Anchorage Assembly: Military and Veterans Affairs Commission November 3, 2025

I just want to start with the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right.

Barbara, you want to go ahead and do a roll call?

Roll call here. Okay, uh, we got Commissioner Davis here. Here. Commissioner Ellen. Commissioner Robert Masaki here.

Commissioner Al, he's here. Commissioner Amal here. Commissioner Olivia absent. Commissioner Robert here. Commissioner Jason.

Jason, you're on mute. Here. Chairman, do you have a quorum? Which one's Jason Simmons? He's up in the—.

Oh, in the right-hand corner. Yeah, top right. Her name's right here.

That's me. All right, let's go and do the last minute— last meeting minutes.

Hi. Oh, wait a second, my fault. I need to, uh, yeah, this is the approval. So the, uh, let's do the, the meeting minutes. Everybody have a chance to read them?

Anybody have any objections or, uh, admissions to the minutes? Um, the attendance, um, is changed. If you look at the ones that he just handed out, the attendance has been changed to Al present and Amal as an excused absence because he was out of town. May I? Yes.

And I have a minute.

Uh, last month I mentioned that, uh, open meetings, that you could get together with more than 3 of us, and, uh, that if we're not in discussion business, that was, uh, ran through the ombudsman, Daryl Hess. So I think it should be in the meeting minutes because that's important. It was actually in the minutes of the month before that. What? I wasn't— I didn't think it was month before that.

Yeah, yeah, because that when I was doing the agendas and everything, I had to pull it up. Okay, good. I just want to make sure then we have to have that in official minutes. But since the minutes are real important that we get them, uh, accurate, and all of us, the commission, review them and I kind of noticed that there's not been reviewed by all commissioners. I mean, please review and get, get your comments in on correction because it's important.

It's an official record. Yeah, good. Anyone else?

All right then, uh, do we have any objections to the minutes? No, no. Okay, with no objections, then by unanimous consent, the minutes pass. Okay, the agenda. Everybody have a chance to look at the agenda?

Today's meeting. Does anybody have any objections with the agenda for today?

All right. No? Obviously not hearing any. They're passed by unanimous consent. All right.

I'm going to introduce a guest. Okay, so we have over here, we have, um, Cal Williams, who I remember you filled out the application to become a member of the commission, is that correct? I did. And we're just waiting to find out about his process, if it's gone through, so we can find out that. I'd sent an email to Marie and you to find out.

Yes. Um, and we had asked that last month too for the status. Yeah. I believe Marie said that she did try to connect with you already regarding your application. I think there was missing some additional documentation to finish up.

Oh, yeah, but I can connect with Marie. She's in the office today. I could check and see to make sure what was missing, and then connect with you and get your contact and reach out to you personally so we can be on the same page moving forward. All right, and then, uh, of course, on the, um, On the piece, we have Earl Malpass, who's the director of Merrill Field, and that has been working with us on the 11th Air Force Memorial.

And that's it. Of course, we got our normal— well, we got one of our normal people that are here for the different organizations. Not really a guest, he's one of our advisors. From the State of Alaska Military and Veterans Affairs, Jeffrey Slaku.

Hi, I'm Suzanne Fleetgreen. I'm the mayor's chief of staff and joining you. I started in June, so I'm new and old at the same time. I also have worked for Mayor Begich and Mayor Berkowitz, so Joining so I can connect with all of you. Welcome.

Thank you. Can you say your last name for us, please? Fleek, F-L-E-E-K, hyphen Green, like the color.

Right.

And then, uh, you want to go and tell everybody who you are because you're the most important person in the room today. Oh, oh, I don't know about that. Laurel Foster, I am the executive assistant to Mayor Suzanne LaFrance. And I will be providing some updates on grant information to you all today. Thank you.

I wanted to let you know, Laurel can tell you a little bit more about her background, but she also, because she has a lot of great experience, she will be the mayor's military and veterans liaison for the municipality. She, well, she can tell you about her background, but she also is going to become the staff person to this committee. Marie will no longer be staffing this, but Laura will be your lead point of contact for this committee. Cool. And do you want to tell folks a little bit more about your background so they understand why you are so well suited for this?

Yes, ma'am. So, I am a current member of the Alaska Air National Guard. I've been in the Alaska Air National Guard for the last 17 years, spent 9 years enlisted doing security forces, military police work, 2 years as a JAG paralegal, And I commissioned as an officer in 2020, back to security forces. And now I work manpower, money, and services, which is like mortuary affairs, morale, and manpower. So, yeah.

Here I am. All right, and then, uh, you go ahead and introduce yourself. Sure, my name is Kristen Langley. I'm the manager of the Traffic Safety Group for, uh, Bermudez Traffic Engineering Department, and I oversee the operations of the paint and sign shop, among other responsibilities. And is that with the C or K?

K. K. All right, so we've been the guest and we're going to go ahead, we're going to go ahead and let you start off with the signs because we're good because both, both of our, the people, Laurel and Krista, are going to be giving it, covering two of the things from the Air Force Memorial that we've been working on. So I'm going to let them do their presentations on that and then, then let the commission chime in afterwards and ask questions and go from there. Mr. Chair, uh, if I ask, uh, if Jason would provide me an email with your, with your, uh, with your email and phone number so I can put it in my, my list here.

Okay. My email is [email protected].

You say that one more time, please. Pride Place, P-R-I-D-E-P-L-A-T-E, at AOL.com. Got it. Thank you. Yeah, and both of, both of yours, uh, emails are on the email that I sent out because he was included in the email.

Yeah, not telephone number. All right, so go ahead and let, uh, go by the signs real fast. Yep.

Um, what I'm here for is to help you do what you want to do.

