Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington

Kevin Krall 0:00
You're listening to special programming sponsored by making moves life coaching services. The content of Veterans Affairs plus does not reflect the views or opinions of public radio K, u and v. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Unknown Speaker 0:20
Good morning. This is Veterans Affairs. Plus, I'm Dave Washington, your host.

Unknown Speaker 0:45
This show is sponsored by making moves life coaching services. Today we have several guests. One we actually have in studio and that's American Legion Post team commander, James McDonnell. Good morning, sir. Good morning to you. All right. And additionally, we will have phoning in Mr. Peter Guzman of the Latin Chamber of Commerce, also activist and businessman, Mr. Brian Harris. And let me make a couple of quick corrections. The last show I indicated that Jean Campbell's birthday was June 6, exactly. September 6, and also miss fountain would have been 101. On September 6, okay with those corrections, I'd like to go on and express some condolences. We have one of our regulars up at American Legion Post team big brother Joe. He's an engineer out of Seattle, Washington, he passed away and just want to express acknowledgments and condolences to his family, then to miss windy Ennis, and her family on the loss of her husband, Melvin Beetle in us, a community legend. He put a lot of people before himself, he was instrumental, along with Lawrence weekly and starting camp brotherhood. His services will be held today. At the Government Center, let me lemony once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus a 91.5, jazz and more. All right, Commander, how are you doing today?

Unknown Speaker 2:13
I'm doing excellent. Excellent.

Unknown Speaker 2:15
I think that our community of listeners would like to know what's going on down at the post. So if you can give us some, some rundown on some of the things you got going lately? Well,

Unknown Speaker 2:24
we're doing a lot of outreach programs. We're starting to get the kitchen going. We have a lot of programs now. For homeless vets. I say 90% of them applied to homeless vets, the other 10 Just a homeless in general, right. But I have at least 15 programs. So if anyone needs assistance, please stop by the post 1905 H Street. I would say Wednesday, Thursday, Friday mornings after new Well, noon. And I can direct you to resources. We have shuttles to get you around. Right. We're actually looking to support female veterans. We don't we don't have enough. They don't really apply for benefits like they should. Some some of them have trauma. They're not dealing with correctly. So we have a great service officer, Tony Marshall, who was at the post from one o'clock to four Wednesdays and Saturdays. Okay. And I can give his number out. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 3:44
Yes, I have it here. 301-537-9465. He's Service Officer, Mr. Tony. In fact, he was here on the show last month did a great job and sharing some information. So give us commander a couple more of the different programs that you have going on. That you guys have stood up there at the polls? Well, we

Unknown Speaker 4:06
we have auxilary fundraiser coming up October 16 at 7pm. And that's to help the female the auxiliary of American Legion, October 16. Yes. 7pm. We also have the VFW of post 12 198 meeting at the American Legion. So if anyone wants to join the VFW the requirements are a little different. You have to have served in a foreign war to be a VFW member. But we welcome you also

Unknown Speaker 4:44
so VFW is Veterans of Foreign Wars. Yes. Okay. So those of you out there who are looking for something to to get involved in. I think that will be a great program and it'll put you in contact with other service members who have been in the war zone been in it as they call it, which I wish it wasn't the case of me, I'm a Vietnam era veteran 71 to 73.

Unknown Speaker 5:07
And I'll give my phone number out, it is 702-355-5626. If you need to contact me or the post, just give me a call. So

Unknown Speaker 5:20
command to give us a indication of your hours of operation there at the post, please.

Unknown Speaker 5:25
We're open at this time, six days a week, from one until about 10 or 11. We're closed on Tuesday as of right now, but I believe next month, we will come on up real quick couple of weeks, we should be open seven days a week. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 5:44
So you guys stood money back up based upon football, I

Unknown Speaker 5:48
assume. Right? Exactly.

Unknown Speaker 5:50
We have a lot of football fans out there to look for a place to go to hang out and talk a little trash and rude on your teams. Right. So what time do you generally open? The

Unknown Speaker 6:01
post opens at 1pm 1pm? Okay, I'm usually there about 12 Noon. And sometimes I come back in the evening. Sorry.

Unknown Speaker 6:10
Great. Great. Is there anything else you'd like to share with our listening audience because again, one of the important things about the Veterans Affairs plus show as we try to get information out, that's going to be helpful to our veterans. And I know you mentioned that that homeless project give a little more detail. Because in fact, we have Peter Guzman, who is going to talk about a program that he's involved in, he'll be in the second segment of our show today, I have

Unknown Speaker 6:33
in front of me about 15 different programs for homeless vets Fisher House, Salvation Army, if you're getting ready to lose your home, there's money to be provided. So you can stay in the home. We have scholarships, there's a legacy scholarship for children of deceased veterans. Our veterans would fit for sent. This is a special program. So I have all that information. Just give me a call or come down.

