Anchorage Assembly: Military and Veterans Affairs Commission June 2, 2025

And go ahead, Mr. Chair, back to you.

Captain Lawton.

Hello, yes, I'm Captain Lawton with the 477th Fighter Group. I'm the public affairs officer and we are an Air Force Reserve unit here on JBear. I was invited by Kyle, so this is my first meeting.

Nice. Welcome. Yeah, welcome. Thank you. The, the more we have people that we have that can give us information and give us more people to, to share information back and forth within the different military sections makes this a whole lot easier.

Thank you. And Bob. Yeah, I'm Bob Sherrill. I'm the current executive director and president of the Alaska Veterans Museum, which is located downtown on 4th Avenue and D. The museum is the only one specifically that is the Alaska Veterans Museum, and we are focused on honoring and our nation's veterans and ensuring their sacrifices to defend the nation, that they will not be forgotten. Kind of the basics, graduated originally from Washington State University.

I got my master's from the University of Southern California. I spent nearly 28 years in the military in the Air Force and then spent 15 years as a DOD civilian And in between those times, I worked as a business development manager for an air freight company for 4.5 years. So I have my resume here that I can pass out to anyone who's interested, but I'm still involved in the community big time and try to keep going. And that's why I think I can bring a lot to Commission. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Normally with Bob, I was going to wait until Bob, we actually get the paperwork through, and then we'll go through the part where we introduce ourselves to him. And it sounds like we might have another person who's filling out an application and coming in.

Was it, uh, Al— wasn't his— Cal Williams was his last name, is that correct? Yeah, I met him at the memorial there and talked to him and he expressed interest and I've been sending emails back and forth. So he's supposed to be submitting his applications, uh, so hopefully he does that.

Thanks, Derek. Awesome. Well, I definitely want to thank all of our guests for being here, and I hope Bob's paperwork gets through the process quickly. The more, the more on the commission, the better, and the more input that we have from the military community and the veteran community, the better it is. Yes.

Mr. Chair? Yes. If I could, uh, put a request into the, uh, to, uh, Anna Marie. Yes.

When these applications go through, uh, are submitted, if you could let us know at our meetings what stage they're in, because in a hit, it's been a history of us not really knowing where our applications are. I know Bob's had his, and he's had submitted twice. I believe, Bob, is that correct? And, uh, they get kind of lost, so if you could, uh, and is it best if the applicant calls you or calls, uh, Diana? Yeah, they're always, uh, welcome to call me.

Yeah, yeah, but it's been kind of lost in the past, so if you could kind of track it for us, we'd appreciate it. Yeah, I have your application March 7th, but it says Arts Advisory Commission. Was that an error maybe? And then I got a new one May 17th. Yeah, okay, the art, the, the March one never responded, never.

Yeah, for Arts Advisory. It doesn't even make sense. Yeah, so, but that's for military. Yeah, so it came up in May, and the next opportunity for an assembly meeting will be June 24th, and I'll forward your name to the mayor for that meeting. So that will be in time before the July meeting.

So hopefully by July meeting you'll be official. Okay. Well, that's still all pending mayor's approval, of course. May I please say thank you so much for your encouragement of all of us to be on our recruiting with our recruiting hats. Please, I do appreciate that very much because that's what we— I prepare— I promised the mayor that we would do.

So as we get that process together, if you would be so kind as to share share that with me. I'd be happy to share that with the commissioners so we've all got a plan that's really short and sweet, just feeds it to you. And like you said, we have a place to watch them and see how they're going. Because I, I've had two of them as well since I started, and I want to make sure that, like you, they walk themselves down the primrose path, right? And I know, Maria, we— you and I talked in February with ya.

The mayor, and that's when you said to go ahead and do that. That was, I guess, the Japanese reception. Exactly. Yep. And yeah, and so, but it came up under the Arts Advisory.

That's why I didn't see it with Military and Veterans Affairs. So good to know, and I'm glad Al called. Well, that's what Al and I connected, and then I said, well, how do we get around this? And I said, well, we just send it once you get it all done And it comes back, then I send it direct to you so you have it. There we go.

That works. So thank you for the follow-up. And Mr. Chair, along the lines of membership, I just want to say that 3 members' terms expire in October. So Robert, I know you just started, but you inherited a term that expires 10/14/2025.