You tell me what message you want on the signs, you tell me where you want them, and as close as possible, given sub-service utilities, that's where they're going to go. I've already worked or contacted, um, Alaska DOT so that we can put a sign on the— and on Glen Highway. But I wanted to give you a sample of what my paint and sign shop can do. Now, signs that we would put up would actually be bigger than these samples, but I didn't want to try to drag a 24x30 sign through City Hall and probably risk a security event. Yeah, we can do all sorts of graphics.

We can do whatever message you want in terms of being printed on this sign. The full-size signs would be about like this. They'd be about 4 times the size in terms of surface area. Maybe a little bit smaller on, for instance, Dubar or Lake Otis, just simply because of right-of-way issues. But up on the Glen, we'll go big so that people can find the facility and, and arrows as appropriate.

Yep. So if you want a different message, just let me know. We will work it out as best we can for whatever you do want. Okay, so now Ellen and Al are part of our 3-person committee, okay, that's working the 11th Air Force, and they're the ones that put up— that put the, the, the, the placement of the signs together, right? So if we can, after the meeting, if you can get together with those two And they can, they can sit back and get with you and, and answer those.

And that's why I brought this. Here you go. Did you get a copy of the letter we sent to the mayor regarding, uh, the request for design? Yes. So on there, uh, it had all, all the quote, but we would get to you and talk to you after the meeting today if we could.

Yeah, and absolutely. Thank you. Because that way you guys can look on the map and you can draw great little circles and arrows right on the map saying here, here, here, here. Beautiful sign, beautiful. Can you— I'm new, so I apologize, but what is your timing goal for this?

Would you like to see these as soon as they can get up? I mean, it's wintertime, before the snow gets too deep. Shut down at this point. Yeah, so it'll probably be springtime. Okay, that was what we were anticipating based on an email exchange with the person in the spring.

Yeah, when we could start digging that 3-foot-deep foundation.

There's not already one there that you can add to it. Um, my goal for the one on the Glen would be to actually grab it to a luminaire pole far enough back, say over by where Bass Pro is, So that somebody has plenty of time to get over and then make a left turn. The way they drive, it wouldn't make too much difference recently. Well, if we went on the basis of driving, I'd probably put it in Eagle River. Yeah.

All right, does anybody think— anybody else have any questions for Krista? Good job. Great. All right, so now, now we're going to go over to Laurel. Who's going to give us the final information on what she's found out.

And there again, she's going to need to get with you guys to get what you've already put together for requests and everything else. But I'm going to let her explain. Thank you. So, good afternoon, everyone. I understand that there has been some confusion surrounding applying for grant funding.

For projects that AMBAC is working. I apologize that it has taken some time to clear up that confusion. Hopefully I can give you some clarity today. But what I did was able to find out, we did submit a legal review to the municipality attorneys regarding grant requests. So AMBAC is not able as an organization to submit a grant request, but what What can happen is the municipality can submit a request for a grant on behalf of AMBEC.

So what does that look like? What does that mean? It means that the AMBEC organization would be the one to identify the grant, put the application and the information together for that grant, and then the municipality, or the mayor's office in this case, would submit that grant application on behalf of the organization. And then the management and tracking of that grant will remain with AMBEC. So the municipality slash the mayor's office is essentially the vessel with which you apply for that funding, but the management of that grant and the application process remains with AMBEC as the organization.

Anybody have any questions on that? Yes. So we submitted two proposals so far. One to which you're aware of, the, uh, Alaska Guard Officers Association, and another one to the Military Veterans Affairs. So should we— and so should we resubmit that to the mayor's office for her with her signature on it, and then you guys can I guess, for, you know, my question there would be, they've already have it, the organizations, and they're processing it.

Without causing confusion, then now the mayor has to reach back out. So, I would say what that process should look like, and Suzanne, if you have, if you want to interject, is that those proposals come to the mayor's office. And then the mayor's office would submit those to the organizations because I cannot believe that— I don't believe that AMVAC is essentially an extension of the municipality. So those should actually be submitted via the mayor's office. And again, I apologize for the confusion of not getting that information to you sooner.

I am learning the grant process. I still don't have all the answers, but I will be the one finding those answers for you all. So we can get the grant funding request submitted. And I know that that wasn't clear before. Yeah, and because otherwise you would have to be a standalone organization to be able to file for, apply for a grant yourself.

You are part of the municipality, so you come under the legal status of the municipality. For those two grants, we are happy and we will quickly act to resubmit them and to make sure, and then we can verbally reach out to both of those entities to ensure that there is no confusion. So you're already in the door as submitted by the committee. We will just resubmit it. So your place in the— in their consideration should not be jeopardized at all.

We'll just— think of it as like paperwork cleanup. Reaffirm. Yeah, I will resubmit it with the mayor's signature on it and, uh, Yeah, because we've been— I've been asking for months what the process is, and I couldn't get any answer. So hopefully this clears that up. And we don't care, you know, it doesn't matter how the process is, just so we know, so we do it properly.

Understood. Yep. And we, we very much appreciate that you have been proactive in seeking these grants. That is fantastic. Um, we just, again, We need to formally sign it on behalf of the municipality.

And that was going to be one of my two questions is, is can we just submit, submit the application that was turned into you guys in digital form in case they have to change any signature blocks or anything? And that way they can do that and then they can resubmit it to them and say, this is replacing the paperwork on this one, but it's the exact same thing just with different signatures. And that would be great. Um, I just wanted to ask, the last I heard about the Officers Association, they said no, they can't do it. So did they come back and change their mind?

So, full transparency, I happen to be on that board. Um, I am not able to process that application request, so we'll have to have someone else here at the mayor's office so they're not conflict of interest. But I will say it's looking— funding likely won't be available. Our next meeting is this Wednesday to discuss that further because the money that was provided was— or donated was provided to the 176th Wing, not to the Officers Association. The Officers Association is just hanging on to that money because the 176th Wing did not have a place to hold it.

Financially with their budget. Yeah.

