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New program to study tribal water challenges

Staci Emm, left and Loretta Singletary have been named to a new team studying water management issues throughout the southwestern U.S.(Photo: Submitted photo)

By Robert Perea, Reno- Gazette-Journal

Schurz native Staci Emm and University of Nevada, Reno professor and Interdisciplinary Outreach liaison Loretta Singletary, a former extension coordinator at the Yerington office of the UNR Cooperative Extension, have been named to a new team that has been formed to integrate research and Extension to help Great Basin and Southwestern tribal communities develop plans, policies and practices for sustainable agriculture and water management.

The program is part of a competitive, $4.5 million grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

The five-year program, Native Waters on Arid Lands, brings together faculty and students from three of the West’s 1862 land-grant institutions — University of Nevada, Reno, University of Arizona and Utah State University; First Americans (1994) Land-Grant Consortium (FALCON); Federally Recognized Tribal Extension Program instructors in Nevada and Arizona; Desert Research Institute; U.S. Geological Survey; and Ohio University. The program team includes tribal members from Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

“This is the stuff I love to do,” Emm said. I love working with people and doing programs that actually are on the ground. The program has challenges, and it has so much potential.”

American Indian farmers and ranchers provide an important economic base for the arid lands of the Great Basin Desert and American Southwest. Declining water supplies, urbanization, ecosystem change and federal Indian policies challenge American Indian agriculture for ceremonial practices, sustenance and trade.

Singletary said the group will be working with every tribe in Nevada, a couple in Utah, the Navajo and Hopi nations in Arizona and several small tribes in northern New Mexico.

“The foundation of the project is working with tribal communities through focus groups and tribal engagement about what their challenges are and what their ideas are for possible ways and strategies to use their water,” Singletary said.

Singletary said American Indian land tenures have presented challenges to tribes and impacted their ability to manage water and other natural resources well.

“Water is a precious natural resource and also has profound cultural and spiritual significance to tribal peoples,” John Phillips, executive director of FALCON, a professional association of 1994 land-grant administrators, faculty staff, said. “This program will help Native American communities in the Great Basin and southwest region carry on their historical role as strong environmental stewards for the Earth and its natural resources.”

“The Native Waters on Arid Lands program team will work directly with tribal members to identify challenges to agriculture from diverse and competing demands for water,” Maureen McCarthy, program director and director (interim) of the University of Nevada, Reno’s Academy for the Environment, said. “These issues are complex and transcend ecological and sociopolitical boundaries. Knowledge generated and shared through this program will build capacity among tribal and nontribal organizations to respond to a changing climate.”

Program elements include developing climate scenarios and water supply projections for tribal lands; testing the production efficiency of existing and future water systems; assessing the effects of Indian land tenure on water management and agriculture; considering the applicability of alternative water management policies; and integrating paleoecological data with tribal knowledge to understand the impacts of a changing climate.

Other senior members of the Native Waters integrated program team include Singletary, professor and interdisciplinary outreach liaison with University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, leading collaborative research and Extension outreach; Emm, associate professor and Extension educator with University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, leading outreach and coordinating the tribal advisory council and annual tribal summits; Michael Dettinger, senior hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, leading climate research; Beverly Ramsey, executive director of Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences with Desert Research Institute, leading the traditional ecological knowledge research; Bonnie Colby, professor with the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics with University of Arizona, leading water market economics research; Trent Teegerstrom, Arizona Federally Recognized Tribal Director and Extension specialist, coordinating tribal education and outreach in Arizona; Kynda Curtis, associate professor in the Department of Applied Economics at Utah State University, leading agricultural production economics research; Eric Edwards, assistant professor in the Department of Applied Economics at Utah State University, leading property rights economic research; Derek Kauneckis, associate professor with Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs and affiliate faculty member with the Desert Research Institute, leading water rights policy research.

