Special Committee on Veterans Affairs | Regular Meeting | April 14th, 2026 | 4:00pm

Yes, sir.

I tell you all we'll communicate as well. Yeah. Oh, thank you. I'll see you again. I'll see you.

Good afternoon. I would like to call the, special commission on Veterans Affairs meeting to order for Tuesday, 04/14/2026. And the clerk, can you please call the role in attendance?

Chair Picciardo?

Present.

Vice chair Ayunuchi is absent. Commissioner Alves is absent. Commissioner Yarn? Here. And commissioner Del Valle?

Here. Three present, we have a quorum.

Thank you. We do not a

We have a quorum.

And two absent. Thank you for joining us today, commissioner, director, sir, for taking the time. I know it's been you've been very active out there in the community. That's know, fill us in with things that Absolutely. States and a lot of veterans.

Yes, sir. I also would like to welcome a new member. Thank you, senator. You. Find institutions here.

Thank you for your service. Thank you.

No quest.

This is our team here. If you could please introduce yourself so that way, Violeta can officially know who's at the table with us too, also from our team at the Hi. Province and Consul.

I'm from the law department. I'm in I'm the municipal integrity officer for the city of Providence, and my name is Rosa Aries Perry, and welcome to the city. Thank you so much. Nice to meet Hi.

I'm assistant clerk to deputy clerk and city clerk Cindy Delio.

Nice to meet you. My name is Julie Polanco.

I'm the second deputy

of city clerk too. Nice to meet you. Oh, I'm Darius. I'm just a tech guy.

Very important.

Part of the, city councilor. Yeah. Tech guy. Makes things work. I'm the city archivist.

My name's Kale Gordon. Please

join us. Bring the table. Come on. Sit sit over there.

I'm Aaron Eastergard. Mister Sarflez? Deputy chief

of staff for the council.

Sit right here, man. Everybody on the table. And my name is Isaac Slezman. I'm a policy analyst for the city council. Nice to meet you.

Aaron over here? Yes. Aaron Eastergard, the deputy chief of staff

for the council. Nice to meet you. Thank you. Nice to welcome. Thank you for, volunteering and and stepping up and and being part of this commission.

Couple of great things for the city of province, and, also, we have some good plans for this commission to also be safe, ma'am. So thank you. Thank For the agenda today, we have a discussion regarding the city's Veterans Day exhibit. Is our conversation. Kate Morton from the city office.

I think we

can improve

some of the markers out there in the community, but also here in the city council. As you noticed that there's a display out just before on the right side of this province city council chambers. We want to renew that because it's been kind of stale for for quite a bit now, and Caleb is gonna expand on that.

Yeah. So that's the first place to start. So, you know, I was looking for some input on kind of a little home for that marker out for the. You

know, that's that's

you know, I like to keep that. Of course, it's been quite some time. But, the, congress I think that was put up last administration. So, you know, I was gonna ask actually the board's input, you know, because I wanted just to follow on to me, and and I think it would be great to get some insight from you guys, I mean, what to place there next. I'd like to do something providence centric, of course.

It could be something that's memorial or even dedicated to the veterans of the I think it's important to keep it centric, bring it back to bring it back home, so to speak. One idea was to, obviously, have flags that stand out colors on probably

a prodigal

flag up there. But, yeah, I don't know if we could do a list of the fallen from Providence or maybe even a list of veterans, associations and committees throughout history in Providence. It's been a dedication. There could even be a possibility with a kiosk that has some information. That's something we're working on with the city council.

So if you wanted to, we could could do something like that, keep digital born. I think it would be nice to have kind of a lasting permanent presence in that corner. I think it's fitting in that corner too because the World War one memorial model was next to that. I wish that case was a little easier to look at because the doors have kinda kinda obscured. Maybe that's an idea to kind of have somebody come in and fix the doors and get display window and make it make it make a little more sense to the public.

But, yeah, that was kind of my first question to present to the board. Right. I

about that. Open it, as you're hearing, Caleb, any, any ideas or any comments, commissions? Commissioner Well, I I would just

can you, where is it located again? So, yeah, it should be.

Sorry. By

the the doors of the chamber. So if you were going to walk into the council chambers, there's, like, a table. Yes. And there was a stanchion that was there. And then It's right now near the echo statue,

the bronze statue. Mhmm.

And that can certainly be moved too to kinda reduce confusion that was placed there. That was actually originally here. Nothing against the statue. It's a lovely statue, but it doesn't make lot of sense. Right.

It is a

smaller version of what the state gives Yeah. Yep. So it would be right outside the chamber Of Torches. And that's, two observation from this, inquiry. One is that, that's why it needs to not be able to.

And two, after this meeting, we'll take a walk out there and and, really, look at it visually. So it will be an ongoing discussion and ideas of how we can actually redesign that area for, with

the. Maybe also, what would be good to know to know is, like, any guidelines that are asked to stay under as far as it be if there's any guidelines or any restrictions of what can be placed there, or does it