Military and Veteran's Affairs Commission Meeting 2025 03 04

Background. I know, right? Yeah, well, we've got quite a few over at the VFW, so glad to, uh, donate one. Maybe you—. All right, I am here.

Is member Eleanor is present? No.

Al is present. Amal is not. And hopefully He'll be coming in. And then Robert, is it pronounced Eel? Yes, Eel.

All right, is our new commissioner and he is present.

We also have Marie from the MUNI. We have Kyle Huffman from the Military PO or PA, and Jeffrey Slacou Jr. from, is coordinator from the DMVA.

Right now at this point, we do not have a quorum.

We can always hope that here sometime soon that them all will be able to make it in.

So, not going to go on with any of the business business. So, I am going to talk about, because we can do that as a committee, we don't have to have a quorum or anything to talk as a committee for the Memorial Day. So we'll talk about that, put up that information. So for the Memorial Day, I sent the request in and Kyle, distributed out the request for the guest speaker has gone to, for Colonel Mabbutt. Mabbutt, I'm saying that wrong.

Yeah, so I, I could just touch on it real quick if you want. I did send it up to Colonel Mabbutt's office. She, I'm just waiting to hear back on that and what her calendar is like. If not, she will come back with somebody else to speak, but Usually she's pretty good about that. Um, the chaplain, uh, I know David, I think he connected with you about also being a guest speaker.

So if he didn't, let me know. And then, um, I just got confirmation this morning that we will be able to have color guard. So, um, that's the salute and everything, um, for that day, just like it has been done in past. So they just needed clarification, but that's all cleared up and they should be good to go. Fantastic, thank you very much.

And yes, the chaplain has contacted back with me. Okay, sounds, sounds good. Usually Color Guard doesn't reach out to the event POC till a little bit sooner. We are still a little bit out, but if you just need to talk to them about anything or you have some questions or you have check-in information, you can send it my way and I'll just bug them and let them know you'd like to talk to them sooner. So just keep me in the loop for that.

Yeah, just as long as they, they get to meet, get with me, us, uh, at least like before the— around the beginning of May, end of April, beginning of May. And that way, just so we can— because we're going to have a date that we, that we're going to set for everybody to just have everybody meet over there. Okay. And have a little talk through so they see where the site's at, where they're going to come up, where the chaplain will be there, we'll be there. It's just nice to have everybody there so they can see it.

Okay, great. When you guys decide when you're doing a site visit, if you just send me the information and I can also pop over there too, I'd love to attend. Okay.

Yeah, I'm a little bit confused. Well, that's normal. Uh, Air Force Memorial and then Memorial Day. So they're not tied together? They're two different separate issues altogether?

11Th Air Force Memorial is the flags and the memorial that are on the back side of, uh, oh, what we talked about a while back, right? Okay, that back there, it's kind of like—. Yeah, I got you. That was on my mind. Yeah, I, I got you now because we hadn't talked about in a while, right?

Because we haven't been able to really do anything, and that's done through Parks and Rec. Yeah, well, it's going to be— it's, it's our part, and now we got to do our part again because we just gathered the information and gave it to the mayor, and then it was for the, the mayor and the municipality to figure out what they want to do with it because it is on basically, uh, city property. Yeah, it's on municipality property that was donated to him, but it's sitting on top of a dump that used to be back on that side. And so it's, it's there, it's falling apart. And, uh, there was at one time before COVID there was a thing that was happening, uh, that was looking at getting it moved on to Jay Bear.

That's not going to happen anymore. All the people that were involved in that are gone, long gone. And moving it over there takes it from where people can see it. So now it's just Parks and Rec, like we don't have the money to repair it or maintain it. And so it's just giving the information and what do they want to do with it as they go down, because it's sitting there.

And if you don't know the history of the 11th Air Force Memorial, some years ago, right in the beginning of the 2000s, there was a, uh, 11th Air Force Association that wanted to put a monument up here because the original 11th Air Force headquarters was on Merrill Field when they first came up here. And, uh, so that's why they put a memorial over there, and they raised a bunch of money They built it. They got donated— a lot of stuff working at donated. They got the, the ground donated from this pilot. They, they engineered it.

They did it. And the Sergeants Association was maintaining it. And then little by little, the 11th Air Force group down out of Colorado just disappeared. The 11th Air Force Association kind of stopped maintaining it, and it just— it's under some places now for the ground has gone down or the pieces have gone up or both a good 2 feet. And now, lucky the thing was very much over-engineered, so it's not— but it's the panels have got pins in them to kind of hold them and use each other to keep them from falling.

But it's right now, it's It's barricaded off because it's unsafe, so people are complaining about that. So you know the state of Alaska has a memorial endowment fund that's awarded every year for the purpose of either creating new monuments or the upkeep and fixing of existing monuments. So that's something that's— you guys might want to think about looking into. It's a couple— it comes from the sale of veterans license plates from the DMV. Uh-huh.

And so every time that there's a sale of those or a renewal of veterans license plates or stuff like that. So it's a couple thousand. In the past, I think it's gone up to about $10,000. It usually averages somewhere between like $7,000 to $9,000. I don't, I don't know how much the whole cost of that is, but it's something to think about.