Tribal members of the Native Waters on Arid Lands program team include Emm (Washoe and Paiute American Indian and Yerington Paiute tribal member); Ramsey (Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation); Curtis, Cherokee descendant; Gerald Moore (Navajo) and Arizona Federally Recognized Tribal Extension Program for Arizona educator, coordinating tribal engagement with Navajo and Hopi tribes; Reggie Premo (Duck Valley Shoshone Paiute) coordinating tribal engagement with Nevada tribes; Vicki Hebb (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota) organizing and facilitating the tribal summits; administrators, faculty, staff and students from the 1994 tribal land-grant colleges and universities; and American Indian water specialists, cultural advisors, agriculturalists and educators from the region.

“We look forward to working with communities throughout the Great Basin and American southwest to help manage water resources for our future generations,” Phillips said of the collaboration.

Wyoming tribe seeks to exclude Andrew Yellowbear from reservation boundary case

By Ben Neary, The Associated Press

The Northern Arapaho Tribe is seeking to exclude one of its members from participating in a lawsuit over the boundary of the Wind River Indian Reservation.

Andrew Yellowbear, Jr., is serving a life sentence in state prison in connection with the 2004 murder of his young daughter in Riverton.

State and federal courts have rejected Yellowbear’s claim that the state lacked jurisdiction to prosecute him on the grounds that Riverton remained Indian County. He’s seeking to get involved in the current boundary dispute in yet another attempt to get his conviction overturned.

A federal appeals court in Denver is hearing the state of Wyoming’s appeal of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s determination that more than 1 million acres around Riverton remain legally “Indian Country.”

The EPA recently determined that a 1905 act of Congress that opened reservation lands to settlement by non-Indians didn’t serve to remove the land’s legal status as Indian Country. The Northern Arapaho and the Eastern Shoshone Tribe share the reservation in central Wyoming.

Aided by Diane Courselle, a law professor at the University of Wyoming, Yellowbear recently filed papers seeking to file a “friend of the court” brief in the current boundary dispute.

Courselle, in her proposed brief in the case, says the boundary issue is, “crucial to the determination of whether Wyoming had jurisdiction to prosecute Mr. Yellowbear or whether the United States has exclusive jurisdiction.”

The EPA addressed the boundary issue in approving an application from the tribes to treat the reservation similarly to a state in terms of consulting with them about air quality issues. Wyoming, as well as Riverton and Fremont County, are opposing the federal agency’s decision, saying it would have drastic effects on taxation and provision of government services in the disputed area.

Although Yellowbear seeks to side with the tribes’ position that the disputed land remains in the reservation, both tribes filed notice that they oppose his involvement. The Northern Arapaho Tribe filed a brief and Riverton and Fremont County filed a joint brief on Friday spelling out their opposition to his involvement.

“We do not want our legitimate efforts to protect our reservation boundaries to be aligned with someone who does not have the tribe’s best interests at heart and is simply trying to get out of jail,” said Darrell O’Neal, a member of the Northern Arapaho Business Council, in a statement.

Dean Goggles, chairman of the Northern Arapaho Business Council, issued a statement saying that Yellowbear “is just muddying the waters and offers not new facts or viewpoints.”

Efforts to reach Courselle were unsuccessful Friday. Efforts to reach a lawyer for the Eastern Shoshone Tribe were also unsuccessful.

In their briefs, the Northern Arapaho, Riverton and Fremont County state that federal law is clear that Yellowbear’s state court conviction would stand even if the courts rule that Riverton remains Indian Country.

As a state prisoner, Yellowbear has filed several legal challenges seeking access to Native American religious materials and facilities. The American Civil Liberties Union represented Yellowbear in a 2008 federal lawsuit against the Wyoming Department of Corrections that secured his right to have eagle feathers in prison.

Rapid City man awarded $10K grant to start Pine Ridge youth running camps

By John Lee McLaughlin, Rapid City Journal

James Pine, 23, goes on a run Friday afternoon in his southwest Rapid City neighborhood. Pine has been awarded a $10,000 grant to start a youth fitness camp this summer called Lakota Forever Running and Fitness in each of the eight districts of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. (Josh Morgan, Journal staff)

James Pine has his heart set on empowering the Oglala Lakota, both young and old.

And Pine, 23, of Rapid City, has been awarded a $10,000 grant to take his desire and run with it. He is one of 10 recipients of the Dreamstarter grant program, which is administered by Running Strong, an American Indian youth nonprofit based in Alexandria, Va.

