2010-11-19 Veteran Advisory Committee Minutes

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Veterans Advisory Committee Page 4 November 19, 2009 Following discussion, members decided that topics would have to wait too long if meetings weren't held monthly. Therefore, meetings will continue to be held monthly from February to November. There is a break in December and January due to the holidays. Chairperson Fox asked people to notify Nathalie in advance if they will be unable to attend meetings so it can be cancelled ahead of time if there won't be a quorum. This would avoid people driving a distance only to discover the meeting is cancelled. EX- OFFICIO MEMBERS None ANNOUNCEMENTS Veterans Cemetery III - West Hawaii Mr. Joe Flores asked about procedure for opening gate at Veterans Cemetery III in West Hawaii. Mr. Minoru Hanato told him the gate combination is "3552" and that people should be informed that they must open the gate and lock it behind them before traveling up. Wreaths Across America Mr. Antonio Gaspar reported that on December 12th at lam the Civil Air Patrol will participate in the Wreaths Across America program and will be placing wreaths on all of the graves at the West Hawaii Veterans Cemetery. DAV Chapter 7 and American Legion will perform the 21 gun salute. The cost for each wreath is $15. They are doing fundraisers and getting close to their goal of putting one wreath on each grave and 4 for each columbaria. They should have close to 300 wreaths. Veterans Cemetery I and II — Columbarias Mr. Nishimoto said that Mr. Richard Ichikawa contacted him and shared that he is very concerned about the columbaria set up at Veterans Cemetery II - East Hawaii. The columbarias are getting damaged by skateboarders. The facility is now enclosed. He is looking for upright columbarias space for himself, his wife and buddies in the future. When Mr. Kalua served as a member of the State Veterans Advisory Board he said there was money and they were looking into it. Mr. Nishimoto would like to look into designing a columbaria committal court like the Punchbowl design. Maybe something like that could be done at Veterans I and II. He said that when he visited Cemetery I recently someone burned rubbish in one of the cubicles. He suggests either demolishing it or going back and putting granite on it. It looks really bad. Mr. Nishimoto asked Dr. Stahl to look into it. Dr. Stahl said he met with OVS Director Mark Moses who said OVS received funding for all 9 pending projects for the state cemeteries. $194,000 for design and $96,000 for construction and $1 million for future construction and was primarily focused on Kaua'i Veterans Cemetery and Kaneohe, but if there are that much funds floating around maybe we could be lucky. If not, this is the kind of issue we can forward to the state. He will make a special effort to report on it.