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CouncilCORNER>
ItsTribal
By
Virgil Seymour
To the people of the Inchelium District.
First of all I would like to say, “My, how time flies”. It has
been a year since you elected me to be your representative at
the council table. It has been a very fast year’s worth of
experience under my belt and I am more familiar with the
processes and procedures of Tribal government. Therefore, I feel
better equipped to deal with some of the problems we face today,
especially at the administrative level. Our current
administration is plagued with problems from the upper level to
the lower levels. The council, even as a whole, are not allowed
to fire anyone, without going through the administrative
process. This process just about insures that no one will ever
get fired. I believe that to fix the problem we have to start
from the top, at the Program Director’s level and let them make
sure that their programs are functioning properly and benefiting
the tribe. To do this, the council has been discussing putting
our program directors on “contracts” allowing the council to
deal with them directly. This puts a huge pressure on the
directors to keep competent people and get rid of the dead
weight.
|We are also trying to get a handle on our mountain tops. For
years we have been leasing our mountain tops out to various
communication enterprises for as little as $500 per year. It’s
time the tribe realized that our mountain tops are big business
and many people are making big bucks, everybody but the tribe.
Some of these leases have expired and haven’t been brought up to
date since the early to mid nineties. Our mountain tops are
important for our own tribal entities. We have our Police
department, EMS, Fire Management, Forestry, Logging, Head Start
and Pascal Sherman to worry about. I think that when it comes to
our communications and communication leases our left hand never
knows what the right hand is doing. In any emergency or
disaster, communications is going to be the first place we look
to. Security is very important and right now security is just
non-existent. For all these reasons, I believe all our
communications should be ran through one department and that one
department should become its own division. That department
should be Information and Technology or IT. We are in the year
2006 and it should be the backbone of our tribal government
along with CTECs and not separately.
I truly regret CTEC having to shut down the Post & Pole Plant.
The four council persons from Inchelium tried to intervene and
save it but after meeting with our environmental lawyers in
Seattle, they advised me that EPA was involved and they had some
problems with some chemicals that had leaked out of an
underground tank. They also said there was a problem with the
way the treated poles were stored in the open over open ground.
The on-site well and dirt samples were unacceptable. If we were
to continue the operation the tribe would be liable for the
clean-up of the entire site which could cost up to the millions.
With this in mind, we opted to apply for a Brownfield Grant that
would pay for a clean-up. If we could come up with a future use
for the site, that would dictate just what kind of clean-up that
would be necessary and also lay some infrastructure for the
future site development. Keep in mind at the time of the shut
down there were three workers and one manager. We are looking at
plans for the same site to support at least 40 tribal member
jobs.
The Wells Dam money that we stated would be held back for
one-third seniors, youth, and education, one-third land
purchase, and one-third economic development, will be coming to
the tribe in quarterly payments. We recently passed a resolution
to seek a 10 million dollar loan to purchase land that has been
for sale to the tribe by its members for a long time but we
haven’t had the money to buy it. We will be paying for this loan
out of the one-third land purchase account. This will enable
some of our members to get their land sold now. We do realize
the economic strain some of you are going through. We were also
able to purchase two new vans for the Keller and Inchelium
Senior Meal Sites. We have a grant for vans for both these sites
but because they are from grants and need special equipment the
vans must be built from the ground up. We don’t anticipate
delivery until Oct. or Nov. With that in mind, when they do get
delivered, we may be able to offer the original two vans to our
community centers to use for our youth. The money for this came
out of the one-third seniors, youth and education account.
Some of you may have heard that we fired the three senior
lawyers at the Office of Reservation Attorney. This is true, but
I would like you to know that we were a six For and six Against
split with the deciding vote being cast by the chairman. I was
against this because I think they were denied any Due Process.
This means that they were basically fired out of the blue with
no idea as to why they were being fired. Because there was no
plan as to what to do after this action I feel we have left
ourselves open. We have no idea who will replace them or when
they will be replaced. They were all working on several projects
for us and also had several cases pending in court. If this
needed to happen, I believe there were far better ways to handle
it.
I was very happy to be present at Paschal Sherman Indian School
for the signing of the House bill 1495 MOA on May 25. This MOA
sets the process for implementing our Indian history, language,
and culture into the regular classes at our schools on the
reservation and school on the border of the reservation. There
were a lot of upper level Washington State School officials
present and they expressed an honest interest in keeping
communications open between the tribes and Washington State for
the benefit of our Indian students.