Each of the 10 awardees received $10,000 to start youth camps promoting health and wellness across the nation. Each will work with a mentoring nonprofit to help implement their startup camps.

Pine, who works at Dakota Business Center delivering office supplies and installing office furniture, will be working with Dustin Martin, program director for Wings of America in Santa Fe, N.M.

Born and raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Pine knows firsthand the problems that people there deal with daily.

“There’s not much to do,” he said last week in a phone interview while he was at the Dreamstarter Academy in Washington, D.C. “There are a lot of bad habits. There’s a lot of suicide. There are a lot of drugs and alcohol, and there’s not much to turn to. On a daily basis, a lot of people are bored, and they want to hang out with their friends, and they do bad things.”

An avid runner, Pine said, “I just want to bring my people up. I just want to help them out. I want to be a mentor and a coach. I just want to help the youth, and not even just the youth. I want to help everybody, elders, too, old people, tall, small — anybody.”

This summer, Pine said, he will be starting a series of two-day youth camps, dubbed Lakota Forever Running and Fitness, in eight communities across the reservation. He hopes to start the camps in June, continuing through August.

Pine is a former state-qualifying cross-country and track runner for Pine Ridge High School.

“Running has helped me in a major way, and I don’t even know if I can put it into words, but it was just an awesome thing because when I was younger, growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation, I went through the hardships, just like everyone else,” he said.

Running Strong was co-founded by 1964 Olympic champion Billy Mills, an Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, who to date is the only American to win a gold medal in the Olympic 10,000-meter run.

“Billy Mills, he played an important role in my life,” Pine said. “He was kind of like a hero, just someone to look up to. He was like the glimmer of hope. You know, you see all these NBA stars and these people on TV, and none of them are Native American. Some people get it in their head: ‘Oh, I can never be that,’ but then you look at Billy Mills. He’s a national idol.”

Pine applied to the Dreamstarter Program with friend and colleague Martin. The duo met last summer at a Wings of America program that trained Pine and others to facilitate youth running and fitness camps.

“Immediately, James stepped into a leadership role and was a leader for those facilitators that came down from Pine Ridge,” Martin said. “It was obvious to me that they looked up to him, and they respected his guidance when he gave it. So when we had this opportunity to apply for this grant, it was a no-brainer for me.”

Pine’s father, Dale, has been a long-time supporter of Wings of America running and fitness programs, Martin said. Dale Pine has coached at Pine Ridge High School for more than 25 years.

He is a leading force of Team One Spirit, which facilitates running programs and raises funds for youth on the reservation. The team sent James Pine to run with four other Oglala Lakota runners in the New York City Marathon. The group is collectively called the Lakota Five. Pine finished the 26-mile, 385-yard race with a time of 3:52:31.

Partnering with Pine to start running camps at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is a natural transition from an already strong partnership, Martin said.

“Dale Pine has been a longtime advocate and helper of Wings of America, and I sort of see myself as the next generation of Wings,” he said. “In a lot of ways, I see James as the continuation of that legacy, you know, and myself included, so together, he and I can continue that legacy of Wings working in South Dakota, and particularly in Pine Ridge.”

Pine said Wings of America has granted him an additional $9,000 to start the Pine Ridge running camps, which he said will incorporate games, mentorship and wellness education, all the while promoting the sport of running.

“Everything is going to revolve around running and being healthy and living a good, natural life,” he said. “If you make a game out of it, it’s very interesting and fun to them, even though they will be running the whole time.”

Pine said he will coordinate with schools on the reservation to see what gym space is available for his camps, though there’s always the option of holding them outdoors. He said he will also be seeking sponsorships from local businesses.

Running “took me a lot of places, and it brought me to where I am now,” said Pine, who lives in Rapid City with his girlfriend and 1-year-old daughter. “I’m a dad now. I just changed my life around … I just feel obligated to help my people and give back to the community.”

Suspect arrested in luring incident

Source: Press Release, Marysville Police Department

Marysville Police have made an arrest in a luring incident that was reported last week. A Marysville man was arrested Thursday morning after officers were able to identify and locate the vehicle used in the incident. The suspect was arrested without incident out of his Marysville residence.