Also, Eleanor's term expires, uh, Al, yours as well. So all that's needed for that is for you to send me an email to say if you are interested or not in reappointment. Okay, so yeah, and yours probably should probably send to Dave and copy Dave. Yeah, but yeah, so great. And thank you, Mr.

Chair. I'm done with that. All right.

Committee reports. 11Th Air Force Memorial, Eleanor is not here. She does want to work out us doing a meeting at the memorial. I don't know if anybody's noticed that the memorial does have flags flying on it now.

I did actually. I live very close by, and not only did the flags fly, it's also had the barriers removed. It's been paved recently, and I do mean recently. So someone is up there taking very good care of it, just so we know. I do have photographs of it.

I can give them to whomever you like so we can all share them. And that's my piece of— I figured that would be something that we would talk about. So when that came up, I just wanted you to know that there are great improvements. I don't know who's doing it, but I just thought we should know and have, you know, photographs. Our own archive.

I was there 10 days ago and the barriers were still up. Exactly, that's how fresh this is. Was the road that goes in front of the memorial, was it also paved? Yes. Yes, that's what I'm saying.

What's that? That's the airfield then. That means that the airfield personnel, when they paved that that road down there, that means they also went and paved, repaved the pavement portion of the memorial. Can we give them a thank you or something, or, you know, look at, look at what, how, you know, communicate something with them and say, you know, what were you doing? We'd love to have you come and talk to us about what we'd like to do.

That is, that is that how we'd like to proceed with that? This all started out by talking with them, right, right, right. Yeah, they're the ones that gave us all the prices for everything, for the parts that they were doing, and got quotes for— because it started off with the flags being down because there was no lighting. That's right. Yeah, we did the wiring, cabling, and the light— the lights and everything don't— they don't match up.

They don't work with the new main cables. I've lived here long enough to see all that. You're absolutely right. And it was so disheveled at that time. So this What I'm getting at is, would we like to follow up with that right now while it's still kind of hot in their mind as well to say, you know, let's have a committee come and visit this right now while it's hot on everybody's list?

That's what I'm getting at. Yeah, well, we do have a committee. Eleanor is on it if you want to get with Eleanor and work with her on that. Al has already been talking with Colonel, uh, Mabot. Mabot.

Mabot. Yeah. Oh, we just met her. Okay. Yeah, there is discussions going on with that.

You want to tell me? If I could pop in here, I talked to her at the memorial and Dave had a little bit of time to talk to her and she was really enthusiastic about figuring out a way to get this thing going.

She wasn't even aware, like a lot of people, that memorial was there. It's hidden away. And so I sent her an email as a reminder, and I followed up with the office, and they're, you know, they have to get in a schedule to get to her. But she, I think she's going to be a good person to help us get this thing going. Obviously, she's probably the best.

Yeah, all the way to the top. Yeah. So we're looking forward to, to get a response back from her. And if I could ask, uh, uh, Kyle, have you heard from her office yet? Kyle?

Yes, yes. Um, I have not heard back from Colonel Mabbitt's office, and I know we've been talking about this for a few months, so that's why I was asking if We could get like a little more background. I can send it to her office and see if that's something she wants to tackle or, and I was also going to send it up to 11th Air Force, but I see that there were connections made at the memorial ceremony, which is great. I just haven't heard anything back just yet, but if you have any other background information or any future meetups, send it our way and then. Someone from our office and Colonel Mabbitt's office can attend those.

Yeah, but right now I would really wait until she gets back because she has her, you know, a table to pull. She goes everywhere. And because I did send her an email with a little bit of history on it. And so when I talked to her, I said, well, I know the 11th Air Force, they're a separate entity from the wing. And she says yes, but I will take the head on this here and I will lead it.

So let's— if we could just wait a little bit to see how she responds back, and then she'll probably reach out to you guys and maybe ask for whatever she needs then, if that's okay.

I'll give the hand, I guess. Oh, it's okay. Yeah, great idea. She just said her connection is acting up a little bit. Oh yeah, the, uh, now what, while we're talking, I would— does anybody have a problem with having our next meeting where we meet there at the memorial, the 11th Air Force Memorial?