So was the other proposal that I made, was that accepted, or that's what has to be discussed? I believe— I can't remember off the top of my head. I'll have to go back and look at my emails, but that we are discussing what the appropriate action is for that funding because it was given specifically to the 176 Wing with the Officers Association. Holding those funds until the 176 could start the project. So it's technically 176 Wayne monies, not the Officers Association.

So, the Officers Association, probably 4 though, right? I'm not tracking what the Enlisted Association as far as like what their funding is. I was a member at one time, but yeah. I can tell you they have more money than we do. You think so?

Yeah, be worth checking into. So should we resubmit it then to 176? Is there money, you know, be like just holding on for them? I would stand by resubmitting anything for those funds because they're likely, they're likely not going to be available because it's not The funding is not with— it's not the officer's money, and the 176 has to decide what to do with that money is what it's looking like right now.

And they have a plan for it, so—. In other words, they're not looking to resend the money to somebody else. Okay, so they already have— Yeah. It sounds like they are not using it for— to give grants. They have another purpose for it.

So the, um, the other question I had with, um, the piece is I, I know we said that you guys would submit it and then we would control the money afterwards, but there again, we're a commission. It'd be kind of hard for us to control, you know, the— I don't know if you were here already when we did, but we had a couple months back, we sent our recommendation to the mayor for the way forward for the 11th Air Force Memorial. I mean, it's sitting over on the back side of Merrill Field. Um, Earl and his people have been doing great things to keep it up and to fix part of it up and make it safe and make it more presentable. Uh, but the problem is still holds down is that nobody has taken or has ownership of the memorial.

It's there. Earl's been taking care of it because it is there on the backside of Merrill Field, and he doesn't like, you know, a military memorial like that falling apart, and especially in his area. So he has found ways to help take care of it and get the lights fixed. And under— while he was doing the rest of the, the airfield. But we had our recommendation to the mayor's office was that the interested parties, the municipality, Parks and Rec, um, Earl, anybody else that they feel that needs to be in the discussion, needs to sit down and decide the way forward with it.

Is Parks and Rec going to— because they don't have the money for it right now, they say. But is it something to say, well, you need to start adding it to your budget down the road for upkeep? We're trying to do the grants to help cover the big cost of fixing the cracks that are in right now, finish some of the pieces that Earl had already started, um, for it. But after that we get the money, if we can get the grants and they come in, you know, it's really— that money should be controlled by whoever in the municipality would normally control fixing or replacing or maintenance on the memorial. And so we can get that all put together, and that's the start of the way forward.

Of, you know, these people are going to take care of it, uh, they're going to mow this part and Earl will plow when he plows the street, or who— however it's going to work. But it needs to come to a consensus to where it's official, because that's the biggest thing, is the people in the town who complained to the previous mayor, and he called and asked me to come in, and I sat down with him and he said, I've got citizens that are complaining because the flags aren't flying, please find out what's going on with the memorial. And a year and a half, 2 years later, this is where we're at now. Does 11th Air Force need to be involved because it is the 11th Air Force originally and it was part of the—. We tried, I know, and I think they should be involved, at least, at least to know what's going on with it.

But Colonel's got to be, you know, she's got to be invited to a meeting and then she's, her or her representative's got to come over. Whether we have the 673rd Air Base Wing or actually have the 11th Air Force Chief of Staff. Yeah. And you know, they're both colonels, so it's, uh, and whether the Chief of Staff there from 11th Air Force would then direct Maybe right now he's got the, the Officers Association was supposedly the lead, but maybe what it really needs is the Senior NCO and the Air Force Sergeants all involved as a, as 3 groups who would have a responsibility, then we would have more continuity. Every, every Senior Officer and Senior NCO that we've talked to from JBARR in the last year and a half never even knew that the memorial was there.

So yes, they should be involved. They should know they're now—. I can add some context. If you'd like, I can add a little context for this.

The, the 11th Air Force had a— there's an organization and they had a land use permit. I would call it a SLUP, and they had signed it. And then it kind of expired. I guess there was several attempts to get them to reengage, and they— we had one of them, I believe, was with you. He came on board and just said that their— that group is— the members have dwindled.

Their budget has all but gone away, and they were— unable to get, I guess, interest because of the transitory nature of the NCOs and officers and could not really offer much of a solution. That's so right now because it's on the airport, we've taken care of custody and control over it, and we're just trying to decide if the airport will continue. If The Parks and Recs, they've said they've understaffed, under budget, and unable to participate in the upkeep of it. And so I'm willing to, but at some point Earl goes away, then who else? We just need an official decision made.

Over. And I think for the municipality, we can work on that. And what you said, we can get the right players in the room and Laurel, I'll just task you with convening that meeting, and I think it's probably M&O, airport, parks. I think we'll hear the same answer from Parks and Rec, and then we need to cost out what we think, and maybe you've already done this, what the maintenance need is there so that we can decide is some of that grant funded where we pursue grants to do some of the more major maintenance on it, and then The routine maintenance is likely, I think, taken care of by Merrill Field in terms of, again, the, the lawn care. And we've specced out the, uh, the initial maintenance and repairs because there's, there's a couple lights that are, that are in the ground that have pushed up now and are sticking out.

So they're trip hazards. Um, and I think the— correct me, Earl, but those lights still aren't working, those two lights? All the rest of the lights are working, but the two ground lights are not, correct? That's correct. Okay.

Um, the—. We've taken loads of pictures. The monument itself is, uh, the wall, um, has got a couple major cracks in it. Uh, Earl has had an engineer that looked at it and said it's not in— it's safe, it's not any threat because of the way it was built of coming down. But there is some probably epoxy work or something needs to be done to fill those cracks and make them so they're not growing into shore.