Unknown Speaker 7:06
Oh, absolutely, is great. So you say the children of even deceased veterans, right has an opportunity for scholarship,

Unknown Speaker 7:14
right? Called a legacy, scholarship legacy scholarship. Right? We also have a rhetorical contest coming out Boise State, we have so many programs, you have to come down and I have the information on it.

Unknown Speaker 7:30
Well, that's that's excellent. And also, I would add to that, any of you out there who are looking for something to do, and you're a vet, I definitely go down it because it gives you an opportunity to get involved. And, you know, sometimes people even even to me, is it? Are you bored and being retired 14 years? No, I'm not. Because I had a plan when I left. And my plan was to keep up my community activism and involvement. And I think this is a wonderful way. For those out there who may be looking for something to do, you can come down or call a commander, commander would you give yours and service officer Tony McDonnell, Tony marshals number again,

Unknown Speaker 8:10
please my number James McDonald 702-355-5626. And the select Service Officer. name is Richard Marshall. And his number is 301-537-9465.

Unknown Speaker 8:30
All right, well, Commander, once again, we appreciate you coming in and we're gonna call upon you every so many months to come in and just give folks an update, because I think it's important for people to know that you are an active commander. We appreciate your leadership, those of us who are members, and we urge you to keep doing what you're doing, and we appreciate you This is Veterans Affairs plus on any 1.5 Jazz and more. Thanks, man.

Unknown Speaker 8:59
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 9:07
All right. Good morning. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs plus 190 1.5. Jazz and more are in calling. Calling yesterday is one of the two I should say is Mr. Peter Guzman, president of the Latin chamber. Peter, if you would just give us a little bit of background on on you and your residency here in the city of Las Vegas. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 9:29
You know, Peter Guzman, I'm President, like you said of the Latin Chamber of Commerce. I've been in town about 51 years. I came here when I was about two years old. My background is real estate mostly. But I got involved in the chamber A long time ago and became president about five and a half years ago and it's been a great ride. Great.

Unknown Speaker 9:52
Family.

Unknown Speaker 9:53
I have a son and a daughter. Both college graduated and off My payroll. Well, and, and I have a wife who I've known since I was 14 years old. And we've been married 32 years and she's my rock.

Unknown Speaker 10:11
Great man. I know, I know that feeling I've been Morrison, I've been married for 49 years. And boy, you talk about women will get you on point when you get a little bit off kilter. They should definitely balance.

Unknown Speaker 10:23
I'll tell you what, though. That's one patient woman being with you that long.

Unknown Speaker 10:30
You, brother. Look, Peter, I know you got a great program that you mentioned it, as we both serve on the Mac committee for Metro. You mentioned that one day and you you know, you mentioned my name about being involved. And I'm like, Man, I got so much stuff going on, however, I think is something that's very important. That's why, again, on the plus side of Veterans Affairs show, I thought it was important to bring you on to talk about that, and give some time to date and places for that upcoming event that you're putting together.

Unknown Speaker 11:00
Yeah, I mean, listen, we know we got a homeless situation. We know that we have incredible nonprofits in town, that do a great job, feeding, sometimes housing and getting some stuff, resources to the homeless population. And so that led me to think that in some of my travels, especially to San Antonio, you know, I met with people who, who kind of did things a little bit differently, and it kind of, it kind of started my brain switching a little bit and, and that's why I'm having this homeless Solution Summit, and I want to emphasize homeless solution, Summit, not homeless argument, not not homeless attack, homeless solution, Summit. And in order to do that, in my opinion, and from what I've seen in other other cities, the business community has to step up, the business community that is being mostly affected by this situation, has to step up. And so that's why, you know, I'm bringing the business community to the table, along with, you know, some government. But this isn't, this isn't a nonprofit event. This is, this is for the business community, to really sit around a table. And at least have and I know, I'm going to have more than one summit before we even make a dent in this situation. But I'm okay with that. I was asked to take this on by the city of Las Vegas. And so I'm happy to lead an effort with my colleagues from other chambers and, and other areas of the community along with some heavy hitter business people. And we're hopefully going to come up with what we feel is at least one of the solutions that we should really go after we know we're not doing it. Right. Right. Currently, we know that we know that the jails, the county jail, the city jail are the biggest mental health institutions currently. We know that they're, they're probably the probably the largest, affordable housing. Right now for homeless I mean, it's just not the right way to do it. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 13:14
Agree. So, time and place. So it'll

Unknown Speaker 13:19
be October 15, from nine to 12. In the morning, it'll be at the city hall, Las Vegas City Hall, and in the city hall, chamber, city council chamber. And we'll have an open discussion public, the public is welcome. And then from 12, to to about 20, about a group of 20 will go into a private room, and have a real honest conversation about what we need to be doing.

