MINUTES for 2019-08-27 FINAL - Laserfiche WebLink

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Veterans Advisory Committee Minutes August 27,2019 Page 11 were missing. The Veterans were very pleased because now they knew what was going on, before they had to rely on mail and everything they send to the Veterans was certified mail so as you can just see this, the number one being able to go in to the Veterans system was very beneficial. However, that stopped at the end of June. No fault of anybody, his wife grew ill, terminally, they moved back to the mainland. It's a misfortune but for us it was devastating because we were in the process of expediting benefits of a lot of veterans here on the Big Island. It has been very challenging; I'm talking about Korean War Veterans and some Vietnam Veterans. Some died, I'm dealing with their wives. Just imagine how hard it is for a veteran to navigate the VA system let alone a wife who had no idea of what was going on because a lot of these Vietnam veterans were very closed as far as talking about what happened to them. Nevertheless, I saw through some of the emails that there is going to be a job vacancy that is going to be floated at some time and hopefully we can get a replacement real soon. Nobody else can do what Yergin and his office can do which is give us visibility of our claim cases and the paperwork that was submitted. Unfortunately, they're a branch of the regional office which is a great asset to have for us here on the Big Island. Without that everybody else is relying on calls and were relying on our service department guy to patch us the information because we just don't have the access here. That's just by design. The regional office is up there by Spark Matsunaga. So, in short, I saw a lot of positives leading forward in the email and I appreciate everyone commitment to that. Let's keep up the momentum. I realized with the Federal process it does take time and anything we can do to streamline the process, were just going to have to contend with the once a month coming to Hilo and then going to Kona to service our veterans here from the office on Oahu because of resource shortfalls. Lewis: The only other thing I wanted to add is that they have not provided any flexibility in what those hours are so therefore coordinating between Kona and Hilo. Perhaps we can look at that so that you have access and others have access at the appropriate time instead of the window of time they picked in order to do it. But Marcia Brinkley is here she's talks about the four September event we received handouts which will be on the Kona side and both Directors will be there. That will be a good time for veterans, and we want to put that out and make sure that they know about that. Fuata: You know what these, when these guys come, they go to realize, I realize that Honolulu stretch across with a stretch of the imagination its about 54 miles wide. We have people, and you have to fight that traffic, I get it, because I grew up in Honolulu. But this island, I have people coming in from Hawi and going into Kona that's about a two-hour drive. They're trying to develop cases because of just availability and it's very hard to establish relationship and everything and they're just losing hope in the system and that's what we don't want to happen. They want to do it, it's just that understanding that you come from way north of the island and you're driving 120 miles going over Saddle road after you go around(uhm) Lewis: We got it. We know that drive. So let's just say right now, were not looking for a motion but awareness and continue the pressure for those that are in contact with the