Scott Sklar, AHCA President, brought meeting to order at 7:35 pm.
Tom Eversole of Shepherd’s Center of McLean, Arlington and Falls Church – a 501(c)3 non-profit organization which provides rides, limited handyman services and visits for elderly people who wish to remain in their homes for as long as possible. It has been around since 2006. There are 7 centers in northern Virginia and 59 centers in the country. The minimum age to participate is 55 years old and the average age of the volunteers are 79. Anyone who applies must be interviewed by a team and must be able to walk out of their home on their own and be able to talk. Riders pay nothing for the service and the organization survives on donations. They are looking for driver and handyman volunteers and, of course, donations.
Representatives from Arlington County Police Officers Estor and Owens – Discussed the Arlington Restaurant Initiative which is a voluntary accreditation program for all Arlington County restaurants that hold a VA ABC license. In the Clarendon and Ballston areas, crowds on Fridays and Saturday evenings had started to grow to 4,500 to 6,500 people, back in 2015. This also brought problems with public drunkedness, fighting and nearby neighborhood disturbances. Some of the problems they found were due to a lack of formal training for management and staff on how to deal with these problems, lack of cohesive strategies to deal with these problems and overcrowding and violation of occupancy limits. For those restaurants willing to participate in this initiative, training is provided on how to deal with potential problems to better empower the restaurant owners and staff. This includes fake ID awareness training (over the last two years approximately 2000 ids were confiscated), sharing ACPD, WRAP and Lyft SoberRide resources, and Bar Bystander Program training to reduce sexual and domestic assaults related to alcohol. This has been empowering restaurant owners and staff to better deal with problems that arise, so police do not have to be utilized as much. Back in 2015 there had to be 20 officers in Clarendon and the Ballston Quarter area. Now these areas only need about 9 police staff for most Fridays and Saturdays. After each weekend, Arlington County Police have a meeting with all accredited businesses to go over any problems or concerns. This has been very helpful for both restaurant owners and our police. Currently there are 30 restaurants accredited by this initiative and they hope more will continue to join. For any new establishment requesting an VA ABC license, they are being contacted by Arlington County Police to participate. Officer Brien is the Restaurant Liaison Specialist (703) 228-7423. Scott Sklar expressed our appreciation to the Arlington County Police and for this new program.
Jim Richardson ran our AHCA Elections for this year. He announced that the officers were running for their current positions. He opened the floor for nominations. There were no nominations from the floor. Sklar advised that this was his last year as serving as President, and that as he e-mailed the membership on the AHCA listserve, Julia Tanner will be shadow President this year, so she would be the candidate for next year, and that he hoped this would set a precedent on future leadership transition for AHCA.
The results were:
President – Scott Sklar (for one more year)
Vice President for Membership – Jim O’Brien
Vice President for Programs – Vacant
Treasurer – Doug Williams
Secretary – Jodie Flakowicz
Our At-Large Appointees, will continue to serve. They are: Cole Deines, Jim Feaster. Patrick Lueb, and nKen Matzkin.
Scott Sklar hopes to have a candidate for the Vice President for Programs by the end of the Summer.
On a motion duly made & seconded, the positions were approved and installed, beginning June 1, 2019, and ending May 31, 2020.
The meeting was adjourned at approximately 8:30 pm and AHCA members mingled, finished up the food and put away chairs.
Respectfully submitted by, Jodie Flakowicz, May 18, 2019.