I mean, that's, that's a, that's a start, but right, I mean, I doubt it's, it's the full amount, but I think, I think the, the light is, uh, the, like, it's not lit anymore because all the lights that were put in there were based off of the old, uh, lighting or the electrical conduit that went through the backside. Well, they've redone that whole conduit and is now no longer the same wattage that it was before, and wattage or voltage or whatever it is. So now none of the lights and nothing in there on the memorial will work and have to be totally redone. I think they were— somebody had gotten a quote, the, the airport had got a quote It was like around $16,000 just to redo the lighting. Yeah.

And I mean, there's a, you know, there's always the possibility to, our office is always trying to help those types of projects, you know. Yeah. State projects, we've done stuff out on like ADAC, Natu. We've done veteran cemeteries up in Nome where we've helped put in memorials for some of their veteran cemeteries. So that endowment fund has been going for, The cemetery out here or something.

Yeah, I think we did one out here, the, the Veterans, uh, or, or even the civilian one. Yeah, uh, or even the Park Strip. That used to be a runway. Yeah, you know, it was like the beginning of an airport. Yeah, uh, something.

I know our, like, our office, we helped when the, um.

The Park Strip flag had been, I think it got, I don't know if it got destroyed or if it got damaged in a windstorm or something. I remember we helped with that. So our office is always trying to help with those exact situations, you know, so. And it's not a bad idea. Yeah, so I mean, I can send you guys the information on the Endowment Fund and, you know, you guys can at least look at it.

And like I said, it gets applied for by various organizations. We usually have like 1 or 2 a year.

And then the Veterans Advisory Council to the Governor, they vote on it every year on which memorial to, or which application to grant those awards to. So. Well, he nominated me for this project. Mm-hmm. For the Sam's Club.

Yep. So, uh, and I've been thinking like, well, who do I go to, you know, other than the park? I'm sure it's a city park place. Uh, yeah, send me something. Okay, I'll give you my email.

Yeah, yeah, I'll send you the info. Okay, my text is better. Okay, so additional clarification, you just talked about the Wing Commander and honor guard and stuff. What are they going to do? This is for Memorial Day.

You were, you were here last, remember the memorial? Yeah, but I'm getting confused now. You're talking about another memorial, 11th Air Force. So, okay, when you just mentioned that, that didn't tie into 11th, to the 11th Air Force. So, okay, because we were talking about that and then, yeah, we, we, okay, we, and we, we got segued to the 11th Air Force off of your question and we just, okay, I just let it go because it was a good discussion.

It was my time together, I couldn't do it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. But going back to the Memorial Day ceremony, this is on the park strip over here. So we got that.

I've got the request in. Um, the request has been submitted for the packet. It's a— it contains the request for the special ceremony, um, the right-of-way, uh, noise. I got the noise piece to it, the fire department, the police, um, all of the different pieces to it that— and they'll go through. We send it into, uh, uh, Kathleen over at the, uh, she's at now, but she, she takes it in and then she distributes the pieces out to where they need to go and then gives me answers back on it.

So you want me to get a hold of the Youth Corps like I did last time? That's what I was going to ask you, if you would. Oh, okay. If you would get a hold of Youth Corps. I'll get a hold of the Downtown Partnership about the chairs.

And so the pieces—. Sure. So, and have you put a request into the, the band? Like, I put in a request for the band and Kyle said nope, we can't get the band. So now we have to— we need to start looking at what can we do band anymore.

No, no, they're—. They're in Hawaii. But remember, we were told by, uh, the lieutenant before he left that we could still get— possibly get the band if we put a request in, and they would bring them up here. Um, Kyle has checked into— she said nope. You know, we got so many, uh, bagpipers in Anchorage and in the valley.

Well, get some bagpipers together. That is just like— I know at least two. Well, yeah, but the— it's the— so the question with that is, because remember, they're playing at the beginning, they're playing when they're laying the wreaths, a lot of bagpipes. Yeah, the— I mean, we don't have a local band anymore. There is the band in Hawaii, and you're more than welcome to try to request them.

I'm just going to let you know that it's most likely wouldn't happen. Not that they don't care, but they get a lot of requests. And because it's just them for the area now, they're focused on the big, big, big events. Um, and so you're more than welcome to put in that request with the link, but I think we might have to start using local talent. Yeah.

Have you guys ever heard of the Glacier Brass? Yes, they'll be playing at the, uh, park at the cemetery, and trying to get them to be able to come here and set up and then move is not gonna—. It won't happen. Okay. Yeah, we need somebody like them.

Yeah, they're the guys we use for the—. For our Veterans Day ceremony every year. So yeah, they're good. I know there are a lot of them are veterans too. Yeah.

The Sons of, uh, in the Midnight Sons. Midnight Sons, yeah, they'll be at the Park Strip also, at the cemetery also. Cemetery, yeah, I know they do that every year. And so it's a matter of finding another group or a little brass quartet, sync that, you know, 4 or 5 pieces that could play patriotic music leading up to it and then during the laying of the wreaths and the national anthem and the state song. I don't know, but does like the university, do they have a band at all or music talent there by chance?

That was my thought. Let me follow up on that. Yeah, I've never heard of— if you'll take that piece on trying to find either maybe the college, high school— no, high schools are a thing, but a lot of the high schools are graduating the week before, that week, the week after. Yeah, the week after. Yeah, they're, yeah, they graduate.