On April 14th an adult male subject pulled up in a vehicle near where an eight year old boy was standing and engaged the boy in a conversation. At one point he offered the boy money and video games if he got into the vehicle. The boy, remembering what he had been taught in school ran away because he did not know the man. The boy reported the incident to his mother who notified police.

The mother advised police her son told her the man was driving a large white SUV. He was also able to provide a general description of the man. Detectives were able to complete a composite sketch of the suspect based on the description provided by the boy.

On Wednesday evening officers responded to a second reported similar incident; the mother of an 11 year old female reported that her daughter was a student crossing guard for Shoultes Elementary. While acting as a crossing guard in the morning a male subject in a white minivan repeatedly drove past her. The girl told her mother that each time he drove past he would smile and wave and made her feel uncomfortable. The girl also saw the same white van after school. The girl was also able to provide a description of the driver. Her description was similar to the one given by the boy in the previous incident.

On Thursday during the morning school commute, officers were present in the area of Shoultes Elementary looking out for the white van.

The mother of the young girl from the incident on Wednesday contacted an officer and advised him the van had twice driven by the area near the crossing guards. The mother was able to provide a partial license plate and advised the white van was an older model Toyota.

Officers were able to identify and locate the suspect vehicle based on the partial license plate given by the parent.
Officers drove to the address listed for the vehicle and made contact with a 31 year old male at the residence. He resembled the man described by the young boy from the incident the previous week. The suspect was arrested and booked at the Snohomish County Jail on unrelated, outstanding felony warrants.

Late this morning, a Marysville detective delivered Probable Cause papers to the Snohomish County Jail for the crime of Luring. The suspect will also be booked for the new offense.

“This is an excellent example of how when police, schools and the community work together we are able to arrest bad guys and get them off the streets,” stated Commander Robb Lamoureux.

The two children involved were not physically injured in any way. “Were just very proud of those two kids; they both did everything right by recognizing a bad situation and running away or telling an adult about what happened to them,” Lamoureux said.

Native youth kick off Generation Indigenous challenge

By Susan Montoya Bryan, The Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Janay Jumping Eagle is on a mission to curb teen suicide in her hometown on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Dahkota Brown of the Wilton Band of Miwok Indians in California wants to keep American Indian and Alaska Native students on track toward graduation.

The teenagers are at the heart of Generation Indigenous, or Gen-I, a White House initiative that kicked off this week with a brainstorming session that happened to coincide with tens of thousands of indigenous people gathering in New Mexico for the Gathering of Nations, North America’s largest powwow.

The Generation Indigenous program stems from a visit last year by President Barack Obama to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. Meetings followed, the president called for his cabinet members to conduct listening tours, tribal youth were chosen as ambassadors and a national network was formed.

The goal is to remove barriers that stand in the way of tribal youth reaching their potential, said Lillian Sparks Robinson, a member of the Rosebud Sioux and an organizer of Thursday’s Gen-I meeting.

“This is a community-based, community-driven initiative. It is not something that’s coming from the top down. It’s organic,” she said.

The teens are coming up with their own ideas to combat problems in their respective communities.

For example, a string of seven suicides by teenagers in recent months has shaken Pine Ridge, and close to 1,000 suicide attempts were recorded on the reservation over a nearly 10-year period. Jumping Eagle, a high school sophomore, said her older cousin was one of them.

“That was really devastating. I just wanted to at least try to stop it from happening and I’m still trying,” she said, noting that a recent basketball tournament she organized as part of her Gen-I challenge to bring awareness and share resources with schoolmates was a success.

Brown, 16, said he sees Gen-I as a tool to “shine a light on the positive things that are happening in Indian country rather than all the other bad statistics that go along with being a Native teen.”

From New Mexico’s pueblos to tribal communities in the Midwest and beyond, federal statistics show nearly one-third of Native youth live in poverty, they have the highest suicide rates of any ethnicity in the U.S., and they have the lowest high school graduation rate of students across all schools. And for American Indians and Alaska Natives overall, alcoholism mortality is more than 500 percent higher than the general population.

Federal agencies are working with the Center for Native American Youth at the Aspen Institute to pull off Generation Indigenous, and the White House is planning a tribal youth gathering in July in Washington, D.C.