Oh, that would be nice. It would. It's easy.

That way everybody firsthand can see it, and that gives us a month and we can put it up. And if, uh, if Colonel Maybuck wants to be there, she can, or a representative for her, um, and that way everybody can see it, and then we can, we can concentrate the majority of the meeting about that.

Okay, yeah. We need to have a decision on that if we're going to change it, because I need to put that on the public notice on the municipal website. Since your meetings are public, the public needs to be able to access the location. So I need— we need to make a decision if that's what's going to happen. That's why I'm bringing it up now.

So is that final? Yes. Okay. All in favor of having the next meeting at the at the 11th Air Force Memorial?

Raise a hand.

Oh, oh no, we lost Amal. Okay, Amal is just now coming back. Welcome back, Amal.

Sorry about that, I don't know what happened. Did you hear what we were talking about, Amal? Yeah, meeting up for the—. Meeting up at the memorial and Yeah, for the next meeting, which will be on the 7th of July.

Sounds good. All right, so that makes it unanimous. So if you could, Marie, go ahead and make that public, please. Will do.

And now that memorial— I'll pull up the paper. I'll— just to refresh everybody, I'll take and I will send out— I will find and send out a lot of that information that we got from Merrill Field and from other people on that, so everybody has the knowledge from that past knowledge.

All right, does anybody else have anything else to add to the 11th Air Force Memorial?

Discussion. I got just one comment, Dave. When you send that out, uh, I will, uh, forward it to, uh, Colonel Mabbitt. Uh, I think she should just have one person leading to her, you know, instead of getting it from different, different ways, if that's okay with you. Yep, that's fine.

Either, uh, you or Kyle, because she gets that stuff too, and Yeah, Kyle, well, yeah, okay, is that all right, Kyle?

What you think is best?

Oh yeah, Kyle, is it better that, since I've been talking to Colonel Babbitt about it, that it feeds through me, or do you want it to start feeding through you, any information? To Colonel Babbitt.

She's having trouble hearing. She's hearing the words are coming in and out. She does say that next meeting at the memorial would be great, and she's going to invite Colonel Maybutt. Right. Or Mabutt.

M-A-B-B-U-T-T. Yeah. I would suggest maybe just copying Kyle to Al so she's in the loop if you do address it, you know, and of course, David, probably.

All right. So next one.

I left that on, Al. I wasn't sure if you still wanted to talk about that now, the municipal commission page under old business.

Uh, since we're still getting more members, maybe if we just wait and it's laid on the table until we get, uh, our full complement of members. Okay, and I still have the military representatives at the meeting on there because we're still working on it, and Kyle has helped us, and we now have Captain Lawton and, uh, uh, Miss Laflamas, uh, is coming back around and going to get involved again. So we are getting better on that front. That's great. And that helps us comply with the requirements by the municipality to have these high-level people on the commission because they haven't always been on for a long time.

I was reading that recently and And we're— we've been minus some people for a while. Yeah, and not necessarily on the Commission, but liaisons to the Commission. Correct, liaison. I'm sorry. Yeah.

All right. And as before, I said that I'm keeping— I keep the shared drive and the email on there just to remind us all that it's out there so that we can keep doing stuff with it. Um, let's get down to this new business. Dave, on the shared drive, uh, Olivia, you mentioned pictures previously. Yes.

Uh, if you could put them on the shared drive, that, that way we all have access and we don't have to send— be sending back and forth. Agreed. Yes. Yep. And I will—.

And I do have to get out there and, uh, get Olivia permission, so you should be getting What will happen, Olivia, here, uh, not tomorrow, either this afternoon or Wednesday, I'll get on the share drive and, uh, add you to it, and then you should get an email from it with a, uh, a link. All right, I'll look for it. Thank you so much, Dave. And I can— if I can also ask another question, have our previous agendas and minutes been put on the shared drive, uh, because I don't know who's really— the secretary probably should be doing that, but it hadn't been done.

We'll have to, we'll have to work on getting those up there. I think we've got— I have to go back and look at it. It's been a little while. It's been a month or two since I've been on there. Hey, we got to make sure we get the, the updated versions, you know, if there's any corrections.

And, and I've got copies of them also.