The middle, the, yeah, UA graduates on, I think, the 7th. But I will check into different options. If you just check different options and that— I mean, we always have the backup, the backup of the backup. If nothing else, we play all the music off the sound system. Oh, there we go.

Okay, but that does become a little bit more of a pain, but, uh, it can be done. What day does Memorial Day fall on? 26Th. Oh, okay. I was going to say I'm not going to be here, but I will be here.

I'll be back. Okay, Bob, don't be afraid to speak up. You have any ideas? Okay, so, so you're gonna check on the, the music portion. You're gonna check with the Youth Corps for one platoon.

Um, I'm gonna get with— yeah, remember what we asked for last time and they sent two and we had it? Well, they actually ended up sending three or four. Did they? They wanted the kid— the kids to get out. Okay, well, they can send as many as they want to, but we need just help, you know, handing out flyers, marking the VIP parking spots, helping set up the chairs, that kind of stuff, right?

Yeah. Okay, one. But if I said one or two, if they want to do two, that's fine. I don't care about— I don't care if we have kids running around all over the place, but, uh, I'll put a couple of them— I'll put a couple down at the end of the street. So when the motorcycles come through, they can slide the barriers off, let them through, and slide them back.

So I'm not running down the street, you know, going into a heart attack trying to get over there. We don't want that. All right. And you guys already have a chaplain? You still have Chaplain Slaughter's number?

Yep, we got a chaplain. I got a call, um, I got a call, uh, Sergeant Major or Master Sergeant Schultz. He told me before he's more than happy to do it again this year and anytime we want, but I haven't, I got to send an email to him or call and say, are you still, you still up? If not, then I'll be submitting another request to Kyle for a master of ceremonies.

But he, I was going to let him go first, so I got to get a hold of him yet. That's where I was going here. Let's see. So I wanted to, Um, chairs. Oh no, we still got to do the, uh, and then I'll do that with you.

I'll get there. I will call them, have them send me and you the, uh, invoice. Okay. And that's so that you know, and that way you can have it in yours for the porta-potties. Okay, so I'm trying to think now.

So that's the Youth Corps, no, plus the flags. There was a platoon of people that— and then the flags, so they were going to have the flags that we put behind the stage. I don't know, I didn't do the flags last year, so I don't know much about that. It was the Youth Corps. Youth Corps.

Oh, the Youth Corps. Yeah. Okay. They didn't have the 50 flags, the state flags anymore, which is just fine. I got to be a lot when it was wind was blowing, but I think they still provided the, uh, I believe it was the state and the service, service flags.

The state, the, the service flags at least, because the, um, color guard is going to come up and they can post the one, but I believe it was the service flags. You can double-check with them, but I think it's just the service flags. It could have been the service and the US and state flag, but—. Oh, okay.

We remember also to get the, the, uh.

This thing down, taken down there too. Yeah, and that's something we get closer, we'll work on making sure that we get this taken down there for it. Um, I've got the invitations for the senators, congressmen, and the governor, for the military leaders, the generic one for the military leaders, and for the state legislators. I I've got those and I'm gonna be— I gotta just, uh, now that I've finalized with Marie, I'll be sending those to her this week so she can get the mayor's, uh, signature on it. I don't know if you guys have her sign it or if you guys got a stamp or what.

Yeah, they had a digital block that they put on the other one, and then that way they'll be printed off and mailed out from the mayor's office to them. Um, And I've got the flyer. I'm going to be sending the flyer to her also. And so she can digitally— and I'll— the flyer, I'll include everybody so that way we can post it onto the websites and, uh, our Facebook, and we can distribute it out to people that we know, to organizations that we know, so they have it. And then they're gonna— she's gonna have some printed off So then we can, one of us can either, one of the, one of us can come in and get that from her and we can distribute it to the rest of us so we can, you know, hand those out to the different VFWs, American Legions, VA, the DMVA, everybody will get those handouts so people can get them and put them up different places and have them in their offices so people see it like every year.

And that's where things are now. I've got the I got the letter for the, uh, neighborhood, but we don't need to worry about that until we get to May. And, uh, the flyer, once we get a little bit closer and I have a little bit of things I can finally see the back side of the flyer, has the, uh, thanking everybody. We know who's there. It also has the, uh, a few of the names that are in there.

So until I can finalize a few more pieces of it, I'll like the band, and then I'll finish up and get you the, the progress, the flyer, the program. Okay. And those are ones that we have to get printed off in May so we have them at the event, at the thing. Yes. And for information purposes, we talked about the flyers for it.

They're noise flyers that we pass around to the community there, uh, about a week before to let them know that there's going to be some rifle shooting, you know. Okay. So it doesn't disturb the people and they're not in shock of we've been attacked or whatever. Yeah, sure. And the motorcycles too, right?

Yeah, the I go down. So yeah, and then normally I do that one sometime, and then we get some other people want to help out. It takes a couple of us to do it, couple, three. Have you, have you been in the memorial ceremony down here on the Park Strip here in town? No, I've never took— I've never been part of that.

Okay. So, and that, you know, it's funny, there's a lot of people, but there's a lot of people that, uh, I just wanted to go but don't have it. It was on my day when I was working, so I couldn't take the day off. A holiday. It's a holiday though.