In one of her last tasks before passing on the Miss Indian World crown, Taylor Thomas spoke to Gen-I participants Thursday. She shared with them her tribe’s creation story, which centers on the idea that every animal, plant and person has a purpose. She encouraged the teens to be leaders.

“No matter the difficulties we have in our communities, we have so many bright lights shining from all over Indian country. And when I say that I’m talking about all of you,” she told the crowd of about 300.

Bills Propose To Reverse National Labor Relations Board Jurisdiction Over Indian Tribal Governments

By Patrick Sulivan, Dickinson Wright PLLC, Gaming Legal News

The National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”) was enacted by Congress in 1935. The Act, also known as the Wagner Act after its champion, New York Senator Robert F. Wagner, passed the Senate in May 1935, the House in June 1935, and was signed into law by President Roosevelt on July 5, 1935. The Act’s purpose was to encourage workers’ collective bargaining rights and protect them from retribution for organizing unions. The Act created the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”), a new agency, to enforce the new policy.

Despite the fact that Congress had enacted sweeping pro-Indian legislation in the form of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 in the previous year, the NLRA did not mention Indian tribes at any point. Until 2004, Indian tribes and tribally owned businesses were generally assumed to be beyond the jurisdiction of the labor legislation with few exceptions.

In 2004, the NLRB reversed that assumption with a ruling that it had jurisdiction over the San Manuel Casino pursuant to the NLRA. The matter originated from a complaint filed with the NLRB by UNITE HERE!, a large California hotel and restaurant workers’ union, which complained that the Tribe had allowed a competing union, the Communication Workers of America, access to the casino to organize its employees while denying UNITE HERE! representatives access to the site. The Tribe moved to dismiss the proceeding for lack of jurisdiction.

The NLRB held that it had jurisdiction, reasoning that (1) the NLRA applies to tribal governments by its terms, despite any express reference to Indian tribes, (2) the legislative history of the NLRA did not suggest a tribal exception, and (3) federal Indian policy did not preclude the application for the NLRA to the commercial activities of tribal governments. The board found an unfair labor practice and ordered the Tribe to allow UNITE HERE! access to the casino workers.

The Tribe appealed the ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. UNITE HERE! intervened as a defendant. The Court determined that the question of the NLRA’s application to Indian tribes turned on two related questions: (1) whether application of the NLRA to San Manuel’s casino would violate federal Indian law by impinging upon protected tribal sovereignty, and (2) whether the term “employer” in the NLRA reasonably encompasses Indian tribal governments operating commercial enterprises.

In resolving these questions, the D.C. Circuit recognized the tension between the Supreme Court’s 1960 holding in Federal Power Commission v. Tuscarora Indian Nation, that “a general statute in terms applying to all persons includes Indians and their property interests,” and other Supreme Court precedents favoring tribal sovereignty, including the 1978 Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez holding that any impairment of tribal sovereignty required a clear expression of Congressional intent in the statutory text. The Court resolved this tension by stating that “if the general law relates only to the extra-governmental activities of the tribe, and in particular activities involving non-Indians, then application of the law might not impinge on tribal sovereignty.” Ultimately, the Court held that the impact of NLRB jurisdiction on the Tribe’s sovereignty was “negligible in this context, as the Tribe’s activity was primarily commercial,” that the Board’s decision as to the scope of the term “employer” in the NLRA was permissible, and affirmed the Board’s jurisdiction over the casino.

More recently, in Michigan, the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe has appealed an NLRB ruling that the Tribe violated the NLRA. In October 2014, the NLRB ordered the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe to reinstate an employee allegedly fired for union organizing at the Tribe’s casino. The Tribe appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. If that Court rules that the NLRB lacks jurisdiction over the Tribe, that decision would create a circuit split and likely end up before the United States Supreme Court.

The NLRB website states “The Board asserts jurisdiction over the commercial enterprises owned and operated by Indian tribes, even if they are located on a tribal reservation. But the Board does not assert jurisdiction over tribal enterprises that carry out traditional tribal or governmental functions.”