But then with the earthquake and everything else, because it's built on top of the old dump, uh, the ground has dropped. And they've already worked on, on repairing the walkways. They repaired this, the paved circle, but now The monument is, and that is all sitting up about 2 feet above the walkway. Earl's already had his, some of his people built boxes to go around the flagpoles so it hides that portion. Something like that has to be done around the front of the monument yet, and then there's a couple blocks on the side.

And then there's other questions. There's originally, there was these big concrete flower planters. They're not there anymore. They're actually down the road. Um, but that would be— that's not our decision.

That is whoever decides they're going to do it. Do they want to put those two planters back there or leave them out there? Because if you put them back there, that's more care taking care of the flowers and stuff like that. But it could be done.

Go ahead, Al. Uh, on the proposal that I'm going to resubmit to you guys. It's got pictures in it, it's got the history of what— why we're doing this, and got some, uh, some estimated costs for O&M. I believe it's $24,000, $28,000. So that's all in that proposal.

You guys will get it. And also Memorial Day, I talked to Colonel Babbitt. She wasn't aware of a memorial. Nobody was. We weren't either until They mentioned it, uh, and at that point I asked her, should I contact Livingston Air Force?

And she said no, because she's really interested. She, and she will handle it. But I really haven't got any feedback, and I told about— I tried to get a meeting between the mayor, her, and us, and it never worked out. Yeah. So just kind of background on that for you.

And we have— and so, you know, Diane and Laurel, the, uh, we have on our shared drive The Gmail share drive, have you been out there to look at it yet? And I haven't added you. I'll add—. Okay, I'll add you into it. It'll send you an email.

It's a Gmail share drive. We have the as-built, um, and all the documentation made before. If you would please add the current pictures and your proposal on that, add that to that folder out there on the share drive. That way The latest documents are also in there. That's a place that you can go to and you can open it up and you can pull anything out of there that you need for the things.

Would you mind putting the letter? I heard there was a letter to the mayor in there. I don't think that she's seen that, but I wasn't involved in— I mean, I kind of heard about it when I was helping Marie out previously. I don't know where that's at, but if you can add that so I have everything. And I can review it and assess where we're at and then start planning a way forward with meetings and who we need to get involved.

That way I have, I have a full picture because right now I just have bits and pieces based on, on the, you know, one or two meetings I've been to so far. Okay. And we can put it on the list. We're due for another meeting with Colonel Mabbott but we have not been able to do that because of the government shutdown. Yeah, so she can't take those kind of right now, but hopefully they're going to work every day.

Yes, not essential work. So yeah, we have not been able to reconvene that meeting because it's not considered essential work, and that's all they're allowed to do at this point.

Which also runs into all that's other challenges because there was no They're not updating the calendars on any of the J-BEAR websites, so you have to guess what they're going to do if they're going to do it. And I know I have a proposal later on that. Do we have— we have any other questions on this here, especially from people, especially for some of the people that haven't been here before? So, have you determined who the contractor will be that will be performing the upgrade to the community? No, we can't do anything until we have money.

And will there going to be a bidding process for that? Um, it depends on the dollar level. If it's municipal work, we would have to request 3 bids, but Earl can be the lead on that again since it's on Earl's property. But we need to convene this interagency within the municipality to decide again who's really going to own that memorial from a municipal perspective, and then they would be responsible for the bids. Okay.

And ultimately, that, that's who would be controlling the money that we get, and all we would do is be— let's say Earl gets it, then all we would do is communicate with Earl and then make sure that, that we give a report back to the municipality on what's going on. He's going to be doing his own reports, or whoever has it. And I would say, you know, you look to these two locations for grants. If the committee wants to do work for other potential grant opportunities and put on your list too, let's reach out to Michelle Nelson. She's our federal grants solicitor.

She can start doing some research to see if there are other grant opportunities to do this maintenance work. If we are lucky enough to get a grant, then It will have to go to the Assembly, and then the Assembly directs it. And once we decide, is it the airport, is it Parks and Rec, is it M&O, then the Assembly would appropriate that grant into their operating budget to specifically do that work. We do have a, a, uh, draft, uh, grant proposal. It's all we would do is plug in different names.

We could give that to Michelle Nelson. Yeah.

Anything else? I'd like to close the loop on one thing. We had talked last time about possibly having some kind of event on Veterans Day, I think the 11th of this month. I know it's pretty close here, we're a week out, but I just wanted to decide whether or not we were going to have anything. So that we could socialize it if we are.

Okay. Um, the committee that's working on the 11th Airport, they said that they were just in discussions with you. They were talking about doing something like next spring, so it'd be after the winter. Okay, that's fine. Well, I just wanted to make sure that things— other things weren't going on and, uh, be caught unaware.

Thank you. Well, maybe all of you, Laurel and I have been talking about Veterans Day events. I know the mayor is going to lunch on Monday. Can you just let the committee know what else is on your radar right now? Yes.

Well, so the Veterans Day ceremony at the National Guard Armory. Something here. Yeah, I can speak on that 'cause I'm in the meetings. Yeah. I run, yeah, I run that.

I run that. I've been running it for 14 years. Wednesday will be the deciding factor. Right now my director, Verdy Bowen, has gotten with the TAG, with General Saxe for the Guard, and said that it is probably not feasible for us to pull off this ceremony. Because of the disaster or because of the shutdown?

It's a little of both. Okay. It really is a little of both. You know, the Guard, there's a lot of Guard people tasked with disaster relief stuff right now, so a lot of the people who would help us put on the ceremony are spread across the state, you know, doing other things. And then all of our— pretty much all of our friends on the federal side are, you know, shut down right now.

So, um, yeah, just looking at it right now, it, it's probably not going to happen this year. Um, it's just we're, we're in the 11th hour and we've got no support really. So we're not even sure if we're— I mean, they're talking about shutting down the Tech 5s, and those are the people who do the base access stuff. So we don't even know if we can get people on base, you know, 2 weeks from now for the ceremony. So we're, yeah, we're kind of looking at it probably not happening right now.

