Appointment of Tamara Shovelton as Veterans’ Services Agent

Transcript (~4 min @ 18:44)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 18:32 Mark Garipay: No one online. Okay. If there are no objections, I will motion by unanimous consent to close the public comment portion of the meeting. Seeing no objections, public comment is now co uh, closed. We are moving on to appointments in Reappointments. We have ID 1 2, 8, 9 5 appointment of Tamara Shelton as Veteran Service Agents. I believe we have the administration here. We have, uh, Madam Mayor, who is gonna introduce Tamara. Good

▶ 19:00 Jen Grigoraitis: Evening chair and committee members. Thank you for having us tonight. I'm pleased to prevent present Tammy Ton for your consideration as our veteran services agent. As I believe you all may recall, um, at toward the end of last fiscal year, um, the town of Wakefield made the decision to withdraw from the, um, three town, um, districts that we had created of s August Wakefield and Melrose. And so we dissolved that district and have gone from having a veteran services director and some part-time staff serving three communities to now a department of one, which is here before you to serve the veterans of Melrose. Um, so Tammy came to us through a competitive hiring process. She has hit the ground running and has been actively engaging with our veterans population, um, and has been really, um, picking up exactly where things had been left off. And, you know, working hard to ensure that our systems and processes, particularly around our mandatory payments, are happening flawlessly. Um, she is a veteran of the Army and also brings, um, substantial experience in event and program management, which as for those of you that are familiar with the work of the Veterans Department, it is a combination of outward facing events as well as providing direct services to our veteran population. So we're really thrilled to have her for your consideration.

▶ 20:18 Mark Garipay: Thank you. Uh, Madam Mayor, um, do you go by Tammy or

▶ 20:22 Speaker 4: I go, I go by Tammy. Tammy?

▶ 20:24 Mark Garipay: Okay, Tammy. Sorry about that. No, that's okay. Uh, would you like to, to say anything and then I'll open it up for, uh, any questions, uh, for the council?

▶ 20:31 Speaker 4: Sure. So I'd like to say that I'm, I'm very happy to be here in the town, uh, the city, I'm sorry, city of Melrose, working with the veterans. The veterans that I've spoken with and worked with so far have been fantastic. Um, I've been working for the last 15 years off and on with veterans, helping them with different, um, benefits, you know, college benefits, um, disability benefits, things like that. So I have, um, quite a bit of knowledge where that comes from, but I'm very excited to be here in Melrose. And I gotta say, the veterans here are amazing.

▶ 21:02 Mark Garipay: Thank you. Um, any questions from any counselors? Councilor Ro?

▶ 21:08 Cal Finocchiaro: I just wanna say, uh, thank you For your service and thank you for taking on this role and servicing the Veterans of Melrose.

▶ 21:16 Mark Garipay: Thank, thank you. Uh, councilor Romanul. Wanted to

▶ 21:20 Devin Romanul: Echo those comments. Thank you for, um, for doing this role. I was looking at your background and I just finished, uh, wages of Destruction by Adam Toos, and I would love to discuss the, your World War II background, really fascinating. So sidebar for another conversation, but I, I did want to ask if you had, um, any thoughts, and it's okay if you don't, about, uh, the consolidation of the roles, uh, from having a regional approach to a one city approach, and the challenges and opportunities in inherent in that.

▶ 21:46 Speaker 4: So I think the, some of the challenges with that are that, um, some people from SGA specifically still think that we're a district, and that that really comes from the fact that SGA hasn't replaced their veteran service officer yet. And so they don't have anyone to do their chapter fifteens and we can't do them because we we're, we're not from the city, the town of SAU, August. Um, so that part has been a little challenging because I feel bad when I cannot help a veteran, but there are limits to what we hear in Melrose can do outside of Melrose. Um, outside of that, I think not having the district is a huge benefit to the veterans of Melrose because I really feel like they like the idea that it's just that I just work for them and they don't have to share me with Wakefield and they don't have to share me with sga. And so I think for the veterans that are here, I think that's something that, that they particularly like.

▶ 22:42 Speaker 1: Thank you very much and welcome.

▶ 22:47 Speaker 7: Thank you. Any other Councilor Stewart?

▶ 22:49 Speaker 1: Yeah, Mr. Chair, I'll make a motion to recommend to the full council.

▶ 22:53 Mark Garipay: Second, we have a motion to recommend, uh, this, uh, appointment to the full council made by, uh, councilor Stewart second, and by counselor common Sha, uh, on discussion. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? That will be, uh, recommended to the full council. Thank you. Congratulations and welcome. Thank