Island County Commissioner Angie Homola had words of praise for a small, but attentive crowd who showed at Saturday’s town hall meeting at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7392 in Oak Harbor.

“The very fact that you are here, on such a pretty Saturday afternoon, speaks volumes about where your priorities lie,” she told audience members. “It shows your desire to stay informed, and your concerns.”

The meeting’s purpose sought to update attendees not only on the county budget challenges ahead, but to the necessity of looking to the future and planning ahead for the needs of veterans and others, said Homola.

The District 2 commissioner opened the meeting with a power point presentation that gave an overview of Island County departments, and the responsibilities of elected officials. Conceding that the past couple of years had been tough ones, financially speaking, for the county, she drew the audience’s attention to a slide showing year-over-year staffing levels from 2008.

“From 447 full-time employees in 2008, we now have approximately 364 and even many of these are working reduced hours,” said Homola. “As the graphs show, sales tax revenues, and planning department permit fees are still down from 2008. As you can also see, we have our challenges ahead of us.”

One of the power point graphs showed Island County’s current expense property tax ranking among other Washington counties. Citing the fact that this county had one of the lowest, Homola mentioned that when it comes to cutting expenses, “we’re beyond the bone, here.”

“At the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves, ‘What kind of life standard do we want to enjoy, and extend to others to enjoy, in this home  we call Island County?’” she said.

Referring to how Island County uses its property tax assessment revenues, Homola mentioned a regulatory code of Washington that allowed a small percentage of that revenue to be used for indigent veterans, calling it a step in the right direction.

Judith Gorman, director of the Veterans Resource Center in Freeland, was also in the audience. She gave an example of one case she encountered.

“Recently, I met an Island County veteran who’s in his 80’s. He and his wife have been living in a trailer home all these years, on a modest income,” she said. “Now, for health reasons, they must move into an apartment — but before they can do so, they must do something about that trailer.”

Addressing the audience at large, Gorman said, “Is anyone here aware of what’s involved in disposing of an old trailer home?” she asked. “In case you weren’t aware, it’s no easy thing to do — yet, do we just turn this gentleman and his wife away?”

Homola also introduced Gerald Pfannenstiel, Island County veterans/adult outreach services coordinator, who works with the veterans’ advisory board in making recommendations to meet needs of local veterans. Pfannenstiel described some of his job responsibilities to the audience.

“It’s about more than just money, and it’s not just giving hand-outs to people,” said Pfannenstiel.

“In a lot of cases, if an individual needs help finding a job, we’re in a position to direct them to those resources. Or perhaps they need to file a Veterans Administration compensation claim. Sometimes, people just need help navigating the paperwork for things of that nature,” he said.

Homola said before these policies were adopted, they were seeing only about five to 10 veterans a year.

“Now we’re seeing anywhere from 80 to 100 a year,” she said.

Planning ahead for the future is the right and prudent approach for Island County, said Homola. Along that line, she emphasized that we should not forget those veterans who’ll be coming home in the near future.

“With the drawdowns currently called for in Iraq and other countries, that probably translates into contingencies that we need to start preparing for right now,” she said.

Homola said one of the best ways she could foresee to plan for that would be a veterans assistance service set-aside out of the current expense fund that would stand alone.

“If we had that flexibility, it would help more than anything to be ready for our veterans returning home,” she said.