All right, let's talk, uh, Memorial Day recap.

Um, first of all, I'll say thank you guys. I want to thank everybody on the commission for working hard to make it go through and work.

Uh, everything happened early. And everything went real well. Now, like I was telling Al, now that everybody has been up there on the site and been through it and see how it goes, we have an idea. When we start looking toward it next year in January or February, now we'll be able to sit back and people can take parts of it. You know, someone says, hey, I wanna "Take care of the wreaths," or "I'll take care of parking." Then we can split up the things and people can take care of parts of it, and it will go just as smooth or smoother, and it will be— we can actually make it better.

And if I can say too, the mayor was really impressed with how well you guys put that together. She wanted to be here, but she's unavailable. But she will be here next meeting just to express her appreciation to you all because it was really impressive what you all put on. And she was so proud to be recognized along with you all to be the host, the hostess, the mostest. I mean, you guys just— so yeah, on behalf of the mayor, that was really such a great event, so well organized, everything.

I mean, she had a lot of feedback afterwards that let's keep this going, you know, this is very low cost. We want to make sure that this continues. So thank you, Alan. I'm sorry you weren't there at the end when we were able to take a picture with the mayor and the commissioners. And remember, we'll be at the Merrill Field Memorial next month, so if she wants, that'd be great for her to be there.

Oh, of course. Yeah, if it tied in, yeah, it would be a good idea. Yeah, let's just block that now. Yeah, and all the legislative representatives and the local officials we have attending too. I mean, there were a few of them in the audience, so we have to make sure, you know, just for next year too.

And I told them, Mayor, you know, kind of look out on whose military and local legislators that are in the audience so that we could recognize them. So we probably need your help because I can't recognize them all. Or they tell us that they're there. I know. Yeah, I kind of—.

And that's the nice thing. That'll be the nice thing for like next year, getting the invitations out early enough to where they have a chance to respond and say, yeah, we'll be there, I'll be there. Yeah, our CP, exactly, because Yeah, some of them came late too. Yeah, and I had personally invited each and every one of our representatives and senators from Eagle River and Anchorage, you know, besides their— the, uh, to the mayor's office. All right, so, uh, but I got some comments if you have— if you, if you got more stuff, Dave.

Yeah, go ahead, Al. One thing, uh, I had asked for— I volunteered to do the flyers for the, uh, for the Memorial Day, and I had sent out a couple requests for help, and all but Amado responded because, uh, because of his business, business, uh, he was tied up, but I got no responses, and I was very disappointed because my wife and Dave's wife and Dave's grandkids had to help. So next year, I'd appreciate if you guys can, you know, and I was open for any time, any day. It could have been at 10 o'clock at night, didn't matter. But that was kind of disappointing.

You know, there's also, you know, the military school there. Oh yeah, they do a lot of that volunteering, and we just have to contact them ahead of time. Yeah, well, but since they're part of the VA Yeah, but this, I don't think there's any reason why, you know, it takes a half hour or so to do. It's real short and couple commissioners, but I got no help at all. So that's what kind of disappointed me.

What exactly were you looking for us to do, please? People house to house. House to house. The immediate neighborhood of the memorial, we passed out flyers announcing there'd be a lot of noise and gunshots going off, and so people wouldn't be alerted, especially the senior citizens. Around there.

But anyway, that's over. Next year we'll do better. It's something we do every year. We call it the residential letters. They go out for the homes that are right there along 10th Avenue and both sides of 11th, where the motorcycles start.

And it's just a courtesy letter that says, hey, just a reminder, Memorial Day's coming up. There's going to be motorcycles. There's going to be shots fired. And loud speaking and some music. And we will make sure that's an easy thing we'll do, that we will make sure that, that, because like you just said, when each of these groups gets to take that piece, then they can dig deep and, and go into the little minutia with their own tribe to take care of all the little minutia stuff.

So absolutely, everyone needs to start making the list while it's still fresh in our mind of the lessons learned, the things we did, you know, do well, blah, blah, blah. So maybe that's something we can do is everyone send what we think we remember did well in our little lane and the things that got— like you, Al, that said, you know what, I could have done, I could have had more, blah, blah, blah. It would have been really great if— so anyway, I think that's time for that right now. We could go through Marie for that. Yes.