I have been working closely with D.R. Michel on the Teck Cominco
case. The tribe is trying to make Teck Cominco responsible for
the millions of tons of slag and other mining contaminants
dumped into the river since the early 1900s. Washington State
and the Spokane Tribe of Indians are also involved in the case.
Environmental Protection Agency, the Dept. of Justice and the
Dept. of the Interior recently became involved because they
wanted to speed up the negotiations. They really never helped us
out because they took over the negotiations and kept us all out
of the loop. The EPA recently signed an agreement with Cominco.
I could go on forever on the agreement but what you need to know
is that we are not happy with it. We are currently waiting for a
decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. We think the
court will rule in our favor. If this happens, then Cominco will
appeal it to the Supreme Court. What we are trying to do is make
Teck Cominco responsible for the clean-up should there be a need
for one. The EPA agreement only makes them responsible for the
study. I have deliberately tried to keep this simple because it
is a very complicated case. If you have any questions, please
call me.
In closing, I would like to say I was able to watch and be a
part of the Last Name Tournament this weekend. There were a lot
of people there and it appeared to me that everyone was enjoying
themselves. I would like to thank Mike and Bunny Flett and the
rest of the Signor family and everyone else who helped put on
the event for the community. They also had a special memorial
ceremony for some people who recently passed in our community.
They gave out embroidered chairs to the families of Ryan
Ellsworth, Anna Bradshaw, and my mother, Shirley Seymour.
Speaking for my family and I’m sure for the other families, we
were very grateful for this kind of recognition of our loved
ones. Thank you very much! I would also like to thank the
singers of the Noisy Water People drum group: Mike Finley, Dave
Finley, Roger Finley, Luke Ellsworth, Brian Ferguson, Gaylen
DeSautel and Clem Nichols.
If anyone has any questions or comments, please call me. I can
be reached at office, 634-2211, cell 631-4211, or home 722-3142.
Lim Lim
Respectfully, Virgil Seymour
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Finley Report
By Terry Finley
I am writing this letter to clear up a
couple of possible areas of confusion surrounding the Business
Council’s decision to terminate our three senior attorneys at
the Office of Reservation Attorney. In part, I am doing this
because I am the Chair of the Law and Justice Committee;
however, beyond that, I believe in fundamental decency – which
seems to have gotten lost in all this.
First, the decision to fire Rit Bellis, Steve Suagee and Tom
Christie was not unanimous. In fact, Chairman Harvey Moses
broke a tie vote to fire these three lawyers. Also voting to
terminate were Gene Joseph (who moved for it), Cherie Moomaw
(who seconded the motion), Lee Adolph, Deb Louie, Mike
Marchand and Shirley Charley. The remaining Council members
(Gail DeLaCruz, D.R. Michel, Jeanne Jerred, Virgil Seymour,
Margie Hutchinson, and myself) did not, and do not agree with
this decision.
With that said, there are some specific issues which I want to
call attention to:
Every month, at the Law and Justice Committee, the Office of
Reservation Attorney gave an oral report on the work performed
by ORA. At no time did any of the Business Council raise any
specific complaints with the Office that were not addressed.
In both 2004 and 2005, the Council met with ORA and/or outside
attorneys to discuss the Tribe’s legal priorities. ORA always
responded to these identified priorities. For example, the
Council told the Office that there was a need to focus on
education, so the Office worked with Washington State-wide
groups and got the ACLU to come in to review individual
complaints in the Coulee Dam schools. The Council also wanted
more work done on Lake Roosevelt and rights protection work
for the Moses-Columbia claims. IN response, ORA found an
internationally known attorney who was willing to relocate and
work for the Tribes on these issues. But instead of hiring the
lawyer that ORA had found at the Council’s direction, the
Council decided to fire the three senior attorneys instead.
Some of the Council complained that ORA attorneys did not
travel enough with the Council. However, in looking at the
last six months, only twice was ORA not able to travel when
asked, once because of a scheduling misunderstanding, and the
second time because of a Court hearing which had been
scheduled. However, there is a fundamental question that
should be asked about this travel – we, as members of the
Council are the elected spokespersons for the Tribal
membership. We should not need attorneys traveling with us to
hold our hands and speak for us. While attorneys can be
helpful, they should not be expected to replace us. Moreover,
any significant legal issues affecting the Colville Tribes
must be brought before the Colville Business Council, thus, if
such issues occurred while on travel they would have to wait
until the CBC could address them.
People also forget that the ORA represents the whole tribal
government, not just the Council. In fact, over 60% of ORA’s
budget is reimbursed from the external contract indirect cost
pool because the Office spends 60 or more percent of its time
representing tribal contracted programs.
