

Stephen, not a really a question. Well, I do. I think I'll have a followup, but thank you first of all for your service. Sure.

Very much appreciated to our country, first of all, and then to have this office. I know I've referred a lot of our constituents that's come to me about questions for [snorts] you guys and you always follow through and help them and I think a lot of our folks forget that that's a huge benefit to have your office here in the county. So I'm I'm like the chairman I always support your office and having it here for sure. But I guess the question I do have the veteran population that you've got on here. Have you seen that over the years growing? maybe more the percentage. Is that percentage getting higher or is it kind of stable or what would you say to that?

I would say since I've been here it's kind of dropped slightly just just by a handful and kind of I don't know it's not been significant enough to to say either way it's you know downtrends usually have an upward trend after that. So, you know, if you look at it more than what I've seen, it it may be level, but it stayed about 5,000. You know, it's never I've never seen it below that. So, hopefully the VA will come back and give us some data, personnel data, uh population, I mean, as as far as uh where they are this year. Guess a follow up to that. Compared to that percentage and that number, have you seen the dollar amount from a financial standpoint go up or down?

That's I think we were 44 for the county. Is that right? Yes. Um, if you look back at that first page where there's the FY23, um, you can see it's laid out differently right there, but you see where it says compensation and pension, it says 43. So, gone up a little bit right there. Um,

again, thank you. Thank you for uh what you do and the service you provide for our veterans here. veterans have a soft place, you know, in my heart and always appreciate uh what their sacrifice was and uh we appreciate you. Oh,

you're welcome. And I just remembered uh we have the grants that we're got approved for that first one, the $18,000 289 and we spent that down to like $15 and just on things for the veterans here, you know, better furniture for our office, more comfortable things for them to use. um a lot of outreach um things that we can give to veterans with our brand on it is is what we're we're doing with that and we just applied for the next round of that. It's a full 20,000 and hopefully we get that and if we do we'll be able to share our message and and name brand, you know, out there permanently and in ways whatever I can think of. I'm always up for suggestions, too, of ways to do that and and looking for just good ways to to spend that money that's a permanent investment rather than an advertisement in a newspaper or I've tried billboards before and limited success on that. I want ways to to do it where it's it's going to be there a while. So, but if there's any questions about the grant, uh, let me know. Otherwise, that's all I have. Yeah.

How so how do you reach out to how are veterans aware of the services that you provide through our county office? I'd say most of the time it's it's word of mouth. Um we do have of course the website and stuff advertises. All they have to do is Google and we show up right where our office is. So, it's

I just wonder if sometimes, you know, veterans that have maybe spent maybe a short time in the military or, you know, have come out and done other things if they're aware of the benefits that are available to them through your office. And I know I've seen the spreadsheets. I met with you several years ago and and saw the work that you do. And it's um I I just want to make sure that if we can get if we can help with the messaging, it's very important to connect those folks with you. And that's the difficult part because these veterans come from all over the world, literally back home or maybe they're settling down here if they're a retiree. They're coming from literally everywhere. And it's all we rely on is is did their exit process of the military inform them of the concept of a county veteran service officer and to seek that person out in whatever county they happen to wind up in. Be it back home or hey, I just like Haywood County. I visited there one time and I want to settle down there. Okay, now that you're here, come see me. I'm sure we have because we have a lot of retirees that live here and I'm sure that there um the numbers in I'm sure the numbers of veterans in those folks that have relocated here is greater than we maybe even know.

Yes. Uh there's tons of people here that come out of the woodwork to uh that we're glad to help. The VA hospital sends a lot here. Oh, that's good. They are like, "Hey, you need to go see Stephen and you know file some claims for that." Yeah. So, we're always glad that the VA is the and it's the the doctors, the the staff, whoever's in interacting with a veteran, they're like, "Hey, go see them. Go see your service officer." So, get a lot from them.