In January, Kansas Republican Senator Jerry Moran introduced S.248, the “Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act of 2015.” The Bill would amend the NLRA to exclude “any enterprise or institution owned and operated by an Indian tribe and located on its Indian lands.” At its February 2015 Executive Council Winter Session, the National Congress of American Indians, the largest Native American policy organization, passed a resolution in support of the bill. A similar bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives. The Senate Indian Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on the bill later this month.

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New Miss Indian World crowned

Cheyenne Brady, a member of the Sac and Fox tribe of North Dakota, was crowned Miss Indian World 2015 at the 32nd Gathering of Nations, held in Albuquerque this past weekend. (Photo Courtesy of Gathering of Nations)

By Rick Nathanson, Albuquerque Journal

Cheyenne Brady, a member of the Sac and Fox tribe of North Dakota, was crowned Miss Indian World 2015 at the 32nd Gathering of Nations, which concluded Saturday night.

The annual powwow is the largest event of its kind in the world, attracting more than 3,000 Native American and indigenous dancers from 700 tribes across the country, Canada and Mexico. The event also draws more about 100,000 spectators and nearly 800 Native American and indigenous artists and artisans.

Judges selected Brady, 22, from a field of 21 Native American women who competed in such categories as tribal knowledge, dancing ability, public speaking and personality.

Brady, a student at North Dakota State University, will travel around the world during the next year educating people about tribal culture and religion, as well as serve as a role model and ambassador of good will on behalf of all Native Americans.

Ashley Pino, 25, from Acoma, N.M., a student at the University of California, Berkeley, was named first runner-up. She is a member of the Acoma, Santo Domingo and Northern Cheyenne tribes.

The second runner-up was 25-year-old Baillie Redfern, from Ontario, Canada, a member of the Métis Nation and a student at the University of British Columbia.

Bill would ban California schools from using ‘Redskins’

Members of the Chowchilla High School Marching Band display their “Redskin” banner in 2009. Chowchilla would have to stop using Redskins if the Legislature approves a ban of the name. Lisa James Merced Sun-Star file

By Shawn Jansen, Merced Sun-Star

Public schools in California would have to stop using the term “Redskins” for their sports teams or mascot if a bill is approved by state legislators.

Assembly Bill 30, authored by Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Watsonville, would prohibit schools from using the name beginning Jan. 1, 2017. If the legislation becomes law, California would become the first state to ban the use of Redskins for public schools.

The Assembly Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism and Internet Media and the Education Committee have approved the bill. It now heads to the Appropriations Committee before it can go before the full Assembly and then the Senate.

The four high schools in California that still use Redskins as their mascot are Chowchilla in Madera County, Gustine in Merced County, Calaveras in Calaveras County and Tulare Western in Tulare County.

“We’ve been down this road since, I believe, 1996,” said Calaveras Unified School District Superintendent Mark Campbell. “This bill seems to have a better chance to pass.

“I don’t pretend to think some people aren’t offended by the use of Redskins. We understand that and if we have to make a change, we will. Our community doesn’t want it, our Native American community doesn’t want it, but if we have to, we’ll make the change,” Campbell said.

If forced to make the change, Chowchilla and Gustine won’t be as willing.

“We don’t call those offended by the term Redskins, Redskins. We call ourselves Redskins,” said Chowchilla Union High School District Superintendent Ron Seals. “We use the term as a sense of pride, respect and honor. We don’t use it in a derogatory way.

“It’s been our school mascot since the (1920s). In the fall, we’re going to celebrate our 100-year celebration. We are a one-high school town. We’re a small community with lots of alumni and generations of Redskins,” Seals said.

To help offset cost issues, the California Racial Mascots Act would allow schools to continue using uniforms and other items bearing the term Redskins that were purchased before Jan. 1, 2017, if the school selects a new mascot and doesn’t buy new uniforms with the old nickname.

Schools would be able to replace up to 20 percent of uniforms with the old name until Jan. 1, 2019.

The costs of phasing out the name go far beyond uniforms for teams, cheerleaders and bands. There are gyms, scoreboards and other things on campus that would have to be changed.

“We did a study of the costs, and it will cost at least $110,000, and perhaps more,” Gustine Unified School District Superintendent Ronald Estes wrote in an e-mail. “I see this as a local control issue; district school boards should be able to make this type of decision based on local concerns and needs.”