And even when they don't have these problems, like last year, you could have a, you could have the guest of honor get stuck at the gate and the general actually had to go and chew out the SPs and bring the person in because he was a 90-some-year-old. He's 99 or 95. 95-Year-old World War II veteran who they wouldn't let him in because his ID card had expired.

Other events then? So the, the one at the National Guard Armory, which is up in the air, and then a lunch at the American Legion Post 1 on Veterans Day. I believe that's from noon to 1:30. I'll have to double-check her calendar, but those are the only two that I've been able to get confirmations or invitations for, for the mayor.

So I know Eagle River VFW is doing something because they— but it's mostly, it's a potluck type thing. Every, every veterans organization —in town will be doing something on Veterans Day. Some of them be around lunchtime, some would be more around dinnertime, uh, be handing out hot dogs, potlucks, but every single one of them does something for veterans. And I'm doing a course in the Alaska Veterans Museum for— somebody called up and said, can you give us a tour? And so I'm doing a 9:30 tour and a 2 o'clock tour for I invite 12 to 18 people each time, so from LifeWorks, um, they, they've arranged for that.

And I'm always open to those things, um, if anybody wanted to come through. But it, it's normally a down day, it's not a normal open day. So it's— we're just setting it up to do it for specific things, which is what we do. We've done a, we've done a couple ceremonies over there when we were giving out an Outstanding Veteran Award from the municipality, and we've done it over there where the mayor had come over and actually presented the award. And Suzanne, I would put that in the back of your mind that the museum is open for any of those type things.

I have a fairly good-sized foyer area that we utilize for that. I can put out 50 chairs without thinking about it. So I mean, so that is available and just however we want to do it. It's just a phone call away and we make it happen. Okay, well, I guess I do think about your offer, Earl.

Like, I have a hard time processing that there will not be an event on Veterans Day. So while the time is In short, I'm trying to think about what can we do so that veterans and others can gather on Veterans Day, and do we want to do something outside at the memorial, or should we come to the museum? Like, again, I'm having a hard time processing that something would not occur, and we can help at the municipality. So what are your—. What are people's thoughts?

I think it would be really great to have an event at the 11th Air Force Memorial. A lot of people don't know it's there. Put it out there in the newspapers, on the radio. People can come there if they can't go to other events. The only hard part with it is it is 7, 8 days away.

And it's a lot to try to get done. In 8 days to get people out there and—. I thought we could have 3 feet of snow by then. Yeah. And to be honest, a lot of people have shied away from doing stuff on Veterans Day because we've always had the Veterans Day memorial or ceremony at J-Bear in the morning and anybody that's going to go to something goes to that.

Uh, they have a Veterans Day thing out in, uh, Byers Lake. Uh, out in— well, yeah, they get the thing out in Byers Lake. I mean, for veterans, they have the Veterans Day out in, uh, at the wall in, uh, Wasilla. Yeah. Um, and then of course, I said every veterans organization has their own little thing that they do at their— all the different, uh, posts, whether it's VFW, American Legion, or AMVETS.

And so it's really a hard day to get people to show up for.

It's not going to happen.

But—. Okay. Could I throw out there that we do a 10:00 a.m. on Veterans Day? I think we need a singer. We need a color guard.

Tell me, like, how we can— again, I'm always in the mode of, um, let's see what we can make happen so that people can gather. And I think, I mean, maybe we start putting some initial plans into the work and then we get the go/no-go on Wednesday, but it sounds like it's going to be a no-go. And Laurel and I can work together. I have a question. We Traditionally, I'm new, so we traditionally have had events, I agree.

But one of the things that the committee came up with was we'd like to involve the general public, and Earl Gay put a bunch of flags out last year. It was. So what I'd like to see, which might be really short, sweet, and to the point, is down the, the, the— what is that, DeBarr, where the—. As you're approaching the intersection before you turn up into Merrill. I would love to see just flags down that, that go up around the hill, and in that intersection, a sign, one on either side, that says, that's what it is over there, because it's really designed to go in, see it, and go out.

So if we invite the public, like you said, through the whatever digital medias that we have, because that's really quick, short, and to the point, one sign on either side of DeBarr to tell them why the flags are out there and go see the 11th Memorial. Cut. Done. We'd probably need 500 flags, the little ones that go on the what's-his-name, and just stick them down the thing so they know where it goes and just let them see it. Tell them what it is and let them see it and call it a day.

If we wanted to step it up one more, we could perhaps— I'm trying to draw the young folks into the airport as well. So if we had a junior ROTC or someone with high school or college that would, that has an honor guard group, they could, that would be its own population by letting the school and family knows if there was a, I've heard there's someone that does the, can sing the national anthem well and maybe just someone to give a a few words. I think that, again, keeping it smaller at a set time, let's say 10 o'clock, would be great. Whenever I post anything on our Facebook page, we get a lot of comments. I had someone call from lower 48 about 3 weeks ago.

He said, "I understand." He said, "I just found out my uncle passed away." and he said, doing some research, he died and there's supposed to be some monument somewhere on Merrill Field. I was able to go out and take a picture of the monuments and then kind of zoomed in and actually took a picture of his uncle's name that was on the wall. You would have thought I parted the Red Sea. This guy was extremely grateful. So whenever we have the Aviation Celebration every May.

We have a tour, and the tour stops in there and talks. So anything that we can do to promote it, I'll do my best to support.

So does that sound more reasonable, doable? I think that sounds doable. Um, I love the idea of the flags. I love the idea of getting Junior ROTC Honor Guard I guess, Earl, I'm sort of looking at you then to see if you have the capacity. And we can invite Colonel Mabbott.

I don't know if she'll be able to come. The mayor could go give brief remarks. And then however the committee would like to be involved, if you would—. We could probably always get Bertie or Horst too. Oh yeah, it would be great to have Bertie.