He works for Anchor Rides. So Anchor Rides. Oh, so they don't have days off. Bring some bananas over. It's a really good event.

From Pioneer Home or something. How's he doing? That's what, about 300 I'd say? It was—. I was impressed.

Like with everything in Alaska, weather will make a difference. Yeah. Oh yeah. But it starts off 9:30, um, we have motorcycles that line up on 11th Street between, uh, I and L. Okay. And then they come out onto, uh, I Street and they come down, they come north up to 9th, then they turn and they go back over to the L, right?

It goes the other way, and then they turn the L and they go back to 10th. So they're doing a little circle around the park strip. Okay. And then they turn on 10th and they come up, and then right up a little more than halfway, we'll have a ramp that the motorcycle club brings, and it sits there. They turn and they come up onto the grass, and they line up along with that one tree that's right there in the middle of the park.

Okay. And then they do the little rum rum rum rum rum rum, and boom. And then the rest of the ceremony starts right after that. That kicks off the ceremony. I think Kyle just put a message on there.

She said, I know we already ran through the band talk, but maybe Anchorage Concert Association could support. So just a thought. So that's a good, good suggestion, Kyle. I'll make a note and see. Okay.

Oh, well, can somebody else do that? I— yeah, we have— I'd hate to do it because we have like an arts grant that we open to the community, and they might be eligible to apply for a grant. So I'd hate to ask them for a favor if there's— if they are going to apply for a grant, you know what I mean? I just want for it not to come from us. Yeah, you just need the— Al's taking— is working— be working on the music, so he could talk to them too.

Anchorage Concert Association. Yeah, well, that's an option for the, uh, the band. The band. Yeah, okay. Yeah, they can put a little acapella there together.

And there was— we met the head of the Alaska Scottish organization at the Meet the World at Ferrandi last weekend. I can contact him. They must have bagpipers in their community. Understand, there will be a bagpiper there. Yeah, because we have a bagpiper that comes with the, doing the Fallen Warrior Ceremony.

I'm also, as a backup, if we don't get a band, you know, a brass quartet or something, if we don't have that, I am, I do have a backup for someone to be here to do Taps. Because I hooked up, I've hooked up the guy that used to be in charge of Bugles Across America, Gene Horner, passed away last year. He's a friend of mine. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Dave Jensen is now taking that over. And so I've gotten his contact and I told him what we do.

So I'll be working with him for the bugler if we need him there. 'Cause if we have a brass 4 or 5 piece setup here, then they would go ahead and take care of taps and all that stuff also. If not, then I'll make sure that we have a bugler here for taps. Dave Jensen is the dog photographer here in Elkridge. Oh yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, he's a great guy. Oh, he is. Yeah, pictures. And then of course I'm gonna— I'll also mention him about the, the music, and if he knows anybody, then I'll pass that information on to you.

Yes, he's in the brass world. You might have an idea. What did you use last year for the band? Army Band. You can't use them again this year.

They're gone. Yeah, yeah, it was literally I got a call last year. We were told that we wouldn't be able to have the band because they were leaving and they weren't taking any gigs. And a month after I was told that, I got a call, "Hey, this is Staff Sergeant So-and-so with the Army Band. Just calling to make sure that you're still going to be using us this year." And I said— I was actually leaving the cemetery trying to figure out what to do.

I said, I stopped and I pulled over and I said, yeah, we'd be more than happy to use you. I was told that you guys aren't accepting that request because I was told that you guys aren't accepting any more things. He goes, oh yeah, we're not accepting anything, but we knew you were coming up and we were planning on doing it. So you would be our last one. And so they showed up and they did us last year.

Great. Okay. Yep. Why the hell would they move a band all the way to Hawaii where they, you know, I mean, because the person makes decisions is down in Hawaii and said, you know, we don't need a band here and a band up there. Drive your car someplace in the lower 48, you know, it's expensive to bring a band.

It's a major command. Yeah, I know, I know. Major command is down there and they're like, we got 2 bands, we got one here and we got one in Hawaii and Alaska. And one in Hawaii. We don't need fan both places.

So, pasanayen. Yeah, because now they got— they have an Army band in Hawaii and an Air Force band. Of course, probably the Marines got something too, trust me. Yeah, on top. So commanding— the commanding general for the Army down there for PACAF was saying, how come every time we do something we have an Air Force band and not an Army band?

The first Guard unit that I was in, in Van Nuys, California, They had a band, a guard unit had a band, only one in the country. I don't know if there's any guard units in the country that have any bands nowadays. I don't know. I know ours didn't have a band. Dave, when you're handing out the—.

Bandits, maybe. When you pass out the notices for the Memorial Day, don't forget the cemetery office there because that's a lot of people go through there. Yeah.

They can put one over there. They'll let me put one there, being I'm intricate to their ceremony too.

You plan to go there one day? What's that? You plan on going there one day?

No, I'm the MC for their ceremony. I said, let's come. I leave. I help get things started, and we get things started and rolling at the Park Strip, and then about halfway through, I have to take off and get my car and drive because I'm the MC for the Memorial Day ceremony at the cemetery. Yeah, but I just— I'm going through the process right now of making myself a permanent resident one day.