But as far as getting what you're told when you leave service is is a mixed bag of either nothing or too much. Like when I left uh active duty after Iraq, it was like drinking from a fire hose of information and we were just bombarded with everything we could possibly need. And at that point, you just kind of whitewash and and don't see anything. So hopefully people pick out of there what they need. So they're told it's like, "Okay, did you did you comprehend?" and the idea of a veteran service officer and to go and seek one out when you get home. So hopefully and one of my one of my favorite things is [snorts] catching a new you know recently separated uh service member and uh helping them out and guiding them and and uh you know doing for them what I didn't get you know as far as guidance and counseling and and uh you know put my arm around their shoulder. I'm like, "Hey, let's think about some college."

Well, hopefully in our massive viewership, we'll have some people that will uh we joke about that amongst ourselves, but hopefully we can help to pass the word about the things that you do and connect some new folks with you. Well, thank you. I appreciate that and appreciate this opportunity. So, I I want to thank you, too, for your service and for what you do. The BA really done a lot for my dad in his later years. Well, even earlier years, you know, when he was got hurt pretty bad and they they took care of him, real good care of him for years. I want to thank you for that.

Thank you. Um, and and that just brings to my mind something that that often breaks my heart is [snorts] when a veteran in their 90s, they're in the nursing home or they're where wherever they're at in their later years and they've been so hard and so strong and didn't want to come to us, didn't want to ask for anything from the VA until they're in their 90s and I call it the 11th hour of their life. and what can the VA do, what can we do at that point is very limited. I do take the same effort. I file those claims, but are they going to come to fruition and benefit that veteran? That's that's hard to say. It depends on how long they live in that I call them to myself deathbed claims, which are very difficult. So, uh, that being said, if you know older veterans, please talk to them, encourage them, drag them physically to us. I'll tie them down to the chair long enough to file a claim. Um, if they don't want to leave the house, let me know. I'll get my claim to them for a signature. So, we'll uh we'll do whatever we can to to get them some help whether they want it or not. Uh, if I may say something, I know Tim has done a great job lighting up our courthouse with the green flood lights. Are we planning on doing that as well during this operation green light? So, that's great. I serve on the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners and and one of our county commissioners in North Carolina came up with this operation green light idea. And in your proclamation, you read that the National Association of County Commissioners are encouraging uh counties all across the United States to uh recognize our veterans in this fashion. So, if you come by the courthouse, uh it's breathtaking. We

have a beautiful courthouse here, the historic courthouse. And when it's lit up green in honor of our veterans, it'll it'll make you stop out here and and take a take a take a little closer look. So, look forward to seeing that. And uh out of respect for our veterans, if you come by my house in Bethl, I've lit my house up. Taking the cue from Tim CS what he does to our courthouse. I I do my house that way. And I've done that for the last few years since we started this project. and our veterans are the uh the backbone of our country. Thank you. Appreciate that. That's uh

we we appreciate we appreciate your service. Uh went to church yesterday and over in Bethl on 276. I don't know if it's your folks or the VFW or somebody that put these the crosses up and and the American flags for other servicemen. And uh in in memory of them and in memory of Veterans Day, they do it on Memorial Day as well. And it's a it's it's a time to stop and reflect. You see the names of family members, uh community members, loved ones. Uh you know, it takes takes your breath. And I I really appreciate your service. Really appreciate our veterans. And I [clears throat] want to read, if I may, Mr. Chairman, I want to read what President Dwight D. Eisenhower said in 1954. He said, "Veterans Day, let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly on the sea, in the air, and on foreign shores to preserve our heritage of freedom. And let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain." President Dwight D. Eisenhower. That was his Veterans Day proclamation in 1954. And I think it's worthy of a of a of a look back to this morning. So,

absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Okay. Okay. So, we uh can I have a motion to approve the resolution that Stephen just read? Okay. Is there a second? Second. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. Okay. That's unanimous. Thank you, Stephen. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Okay, that's all I have on my agenda. Does anybody have anything else further? I'm sure you do, Tommy. County attorney and No, that's okay. [laughter] I'll make a motion that we adjourn. Bryant thinking it.

That's two meetings in a row, Frank. They shut us out. Is there a second? Second. [laughter] Cuz Bryant can't do it. All in favor say I. I. Okay, we're y'all be safe out there. [laughter]