Another complaint which does not make sense concerned filing a
lawsuit against the BIA for breach of trust. About two years
ago the Council authorized ORA to file this lawsuit. At that
point, the Council was active in the Intertribal Monitoring
Association efforts to negotiate a resolution to tribal claims
generally. Between these negotiation efforts and preparing the
claims, there was a delay in filing the lawsuit. However, this
did not impact the Tribes’ claim; in fact Colville is only one
of twenty tribes in Indian Country who have actually filed
this type of lawsuit.
ORA has also been accused of being a “black hole” – that work
goes in and never comes out. However, ORA has a comprehensive
tracking process – every request that comes in, and every
contract to be reviewed is assigned a tracking number. It is
then assigned to an attorney who is responsible for it. While
it is true that some requests take longer than others, it is
always possible to know who is working on what request, and
what progress they are making. The fact is that some people
have used the “black hole” excuse to justify not doing work
themselves – if they can blame someone else then it is not
their responsibility. These tracking sheets show that ORA
receives, reviews, and returns hundreds of contracts and other
agreements every year.
Those who supported terminating these three lawyers, claim
that there is a “PLAN”. They want to contract with two
attorneys (who used to work here) to do an “assessment” of
what should be done. Of course these outside attorneys did not
every talk to ORA before the three attorneys were fired. Yet,
they want to do an assessment after the fact. That is more
like putting the cart before the horse. In the more than eight
years since either of these outside attorneys worked here this
government has changed dramatically and there is no
recognition of this.
But the “PLAN”, as I understand it really isn’t a plan at all.
We are going to fire our three senior attorneys. Then we will
hire these other two attorneys to come up with a plan to “fix”
something (which didn’t seem to be broken). These assessment
lawyers have already told us that they won’t come back to work
for this tribe, and that we will have trouble hiring new
lawyers because we don’t pay competitive salaries, and they
admitted to not having anyone lined up to come here. Oh, and
until we do get someone hired, we are supposed to pay between
three and five times more than we currently do to use a
private law firm to do the work that was being done. One thing
is clear: this “plan” will cost the Tribes a lot more $$$ to
get the same legal services, that we had until June 1, 2006
when they voted to terminate these three lawyers.
With these three lawyers gone, that will leave two less
experienced attorneys who are also Tribal members, and the
Code Revisor in the Office. While I have confidence in the
tribal members left behind, we have to ask ourselves – how
long will these two attorneys be willing to do the work of
five? They may well be looking for positions elsewhere. If so,
this means that the Business Council has effectively destroyed
the ORA, and the on-going legal services provided to the
government. But even if they stay, no one can expect two or
three people to do the work of five. But that is exactly what
may happen, especially if we have trouble hiring (not just
because of the salary levels, but also because of our
reputation).
I am disappointed at how the Council has treated these
attorneys who have committed their time and efforts to improve
governmental services to the membership. I am angry at
Chairman Harvey Moses’ statement that the three terminated
attorneys don’t care about the Tribes. The fact is that these
three attorneys refused raises so that the Tribal members in
the Office could get them. The fact is that these three have
demonstrated a high level of dedication to the Tribes and the
membership, and I do appreciate their work.
Right now, the three lawyers are still here, under their
contract there is a 60-day notice period, which allows them to
transfer files, and finish up what they can. But come August,
they will be gone, and the Tribes will be poorer because of
it.
Terry Finley
Chairman, Law & Justice Committee
Colville Business Council
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Indian Country
By Michael E. Marchand
Tribal Elections:
Elections were over yesterday and we have some changes. I
would like to thank those who supported me. This is the most
important job that I can think of for our tribe and it is the
highest honor to be allowed to work for the membership. I know
I make mistakes sometimes, but each day is a challenge and I
try to protect the interests of this tribe to the ~ best of my
ability. We deal with a lot of issues. Many issues threaten
the tribe on a daily basis but the tribe has to stay strong.
On the other hand, I think the future looks bright, we have a
young and bright new generation coming up and I think we can
do pretty much anything we set our mind on.
Secretary of Interior Addresses Tribes:
The new Secretary of Interior Dick Kempthome addressed
tribes via satellite this week and the highlight of his whole
speech was energy and the tribe he cited was our tribe. There
is a major national policy push for development of new energy
sources. The Secretary said that we have 70 million board feet
of timber available on an annual basis and that this could
produce a lot of biomass, which could supply the energy for
thousands of homes. Currently the slash left over after timber
sales is burnt on the spot and is r considered a waste
problem. It is possible to convert this into electricity.
