Special Supervisor's Meeting: Veterans' Services Comments

There are many people to whom I am speaking lately, as a candidate for Supervisor, who are distressed about the battle taking place over Veterans' Services in our County.   A few months ago, Supervisor Novelli made a motion, that was unanimously carried, to solely support Veterans’ Service Officer Mr. Terry Sanders, and encourage all Veterans to work through Mr. Sanders when they need assistance.  I have reviewed every word of that August Supervisor’s meeting, and I found three things that I felt were stated quite clearly:   #1)  Supervisors stated repeatedly that they did not want to preclude or prevent other types of Veterans’ Services from being provided and that they agreed that “one size does not fit all”;  #2)  Supervisors felt that they needed to help eliminate confusion in the community by issuing a letter endorsing VSO Sanders as the person to whom Veterans should go for assistance with their claims; and #3)  (VSO) Terry Sanders testified that he had limited capability of providing extended services other than general assistance with the filing of claims.  Mr. Sanders was also adamant that he would not cooperate with Victory Village as long as they were helping any Veteran in filing claims, which is still the case today.  

     If you watch the last few minutes of  the TSPNTV.com YouTube coverage of this meeting, which I have over and over, you will hear each Supervisor repeat what they thought they wanted this motion to do, which was to eliminate any confusion about the filing of claims, claims, claims.  I did mention to Supervisor Boitano that same night at the Hospital event, that I preferred his recommendation to wait six months and see how things developed, but that Supervisor Novelli's motion seemed reasonable enough to support. 

     It was not until weeks later that I realized that the official minutes that described this motion related to much more than just claims, and that an over-reaching clause was added later at some point following the public meeting.  Four extra words were added after "claims"… “or other related issues.” These extra four words: “or other related issues,” would seem to me to imply an exclusionary/discriminatory  intent against other qualified organizations that provide non-duplicative services to Veterans.  I certainly do not believe that it was the Board’s intention to guarantee the County VSO a monopoly on all services, such as housing, education, counseling, or assistance with life skills and physical wellness, as well as vocational, medical and legal assistance.   It is unreasonable to think that all grant applications and services can go through Terry Sanders at the VSO.  Most of the people I am talking to do not see the need for this over-arching motion that turns our Veterans Services into a competition and that could result in making it more difficult for Veterans to get services.

     I am sure that Supervisor Novelli was just trying to protect the interests of our County Veterans Service Office, when he stated while making this motion, that "if we help just one Veteran we have done our job."  Well, the question then became, what about the other 5,452 Veterans in Amador County?  To say that "if we help just one Veteran we have done our job" is lacking: what we should be saying is that if we end up making it more difficult for just one Veteran to get help because we choose not to support other needed services, then we have clearly not done our job.

     In my opinion, it is NOT OK to turn Veterans' Services into a competition.  Our VSO should be someone who can coordinate and welcome all services for veterans' needs, and not have to pressure Veterans into using just the limited needs that the County VSO can provide.  Veterans should be free to seek the qualified services that they believe will best meet their needs.  If you believe that one size does not fit all and that there is no need to create a competition or potentially discriminate against other services, then I respectfully ask you to please rescind or rewrite Supervisor Novelli's motion, and to support Victory Village's pursuit of this Emergency Solutions Grant or any other qualified services that can be provided to Veterans in our County.

(Unfortunately, the above comments were not well received by Supervisors Novelli and Oneto, who felt that they were being unfairly portrayed as not being supportive to Veterans, which was certainly not intended.  We all recognize and value our Supervisors and our County's history of supporting Veterans.  It is also important that we remain open to differing opinions, if we truly expect everyone to work cooperatively to make sure that all Veterans receive the most wide-ranging and comprehensive services possible.)