Yes, I'm—. Yeah, and I believe the one point that Al's trying to make out is, you know, uh, Al's been very good at trying to keep a list of it, of all the commissioners' emails and phone numbers, and distribute it to all the commissioners. Um, and he— I sent it out and he sent it out numerous times. Uh, we talked about it the last meeting. And that, you know, about that we needed people to volunteer and to meet up with Alan, help him get the resident letters out.

And all the emails, his 2 or 3 and my 1, nobody responded to them. And we need to keep an eye out for, you know, communications from other commissioners. And then when they do send them, we need to Even if we can't help, say, I'm sorry, I can't be there that day and time, but we need to respond to each other. Communication is number one thing.

Sounds good. And I'm sending—. Anything else, Al? I have a couple more things. Yeah.

One thing I noticed, there is a— when the motorcycle started, there was a big delay. Yeah. And wait there. And maybe next year we— I don't know what— how that's coordinated, but that was kind of, I think, a little disruptive during the ceremonies.

Yeah, I don't know what caused that. Well, I'm gonna— when we start planning for next year, we used to have the motorcycles were the very first thing. They would start out right at 9:30. They would go up, do their thing, and their stop, and then the speaking part of the program would start after that.

A former person that was in charge, who was the chair for the commission, wanted to change it around so that there was some speaking first, to, you know, so everybody knew the ceremony was starting. And that coordination always causes a problem between it because that little speaking portion, if it gets to like one year, it got delayed by a minute or two. Last year, uh, the coordination between the two got messed up and the motorcycles were coming down the road right in the middle of the speaking portion. So, so I'm going to talk about next year, I'm going to kind of suggest that we go back to letting letting the motorcycles and Rolling Thunder happen, and then the MC can start the speaking portion of the ceremony, and that will negate and do away with that problem completely. Well, it's our ceremony, so we have the word on it.

Yeah. And the last thing I have is the wreath. There is kind of some confusion, I think, during the wreath. So, uh, I wasn't up there. I kind of had a little fainting spell there, but, uh, we need to make sure we, we, we announce that the, uh, VIPs, it's time to get their wreath and have that area clear so they can go back there because there were people back there so they can do their portion and block off the, the entrance behind the, uh the wall there where the other people come in and tell it's time for them to go.

A little bit of coordination, I believe, would help out a lot better. More of your VIPs didn't know where they needed to be. Yeah. And then they got stuck behind other folks when they should have just come around. Yeah.

So just take care of all them first, the VIPs, the Golden Stars, like that. Yes. Yep, I have to do that every year for Veterans Day. I have to be a wreath Nazi, basically. Well, last year worked out pretty good, but then, uh, Helen and I— Ellen and I were, uh, kind of coordinating them, but this year, for some reason, got a little jumbled.

But anyway, that's for next year. I don't think that I've ever seen anywhere where everybody just mob straight forward like that before. That was, it was crazy this year. That's, well, for those of us who's its first time, it is, we didn't notice. So it just happened, part of the show.

Remember, this is the, the announcer needs to tell the VIPs to go first and have the other folks wait until the VIPs have lined up and are ready to lay their wreaths. That's really the key, and then it goes smoothly. Rest of them, it doesn't make any difference where they are, they'll just kind of go and follow. Yeah, and also the military, we're sticklers for precise and exactness. We're supposed to be.

Yeah, which is good. And that's why the one thing I suggest that we do go back and if we, except for the VIPs on stage and the VIPs in the front row, they're going behind them, is that we keep the wreaths from behind the art wall and let everybody go back behind that wall and line up to come and get their wreaths. And of course, the VIPs come straight over from the stage, and any VIP sitting in the first couple rows, they, they come straight up after, but everybody else, if you send them back behind that wall, then it kind of forces them to have to go up and around. But that's just— that's gonna be up to whoever's running the race and how they wanna do it.

That's all I asked. Alright. This— Al, did you have any more comments? No, other than that, I think it went pretty good. All right, anybody else have any comments?

Uh, yeah, Mr. Chair, this is Marie. I had sent you all an email and I offered to just make one spreadsheet of all the lists, uh, of the tasks involved in this, and maybe we can put a due date and maybe the What's before May? April meeting. We can have your April meeting, we can have assignments assigned to members and maybe some non-members.