Campbell estimates it would cost roughly $55,000 to $65,000 for Calaveras to eliminate the term Redskins from the school. Anticipating that eventually it would have to change, the school has been using Calaveras more than Redskins on projects around campus.

Estes, Gustine Principal John Petrone and the five GUSD board members signed a letter sent to Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, chairman of the Assembly Education Committee.

In the letter, they write: “We are certainly aware of the sensitivity behind the utilization of the Redskin name. We have heard from Native Americans who have expressed opinions on both sides of the argument. What we have and continue to state emphatically is that at no time in the nearly 80 years we have used the Redskin moniker have we disparaged Native Americans, or portrayed our mascot in a derogatory fashion.”

This isn’t the first time these schools have faced the possibility of making these changes. The use of Redskins as a mascot has been a heated debate, including the NFL’s Washington Redskins. This is the third time state lawmakers have tried to ban the use of Native American terms as nicknames or mascots.

In 2002, a bill calling for the ban of nicknames such as Indians, Braves and Chiefs was introduced but failed. In 2004, Jackie Goldberg, who was then an assemblywoman from Los Angeles, narrowed the bill to ban just Redskins. The bill was passed by the Legislature but vetoed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“There is obviously a lack of respect when we allow teams to brand themselves with racial slurs,” Alejo told the Los Angeles Times. “The R-word was once used to describe Native American scalps sold for bounty, and in today’s society it has become widely recognized as a racial slur.”

Like Estes, Seals feels those decisions should be made at the local level. He said school officials won’t have any discussions about a possible new nickname if and when a law is passed.

“I’m not traveling to Watsonville and calling the legislator a Redskin,” Seals said. “I’m not sitting in my district and telling him what he should do. So for him to sit in his district and tell me what to do in mine doesn’t sit well with me.”

Native Actors Walk off Set of Adam Sandler Movie After Insults to Women, Elders

By Vincent Schilling, IndianCountyTodayMediaNetwork.com

Approximately a dozen Native actors and actresses, as well as the Native cultural advisor, left the set of Adam Sandler’s newest film production, The Ridiculous Six, on Wednesday. The actors, who were primarily from the Navajo nation, left the set after the satirical western’s script repeatedly insulted native women and elders and grossly misrepresented Apache culture.

The examples of disrespect included Native women’s names such as Beaver’s Breath and No Bra, an actress portraying an Apache woman squatting and urinating while smoking a peace pipe, and feathers inappropriately positioned on a teepee.

The film, which is said to be a spoof of The Magnificent Seven and was written by Adam Sandler and his frequent collaborator Tim Herlihy, is currently under production by Happy Madison Productions for a Netflix-only release. The movie will star Adam Sandler, Nick Nolte, Steve Buscemi, Dan Aykroyd, Jon Lovitz and Vanilla Ice.

Among the actors who walked off the set were Navajo Nation tribal members Loren Anthony, who is also the lead singer of the metal band Bloodline, and film student Allison Young. Anthony says that though he understands the movie is a comedy, the portrayal of the Apache was severely negligent and the insults to women were more than enough reason to walk off the set.

“There were about a dozen of us who walked off the set,” said Anthony, who told ICTMN he had initially refused to do the movie. He then agreed to take the job when producers informed him they had hired a cultural consultant and efforts would be made for tasteful representation of Natives.

“I was asked a long time ago to do some work on this and I wasn’t down for it. Then they told me it was going to be a comedy, but it would not be racist. So I agreed to it but on Monday things started getting weird on the set,” he said.

Actor Loren Anthony stands next to a seated Adam Sandler on the set of 'Ridiculous Six.' Photo source: instagram.com/lorenanthony — Actor Loren Anthony stands next to a seated Adam Sandler on the set of ‘Ridiculous Six.’ Photo source: instagram.com/lorenanthony

Anthony says he was first insulted that the movie costumes that were supposed to portray Apache were significantly incorrect and that the jokes seemed to get progressively worse.