I'll be available too. So if you guys need stuff, like I said, I've been putting the J-Bear one together for 15 years. I know all the players. I could get you get in touch with the band that we use. I can get you in touch with the AMIA folks, who— that's who we use for our, um, for the, um, Honor Guard.

I can get you in touch with Steve Morell, who also does the Honor Guard and the Fallen Warrior Ceremony, um, and he gathers a kind of a group of people from the different services to do that, that ceremony. I could put you in contact with our point guy. I can— whatever you guys— it might be, it might be hard to get them AMIA, we're past where we can get AMIA at this point. They usually need about a month or a month and a half notice beforehand, although they're still on track for our ceremony currently. So I don't know, it could be, and I'm meeting with the, we're having our final kind of RPR, RP, IPR, IPR meeting, which don't ask me to tell you what that means, some sort of, Internal program, something or other.

Yeah, sure, that one. So we're doing that tomorrow with the, with whoever's left with the guard and Amy and all those folks. So I could probably talk to them tomorrow. So why don't we connect you, Laurel and I, after your meeting to see where we're at? But the goal would be something to commemorate the day.

And Earl, I can't remember, what is parking like there. I mean, as I recall, there's not a lot of parking spaces near the memorial, but then what's the—. You're right, but there is plenty of room on the grass. Okay, okay. Yeah, there's plenty of room on the grass as long as we don't get 2 feet of snow between now and then, and, uh, or 2 feet of rain.

And he controls the thing and, uh, Traffic on that road is kind of limited to the people that work down in that area over there in the wintertime. Isn't that correct, Earl? Yes, you're correct. It's not— there is occasional through traffic when things get backed up, but 10 o'clock in the morning, 10 to noon is pretty calm, especially on a federal holiday. Well, it's not really a federal holiday.

It's a holiday for a bunch of the for the federal people, but it's not for the general workers. Right. I always have that day off because I always take it off, but I don't work for the federal or any of that anymore, so I don't get it. It's normally a day off. A lot of people don't.

It's too bad. Okay. We can have— I can have a sound system there.

Sounds like, so we would need the, uh, the mayor's podium for the speakers.

Um, I would, I would keep it small. Yeah. And then I would, I mean, we can play, we need music. I can play music with the sound system so we don't have to worry about trying to put a band out in the cold. Right.

Um, 500 flags.

Earl, do you still have your flags from last year? Actually, those were donated anonymously, but I might— I had a hard time finding out who did it.

Um, I believe you guys got a sample. Yeah, he's got a whole bunch of flags that we put on the graves in May. Jason, go ahead. Or no, is that—. Yeah, yeah, so, so I know, um, I'm the Sergeant at Arms at Post 29 on American Legion.

If you guys need some, like, some flags, I at least got a box of the smaller flags that I could donate to you guys to start. Can you get them to Earl at Merrill Field? Uh, yeah. Where do I go to drop off at? 800 Merrill Field Drive, or, um, I can come to you if it, if it be easier.

But one of us give it to you. I think if you could drop them with Earl to keep it simple, direct, and then Earl count the number of flags and then report back, and we can go purchase more flags if necessary. How about that? It's a plan. Got it.

Okay, signage.

Signage. I can talk to Repographics downstairs. Something— it doesn't have to be—. I mean, really, I'm thinking even, even the ones that go in the, the yard signs. It just, it doesn't have to be really complicated, just something that says it's going to be da da da Veterans Day ceremony at the Leavitt Air Force Memorial.

About getting the word out. I can advertise on our state, um, our calendar for the state of Alaska. So we can do the press side of it. We'll have our comms team work on that. We can put it on our socials, but then we would need people to repost it to— but again, I think you're right, small.

Everybody here can put on there because we don't— we do not want to replace Correct. The usual event, this is a one-off because of the situation this year. Correct. So we all want to go back to the regular event next year. Yeah, but if we all—.

But all of us here, if we all agree to—. I'll be happy to pass this off, guys. If we could all agree that we've got a post and we have a place on our own social media cycles, I think that would be enough. Yeah, yeah. And the media will be looking for something to attend because they are also used to Yeah, right.

What time was— where we got 10:18, kind of dark still. No, no, we're taking that— we're taking the time frame that the normal ceremony is usually at. Okay, so usually it opens at 10 and they start the ceremony 10:30. And we will, we will make sure it doesn't last 2 hours like that one. It's just outside and cold.

That is correct. Hey, that's correct. That's all Verdy, because once Verdy starts talking, so if you want him to be the guest speaker, it'll go 2 hours. Seabird. We didn't say anything about speaking.

Yeah, okay, all right. There, so we're talking to MC.

Go ahead. Tuesday the— is, uh, the 11th at 10:00 AM, is that correct? Just to make sure. Yes, next week. All right, got it.

All right, thank you. What time do you want us to be here?

We'll get to that in a second. That, that's going to be fluid. That's going to be fluid. You could be there. No, I'm not in a hurry.

I think about the main thing, you know, we, we need to be there sometime earlier before that. There's not really going to be a whole lot for us to do. Get the podium, get it over there and get it set up. I'm gonna get my son to help me set the sound system up. If he's not— maybe working, so it's just gonna be me.

Maybe 8 PM, or it's gonna be my smaller sound system, but we have set up—. I'm sorry, 8 AM. Yeah, it would be great if somebody could come here on Monday and get the podium. Yes, I'll do that. I, I'm like the podium person.

Okay, it's big and heavy. I, I get it from World Day. Yeah. Okay, so Monday you got to go— let me come and get it. Come anytime during the day.

Yep. Diana will be your— oh, you connect with me. Yeah, we'll get the podium. I figure if everybody's there by 9, I'll be there like 8:30 to set up. But if everybody's there by 9, it's not like Memorial Day.

It's not like we're going to be setting up a whole bunch of chairs. We're not going to be setting up any chairs. We have the podium so one or two people can speak by the microphone. If we find somebody that wants to sing the national anthem, Great. If we don't, I'll play it.

