|
CouncilCORNER>
MosesUpdate
By Harvey Moses, Jr.
Greetings Tribal Members:
The Tribal Election process is now behind us for a short time.
During reorganization, I was elected to be 05-06 Chairman. I
want to first thank the 8 CBC members that have enough faith in
me to place me in this position. It is with great pride that I
will serve in this position, following in the footsteps of my
father. He was Tribal Chairman for 15 years during one of the
most trying time periods in our history, the termination era. I
will work hard to not disappoint anyone while in this position;
I am a representative of the Colville Confederated Tribes and
will remember that at all times. On a personal note, I have been
asked time and again if I am overwhelmed by this position. My
response is no. I was the Tribe’s Executive Director for 4
years, the Administrative Director for 4 years and I was the
Chief Accountant/Finance Officer for the Tribes for 7 years. I
have 6 years as a council member; my 1st year I was elected as
Management & Budget Chairman, and Ethics Committee Chairman, my
2nd year I was elected as CBC Secretary and still Ethics
Committee Chair, (95-97). My 3rd year, I was elected as
Management & Budget Committee Chairman, my 2nd year I was
elected as Education, Employment & Training Committee Chairman,
my 3rd year I was elected as the Culture Committee Chairman,
(2001-2005). With this background I believe I have the knowledge
and experience necessary to fill the position of CBC Chairman
and not disappoint my supporters or the general membership.
My goals for this year are: 1) Work on making IHS more service
friendly to our membership. We have lost a lot recently. It is
my contention that prevention is cheaper than hospital costs.
Ambulance rides may be unnecessary if only actions were taken
before illnesses were allowed to get out of hand. 2) CTEC is
another area that needs updating/revision. It has been in
existence for approximately 10 years. Presently CTEC is totally
depending on income derived from our timber resources and
casinos. This would not be a problem if we were making more
money than just covering operating costs annually. I have said
time and again that CTEC needs to diversify the income base to
stay completive and survive. There are too many tribal member
families depending on a paycheck from them to not grow and
change with the times. 3) My third goal is to work to improve
the Tribal governmental services to the membership. We need to
reevaluate ourselves for effective service delivery to our
membership as a government. We have all the services at hand but
yet still have alcohol and drug problems, abuse problems,
housing problems and the outside world trying to chip away at
our sovereignty at every turn. 4) The local BIA is falling into
disarray. The present federal administration is moving ahead
with the creation of another bureaucracy called the Office of
Special Trust (OST). The Colville Tribes has opposed this from
the onset. I believe we will prevail in the end. The functions
to be taken over by OST are contractible and we will contract to
maintain local control. These 4 items are all doable, but not
over night. We will get them turned around.
I am receiving calls from irate tribal members about the article
in the 7/27/05 Chronicle regarding a councilwoman’s statement.
As is custom with all our council meetings they are open forum
and each individual council member has the right to express
what’s on their mind. Generally, one pays more attention to what
is said in these meetings but not this time. I realize these
words were harmful to our endeavors to erase these longstanding
assumptions about Indians, but they were said. There was no law
broken here; she will have to make the necessary atonements for
what she said to her constituents and the membership.
The Moses Point project is off the table. The CBC took action on
August 4, 2005 to not move forward due to lack of funds and lack
of support from the local community. The Suicide race is moving
forward; we received support from both the City of Omak and the
Omak Stampede Board. The Owners and Jockeys Association have
taken a number of steps to assure the safety of the horses such
as vet checks, training/conditioning checks and have checked the
race course for safety issues. The CCT is taking steps to clean
up our Reservation roadways by requiring that a tarp be used to
cover garbage when hauling to the local dump. If this is not
done a fine will be imposed and a ticket will be issued that
will cost the tarp-less hauler $250.
Harvey Moses
Back to top>
Charley's CORNER
By
Shirley K. Charley
I have submitted a copy of the letter that
I submitted to the Chronicle for those of you that might not
have received a copy of it.
I always believe that both sides of the story need to be told.
I have been silent in a big issue and no longer will be. So
ask me.
I know that some of you do not know what I am talking about,
but issues need to be exposed and explained and I am willing
to do just that. I personally hope that you don’t want to
continue to be left in the dark on tribal issues and that I
become silent, just so bad journalism can continue to be
written and papers sold.
To The Editor:
My name is Shirley K. Charley and I have lately been named in
several issues of the Omak Chronicle. I need to respond to the
articles that were printed and misrepresented in the July 27th
issue of the Chronicle. Isn’t that why there was an intense
discussion prior to the meeting as to whether or not the Omak
Chronicle reporter could stay in the meeting, due to negative
and misrepresented articles written by the same reporter in
the past?
