NOTICE OF MEETING MINUTES

VETERANS SERVICES COMMITTEE

THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2022

Meeting of the Lincoln County Veterans Services Committee held on July 21, 2022, at the Lincoln County Courthouse in the Commissioners Room at 9:00 A.M.

 

Meeting Minutes:

Current Chairman Mike Cain started the meeting off with Roll call.  The roll call was by the members introducing themselves.  Present Mike Cain, Jim Smith, Geoffrey Florom, Joe Wiezorek and Scott Bell.  County Attorney Stephen King and District #3 Commissioner Micaela Wuehler were also present during the meeting.

 

Chairman Cain started the meeting with the selection of new officers.  Mike said he would volunteer to remain in place as the Chairman.  Scott Bell offered to be Chairman if Mike did not want to continue as chairman.  Joe offered to be Secretary and Geoff offered to be the Vice Chairman.  Mike made the motion to accept the nomination and to put it to a vote.  Geoff 2nd the motion.  It was a unanimous vote and the motion carried to elect; Mike to Chairman, Geoff to Vice Chairman and Joe to Secretary.

 

Chairman Cain opened the floor for the discussion to the Open Meetings Act.  Mr. King started the discussion by pointing out that the Open Meeting Act law is posted in the chambers.  The Veterans Service Committee (VSC) falls under the opens meeting act and meetings are open to the public.  Joe brought up the concern with Veterans that need assistance should be private and asked Mr. King if we could go into Executive closed session to discuss Veterans assistance.  Mr. King said closed sessions could only discuss specific issues and the Committee would have to notify Tyler Volkmer or himself prior to going into a closed session.  Mr. King stated no group text or emails, do not reply all.  Discussion of VSC business cannot be discussed by more than two committee members outside the meetings.  Three members or more would be a quorum and would violate the Open Meetings Act if discussing VSC business.  Recommendation was made to send information out to the VSC members through the VSO.

 

Chairman Cain opened the work session to discuss the decide the criteria for evaluating the applicants.  Joe read the job announcement and Scott read the minimum requirements for the position.

 

Joe made the motion to eliminate applicants that did not include the minimum documents required in the job announcement; Cover letter, DD-214 and County application.  Geoff 2nd the motion.  Discussion Joe stated the importance of this goes towards the attention of detail.  Scott agreed and discussed the importance to the attention to detail.  This is a necessary skill and important to this position, as VSO assists in filling out government forms.  It was a unanimous vote and the motion carried to eliminate the applicants that did not provide the following minimum documents; Cover letter, DD-214 and County application.

Jim asked to discuss two of the applicants to see if we agreed that the cover letter would be acceptable. The group agreed that these should be discussed.

 

The following applicants were eliminated for not providing all the required documents:

Mr. Johnson did not provide a cover letter.

Mr. Bible did not provide a cover letter.

Mr. Howell did not provide a cover letter, DD-214 or County Application

Mr. Shimmin did not provide a cover letter.

 

The group discussed the following applicants, to see if their cover letters were acceptable.

Joe stated that Mr. Wigston did not meet his expectations of a cover letter format.  The group voted 3 to 2 to accept Mr. Wigston’s cover letter and move the application to the review process.

The group voted unanimously to accept Mr. Baker’s cover letter and move the application to the review process.

The remaining applications were moved to the application review process.  The VSC determined that Fosdick, Lemon and Pacheco did not meet the qualification of the Veterans Service Officer (VSO) position.

The VSC selected the following candidates to continue to the interview process; Mr. Baker, Mr. Blyth, Mr. Gann, Mr. Paxton, and Mr. Wigstone.

The VSC discussed and decided on the questions to be asked during the interview process.

Geoff volunteered to call the candidates for the interviews.  The interviews will be held at the next meeting July 28, 2022, at 9:00 am.

The VSC set the agenda for the next meeting.  Joe will submit the meeting minutes and the agenda for the next meeting to the County Clerk’s Office.

Chairman Cain made a motion to close the meeting.  Geoff 2nd the motion.  It was a unanimous vote and the motion carried to close the meeting.

Joe Wiezorek

Secretary