Wood County Veterans Service Commission and Service Office

The office's own site (www.woodcountyvets.com, read 2026-10-21) names the staff - Executive Director and County Veterans Service Officer Zach Migura, Lead CVSO Monica Davis, CVSO Ginny Sutherland, CVSO and Office Manager Billy Madden, and Assistant CVSO Alex Farris, "full-time employees that report to the County's Veterans Service Commission" - and the commission, whose members are appointed by the County Common Pleas Judges on staggered five-year terms to represent the veterans organization posts or the veteran community: Joseph Fawcett (President), Doug Dariano (Vice President), Thomas Uhler (Secretary), Richard Zulch and Steve Benner. The commission meets the fourth Tuesday of each month at 8:30 a.m. in the office conference room, 1940 East Gypsy Lane Road. Hours are Monday to Friday 8:30 to 4:30, and the About Us page adds that "Our office closes every other Wednesday afternoon for administrative and developmental purposes" and that "Appointments are highly preferred. (Walk-ins cannot be guaranteed service)". The county's Guide to Wood County Government and its Job & Family Services Veterans page carry the same office, phone and the address [email protected]. Claims work. The office's accredited representatives prepare, submit and represent claims before the VA; new clients are told an appointment "usually takes about an hour" and the office screens every financial-assistance caller for VA benefits at the same time. At the January 8, 2026 quarterly update Mr. Migura told the commissioners pending claims are handled by the Cleveland regional office and that denied claims can go before the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims in Washington, a process "that can last up to nine years". At July 9, 2026 he warned that for-profit companies are offering to help veterans process VA claims, "some are fraudulent", and pointed to the accredited route. The October 8, 2026 update prices the office's 2026 work so far at "just over $1.5 million" in benefits to veterans. The county pays for the office. Its quarterly updates and its budget review are Board of Commissioners meetings, not the commission's own posted record: on October 9, 2025 the office presented its 2026 appropriation and strategic requests (travel, other expenses and contract services, the contract line being a $235,000 increase for transportation), on December 11, 2025 the fiscal officer's draft budget carried the request for a deputy director and paid spring and fall interns for the Veterans Service Office, the general fund to pay them, with Stanley consulting the commission president "since a new position was granted two years ago", and the commissioners bought the office new furniture ($23,637.20, November 13, 2025), leased its space at 1940 E. Gypsy Lane Road (May 28, 2026, with the January-June 2026 lease payment paid August 25, 2026), approved a flagpole placement the office requested at the Dunbridge Road office building (November 25, 2025) and bought the $5,015 flagpole with U.S., POW/MIA and Ohio flags (March 31, 2026; county crews set it and rebuilt the walkway around it, completed by September 24), gave it $7,223 of exterior signage so clients can find the building (Toledo Sign, April 28 and May 5, 2026; installation begun the week of June 29 and the sign photographed in place July 9), bought a $5,765 double-sided ID-card printer with lamination (April 2, 2026), docking stations, a television, line adjustments and equipment supplementals, and approved out-of-state travel for staff to the 2026 National Association of County Veterans Service Officers annual conference (March 5, 2026). The Buildings and Grounds update of January 22, 2026 records the office's cleaning bill - a private service at $2,700 a month - and the director's request that a county custodian clean the office, which the facilities director said the staff could cover; and the county Administrator's update of August 6, 2026 records the former Child Support Enforcement Agency building renovation being planned around a wall to "maintain confidentiality for the Veterans Service Office". On June 30, 2026 the commissioners recorded Governor DeWine's order, requested by Representative Ghanbari and the Board, lowering the county's flags for David Ridenour - an Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame inductee and longtime member of this commission - which the Administrator shared with the townships, which may participate at their discretion. What the office runs. Its Services and County Benefits pages, and the year's quarterly updates, add up to a programme list: emergency financial assistance (its own entry here); door-to-door rides to VA and VA-approved community-care appointments, through Black and White Paratransit, enrolled through the office with a DD-214 on file (its own entry, wood-oh-veterans-transportation, carries the county's purchase of the service); Ohio veterans ID cards made in the office once the discharge is on record at the Recorder (see the recording entry); Guitars 4 Vets - three volunteer instructors, the jam sessions built around it, eleven graduates by October 8, 2026, each kept a tuner, guitar and stand, and the group played its first outside gig at the county's America 250 Courthouse Square Block Party on June 16, 2026; game nights, a euchre tournament and an e-gaming tournament in work with the university's Penta; the annual survey whose answers set the programming; Adopt-a-Highway cleanups of State Route 6 with the Solid Waste district (four dates in 2025, the last set for October 29, 2026); ODNR fishing work - a First Cast class in the office's conference room November 13, 2025 and a veterans' fishing event at the park district's Adam Phillips Pond November 20, 2025, the pond stocked with trout for it; the Veterans Lunch and Resource Fair (the 2nd annual on November 1, 2025 at the fairgrounds junior fair building with a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier guard as speaker, the 3rd on November 7, 2026, 89 registered by October 8 with a ten-person team from the Cleveland county office attending); Veterans Day at the Wood County Fair on August 24, 2026, where any veteran completing the commission's survey got food-vendor vouchers and the jam group played the free tent; a Holiday Marketing Outreach campaign running September 1 to November 15, 2026 that had issued 48 fifty-dollar Kroger gift cards by October 8; and a Memorial Day whose budget line doubled - the October 8, 2026 update credits a change to the Revised Code effective October 6, 2026, and notes attendance at Memorial Day events has slipped "likely due to costs associated with it". The office sits on the county's Housing and Homelessness Coalition, the Suicide Prevention Coalition and the Community Health Improvement Plan; Billy Madden sits on the Honor Flight board; the office tracks homeless veterans through the coalition's software (13 identified as of October 9, 2025, reviewed quarterly) and pointed to the NAMI-led Veterans Response Team for responders meeting veterans in crisis (about five such teams in the state then). Mr. Migura also invited the commissioners to the 2026 flagpole and signage work; the dog shelter's December 9, 2025 update records its monthly veterans-and-dogs visits with Owens Community College and two dogs adopted through them. The commission's own minutes are not posted: its agenda center held three 2025 agendas when read, the last October 28, 2025, whose business items were executive session on a public employee's pay, building signage and "Usage of new website for VSC business" - this site - and no minutes for any meeting. The commissioners' minutes above are the record of what the commission did in the year.