Unknown Speaker 13:45
So I would imagine that you will have someone as people are coming up to the podium or to the mic and discussing some of the thoughts and ideas that you have someone tracking that. And then from there, the 20 or so we'll go into a room and really kind of break that down and and see what other kinds of things can be done to to bring that forward. Even, not necessarily from this particular summit. But you you mentioned that you will probably have others to ensure that we cover all the bases. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 14:14
David, what I really want to emphasize is, you know, I don't want what we're trying to avoid is to turn this into a shouting match of the same old people. I'm really trying to be sincere about doing, you know, talking about outside of the box and new ideas of what we can be doing for our for our homeless situation and help and helping folks. You know, we know we got to, we know we have, we can't call everybody homeless, right? We have mental illness issues. We have drug addiction issues. We have, we have veterans that have a set of problems that we need to address. And then you got that group of people that really want to live off the grid and want to be left alone and then there are adults in the homeless population that don't want assistance and they want to be left alone, we have to identify the groups in order to, you have to define it in order to help right.

Unknown Speaker 15:12
Now, that's a valid point. In fact, I believe, too, that there are people who want to be out on the streets. But there's got to be a way to allow them to do that, where they're not being harmful from a physical as well as from a health standpoint to others, which sometimes I don't think they even consider. And all it has to be brought to bear. But I think what you're doing man is a wonderful thing. And I too, believe that sometimes we must go into a room, share our opinions, without screaming and shouting and cussing each other out. What sense does it make and what good is it going to do? Because everybody's going to shut down when you start doing it? That's one thing I've found in my many years of life.

Unknown Speaker 15:49
No, and you're absolutely right, in the business community, you know, entrepreneurs and business people, they don't have time for that. And so the fact that they're coming to the table is a good thing. Let's actually have that conversation with them and hopefully get some dollars. And next thing, you know, we may have our own. I don't want to give the name out yet. But there's there's organizations and facilities around the country that are working. And we need to we need to have on here.

Unknown Speaker 16:16
Absolutely. Well, man, I commend you, Peter, and certainly will encourage folks and my schedule allows, I will try to be there as well, because I think what you're doing is honorable, and it's the kind of thing that we must do, man, because it's not going to go away. And it's only going to grow if we don't get a handle on it. So if you will just give up. We got about another minute to go or so. Give a brief rundown of time place and, and again, we appreciate what you're doing my friend,

Unknown Speaker 16:44
I appreciate you that I appreciate everything you do. And I appreciate you and our friendship and you including me, and not being afraid to stand shoulder to shoulder with me. Absolutely. October 15 2021 9am to 12 at the city council chambers. And we'll be ready to rock and roll.

Unknown Speaker 17:03
All right, Peter, have a great day, man. And I know you're out there work in a conference or convention. So I really appreciate you taking your valuable time to be with us this morning on Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 Jazz and more. Thanks, Peter. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 17:33
All right, as I said, as we open up the show, Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more. I am your host, Dave Washington and making moves life coaching services. On the line. As I mentioned, he would be our third and second calling guests this morning. We have Mr. Brian Harris, he has a food festival that he's going to tell us about. And not only that Brian has an activist within our community who's well respected by most because he brings up and talks about issues that some don't want to talk about with it. Hi doing this morning, Brian.

Unknown Speaker 18:04
Bless my brother. How you doing? Dave?

Unknown Speaker 18:08
I'm well, yes. Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 18:10
wanted to invite everybody to come out to the block Las Vegas food festival celebrating Black culture with everyone. It's October 15th through the 17. If you can be downtown in the historic arch district over in the two or three East Colorado area.

Unknown Speaker 18:25
So what's the what's the time frame? Okay,

Unknown Speaker 18:28
actually, we started on the 15th. And the doors opened around noon. And on the 15th we're going to break the world record for the church at fly 6pm We're looking to have we need at least 3500 people out there ready to do the Cha Cha fly. So we can go into the Guinness Book of World Records and bring that bring that distinction from China back to Las Vegas, because that sounds

Unknown Speaker 18:54
good. Sounds good. So on the 15th, you say you start at noon, and then you go 16 and 17. What are those timeframes?

Unknown Speaker 19:05
16th and 17th. We started about eight o'clock in the morning, we go to about 11 o'clock at night, folks, this is this is a good old fashion block party. We have blocked off the streets on casino senator from Colorado to Charleston. We have food vendors, retail informational people. We have a main band mainstage where we have people performing like the incomparable treasure. We're going to have music spoken. We're all kinds of community stuff going on on our main stage and we've got over 21 stage over at Raw remedies where we're going to have stuff for people that are over 21. So this is your old fashion block party with the Las Vegas twist.