Let's play it because I have a copy of it. We can make them— I can play it. We've done that. Yeah, we can do that in the state song.

You know, a couple of speakers that are talking about Veterans Day and thank everybody coming and let them know that the memorial is there and we're going to be— the city's going to be doing stuff to fix it up. Yep. And finish making it better and Enjoy the rest of your day. We need to get the word out to all of the veterans organizations, you know, the VA, the veterans organizations. You know, I know a couple of the state commanders for the AMVETS and for the VFW.

I'll be seeing Sam Hudson, the VA PAO guy today, so I'll talk to him today. Fantastic, that'd be great because then they can get the plea out to the VFW. Easy. So yeah, we get out to, uh, Sam. Who can make a flyer?

Sounds to me like we need an electronic flyer that can easily be emailed. No, I'm not. You're not a flyer guy? I'm that graphics person. I got that.

Excellent, thank you. All right, I did. This is if needed by a J-Bear. You do. I know we canceled.

Yes. So we will not— we will have go/no-go from you on Wednesday. Okay. And, but this, I would say, go ahead. I mean, the prognosis is no-go, so let's get like a flyer ready.

Earl, you'll reach out and think about, um, Junior ROTC and just say, hey, be on standby. Go ahead and make the request and then still move the flags over. Great volunteer for the podium. And even if they, and yeah, find out, even if they say, well, it's too, it's too short a time period or anything for honor, we can still post the flags on the—. I've been inspired to sing.

Thank you, Gal. I kept looking at you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Okay.

All right. Hey, if you guys need another color guard? Have you guys asked to reach out to the Civil Air Patrol? I know they have a color guard. Yes, yes, they do.

National Anthem. Does anybody mind if I put all the— everybody gives their little pieces and so I can get it out to one piece to— okay, thank you.

And then what we're doing is I will check out if we want to do the Fallen Warrior Ceremony I will check with my organization and see if we want to throw some people together to do it. Being as we're the ones that created it and Bulldog took it over to you guys' people. Yes, they did. They actually replaced us at the Veterans Day. And they do a good job at it.

It's, I loved your guys' version and I love the new version too. I love them both for different reasons. You know, because the way that Steve Rell puts together and he gathers everybody from the different services. I think it's great. Put them in their uniform.

It's, yeah. I think it's a great idea for the MILT where they change it over where all the guys get together and they do it. It's perfect. The way it should be. And that everybody, as you're putting this stuff out, one thing that doesn't really go with any of this stuff, I just want to remind everybody, Veterans Day is a day of celebration.

Yeah, it's not a day of mourning. Memorial Day is a day of mourning. Right. Veterans Day, you're celebrating all the veterans past and present and future. And that, uh, all this is just the thing that I always like to try to bring out to everybody, remind everybody, because I hate it when people try to turn Veterans Day into a Memorial Day ceremony.

And that it's not it. We're there to celebrate veterans and celebrate that memorial and everything else. Cool. All right, anything else with that?

That's no. Okay. And that— all right, what do you— is it to do with the 11th Air Force? Okay. Um, I have one more little thing.

Can you bring the mock-up of your sign so that we at least have it and people can see that those are coming?

Sure. Okay, just tell me where and when. 10:00 AM, right on Bedford. Oh, oh, you could give it to us. We can take it too.

I don't want to make you have an extra drive. Oh my goodness. Yeah, yes, we do, because we want her to come to the ceremony and bring, bring her. Great. All right, I'll take her.

I'm glad. You definitely need that. Anything else? Thank you. All right.

Unfinished old business, real fast just to cover it. We talked about the DoD base realignment closure board, BRAC, and survey. Now, this information— survey, and Alan put that out to just remind everyone. I left it on here for old business to remind everybody to go out there look it up online, do the survey, and, and those things. We already talked about Cal, um, uh, Jason Simmons has already been approved.

So we're going to new business. Commissioners renew applications. I thought we had 3 commissioners that are renewing. And just so you guys know, all 3 of them have either submitted their application in the process of submitting their application or getting ready to start because they missed it, but they all, they all three plan on staying. So if we can have the extension for them to get finished up, and if we can check, because his has been in a while, if we could check on the status of Al's.

Who were those submitted to? Online. Are they online? Okay, okay. And Earl, uh, Bob and I submitted our renewal request extension in June, I think.

Okay, 3 months ago. Okay, I'll, I'll— I will—. I've been working online, uh, on the same— this is a very loud application.

Well, all they need was a—. It's an email saying I want to stay on commission for extension, right? No, they want you to do the whole thing over. No, that was That would change. We discussed that, but they just need an email saying we want to continue on.

I will find out to clarify because I'm not—. I don't think that you have to do a full application. I think if you are not termed out, you can just say that you want to renew. Well, we are— we will have to take you back to the assembly. But yeah, yeah, and so you have to start over.

Oh, it's just an email, then they all three have already submitted the emails. And like 2 years ago we asked, told them here, said we want to do submitted to, I think it's through the onboard, the onboard, and then email to Marie, I think. Yeah, they just did to Marie, right? The email and an on—. They probably did.

Yeah, probably to Marie because she was in that thing time. But she said to send the email to them, but they were told that all they had to do was just send her an email that they planned to request to stay on the commission to renew, and they didn't have to go out and do the online thing, that they just did that. Okay. And that was Al, Robert, and Eleanor, right? Okay.

Nice having them. Dates there now. Yeah, and I would suspect that Cal's is going to be the year '27. Um, yes, he's in the last one, so he'll be the same, same as me, be '27.

And that when he gets on it, because, uh, Jason and myself are on the two seats for '27. So, yeah, once you get approved and everything, you'd be on the the seat that you would be in would be the same thing.