I'm looking at you, we'll put you to work. And, uh, you know, we can have a discussion of run of show at your April meeting. And so there's no April, April will be too late to start, right? Okay, well So yeah, it's just, that's just the idea. Whenever it is, no, by April I'm thinking it's a run-up show.

Everything has been assigned. It's just running through in our heads what's supposed to happen, who's doing it, and yeah. So your Excel should be out in January. Yes. Oh, I started now.

Exactly. And assigned. So I'll do that. If you can all send it to me, we have the templates for the letters, you know, we can I can take that assignment, the agenda to print, the run of show, so we'll be better prepared. Because speaking of that, we need to look at it as if Dave wasn't here and he wasn't doing anything, because we don't know.

Dave, you know, hopefully you'll be around for a long time, but things happen in the world, you know. So, yep. And we need— and at the chair You should be managing, not doing all this stuff. Hear, hear. That— so delegation.

Who's vice chair? Who's the vice president? Who's the whatever? Who's the person? Fellner's vice chair.

Okay, all right. We just gotta— we just gotta remember that it was done this year because we were not even half the time being able to get a quorum. Okay, well, that— so we, we had to go with it. That's why I'm saying now that We're starting to get a base of people. Everybody's been out there and see how it's going.

It's much easier to hand stuff off to people when they've seen what it is and where it is. And so now next year will be a lot easier for people to say, okay, yeah, I remember that. I can take it. Plus, I'm gonna— I'm working putting this stuff together.

So, all right. Anybody else?

Good, bad? What they saw was good? What they saw— what you saw was bad?

Okay. Amal, did you have anything? He left. Oh, I see. Did he drop off again?

Oh, maybe it's—. Yeah, he's going back to work. Yeah.

All right then. Actually, um, Al, next thing on the agenda, official membership meeting. Yes, we got an email from Diana, uh, a while back regarding, you know, government public meetings, and in that because we were going to get together at the World Day Mall and make sure everything was okay and up to snuff. And so then she gets the email out saying that, you know, if it's over 3, I think it is, that you have to have to be announced, etc., etc.

Uh, that was not an official meeting. Uh, I don't know why it was sent out, uh, because we weren't making any decisions. We're all— we're doing is looking over the area and making sure that electricity was there and blah, blah, blah, you know. So I don't know why that was generated. Yeah, okay.

So there is a state statute. I've got it right here, SAS 44-52-310, general public government meeting public. It's a state statute. Exactly. It's called the Open Meetings Act that says that because this is a public commission, your meeting should be, uh, officially You need for transparency, you know, any, any opportunity or any meetings that might result in any business discussions, it must be noticed to the public.

So anytime you have 3, uh, you can have 3 and not be public notice, but any more than that, you run the risk of it being a public meeting. So that was sent out by Diana because The chair sent out an email inviting you all to come, and we don't know who is coming. If more than 3 of you showed up, that could have been a public meeting. That— and we don't know what will be discussed. You never know.

It's always— we want to avoid the perception that we're not being transparent with the meeting, so it's just a precaution to public notice it, which really, uh I, we don't, I don't see a negative consequence for that, but except we're following code to public notice it. It doesn't matter what you intend to— well, it does matter, but I think what, what triggered that email is because we don't know how many of you will show up. But Dave stated it wasn't— he said it was— he didn't say it wasn't the meeting, he said it was to scope out the location for Memorial Day. That's not a meeting. That's just making sure that everything's up to snuff.

It's, it's still with the perception. If a bunch of you—. I don't interpret that way with this. I gotta pay attention right here. I don't interpret the same way.

Yeah, no, but so if we get together for like, say we want to have a hot dog roast and the 3 of us or more, is that a meeting? Yes. You know what, what the assembly does if they get invited? If you look at the public notices, um, in the municipal website There was posted there a one, and there's several of them. One example is just a constituent, an Anchorage resident celebrating 100th birthday.

They invited the assembly, all of the assembly, right? And so because they don't know who's coming, they post it as a public meeting so the public is aware because we want to take care that there— we want to ensure there's no perception there. Of not being transparent with meetings. So we'd rather err on the side of caution to public notice it so that people don't see you all at the memorial, like the whole commission. What are you doing there?

