2011-06-16 Veteran Advisory Committee Minutes

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Veterans Advisory Committee Page 7 June 16, 2011 Mr. Hanato told Vice Chairperson Brulee-Wilson as far as doing the honors for veterans, to them it doesn’t matter what branch or rank, just as long as the veteran was honorably discharged and the family requests it. Vice Chair Brulee-Wilson said she understood that, but there was an incident when a relative of a veteran thought the veteran rated a 21-gun salute, but did not. She wants to take on this project to make it easy for the family members of the veterans to understand who rates what. Mr. Flores said he would get together with her to work on something regarding the regulations. Mr. Hanato suggested that veterans go to the VA Office to confirm their records are on file so their records are updated in case something happens, otherwise it could take awhile to get documentation. Juan Babiak of the Yukio Okutsu State Veterans Home said that Fort Shafter has lots of information on what veterans are eligible for. EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS Office of Veterans Services OVS Director Greg Jackson said regarding military honors and eligibility for burials questions were posed to the Lt. Governor at the recent DAV Conference so he’s already looking into it. He has spoken to the Cemetery Director in Kaneohe who has all of the request forms and has also spoken to three out of the five points of contact for the different services. The requests are very simple and at the end of the day the answers are “yes or no”. It’s just to make sure that everyone at the mortuaries understand the process. It will be an education project as opposed to fixing the system. He will collect all information and share it with all of the Offices (OVS, P&R Directors and the Mortuaries). Director Jackson shared good news about a grant that is out to bid for a contract to put in columbariums, three of them going into East Hawaii. It will be a nice construction project tied in to several other islands so it’s now on this island. It is a multi island contract that eliminates a couple local contractors, but the construction will happen. Director Jackson said the burial plot allowance goes up in October from $300 to $700, the plot allowance for the columbariums will be more than twice as big. Director Jackson said that HB 200 has some funds in the operating budget to plan and design a maintenance project, which classifies as an improvement project. The project would be to remove the headstones just like the project in West Hawaii, but would be funded through reimbursable grants from the VA. The project would be to go in, remove the headstones, pull up all the sod, level off the land, clean the headstones and put it all back down. If there are other repairs and fixes that can be included into that contract, it