Studies will be done to see if it is economically feasible to
do so. The actual feasibility will likely depend a great deal
on how much the US government wants to get involved and invest
into the projects. As you can imagine, operating at this level
brings a lot of politics into the picture. There are a lot of
interests out there trying to get the attention of the
Secretary and they will push our projects off to the side if
they get a chance. It is important that our tribe remain
aggressive and stay in these regional and national leadership
positions.
Without the millions of dollars of federal
money coming into the tribe, there would be major job cutbacks
and major cutbacks to tribal per capitas. Keeping this flow of
money coming each year is not easy. The Department of Interior
is one of the largest federal agencies with hundreds of
various programs and agencies and millions of issues that it
deals with on a daily basis. To have the Secretary cite our
Colville energy issues in his first opening address to the
nations tribes is amazing. We have been working hard on this
issue and others but to see him come out publicly was nice to
see. The US sounds like it is ready to commit to helping us
with development of our energy resources. Hopefully this can
be followed through be action in the near future. At this
mid-year meeting of NCAI, I was the acting Northwest Area
Vice-President of NCAI. The other immediate NCAI goal is to
get funding to buy a permanent office in Washington DC. For
years, NCAI has been renting office space. Our tribe was one
of the founders of this organization. Paschal Sherman served
for many years as the head legal counsel for NCAI. Frank
George was the Vice-President of NCAI for many of its early
years. Of course, Mel Tonasket was also President. This
organization is the primary body for setting tribal policies
nationwide. All of the funding for our programs, the new
legislation, the new programs, and many other issues affecting
daily lives here on the reservation get impacted on by NCAI.
Colville Hosts Northwest Tribes:
For the first time since I have been on Council, our tribe
finally got to host the Affiliated Tribes of NW Indians
conference. This was held in Spokane and was very successful.
All of the major federal, state, and local tribal issues get
impacted by policies set forth by the Affiliated Tribes of NW
Indians. Currently I serve as 1st Vice-President of the
organization. Ernie Stensgar from Coeur D’ Alene is the
President. 57 tribes from southeast Alaska to northern
California are in this organization. A wide range of issues,
including sovereignty, and funding issues, health, education,
veterans, natural resources, economic development, culture,
and many other issues are dealt with at each conference. There
was also a special honoring for tribal member Tim Wapato for
his service to the tribes of this country for many years. He
continues to work for our tribes of course today, but it was
nice to honor him. There was even a video done for honoring
him which was done by the National Indian Gaming Association.
So there was a good turnout and I was happy to see our
volunteers do a nice job and we hopefully will be doing more
conferences in the future.
Mount Tolman Project Wrapup:
I wanted to report on this earlier, but we are banned from
the tribune during election months. The membership has voted
no on the project. As you know, the tribe has a large ,
molybdenum deposit in Mount Tolman. Prices have been going up
and the net profits f from a mine could have been about a
billion dollars. On the negative side, there would be total
destruction of the mountain, environmental impacts, and major
changes in the quality of life of the reservation. This
project was brought to Council by CTEC. The then President,
Eddie Palmanteer Jr. and others from CTEC and BIA made a
presentation to Council. We were told that this project could
make a lot of money. We were also told that the tribe had
already voted on this in 1978 or thereabouts and that the
Council had already passed resolutions authorizing the project
back then and that we could proceed on this basis. CTEC then
wanted Council to pass another policy basically turning
everything over to CTEC. These proposals were not acceptable
to Council in general. Obviously, many of our members today
were not even born yet in 1978. We argued that these old
resolutions were out of date and that a new vote to let the
new generation speak was needed. It only took a couple of
sentences to summarize this, but in real time it was very
contentious and several top executives seemed to have lost
their jobs in the aftermath of these events. Eventually after
some turmoil, the issue was put to a vote of the membership.
Things should have been done better of course, but personally
I thought putting more money into more studies was a waste of
time because I didn’t think it would make any difference to
anyone anyway. People were already making their minds up. You
can see mining impacts on TV and in the news everyday, you
don’t have to do a bunch of studies or be a rocket scientist,
things are not that complicated. Basically you can make a
bunch of money if you can live with the impacts of mining.
Obviously, our members have voted to protect the environment
and have made a statement that this is more important to them
then the dollars. So I have heard a lot of things said and
many things not so true also, but this is how I saw things.
The Council has never taken a vote on whether they wanted
mining or not. Council did debate on whether they wanted the
membership to have a say or not. Some people were against
letting the membership vote because they said this vote
already happened and was already approved. Some people were
against the vote of the people because they were against the
mine itself and did not think it should even come up for a
vote in the first place. Generally I think that when the tribe
faces a major decision on how it wants to manage the
reservation, then I think the membership should decide
directly. These big decisions are too important to let just 14
decide.
