MINUTES for 2019-11-26 FINAL - Laserfiche WebLink

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Veterans Advisory Committee Minutes November 26,2019 Page 3 Chair Doolittle: Well just compiling a list and the second part of that would be to have someone go out and do a physical inspection of each of those monuments and give some kind of a rating for how well it's being taken cared of Then go out and get the community to adopt certain monuments. Antonio Gaspar: I took this to the Post#3 American Legion in Hilo. They told me they wanted to take care of the Vietnam War Monument at the Wailoa State Park. Mostly what they are doing right now,put flags about 50 flags and put flowers on the monument every Veterans Day and Memorial Day. The one in Kona I went to check the other day, below Konawaena High School, I believe is being taken cared of Kona Union Church and it is really clean the area. Chair Doolittle: Well, there's a rather extensive list and I don't see, some of them have an identifier on them. Some already have organizations that are looking after certain monuments already, like Emile suggested. But it's identifying the ones that aren't being looked after and trying to find groups and organizations willing to do that. But a lot of these, doesn't like Parks & Rec own a lot of these? Deputy Director, Maurice Messina: A lot of them are on our property but I don't know about ownership of the monuments themselves. Lewis: That's a good point, who's property is it on?? Messina: Well, it depends, like the ones at Wailoa it's both State and County at the same time. I think there's portions surrounding the monument Parks & Rec takes care of that area. But I don't necessarily know what's been EO'd over to us. For instance, if you look at the Vietnam Memorial at Kalakaua Park, if there's graffiti in the area, we clean it. If there's fish die off in the pond, we take care of that but that's all that my guys do. Lewis: Do you think we can come up with like a spreadsheet, list of questions, here are the things you might want to know. Is there a lead volunteer group,who owns the land or monument? Wery: If it's State or County land, they take care of the grounds but that's it. Messina: I don't want you guys to miss out on an opportunity, where we can get schools involved(inaudible). Lewis: Right, it's like adopt a road. Messina: Yes, because I don't know that there's enough Veterans Groups around. Chair Doolittle: Well no,not just Veterans groups, community groups all the way around.