DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS CHAPTER 23 (WEST SEATTLE)
February 11, 2017 5 pm
At the Chapter House, 4857 Delridge Way, Seattle WA
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PRESENT:
Commander Robert Williams Jr., Senior Vice Commander Ronald Bryant, Junior Vice
Commander Antonio Callier, Chaplain Ken Corsey,
Treasurer Jack Kegley, Sargeant At Arms Fred Beavers, Trustee Nate Ford, Terry,
Randy Winn, Judy Kyle.
BUSINESS
There were no motions made or votes taken.
DISCUSSION
These are my personal notes on a lively and freewheeling
discussion. Feel free to add.
1) SERVICE OFFICER PROGRAM.
a. Call Volume: We are getting several
calls every day. Calls are being logged so we keep track of who called when and
what we did for them.
b. Publicity: Ron is coordinating the
Sandwich Board, which will be set out when the building is open so passers-by know
we’re open. Building signage now includes phone numbers plainly readable from
the road. Word is getting around that we’re open for business.
c. Scheduling: Ed Hartman instructed
Commander to have Building open for service Monday. Commander informed Hartman
this is already being done. Uncle Mike, Ron and others have been staffing the
building many hours each week.
d. Staffing: None of the four
registered and appointed Service Officers have responded to Commander’s
inquiries. They are all welcome and encouraged to service, but hours must be
scheduled and publicized. Although it is their personal responsibility to sign
up for hours, the Commander reached out several times to all of them, and none
have even offered hours of service. This may change but if it does not we will
have to train more reliable persons to take the job.
e. Logs: All service contacts must
be logged (who called or walked in, what they wanted, contact information,
disposition, etc.) None of the Service Officers have provided the Chapter with
logs of their Service. As a result, the Chapter doesn’t know who was served,
how many were served and how. This must change. All Service will be logged in
the book in the office or it didn’t happen.
f. Commitment: DAV invests a lot of
money and effort to train up Service Officers. Those who take advantage of this
training but are then unable or unwilling to repay that investment with
documented service need to think about repaying the money.
g. Referrals: The Chapter will refer
callers to other resources until we get a reliable corps of Service Officers.
Terry has a lot of professional experience with veterans benefits.
2) PRUIT COMPLAINT
a. John Pruit complained in
writing to National (Ed Hartman) about being locked out. This was the wrong
procedure.
b. Following the Chain-of-Command
requires first complaining in writing to Commander, and this was not done. THE
RULE: If you have a problem, put it in writing and give it to the commander
BEFORE escalating it out of the building. You can still escalate it but you
have to give the Commander a chance to fix it first.
c. Pruit was not locked out. He
was told to schedule service hours with the Commander and he chose not to do so.
We have to have a schedule – that’s just common sense.
3) MONTHLY REPORT TO
DEPARTMENT + NATIONAL
a. This report is being
written. Get your contributions to Randy. It will be presented to Membership
next Meeting. The goal is to get in the mail early but let membership comment
first.
4) BUILDING LEASE
a. A lease has been discovered
that has a major impact on the Chapter.
It binds the Chapter to rent the top floor to the Church for 5 years at
$700 a month.
b. There was a lot of
discussion about this lease. It has technical defects but breaking it would be
messy and expensive; we don’t want to waste money and goodwill on that route if
we can work something out. It’s always better for landlords and tenants to
negotiate instead of fight. The Senior Vice and the Commander will open
negotiations with all deliberate speed.
c. There are big questions
about the Trustees secretly signing the lease and then hiding it from the
Membership and from National. It is a clear violation of their fiduciary duty
to rent at 23 cents a square foot, for example. However, those issues are
different from the obligations (if any) of the Chapter as a Landlord under the
Lease. If we have to, we can expect National to take responsibility for the
actions of the Trustees that it appointed, but we can take leadership in fixing
the problem on our own, which is much better.
5) MISSING PROPERTY
a. It should not have to be
repeated that Trustees and the officers they appointed must hand over all
Chapter property to the Chapter at the end of their Trusteeship.
b. The Lease was not handed
over. It was not filed in the Office. An unsigned copy was found in the safe
deposit box (which is now closed.) A signed copy was obtained from the former
Trustees. Finding this one thing is evidence that the former Trustees and their
Officers are still in possession of other Chapter property, such as minute
books, a laptop, an audio recorder, other papers and possibly money.
c. It would be better if the
Membership did not have to take steps to recover property. Anyone who is a
friend of the holders of missing property should encourage them to hand it over
by the next meeting.
ADJOURN
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DOCUMENT ENDS
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