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Veterans Advisory Committee <br />Minutes August 28, 2018 <br />Page 2 <br />the committee and they're both pretty well on board to opening that up to be involved <br />with every issue that has concerns for veterans. Exploring that further, the committee <br />needs to have some open discussion and put some advice down as to what we think <br />should be the general purpose of the committee. Anyone have ideas to add? <br />Vice -Chair Brulee Wilson questioned, like a mission statement? <br />Chair Doolittle said, well the general purpose of the committee as stated, so far, is a little <br />ambiguous. It refers to the Veterans Cemeteries and at the end says "and other related <br />issues." When he spoke to Rose Bautista, Executive Assistant to the Mayor, she said the <br />committee already has the authority. Yet, when you go back through the minutes of all of <br />the past meetings over a number of years there has never been a comment beyond what's <br />happened at the cemeteries. We've always felt kind of constricted in this committee to <br />only commenting on the cemeteries. There is a wide range of problems that Veterans in <br />this County experience. We need to have the ability to make statements and maybe <br />advocate that the County take positions to advocate for things that we might be able to <br />do, short of, appropriating money to run programs. But we can advocate for some things. <br />One of the things that are being discussed right now is our own group, Hawaii Island <br />Veterans Memorial. We're trying to put pressure on the Veterans Administration to <br />commit to our 2 1/2 acre site for a permanent Veterans Clinic on the east side and the <br />Veterans Administration is not making a permanent commitment on it. This is a free 2 1/2 <br />acre site that has already had $80,000 - $90,000 of engineering work done to prepare it <br />for construction and the VA is silent. The Mayor is writing a letter through the <br />Governor's office, to the new Secretary of the VA to encourage the VA to get on board <br />and start making commitments to Veterans issues on this island and a clinic is a big one. <br />George Sheridan asked who's in charge of the VA in Honolulu. No one has seen this guy, <br />he's invisible. Why isn't he meeting with the Mayor? Does he ever sit down and talk to <br />the Governor? Vets? <br />Emile Wery said there's three people, the woman she's in charge of the medical, and <br />someone else in charge of the benefits and someone else in charge of (inaudible). <br />George Sheridan stated but there's got to be one person in charge. <br />Chair Doolittle, pointed out the VA is noticeably absent in our struggle to create a <br />Veterans Clinic. They stated that there is no land available and it's too expensive. We are <br />beginning them to take this property. Engineering all done to VA specs, all they have to <br />do is say yes. It would be a 65 year lease for $1 per year. These are the kinds of issues we <br />as a committee can make statements and have the Mayor push and can get to Governor's <br />office. He has spoken with the Governor about it and he's all for citizen groups making <br />noise about things we feel are important in our community. These are the kinds of things <br />this commi8ttee should be able to make public statements about and advocate for the <br />Mayor and Council to stand up for these things. That's what the advisory committee is <br />for, to advise the County government on the things we find important that affect Veterans <br />