Oh yeah, yeah, I go every time too. Unless they come up with some magic drugs, and then I'll just keep visiting there for the next 300 years. But until they come up with that, yeah, we're all going to be there soon, eventually. Yeah, I hope the drug comes with money too, to live 300 years. We're all going to last that long.

Yes. So if you—. Just one more thing— if you're an Anchorage driver, Do you have— do you go to the Pioneer Home? Oh yeah, with our friends all the time. Well, I don't see too many of them here at the ceremony in May, and I'm just wondering if, you know, because of transportation or something, but now that you're here, you kind of maybe could work something out for some of those veterans, they can be here for that.

The Pioneer Home is across the street from the memorial. On the catwalk. Some of them can't walk. It's a walk. It's a little bit of a walk.

There's a state diner down the road too, you know, which, you know, that— what's that, the 11th and— 13th and, uh, 8th? 13Th and H, I think it is. State one, right? You know where that's at, right? Yeah, 13 and H.

I thought they were all state ones. Is the one in this— in this one you're talking about just now, is that state? I believe so. It is. Okay, there's two of them in.

No, I think—. Well, I'm sorry, you said Pioneer Home. Yeah, I'm thinking this, the, uh, state, uh, senior living, you know. Okay. Yeah, different.

But I, I will let them know, uh, I did last year. Yep.

I know a lot of the old folks like to get out, you know. They do. And they're—. So if we have— we could talk to the Pioneer Home. If we get all the extra cadets, we could have them walk their cadets over there, put the old people in wheelchairs and that, and wheel them back over.

Well, yeah, and I know, um, Lynnemouth, uh, Tammy Lynnmouth, who's director over there now. And this one used to be in the Guard. I worked with his dad for years at the Guard. So, uh, yeah, work something out. Well, you just volunteered for it, so why don't you just see if you can coordinate something?

See how— because they always like it after. How can you—. How can we—. Have we got the driver? Yeah.

Well, I don't know if he'd be able to. It's a city property though. But maybe, maybe she has an idea of how they can get the people over there, you know, if they'd like to do it. Yeah, the Pioneer Home has a high school band that go over there and perform at the Pioneer Home. There you go.

What's that? You said, um, they have a high school— Pioneer Home has a high school band that comes and plays? I'm not sure if it was Bartlett or which, which high school it was, but it sounds like Bartlett maybe. Could have been. Place for what?

They have the band from the high school. They perform at the Pioneer Hall. Oh yeah, oh yeah, we got, uh, we got the check with the college, check with the high school, and then we have those things. But, uh, yeah, I'm gonna check with the military. Yeah, but they said that the, the things that we look at, we haven't looked at them in the past because we had a band.

Now we have to look at the college and at the high schools, but the, the big, the big problem that we're going to face with them is not so much getting them, it's the fact that it's right around the end of the school year. Oh yeah, between the high schools and the colleges. So yeah, you know, they do a lot of their stuff in the afternoon or even in the evening, and it's 2 weeks before the high school was graduated anyway. That's— I don't— I want to check with him anyway, so it doesn't—. Well, no, I, I know that we, we definitely check with them.

I just said one of the— it's one things that we have to look at is they could very well say no because it is close to graduation for all the high schools and for that, and it is a weekend. It is a holiday weekend. Um, so getting the kids to be there, like with everything, it's people have to say yes, we'll do it. And yeah, uh, yeah, so, but that's a good— I know they said the college does have a pretty extensive, uh, musical piece over there because I've seen where they put on different shows over there in their little auditorium. Was it Wendy Williamson?

Yeah, I know the, uh, UAA, uh, assistant administrator over there, so I'll talk to, talk to him. Cool. Yeah. All right, so that's what we got going with that. Does anybody have any questions or anything else to add?

I want to go back to the, uh, because this is not really official meeting. Yeah, uh, so this actually no minutes to take because we're not, we're not having a meeting. But, uh, you had, you said you have some notes as far as the corrections. Can you give me those 3, uh, 3 mentions you had, and then I'm gonna, I'll get them corrected. And then when you do, can officially, uh, approve the minutes and we'll have them corrected.

I know one was on military representative, he or she, I corrected that. Yes, okay. All right. So, in the under committee reports for the Air Force Memorial, Ellen's name, her first name.

Eleanor will coordinate it. Oh, Eleanor's my legal name. Yeah, but no, before that. Yeah, Lauren. Uh, departure.

Oh, okay. Yeah, right there at the very beginning where it says Lauren. Okay, who is that? What's that? Who is Lauren Lawson?

That's my question. Well, that's, that's a miss— that's a misspell of Eleanor. Oh, gotcha. Okay, that makes sense now. Gotcha.

And you said you already got the she under military representatives. Yeah, I did. One more? Yeah, one more down in new business. And this is where the confusion that you said you had.

Okay, I think I had that figured out. Under Memorial Day, all right, it's not as stated above with Eleanor because she did, she volunteered for the 11th Air Force Memorial. Memorial Day, I just said because we're short on people that I would go ahead and, had that. Okay, so I know I got it straight. Got it.

Okay, thank you. All right, uh, can I add something to the agenda? Or—. Yeah, since we have a new member, I wonder if we could all do introductions and just your name, your history in the commission, why you're here, just real quickly. And also, uh, Just a quick kind of orientation for Robert here, but also I think it will benefit everybody.