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MoomawUpdate
By Cherie Moomaw
REPORT TO THE MEMBERSHIP
Congratulations to all the graduates. May you meet all the
challenges in your future and fulfill your expectations of
yourselves. I was able to attend the graduations at Paschal
Sherman and Nespelem grade school. I was quite em pressed by
all the students that thanked others for helping them to
graduate. What a gift to learn gratitude so young. We recently
signed a MOA with the State of Washington to have our culture
and traditions taught in public schools. Hopefully this will
be a step forward in understanding each other. There is a
chance for us to establish a high school on the reservation. I
would like your thoughts and input on this idea. I believe we
also need to establish a trade school on the reservation for
those that do not wish to go to college. It’s my understanding
that many of our tribal members are visual learners and I know
there are good paying jobs in the different trade industries.
The new energy director should be hired by
the time you read this—this will enable us to start making
progress in energy production and sales as well as bringing
bulk fuel to the reservation with goal of eventually producing
our own fuel growing bio-fuels or producing ethanol from wood
waste. The resent court decision on state tax should be a
benefit to us. Senator Tom Dashcle bought together 14 tribes
and potential investors to help develop alternative energy on
the reservations. (Colville Tribes was one of the 14 invited)
I would invite any of you that can to
attend the Council committee meetings The Community
Development meeting that I chair meets every second and fourth
Tuesday of the month. We will be having a presentation on an
energy efficient Styrofoam/Cement block home on July 25, 06.
(R-32 energy rating). Our Omak district meetings are every
third Wed. of the month @ the Senior meal site(6pm).
We are negotiating with Okanogan County
Transportation for 2 vans to service the Nespelem and Grand
Coulee areas from Omak to help with employee and Tribal member
travel. We should have a answer by next month.
As one that was always critical of council
travel I now have to eat my own words. Indian people are in an
undeclared war fighting for monies promised them. Members of
council are required to travel to protect our reservations
rights, most of the time only council representatives are
heard. At the present time health care dollars, trust reform,
energy bill funding, right of ways through Indian lands,
education dollars, class II gaming are all being threatened
and require government to government talks.
My council travel costs for April, May and
June were: Denver (Right of Way issues), Spokane (Affiliated
Tribes), Pasco (Bio-Fuels ), Washington DC (Alternative
Energy) for a total of $3609.92.
If you have any questions or concerns
please call. 1-800-881-7684 toll free or 1-509-634-2215.
E-Mail cherie.moomaw@colvilletribes.com
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Op/Ed
By Gene Joseph
Dear Tribal Member,
Please accept my thanks for your participation and support in
the 2006 election. This past term has been an enjoyable one
and I look forward to this next one.
I offer my congratulations to all the candidates from each
district.
My challenge is to provide more timely updates on my
activities, particularly in Trust Reform and Columbia River
issues.
Again, thank you for your support and offer your prayers and
support to the new council.
Sincerely,
Gene Joseph
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Charley's Corner
By Shirley K. Charley
To The Membership,
I would like to thank each and every one of you that took the
time to vote in the 2006 election. Your VOTE does count and
the results prove it!!
I know for a fact that the Indian Vote in Indian Country has
and will continue to overturn National elections. But, I
cannot understand why our Tribal Elections have a low turn
out!! I have heard numerous reasons as to “why” our membership
doesn’t vote, but I still question it.
There are members that have NEVER voted. So, they are NOT the
18 year olds. These voters have just never voted. One of the
privileges that we have, is to VOTE for our leaders. Do you
have a solution? Let me know!! I have sent out 3,000 letters
(several times) and stamped, request cards, there has been a
small increase, but not like it should be.
I would like to see a change in the Absentee voting process.
Our members that live in Canada, in the Service and unable to
get to the voting places are not given the same opportunity
that we have. I would like a letter and absentee request card
go out to all eligible voters and IF the card were returned,
they would never have to request a voting ballot as long as
they are alive. It CAN work and I believe there is staff (past
and present) that could make it works. Let’s try it. There are
solutions, but unless tried, the opinion of a few, override
and the idea is put to rest.
Sometimes, I feel like if we get a positive solution and MAKE
things start working in favor of us, some members feel
threatened and the idea never materializes. Change is scary to
some. I challenge it.
I thank all of you again for voting. BE SAFE. DRIVE SAFE.
Shirley K. Charley PO Box 1444
Omak, WA 98841
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