Meeting Minutes – February 6, 2021  REVISED MINUTES TO INCLUDE ELECTION OF OFFICERS WHICH WAS OMITTED IN THE ORIGINAL MINUTES.

Present: Steve Bachman, Richard Bleiler, Chris Brown, Donald Christ, Willard Dellicker, Harold Haas, Harold Handwerk, Rich Hughes, Ron Jerdon, David Keller, William Mantz, Andrew Talago, Nancy Zellner

Donald Christ called the meeting to order 11:08 AM at the New Tripoli Fire Co. and presided over discussions of the following topics:

ELECTION OF OFFICERS: Current officers were presented and a motion was made by Bill Mantz and seconded by Harold Handwerk to approve the ballot for a one-year term.  Approved by all.

Chairman: Donald Christ

Vice-Chair: Harold Handwerk

Secretary: Willard Dellicker

Treasurer: Eugene Handwerk

1. MINUTES: The October 31, 2020 Minutes were accepted as written. M – H Handwerk, 2^{nd –}

R Hughes, Approved by all.

The Construction Committee Minutes with Township Roadmasters on January 13, 2021 were accepted as written. M – H Haas, 2^nd – R Hughes, Approved by all.

 

2. 2. TREASURER’S REPORT: The bank statement of January 29, 2021 for the Memorial account at New Tripoli National Bank shows a current balance is $151,086.92

 

3. WEBSITE: https://nwlehighvetsmemorial.org.

Names of 2200 Veterans have been submitted for engraving along with their service information.  Veteran’s names can be viewed in alphabetical order on the memorial website.

Nancy Zellner has been doing an incredible job verifying information about these names, dates of service, duplicates and verification of residence to ensure accurate information will be permanently engraved on the granite panels.

The donations tab was updated to include the form for Donation Recognition that people can access and print out to donate trees, benches and Ads for the Souvenir Booklet.

Our website maintainer sent the Google Analytics data for 2019 and 2020.  This data shows the number of visits to our website for each year and graphs the two years for comparison and shows when the visits were made, and other user information.  In 2020 there were 2,172 visits compared to 716 in 2019.  1,568 visited the Veterans sign-up page to access the form for engraving names.  A summary of the information is attached.

Lynn Township is in the process of contracting for website maintenance for another year at a cost of $700.

 

4. NORTHWESTERN PRESS ARTICLE:

Anna Gilgoff will write an article for the Northwestern Press to update the community about the beginning of actual construction, Phase 1, which Andrew Talago started on January 28, 2021 by donating his company’s excavation services.

The article will also cover our plans for accomplishing the remaining work in three phases, a status of our donations to budget, and the fundraising campaign that is just getting underway to solicit donations from area businesses for our Souvenir Booklet.

 

5. PROJECT PLANNING:

The committee discussed the need to describe the project construction plan in phases that can be communicated to the public as we move forward with construction.  Four phases will be used to describe the construction plan:

Phase 1 – E&S control, Excavation, clearing, drainage and utilities trenching.                                                                                               Phase 2 – Concrete foundations, footers and final grading for pavers.

Phase 3 – Procurement of granite panels and layout of names and quotations.

Phase 4 – Laying of pavers, fence, lighting, trees and finish work.

These phases will likely overlap, but will show a high-level plan for construction that can be used to describe the project’s progress in our public communications.

Ron Jerdon said he would put together a detailed construction schedule showing the scope and sequence of the work for project management.

As our Construction Manager, Ron will coordinate the contactors who will be selected to do the remaining work.

 

6. CASH ON HAND, EXPENSES PAID AND DONATIONS REQUIRED TO MEET BUDGETED COSTS:

As we begin our fundraising campaign, a brief review of cash on hand and donated services from Townships and Andrew Talago’s Phase 1 work shows we need to bring in about $82,000 more to meet budget.

Ron Jerdon said he would pull together contractor pricing for more detailed accounting our construction finances.

 

7. QUOTATIONS for memorial panels:

The current list of historical, patriotic quotations to be engraved on the memorial panels is attached to these minutes.  These quotations will be engraved on each of the granite panels under the appropriate era to give an historical context to the memorial panels.

A quote from the first female Army four-star General Ann E. Dunwoody, has been included to recognize female veterans in our quotations.

After discussion, quotation #9 was amended to remove “who allows the protester to burn the flag” for a more positive context.

A motion was made to include these “Quotations for Memorial Panels” as amended.

Motion – Ron Jerdon, 2^nd – Harry Haas, approved by all.

 

8. DISCUSSION:

• Andrew Talago suggested running a spare conduit to the northeast side of the memorial with a box for future electrical needs. The committee agreed.
• Chris Brown suggested removing the existing wooden pole with a camera and place cameras on the light poles on the memorial fence. Committee agreed, Don Christ will get permission from Lynn Twp.
• Ron Jerdon said he would retain possession of all required permits and drawing as there is no suitable location to store them on-site. Committee agreed.
• Ron Jerdon had one of the ceremonial chrome plated shovels engraved with the groundbreaking ceremony and date.

He is donating this shovel to the Committee.

It was suggested that a suitable place to put the shovel may be in a wood case with glass on display in the pavilion.

Further discussion is needed by the committee for a suitable place to display the shovel.

• In discussing project timeline, it was suggested that we should solicit bids for the granite panels so we can work with a supplier to get all mounting and engraving details set, and to lock in a delivery schedule.
• Donald Christ handed out packets of information for committee members to take to local businesses for donations.

He suggested that each township should solicit donations from the businesses in their respective township.

25 of the packets will be given to each township office.

Dave Keller explained the contents of the packets and suggested that an electronic copy of the copy be sent to committee members, the pages in the Packet are in the attachments to the email with these minutes.

• Dave Keller reviewed a “Summary of donations” spreadsheet he developed to show where donations have come from to date. The data shows that 171 individuals have donated $48,798 and 13 organizations have donated $102,392 as of January 29, 2021, for a total of $151,190.  It shows that there are many more organizations and businesses that could be contacted.

Please contact Dave Keller to tell him which businesses you will be soliciting donations so that we don’t have multiple contacts and to ensure we are not missing any potential donors.

• Donald Christ began discussions about placing a bronze eagle at the entrance to the memorial. A conceptual drawing was provided by Chris Brown to show how it would look.  After discussion, a motion was requested to go ahead with including the eagle in the design.  A motion to approve was made by Harry Hass, 2^nd by Bill Mantz approved by all.

 

12. ADJOURN: Motion by H Haas, 2^nd Ron Jerdon, adjourned at 12:35 PM
13. NEXT MEETING: To Be Announced