We want to avoid that. And so it's just a safe and the more transparent thing to do to comply with that is to public notice it. Okay, well, I never different, but okay.

The mayor's office, whatever they want to do it, then we have to comply by that, by their interpretation. Okay. All right. Upcoming events.

June 6th, we have the J-Bear Military Appreciation Picnic. That's going to be at the Buckner Fitness Center field. Is it behind it? Where it's at? So anybody that wants to go— see, this is where, this is where it gets to that point, Marie, where like Al's talking about, you know, we have this piece right here.

Well, perfect example, more than 3 of us decide to go to the picnic. Yep, there's no harm in public noticing it, but that's why you RSVP too if you are interested in going so we know. And like I said, it's not just the mayor's office, but the municipal clerk. That's what they do for the assembly members as well, because they're bound by the same statute. And my point is, we can also show up unknowing that other people are going to be there, and we will have—.

If we don't know, yes, you know, I mean, we can't do anything about something we don't know. But if there's such an invitation like that, it's always good. And you can come and see my book. Yeah, and we are, we're celebrating the Europe World War II, Europe D-Day because it is D-Day, and also Alaska's World War II part. So we have two different tables, the museum does, that'll show off that with my expert there to talk about anything and everything, Colonel.

Zoella Novak, right? Right, Novak?

Yeah. Awesome. We also have Flag Day on 14 June. Many of the veterans' organizations will be doing Flag Day ceremonies and barbecues.

And I know Post 1 will be, I know American Legion Post 28 will be. I'm not sure who else. Is AMVETS too doing theirs this year? No, they're not. VFW and Eagle River is doing a big one too.

Good job. Yeah, they usually have a big one up there.

Yes, Olivia.

Flag Day is one of my biggest irritants, right up there with Easter and Easter bunnies. Can we—. Is it—. I, I even looked it up just to see if this was us to fix this.

We're all part of military organizations somewhere and service organizations somewhere, and people invariably put up their flag, bless her peeping hearts, in the most ridiculous manners imaginable. And now that our children don't know, but they really want to be part of this, the units are not able to a week to a week or 10 days before Flag Day to get out there and put out a flyer to say, this is how it's done. All of us have sat at NCO school for our, what is it, what was that we used to sit for? Soldier of the Quarter. That was one of the Soldier of the Quarter questions you always had.

NCO of the Quarter for Air Force. I'm late, but that's okay.

But, um, so what I'm getting at though is what I understand as a commission is we kind of represent the questions that the mayor wants to know, are the questions that the municipality people would love to understand, and they have us to go get that information and give it to them. And Flag Day is one of the things, please tell me, Dave and commissioners, is this something that we can fix? I would so want any, the morning show 3 days before Flag Day on KTUU, you know what I'm talking about?

Flag Day, this is how, what it means. First off, it's not a barbecue.

Number 2, why we're doing it in 2025 and when we started. Just 2 seconds. And then, ta-da! If it's in a window, it's— or if it's the 3 building, you know, the 3 in the front of a building, it's a sentence. And tell them how it works.

If you're at Kroger's, there's a reason why it's looking that way. Or what is it? Cars. Or Freddy's. All I'm saying is, is that something that we— how beautiful would the mayor's office be?

Because it's such a local— and you're talking about the veterans, the Alaska veterans. I mean, how do we do it? But I'm talking about television, anything on television, you gotta get whatever IP. We got that, we got it. We can do that.

I'm just saying, Dave, what do you think about that? I don't know about on television. I know that we have sent out the, uh, we have sent out the little, the Flag Day, you can get them online, the flag, the, uh, flag etiquette, uh, yes, digital, yes, we have, uh, we have in the past taken and posted those on our Facebook page, and of course then all of the different, uh, commissioners shared that out also. And that's not a bad idea. No, it's, it's a very good idea.

The problem is, who knows about our Facebook besides us? That's typically any association. But that's— and that's also why we put it on our Facebook page, and then all of the commissioners share it out to their people. Who shared out the other day. It is just, just don't let it be the end, just don't let it be the end-all be-all.

