WHEELER ARMY AIRFIELD, Hawaii - In last November's "Ask the Garrison Commander" column, I talked about an important community forum called the Installation Action Council, or IAC.
I would like to take this opportunity to review the IAC and provide an update to the program.
I chair this council, and garrison directors and other senior staff attend as subject matter experts.
The purpose of the council is to consider and prioritize issues and concerns that broadly impact our local military community. The council is not intended to address individual problems - those are better served through the Interactive Customer Evaluation, or ICE, system. Rather, the intent of the IAC is for council members to hear issues that affect our entire community
The IAC is a resolution process that collects issues and recommendations from the community via focus groups, surveys and an issue sheet collection. Members include a Soldier and spouse representative from each brigade and command, as well as a Soldier and spouse from constituent groups such as retirees, veterans and single Soldiers.
The IAC complements the Hawaii Army Family Action Plan, or HAFAP, which addresses issues requiring higher command resources, direction or support. However, the IAC discusses and resolves issues at our garrison level.
The benefit of having both programs (the IAC and the HAFAP) is that the IAC is able to immediately handle those issues that impact our local community. HAFAP focuses on issues that have an impact in the broader Army community, those that might even need congressional support.
During the first quarter of fiscal year 2011, the council heard 46 community issues; of those, 37 were addressed and 25 were resolved. In the second quarter, the council received 30 community issues and resolved 12.
Typically, many IAC issues concern family housing, managed by Island Palm Communities; parking spaces and traffic flow, maintained by the Directorate of Public Works; and speeding and feral animals, controlled by the Directorate of Emergency Services.
This month's council recommended several positive actions, including refresher training for IPC staff and funding for more IPC self-help programs.
DES told the council it will continue to enforce speed limits in the housing areas, and is looking into installing more speed bumps in some IPC housing areas. Also, DES explained it's enforcing the garrison's two pets, per family, policy, and picking up stray animals, as required.
Meanwhile, as evident throughout north and south installation areas, DPW said it has many street construction projects underway to improve traffic flow and safety.
Many other directorates and organizations are working to support the U.S. Army Hawaii community.
Survivor Outreach Services, or SOS, is continuing to work with commands to update its continuity lists with information on surviving families of fallen Soldiers, to ensure families are contacted at least annually. SOS is also sending out bimonthly newsletters.
The Judge Advocate General of the 8th Theater Sustainment Command is working with U.S. Army-Pacific's JAG to ensure that family readiness group training is consistent from a staff judge advocate perspective, regardless of who is providing FRG training.
In the days, weeks and months ahead, I encourage you to continue to use ICE if you have a comment - good or bad - about a specific occurrence with a particular service provider. Service providers receive your comments almost immediately after they are submitted within ICE. They can respond directly to you, if requested.
For more information about the IAC, or to see if your unit is represented, contact Rosey Stone at 808-655-9033 or through email, Roselina.Stone@us.army.mil.
IAC issue sheets and past issue information and results are available at www.garrison.hawaii.army.mil/sites/services/iac.asp.
(Editor's Note: Gayle Yanagida, USAG-HI Plans, Analysis and Integration Office, contributed to this article.)
Social Sharing