Unknown Speaker 19:50
Great. So this is how many times a second annual third annual because I know you've been doing fourth annual This

Unknown Speaker 19:59
is the fourth time I knew and we didn't do it last year because of COVID. Vision the year before, we had roughly 13,000 people on a two day event. So we're growing, our whole objective is to grow to become one of the largest events celebrating Black Culture on the West Coast. And I say that celebrating Black culture with everyone, because while this is to celebrate black culture, everyone, and I mean, everyone is invited to come out and celebrate our culture with us. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 20:30
And I've been to those on several occasions, I do see people from all races and ethnic groups coming out to share in, as you said, the culture of black folks. So we certainly wish you well. You got to get those give those times again, and the actual location because we want to make sure that that's embedded in the in the minds of folks when, so they will know when and where.

Unknown Speaker 20:54
Okay, it will be we'll start off on Friday. And we start off at noon, and we break the record is six, we're going to have the comparable DJ Casper, the creator, the CASPER slide here. We're also have DJ thump as our host throughout the weekend, as we party have over the weekend. The Saturday starts at 8am and goes to about 11pm. And the same set for Sunday. We're also having some after parties at the artisan hotel. And we're doing an information and knowledge summit on brunch on a Saturday morning where we talk about blacks and the cannabis industry and overall blacks and economics.

Unknown Speaker 21:39
Excellent. I certainly would be remiss if I didn't and I didn't acknowledge in my condolences statement earlier that we lost a young DJ DJ certified so condolences to his family I was able to get by his viewing but couldn't stay for the service. But he's a young man who will be missed. He was a I know when I served for weekly and Cunningham. He would sometimes be the engineer to cover the show. So yeah, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 22:09
A great young man. And I also would be remiss without mentioning, we have another person who signed on who will be our host and at the artisan for our late night party all night event and are over 21 is the comparable galaxy. Glen. You heard it 91.5 Old Galaxy Glen for the festival also

Unknown Speaker 22:36
Yeah, listen to him frequently. And the guy always trying to ram something. I'm like, Man, why you got arrive everything galaxy? I hope you're listening? No, no, he has a great show each day, the drivetime I think from three to seven or something like that. But I appreciate the show. So Brian, very quickly, you also have a business that you run. That's out near the strip, give give people indication of that. Because I know some people when they come to town or have family rooms come to town, they can push people your way or send people your way. Because sometimes people like to do some things outside of just on stupid. So great,

Unknown Speaker 23:11
great, thanks. Yes, we have we just opened an all electric motorcycles scooters and E bikes. And it's called West Coast boom. We just completed setting up our tours where we have a couple of tours, we go out to the Red Rock, we also do a ride a strip, right and we are doing a Arts District ride. So we actually have tours a minimum of four people, we actually take you out there, we ride for anywhere from two hours to three hours determined, determined by where we going.

Unknown Speaker 23:48
So on the bikes that you do it at Red Rock, you actually take folks out, you don't ride all the way out that you take folks out in the in the in riot sanctuary,

Unknown Speaker 23:57
correct, we take them out. Let me give you my number. So if you're interested, it's 708-805-3819. Again, 708-805-3819. And our office is located at 4291 Polaris unit seats.

Unknown Speaker 24:14
tell you we really appreciate you coming in and giving us some indication of what's going to be going on with the black food festival. So if you've given those, we got enough time for you to give that information again to share with our audience. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 24:27
the black world Vegas food festival celebrating Black culture with everyone is October 15 16th and 17th. On October 15. We need you to come out as we break the record for the chutzpah slide. We're going to have both Casper, the originator of the of the chacha fly. We're gonna have the Raider robot a 15 foot Raider robot out there and of course the incomparable DJ thump as we take this record and bring it back to Las Vegas. For the rest of the weekend, we'll have parties it'll be the the old fashioned block parties where you can come out and just spend the day with your family listening to good music, eating good food, and just having a community gathering over at the historic arts district 203 East Colorado.

Unknown Speaker 25:21
Great. All right, Brian, you have a great day man and we look forward to you having great success. And I certainly want to say again, this is the Veterans Affairs plus on any 1.5 Jazz and more, I'm your host, Dave Washington. I have a great engineer and producer director, Mr. Kevin crawl he keeps me on point. You know, it's wonderful. Brian I know you do a show here as well. And I know it's really something when you have somebody to keep your track because we both could talk and he'd be giving you a fair hey read his time now. Thanks, Kevin. We appreciate you brother All right. All right. Take care to the listening audience once again we will see we'll see and talk to you next month 830 the first Saturday of the month

Unknown Speaker 26:34
the smoking on the pavement we all you all we got it was on last fall

Unknown Speaker 26:58
because it just wasn't good for me fam and family

Unknown Speaker 27:35
you institution causes so much confusion since solution is we can take it no more. No it can be

Unknown Speaker 28:24
Hey brothers face justice.

Unknown Speaker 28:55
Bye You

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