Let that be part of our marketing campaign as our print media. But television, I can tell you what it takes because I've done it a couple of times now, and that is, get this, a phone call. And worse now is they're going to say, back in the day, we have to produce that because they did. They had to produce the channel would have to go out and get their people to bring in the little person to say, hi, I'm Janine with the Flag Day today, and this is how it's gonna— somebody has to create that, right? So they're— so their bulk used to be that.

Yeah, I promise you, by tonight on my cell phone, something— there's software now I can make a face with all the commissioners on it, or however we want. It's only 10 seconds, and theoretically they've got to do them anyway because they're what? Public service announcements. Yeah, I can ask— I can talk to our comms people who has contacted the press. Oh, to do that.

So I'm feeling that this is what we can do. Yeah, yeah, this is what you all are here for Flag Day. Flag Day. Yes, but yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair.

We're at 1, and I actually have a meeting at 1, so we need—. I'm sorry, Diane, meeting here or here? There's another one there, but I need to run over there. So, and, and don't forget also the radio and also the, the, the school ASD. We need to contact them because I know my grandkids always bring flags for flag, you know, Gotcha.

You and me, Al, we'll do that. Cool too. Okay. Yeah. And so to finish out the calendar, upcoming events, we got the Navy Week, 16 to 22 June, and of course Independence Day on the 4th of July.

There is a big parade and everything downtown that goes around that is down there, and so that everybody knows. All right, um, does anybody have anything for the good of the commission? I got one more thing. Yes, Al, if we can get Anna Marie? Yes.

I was thinking, why aren't we marching in these parades we have in Anchorage? And if we do that, we need to have a banner.

If we all agree, could we get AF University to make up a banner for us? Or what parade? Fourth of July. You're talking about July parade, the Pirandi parade. Oh, a banner for a—.

A banner, and we walk behind it and carry Military. Anchorage. Military. You gotta make sure we put Anchorage before that. Anchorage Military Veterans Affairs Center.

Municipality is actually what we perform, so it covers, you know, we got to confirm. Yeah, well, yeah, our title. I'm going by our title. Okay, I can work on that, but I have a lot of assignment. Okay.

Yeah, so that's okay. I think that'd be great. And, and I've been over there before that the, uh, King Career Center makes those. Yeah, we have our own repro printing shop here. Oh, okay.

Yeah, and the— also this, Kyle mentions, asks the question, if anyone needs base access for the military appreciation picnic, please send an email to her at jbear.pa. All right, in our— if you look at any of the emails, it's to all of us about the stuff, that email is in there also. Now real fast before we got to go, Bob, Jeffrey, Captain Lawton, Angela, do any of you have anything, any events coming up or anything that you want to add in?

The only one I might add, this is Bob Sherrill, is that I open up the use of the Alaska Veterans Museum foyer for any annual, like, veteran recognition things that have been done in the past. Yeah. And it's easy walk from here to there. Exactly. So that's— I just offer that up.

Wow. So we can, we can make that happen at any time. Yeah. Nice. All right.

Okay, so Captain changed her mind. She said nothing at this time. Angela, go ahead. Hi, so the Alaska Military Youth Academy is having a graduation next Thursday, June 12th, at the Alaska Airlines Center, and that starts at 10 AM. We have 110 cadets from all across Alaska that will be graduating out of our program, so if you'd like to come help us celebrate them, we'd love to have you.

Congratulations.

Is that the largest time on that again? I think that's the largest class she's ever had. It's—. It starts at 10:00 AM. All right, let's get here.

Thank you, sir. All right, does anybody else have anything?

Motion adjournment. Do I have a motion for adjournment?

Second. I'll second. All in favor to adjourn.

Aye. Better not oppose. Once again, thank everybody again for the participation and all the hard work.

Thank you, Marie, for everything. Of course. Thank you. And thank you for our guests for coming as well. Thank you.

And Mr. Sherrill, hopefully next time you're official.

If you don't change your mind between now and then. If you hear from Cal—. I emailed him. Yeah. All right.

Well, thank you all. It's open. Angela, thank you very much. Jeffrey, always good to see you.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you both. All right. Thank you.

I'll give you a tour. Thanks, Andrew, Captain Lawton. Yes. Bye.