Uh, Boards and Commissions, as I had told Robert before, it's open to the public. So if there are topics maybe that the public's interested in, they're always welcome to come. Also, we still need more members, so if you know anyone interested and they'd like to come to attend a meeting, you know, that's always welcome. It's always the third or the first Monday unless it's a holiday, so there's always online participation available. Also, we do, you know, follow Robert's Rules very lightly, so people call it Robert Light because we, you know, we know the value of Robert's Rules just to make it efficient, but we don't want it to stop people because sometimes it could be intimidating.

And I'm not very I'm not very good at it. Oh, it's—. It's—. There's so much to it. Neither am I.

So, but, you know, we'd like for it to be a productive meeting and we don't want— sometimes people are afraid because they don't know Robert's Rules and there's— it's totally okay. Like I said, I don't know it either, but for making the meetings efficient, that's what it is, to make sure we cover everything that's on the agenda. All right. And then the other one is Open Meetings Act. Boards and commissions of the municipality are subject to the state Open Meetings Act, which says that we do have to let the public know of our public meeting.

That's why it's public notice. Um, also, business— no more than 3 of you can meet together and discuss business, because that means without public noticing it, because you can't make business decisions that has not been, uh, yeah, uh, public notice. So that also applies to text and email. So I would— and it doesn't happen with this group, but in our emails, if I email you things, questions Always reply just to the sender. Like if the chair sends you something to all, always reply.

Apply just to the sender and not to all, because that could be construed as doing business by email, which is not— which is not open to the public. So be very careful of those communications because of the state Open Meetings Act. Also, for everybody, I think I will send all of you and Robert as well the disclosure form for any conflict of interest that's required of all boards and commission members, but it may have been a while since you had, maybe even never. So we'll make sure we get, we get you that form signed, and the municipal clerk's office keeps them. Great.

I thought we did that when we did that. I did. You may have, you may have, but just to update it, and might be a good practice to just make sure we have to be done like every year. That's kind of what I thought too. Yeah.

They're like most companies. And yeah, because your situation, they have to pay for a year. Yeah, so if you don't mind, Mr. Chair, could we go around just to let maybe Robert know why you're here and the work of the Commission? Um, David Foley, I'm the chair of the Commission, and we did put— I mean, there's a whole list of things you can go and misplace, but basically our job is to to look for and find all ways that we can advise the mayor on ways that can best help the relationship between the military and veterans communities and the municipality.

Okay. And I was Army, active for 12 years, and Guard up here for 17, have that 20, 29 years total. And that—. Oh, and I'm Ellen Noor Lawson, better known as Ellen, uh, and E-L-L-E. Anyway, uh, and, uh, yeah, I'm retired from the Air Guard, uh, 32 years, uh, and That's about it.

My name is Robert E. All, and my background up here in the military is I served in the Air Force originally up in Eielson. So that was from 1988 to 1991. Then after that, I joined the Navy. Which was in 2002 after I graduated college. So, I was in the Navy for 12 years, Navy Reserves up here.

That was at Fort Richardson.

So, but did about 15 years total military serving the community. And it was a great opportunity to be in the Navy Reserves as well. I was on the USS Um, I can't remember yours. Well, anyways, I did, uh, I did a trip, right? Yeah, the ship.

Yeah, it says Mount Vernon, uh, was decommissioned, but I went on that from Seattle to the Maldives. So what'd you do for the Navy? I was, uh, communications, so I did— it was, it was IT, it was a cross-rate as communications with the ships. So we sent communications to the other ships, but it has to be encrypted. So that's pretty much my background.

Um, I came up— I was, I was from Michigan, so born in—. That's about it. I got some more for you, but there's, there's only a time— there's a time limit. El Milpa and, uh, before I forget, if, if there's anything that you feel that you want to do but you're not really sure, believe me, we'll all help out. We're a team.

Okay, so don't feel shy because we're all learning this together, except for Dave. Dave's been around for 100 years, 99 years. But, uh, I was raised in Michigan. You might have heard that before. I'm called Michigander.

I was a Boy Scout till I was 8 till—. Michigan geez. 18.

I was in Air Force for 20 years. I was in communications and just— Same thing, communications. Maybe you did. We had classified stuff that we dealt with and we had to encrypt and all this other stuff. For the first 13 years, then after that I went to program management where I managed communication projects.

Married a wife from Spain and have 2 kids. And I was a boys— I coached soccer and swimming and everything as my kids grew up. I was a Boy Scout commissioner and Anchorage police officer, reserve, and on the Anchorage Animal Control Advisory Board. And I'm a community council rep to the food bank. We do a lot of things.

So, I enjoy doing community activities. I'm Jeff Slagueyew. I work for the State Office of Veterans Affairs as a program coordinator. So, here in my capacity as a person who, you know, is kind of a state representative. Just to bring my state knowledge of veterans issues.

And I'm an Army veteran myself, 4 years, served in Iraq for 15 months. So, yeah. Well, I guess I'll add a little bit since everybody else told a little bit. I didn't do anything as exciting as you guys did, being in the Navy and on a ship, but I was a crew chief, C-130s. Not bad.

