MINUTES for 2021-05-25 FINAL - Laserfiche WebLink

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Veterans Advisory Committee Minutes May 25, 2021 Page 11 Chair Doolittle: Even specifying that HIVM have a member. HIVM is a small private organization, why should it be included like the Combat Infantry group. There are such small groups that are contained and much larger groups. DCC Yoshimoto: We can have a full discussion on this on June 22"d. We could get this resolved because we can go whichever path the committee wants to move forward on, and the ultimate decision will be with the Council. I see the benefits of keeping some organizations mentioned because they are prominent in our community and the flexibility of having the at large and also emphasizing that we want to reach across the island. Let me see what I can come up with and we can have a real discussion on June 22na Lewis: And a real key J, is participation. People actually have their ear to the ground with things that are happening and working with local leaders to make good things happen. It's not just an apportionment where you do nothing. DCC Yoshimoto: I'm just curious since we're talking about this. Do we know what our counterparts do on the other islands? Chair Doolittle: Not really. I don't even know how active they might be. Lewis: Well, I know Maui is pretty active. At least they were. Oahu is very active; I know that through the VFW. They have their own Veterans Center where they host their meetings and get representation for the whole island and get updates regularly. You can be on distribution for that J, if you want but that's, we have a member of VFW that attend the Oahu ones regularly. The other ones are kind of hit or miss. Our VFW organization has representation on Molokai, you know it's a post, they know how many veterans are exactly on the island. It's represented on Maui; they even have some on Lanai, but they don't have their own office there. Kauai has its own post. So we have organizations, but the difference is very few veterans join veterans' groups. That's why we're trying to get more at large members. They are more in rotary, they're in other places that I think we want to aggressively find and participate. DCC Yoshimoto: That helps, Deb. There are several approaches, like I said. Maybe I'll put together two different drafts that go in different directions. Lewis: Brian Harrington was on, he's now off. Is that right? I guess he was interested in our group. As was Laurie, I guess she's not on. Brinkley: I think Laurie is still on. Laurie, are you there? Laurie Soares: I'm here. I finally got everything working. Britt: Brian, I think he's a Marine vet, I could be wrong. But he was interested in joining the committee, but I don't believe he belongs to any of the organizations that's listed on the membership in County Code.