MINUTES for 05-22-2018 FINAL - Laserfiche WebLink

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Veterans Advisory Committee Minutes May 22, 2018 Page 5 normal business hours call this number and after hours please call this number. The point is that Carolle is willing to take this on but only by exception. Vice -Chair Brulee-Wilson asked that we not include her name but only the phone number. Chair, Doolittle confirmed that was the conclusion of the old business. NEW BUSINESS Veterans Treatment Court Chair, Doolittle would like to bring up the topic of Veterans Court. He understands that it has lost some funding and we are trying to find some funding. P&R Deputy Director, Maurice Messina states that they tried to put in a new bill to Hawaii State Legislature that didn't go through. The funding aspect of it has been encumbered by Drug Court. So Drug Court is actually funding the program, using the same probation officers, same staff, same judge, and same defense, same prosecutors. Right now they are working with Tulsi Gabbard on a Federal funding of the Veterans Treatment Court so that's what they are working on. I've been reaching out to her to make sure they don't forget about Hawaii. Chair Doolittle asked if this was a national program. Deputy Director, Maurice stated yes, it was originally started by a Judge and Prosecutor in New York City. They saw that there was a bunch of Veterans coming through. They started it there and there's maybe 57 or 58 Veterans Treatment Courts across the country. The funding from the bill was going to bring in one specific person for Veterans to improve the services. Chair Doolittle stated that he would like to expand the scope of the committee to try to assist with other Veterans issues as well. He would like to try to help Veterans who are living and try to promote as much advocacy as we can to the issues that Veterans suffer with today. Deputy Corporation Counsel, J Yoshimoto explained that in this point in time, the committee only has powers authorized by the code one of the provisions we talked about last time, by the request of the Mayor or the Council, the committee shall discuss recommendations of other Veterans issues. So as the Chair, Mr. Doolittle can contact the Mayor's office and say this is your ideas as far as the scope and you want the authority to be able to explore whatever issues you are interested in or the committee is interested in. Chair Doolittle asked if we have to go through Council to get the approval.