All right. Real fast upcoming events. What we just talked about Veterans Day and what's going on, just— and there again, all three of these are up in the air based on closures and that. JBear's got the Holiday Bazaar at the Arctic Oasis Community Center, 15th and 16th of November. Don't know if it's going to happen or not because of base closures and that.

We'll have to keep our ears out and and find out if everybody wants that. Since it's run by the Officers' Wives Club, I believe those happen. That's their big way to make money. Yeah, and then there's the J-Bear tree lighting ceremony, usually at Building 1, the headquarters for the, uh, 11th Airborne Division. And normally it's a Thursday, so that would be the 4th.

However, what it will be, it will be, because they'll just have the general come out and the sergeant major come out and they will do the thing with morale, welfare, and recreation, which means they've got about 8 to 10 military along with all the civilians. So it would be, however they do that and choose to do that, I don't see them not doing it something, but it may not be a ceremony.

Okay. All right. And I will go and go see the person asked the question. Yeah, you just send out an email to everybody. Yeah, that would be great.

Um, does anybody have anything else that's coming up this month, beginning of next month? Just the—. The Read Size America will still be going on. Yeah, it's, uh, that's in December. Yeah, 13th December.

I didn't put it on here. I was waiting till the next thing. Breeze Across America, at the National Cemetery. The problem is if this closure is still going on, that the cemetery will be closed, might be closed. There are already— there's already rumors that they might be closing, not be doing any more burials until they open.

And, uh, So did you tell all the people that are dying? Yeah, we got to hold off, right? They actually do hold off sometimes when bills get closed. Yeah. All right, I'm going to say something.

The mayor is going to another Veterans Day event at the Anchorage Senior Center on the 12th. They're having a lunch there from 12 to 1:30 PM. That's open to all veterans. Let's all go there. It's already on Wednesday the 12th.

It's already booked up. Oh, you sold all the tickets? Right. Wow. Yeah, they called me today saying, are you sure you're gonna have 2 people?

So, uh, they're scrambling for seats. Nice. There is 2 people for the mayor's office. Thanks. We cannot go unless you've already got seats RSVP.

Yeah, there is a waitlist, so get your free meal.

That's great that it's sold out though. It's sold out. Showing of support. It was free, so the price was right.

All right, anything for the good of the Commission? Yes. Yeah, I've been trying to see the video of our meeting and online as of last night, the last one is March of this year. What's happening to our videos? You know, because Bob needs them so he can do the minutes and go back and recap, you know, because it's harder.

He does a great job. It's hard for him to sit down and write and listen and partake, but he needs to have those videos online. And Mark is the last one. Okay, I can look into that. I think it's the YouTube postings.

Okay. Yeah. And also, I mean, we can start doing it where you have AI. That would make your job easier. So, Diana, we could just look at— I mean, you just click a button and then it automatically takes the notes.

Yeah, the transcription. She does set it. She does. I just watched it the last couple of times. She does set it for video and transcription.

So. Okay, the transcript is different, so that's different than that. But you can use the transcript to do it, to write notes. Yeah, yeah, but we, but we need to have them online. That's, that's the main thing.

So we can go back.

Okay, yeah, yeah, I can check on those. All right, yeah, I know. Um, also, if you get— if everybody checks, there are, uh, with the shutdown And with the relief for the people from Punan and that, there are a number of veterans organizations that are collecting. Yeah. And the Military YMCA is definitely collecting food and stuff and everything for the military families as there's a good chance that they won't get paid coming up on the 15th if this carries on.

So, if anybody wants to pass out to their organizations, post— AMVETS Post 49 is collecting clothes and everything and boxing it up and sending that off for relief to people on the West, in the West that are— need jackets and shoes and everything and everything else that they need, toiletries and all that. So, just to pass that on, that get out there and if you check and pass it on to people that are— people that are doing that. I would like to give a sitrep of the people that were impacted by the flood because we, as not as a commission per se, but as an organization, were there, and I'd like to just give you 30 seconds on what happened and why it was important to us. Only 30 seconds because we're 15 minutes over. All right.

Went to Bethel, saw the National Guard. They were doing great things. The people came back here, they did not have adequate postal service and some other ID issues. We, as a representative of the group but not as a commissioner, went and took care of the little minutia that they missed, and I just want you to know that it was greatly received that we serviced our veterans that were in those groups of people who were evacuated. So I say kudos to you for giving us the impetus and the position to be able to do that for them because everybody was doing their thing But little things are important when it's your life.

So I just want you to know that we were doing something as a group and it's ongoing. So just kudos to everyone. Keep doing what we do. Thank you for that. And I'll just say, Laurel was deployed for 2 and a half weeks as part— 2 weeks as part of the National Guard effort.

Yes, you were. Yes, you were. Was there and did represent the municipality in the Guard. Extremely well. Extremely well.

The shelters are now both closed, but Egan Center still is on hold in case more people come into Anchorage. Evacuees are at 4 different hotels, and there still is a community-wide effort to support those people that are in Anchorage. Claire Ross is the contact at the municipality. If you or others have any interest in help volunteering, Claire Ross, it's just [email protected], who is helping working with both the Red Cross and the new contractor that is at the hotels supporting people from Western Alaska that are here. But thank you very much.

Anchorage really is showing up. Is doing a great job. Great job. And I am on the daily morning calls and the effort by the Guard and the State of Alaska in Western Alaska is tremendous.

All right. Next meeting. I just want to say as a former Air National Guard member myself, seeing all those photos of what they have done, I was so proud of the 176th Unit. And everyone else out there. Really proud.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, next meeting, next meeting, the first is the next, is the first Monday. All right, does anybody have any problems doing it on the first, or do we want to postpone until the 8th? First.

First. First. Everybody's happy on the first? All right.

All right, I will entertain a motion. Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? Thank you.

All right, thank you all once again. Very productive meeting this time. Thank you, ladies. Going to be your, your person now.