And I was an air delivery rigger. Those were kind of jobs that women didn't do a whole lot of during my time anyway. Now they do everything. So yeah, it was an exciting career. I flew everywhere I went.

Boy, are her arms tired. That's what I did, huh? I said, boy, are her arms tired. And then on the On the screen up there is Kyle. Kyle is our, one of our military liaisons.

Kyle, you want to go ahead and give them a little bit about yourself? I'm Kyle and I'm from JABIR Public Affairs. I am born and raised here in Eagle River, so I am going to be here forever. We love Alaska. My husband and I are here and we are both civilians, so we should be around for a while.

Well, thanks for serving in the capacity of what you're doing. And so that's what—. That's that word. And then we have Amal, who's in New York, as we said, and she— and he's, uh, um, he was a former Army, and then when he was in—. And that—.

Yeah, all right, um, we're going to call this then. Unless you got anything else, anybody else? Uh, I'm sending right now an email to you all with that disclosure of economic interest form. And also, Robert, it's the link to the municipal code, but I also have the text here of what the goal of the commission is for the Anchorage Municipal Code. So it's like a list of 10 or 11 items, so that— but that's what the commission is for.

And if you have any special interests that you'd like the Commission to tackle, that's, that's what the members are here for. So just feel free to think about it and let us know. Yeah, I got a couple things. Uh, I got a question on the, the shared drive. Uh, who generate— who's, who made the shared drive up?

Was it you, Dave, or—. No, it was, uh, Jacob. Jacob. Okay, so my question is Number one is I'm assuming the, uh, the, uh, link to it, is that open to everybody to see? Yes, no problem.

So open all to all of us. Okay, well, that's my question. That's why I put on the minutes here, see Dave if you want to get— if you want to, uh, actually get the link, because the link— if they get in the link and then they can access— get access to the information. But can they If they're not a member, can they still change anything, or can just the members? Okay, that is just— that is just a place for the commission, and Marie is the only person right now with municipality that has— because it's changed out.

I mean, before, I think 2 of the people did, but Marie has the access to it. That is just a place for us to share our documents. Where we have a place to put them. So if something happens to one of us, the stuff is there. And then it's also a place where we can put stuff so Marie can get it, and she can also go put stuff there for us.

Right. But my question kind of is, it's— say the link should get out to somebody somehow, and they get— they click on the link. They can't make any changes. It's been stored in some other person, right? They cannot do because only— we only have read/write capability for members.

Am I correct on that or not? Yep.

So it doesn't hurt to publish the link because anybody can go in there and look at the stuff, but they can't make changes. Is that correct or not? It's not a public, uh, Google Docs. It won't be. Yeah, maybe we'll discuss it more because what's your purpose of having it open for everybody?

Oh no, it's not my purpose. I just want to know because, uh, like I put in here in the minutes here First, I was going to put the link in there under, under the shared drive. I said, well, I need to check with— find out whether the link should be— if I put it in there, is that going to cause any problems? You know, yeah, because it's a public document, because it's a public document, right? But we need to put it in a location where it's actually accessible by the public.

And if you write the link in there, no, because yeah, it's not going to be a link where they can click on and go to it. Okay, so if I, so if I put the link in there It doesn't hurt anything. Okay. Yeah, so that's one question. Then if you, if you, uh, weren't around to maintain, because I guess you're kind of the administrator right now.

Well, I am now. Sam was. Okay, but you are now. Jacob wasn't and Sam was, but I am now. Okay, so, uh, then you'll, you'll pass it down to somebody else, like, uh, uh, Anna Marie has the, has the access.

See, all of a sudden tomorrow you You're incapacitated. And what happened to LinkedIn? We, we all have the same access. Okay, so, okay, yeah, we, we are— every member of the commission, Ann Marie, we all have the exact same access to it. So any one of us can go in and add members, remove members, and we all, we all have the same administrative access to it.

Okay, then that's my question. Yeah. That's why. And I'm sorry, I don't think I got back to you. I remember now you had sent some before.

You were trying to upload something? Yeah, I figured it out. Okay, finally. It was kind of hard to figure it out, but, uh, and I found out that you can't— like, for instance, I tried to put the temp for the, uh, presentation I did at the CAC in there at the place that wasn't open for PDF. It was just, uh, JPG, and you, you can't crop.

But under the presentation section of the, of the, uh, of the drive there— okay, I can't put a, uh, a JPG in there, you know, it got to be a PDF. Oh, okay, I see what you're saying. Or actually, it's got a presentation format, you know, because they got their own format. So I found out you can't crop format. I didn't even know they had a section in there for just presentations.

Yeah, they do, because I tried to put the presentation I did in there, and I tried to put the picture that somebody took in there and I couldn't do it. And that was my question to you, oh, is can I do it and so how? But I figured out you can't do it and I figured how, you know, to upload it from my computer. Okay, so I figured that out. If you guys have— it's a little cumbersome, I found myself, but I'm pretty much computer literate, you know, uh, but if you have the— illiterate, I'm a little bit.

Anyway, yeah, that's my question on that. Uh, okay. And the other one was, uh, just for information, I attended the CAG meeting. That's the Community Action Committee over at Fort Richardson where they meet once a month until now.