My concern is that the safety and welfare of all suicide
riders have been threatened. There has been no legal action
taken and the issue has become misconstrued written comments
made by an elected official. Instead of PAWS being held
accountable and being able to accomplish their goal in
splitting the community by having a long standing event
eliminated – the focus has instead been redirected.
Many of times the good things that people do is not printed,
controversial or mis-written statements do sell papers and I
hope our long standing home town paper does not turn into a
cheaply written tabloid.
IF the reporter who attended the meeting would have listened
better or had written factual notes, the statements of a “beer
garden” pertained to 1975 when we had the Indian Rodeo in Omak
and the whole town of Omak seemed to have boycotted against
it. If you do not believe that there are a lot that do drink
and fight, go sit in on the Tribal Court hearings and witness
for yourself that this statement is true!! The “toll bridge”
statement is from when I served as a T.E.R.O. Commissioner,
and there was a concern of enforcing the T.E.R.O. laws, that
we, the Colville Tribe adhere by. This is our land and we
should and do protect it to our fullest abilities.
I am alcohol free and in my eleventh (11) year of sobriety on
the Reservation. I boycotted the whiskey industry for
twenty-five (25) plus years. I will personally boycott
Wal-Mart in Omak. I do not and will not promote alcohol events
or the selling of it in our casinos.
In the same meeting, I stated that I and my family (since the
former boycott) sew/buy the material to make the suicide rider
numbers and the horse blanket numbers and DONATE them. We also
sell/buy Booster Buttons and give them away. My family and
myself make and donate to many families (some we don’t know)
for funerals, memorials, graduations and will always give a
break on prices of items we sell. We realize that there are
times of need and that the money is not always available.
I have been an interesting person to talk and write about
since I exposed a former Council woman in misappropriation of
funds and, by a jury of peers, was convicted and has four (4)
felonies against her in our Tribal Court system. You can
request a copy of the filed documents from the Tribal Court,
it is freedom of information.
Many times people that do not attend our meetings seem to be
the most opinionated without the facts and once the facts are
presented, they shy away, but the damage is already done. I
find out the facts first and then come forward. I do not blame
someone else for my actions, I take responsibility for them.
If the shoes don’t fit, I don’t wear them. For you that have
taken offense of my statements that have been blown out of
context, I wonder, did they touch too close to home? Only you
can answer that, if you need answers from me, please call. I
can be reached at 826-5840.
Shirley K. Charley
Back to top>
MoomawUpdate
By
Cherie Moomaw
Report to the Tribal Membership,
Thank you again, those of you that chose to vote in this
year’s election. I consider it a privilege to serve as a
councilperson. This first month has been extremely hectic.
There is no orientation for new council members so you learn
as you go. My fellow council members and our staff are very
helpful and patient. I’m finding we have many quality
employees that want to do their job well.
I am the Chair of the Community Development Committee.
Departments working with this committee are Public Works,
Colville Indian Housing Authority, the Community Centers,
Planning, BIA Roads, Solid Waste, Wells/Water/Waste Water. I
am also the 2nd Vice Chair of Law and Justice, 2nd Vice Chair
of Health and Human Services and a member of the Enrollment
Committee.
The Wells Dam Settlement will be paid out in full Oct. 3,
2005. We are offering a new home ownership program called 184.
This will be of help to those of you that need help getting
into your own home. I did say I did not want to be a traveling
councilperson and I will not travel any more than necessary:
1st, July 27, Richland-Columbia River Water Rights, then the
same trip July 28, Richland-Repatriation of Human Remains from
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 2nd, August 20, Worley – meeting
with Ross Swimmer about Wells Dam payout. Aug. 11, Spokane –
Lawyer update concerning Lakes Reserve, Canada. Our travel
accounts pay for mileage, meals, and motels. (Our travel
accounts also pay airfare, rental cars and any registration
fees for attending a conference or meeting – if needed). Total
cost to my travel account was $764.97.
I am committed to having monthly district meetings for the
membership. If you have subjects or programs you would like
discussed, please let one of your council members know.
If you have any questions or concerns, my office # is 634-2215
or cell phone # 322-1776. I try to return calls daily or at
least by the following day.
Til Next Month,
Cherie Moomaw
Back to top>
Indian COUNTRY
By
Michael E. Marchand
Indian Energy Bill:
Both the House and the Senate passed energy bills and now they
go into conference in an attempt to reconcile any differences
in the two bills for approval by the President. It’s expected
that this will happen by the end of August, but this bill has
been a struggle and has been mired in controversy for a long
time. The Council of Energy Resource tribes met and drafted
the wish list for the Indian portion of the bill. Much of
CERT’s wishes made it into the bill. An Office of Indian
Energy Policy and Programs was created at the Dept. of Energy.