Uh, and that's where they get, uh, all the different— for Fort Richardson and Elmendorf, they get together, the wing commander there and the Army I'm not sure what they're called, the person in charge of the Army, not the AG, but then they present to everybody that's there all the happenings, all the different clubs, the what you can do, what's coming up, calendar. It's fantastic, a lot of information. Matter of fact, it's boggles them, there's too much information. But I attended that and I think it went over okay. I talked to somebody who knew you.

Did they ever call you? And, uh, I talked to some— somebody there who knew you, and he said he's going to call you about joining the, uh, joining this. But you've got no call, right? No. Okay, that's typical.

Yeah. But, uh, anyway, that was great. But they're changing the format now. They're going to a, uh, starting this month, and with more information coming down, it's going to be like a fair type thing where you go to this room and there's like different booths. And that's how you find out the information, because I talked to Colonel Babbitt after that.

I invited her also, you know, I doubt she'll come, but I invited her. But fantastic person. I met her a couple, 3 times so far, and she's really interested in what we do like that. So, and anything you need to know, she said, let's just let any help from her, just give her a call. Well, hopefully she follows through.

That means that we've asked her to be our guest speaker for the Memorial Day ceremony. Yeah, but I want her to come here though. Yeah, um, speaking of that, and then you get done with that. Yeah, because I want to— Kyle, you said you sent this out, some, uh, information earlier today, and you said you wanted to just talk about it real fast. Oh yeah, we, we can just talk about it.

Um, [Speaker:KAYLA] So we are soliciting for, we have a civic leader program here and it's under Colonel Mabbitt. And so for anyone that wants to get more involved and, you know, meet with her and whatnot, we are soliciting for applications through June. So if you know anyone or whatnot, please share the information or you talk to anyone in the community, There's some rules and everything on who can apply and whatnot, but all that's included in the email. So feel free to just share, share that. Okay, fantastic.

I'm sure Al will have his application done in no time. That's one thing I do. I do stuff fast. I don't want— I don't like waiting around for 2 or 3 weeks for stuff.

And one more thing I've got too, uh, David sent an email out to all of us regarding the, uh, Unclaimed Unaccompanied Brothers, uh, ceremony. Uh, it was last Wednesday. I went there and it's really great. Didn't you guys see that? I sent you guys all an email on that.

Yeah, yeah, Dave, you said it to all of us. Yeah, yeah, I'm saying I went there and was— it was great. Uh, they are great. There are a lot of people there. I'd say about 20 of us were there.

Mostly tied to the military. But I was going to go, but all of a sudden we had an emergency meeting that was called at 3 o'clock, so I couldn't go to there and be back for the meeting. And my wife was there, one of my brothers was there. But yeah, it was— I know I mentioned that it was a really nice ceremony. They haven't done it.

I learned a lot about the different, uh, eligibilities for the military, uh, but Like, I, I wasn't aware that all the stuff that the spouse had access to should the, should the, uh, the other one die, you know, because they both basically have equal, equal rights as far as burial. And that means cremation, it means urn, it means everything. It's all free. Yeah, like that. So, oh, the cremation isn't, but everything else—.

Well, no, cremation is— you gotta pay for that from outside source because they don't do that, but everything else, uh, the headstone, the— it's all pretty— it's really, really great. The, uh, so anybody, anybody that doesn't know, the last Wednesday of every month, 2 o'clock, if there's 2:30, if there is somebody. But if you put it on your calendar, the last Wednesday of every month in the afternoon, 2:00, 2:30— that one was at 2:30. I have seen them at 2:00 But that was at 2:30. And then you just look if you're there.

Now, when you were there, did you go up to the, uh, did you go up to the staff, say I'd like to be added to your emailing list? Oh no. Next time you're up there, do that. Ask them, because then they'll, they'll add you. Because, uh, when the prior director left, she had this email list put together of over hundreds of people around the community that went to, and that email list somehow got lost between her leaving and Duane taking over and everything.

So he's building up his own new list. So tell people, if you want to be a part of it, it's the last Wednesday of the month, 2:30. Stop by to say hello to somebody, go to the staff, say, I would like to be added to to your email list for the unaccompanied variants and they'll add you into their email list. And then when they send it out, because they usually don't send it out to like the Friday or Monday before, so that's 2 days to 5 days before. And so it just, if you already have it on your calendar, then it's just a matter of reminding you and say, yes, we're having it or no, we don't have anybody or I didn't get an email and call.

Hey, we didn't— oh, okay, you're not having it. And I did talk to Dwayne. I talked to the, the, uh, uh, you know, the— well, I didn't know Dwayne was the director. I talked to somebody else that said he was the director, but, uh, maybe— well, they have a different director too. Yeah, there's Dwayne.

Roger and— I talked to Roger, Dwayne. I can't remember who the third person is. I forget her name. I know, I, I feel bad. You knew her, so I, I've met her like twice now.

It's the one job they have trouble keeping people, but actually this one's been around for a little while now because she, because she remembered me from last, last Memorial Day. So she's not that other, that other lady before. She was there like forever. Yeah, seemed like Virginia Walker. Yeah, yeah.

And Kyle, I'm going to turn to log off.

Thank you, Kyle, for coming. Thank you. Nice meeting you. Yeah, thank you. Until next time.

All right.