Grants are established to develop tribal capacity and low
interest loans will be made available to promote energy
development. Federal agency preference for the purchase of
tribal energy is approved. Removal of Secretary of Interior
authority over tribes in energy development, this recognizes
tribal sovereignty. This bill will potentially put billions of
dollars into Indian country and is one of the most significant
pieces of legislation in a long time for many tribes. This
bill is especially critical for tribes like Colville who
already have very significant energy resources and look toward
further expansion into this area. After CERT drafted these
ideas, the national energy interests were shocked at how far
the tribes had already gone into legislative development and
they modeled much of their portions of the bill after our
ideas.
Trust Reform Bill:
Senator McCain introduced a trust reform bill as promised. It
is split into several titles. Title I is a settlement
provision for the ongoing Cobell case. This case concerns IIM
accounts. Title II sets up an Indian Trust Asset Policy Review
Commission. A 12 member commission would be created to review
laws and policy for trust and make recommendations. Title III
sets up a pilot project for tribes who want to set up their
own trust management systems. The Office of Special Trustee
was created to overhaul the fiduciary management systems of
the BIA in order to meet with trust obligations. But many
tribes, primarily self-governance tribes and some contract
tribes have already overhauled the systems and have made
significant investments into their systems which meet or
exceed OST plans. This would allow them to opt out of OST and
give other tribes the option of doing similar things. Title IV
is a land consolidation program which puts money up to buy out
fractionated interests in order to deal with the fractionated
interest problems. Title V restructures the BIA and OST and
creates a new Under Secretary position in Interior. Title VI
requires annual audits of Indian accounts. This is a major
piece of legislation and it is already controversial. It hits
many of the key points that NW leaders wanted in the bill, but
not everybody is happy with the details, and the Cobell
plaintiffs are not happy with how the settlement process is
set up. Tribes will now have to decide what to do with the
bill; Senator McCain has done what he promised. We are
scheduling a series of meetings in the NW to decide what to
do. We can support the bill, make amendments to it, or
introduce out own bill. Also it is likely that Indian country
will be split. If the tribes are TOO split, everything will
likely die, the Congress will lose patience and move onto
something else. In this case, the court action in Cobell will
continue. A number of tribes have also filed a lawsuit,
including our own tribe as I write this for trust accountings,
which could lead to a lot of litigation in the future. This
will tend to tie up many Interior of Dept. of Justice
resources in the courts.
Exporting Timber vs.
Processing in our Mills:
One of the ongoing debates in Council that has been going on
since even before I was around here, is whether we should put
our timber out for bid on the open market or whether we should
feed our mills, and if we feed our own mills, what prices
should we pay. It would take pages and pages of analysis to
fully cover the issue, but I shall try and cover some of the
main points. One, it is likely that the tribe could make more
stumpage with an open bid process on some of the sales. This
would put more money into the tribe’s general fund account.
However, this would likely decrease some of the tribe’s other
revenue accounts, such as CTEC profits, which is owned by the
tribe. When we process timber in our own mills, we get value
added at every step of the way, from the stump, to the loggers
and contractors, and to the mills themselves. The sawmill,
CIPP, employs about 170 employees. Colville Tribal Logging
employs about 29 people. The plywood plant, CIPV employs 204
workers. This amounts to about 403 employees. In addition to
this, much of the logging is done by tribal member owned
companies. A typical employee is likely to be supporting at
least 3 more people, so this raises the total of impacted
people to over 1600 people, the majority of whom are tribal
members. Many of these people have loans through tribal credit
for homes, cars, trucks, and business. If the mill ever goes
down, these loans will likely not be paid and tribe would lose
more yet. In addition to this the tribe has millions of
dollars in loans for the mills themselves. Of course, the
whole point of the business is to make profit, and
historically, the sawmill has been one of the biggest profit
centers for the tribe over the long haul. The CIPV plant still
has issues; much of the plant is old and needs to be upgraded.
Plans are being developed now which will make this plant more
modern and efficient and profitable in the future.
Fundamentally, business is pretty simple, profits equal
revenues minus expenses. If we raise the price of stumpage,
this increases stumpage values going into the general fund.
But it also raises expenses from the mill side of the picture,
which reduces end profits by an amount equal to the increases
stumpage gained in the general fund account, all things being
equal, this would be a wash. If stumpage goes to off
reservation business, essentially an export, then the effect
is to reduce profits that the tribe could have made in the
mills, and all of the value added jobs from the stump to the
finished lumber and plywood going out the door are lost also.
Prior to 1985, the tribe was at the mercy of non-tribal mills
and the picture was not good. Indian employment was poor.
Prices paid for tribal timber were generally not that good and
when markets went south the sawmills would not even honor the
contracts and they would walk away whenever they wanted.
Back to top>
|
|