“We were supposed to be Apache, but it was really stereotypical and we did not look Apache at all. We looked more like Comanche,” he said. “One thing that really offended a lot of people was that there was a female character called Beaver’s breath. One character says ‘Hey, Beaver’s Breath.’ And the Native woman says, ‘How did you know my name?'”

“They just treated us as if we should just be on the side. When we did speak with the main director, he was trying to say the disrespect was not intentional and this was a comedy.”

“The producers just told us, ‘If you guys are so sensitive, you should leave.'” —Alison Young

Allison Young, Navajo, a former film student from Dartmouth, was also offended by the stereotypes portrayed and the outright disrespect paid to her and others by the director and producers.

“When I began doing this film, I had an uneasy feeling inside of me and I felt so conflicted,” she said. “I talked to a former instructor at Dartmouth and he told me to take this as finally experiencing stereotyping first hand. We talked to the producers about our concerns. They just told us, ‘If you guys are so sensitive, you should leave.’ I was just standing there and got emotional and teary-eyed. I didn’t want to cry but the feeling just came over me. This is supposed to be a comedy that makes you laugh. A film like this should not make someone feel this way.”

Actor Loren Anthony gears up for a fight scene with Nick Nolte, who is visible over his shoulder, on the set of 'Ridiculous Six.' Photo source: Image source: instagram.com/lorenanthony — Actor Loren Anthony gears up for a fight scene with Nick Nolte, who is visible over his shoulder, on the set of ‘Ridiculous Six.’ Photo source: Image source: instagram.com/lorenanthony

“Nothing has changed,” said Young. “We are still just Hollywood Indians.”

Goldie Tom also shared her frustrations with ICTMN. “I felt this was all really disrespectful,” she said. “Our costumes did not portray Apache people. The consultant, Bruce spoke to the crew and told them we should not have braids and chokers and he was very disappointed. He asked to speak with Adam Sandler. We talked to the producers about other things in the script and they said ‘It’s in the script and we are not going to change it.’ Overall, we were just treated disrespectfully, the spoke down to us and treated everyone with strong tones.”

74-year old David Hill, Choctaw, a member of the American Indian Movement, also left the set. “They were being disrespectful,” he said. “They were bringing up those same old arguments that Dan Snyder uses in defending the Redskins. But let me tell you, our dignity is not for sale. It is a real shame because a lot of people probably stay because they need a job.”

Hill also mentioned that the producers called back the consultant as well as other native actors to their departure from the set on Wednesday.

“I hope they will listen to us,” Hill said. “We understand this is a comedy, we understand this is humor, but we won’t tolerate disrespect. I told the director if he had talked to a native woman the way they were talked to in this movie—I said I would knock his ass out.”

“This isn’t my first rodeo, if someone doesn’t speak up, no one will.”

Neither Adam Sandler nor anyone for Happy Madison Productions responded to our attempts in reaching out to them for comment.

Women Marines Association’s WA-3 North Sound Chapter will host Alfie Alvardo-Ramos, May 2

Source: Press Release, Women Marines Assocation WA-3 North Sound

MARYSVILLE – On May 2, the Women Marines Association’s WA-3 North Sound Chapter will host the Lourdes “Alfie” Alvarado-Ramos, Director of Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs at the Marysville Village Inn Restaurant, located off I-5 exit 199 .

The event will be held at 12:30 and will feature resource information for male and female veterans located in Washington.

For more information contact president of the chapter, Karen Wheeler at 425-744-4511. RSVP by April, 27, 2015 at WA3@womenmarines.org.

“Veterans have earned the rights they have through their heavily structured, sometimes difficult, often grinding military service- whether he or she served in the Washington DC office at the Commandant or at Camp Lejeune (Jacksonville, NC) in the kitchen; whether during peacetime or by going to war zones such as the sands in the Philippines, freezing temperatures in Korea, the jungles of Vietnam, the desert in the Persian Gulf or through these two current blistering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is much out there for you, our veteran!”

“Washington Dept. of Veterans Affairs (WDVA) offers some very important programs including education, training, employment, claims assistance, and psychological counseling for military related issues (traumatic brain injury, military sexual trauma, post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, couples counseling, suicide prevention or just plain how to cope with what’s happening day to day). Our WDVA also provides valuable information on housing, whether getting off the streets or needing elder care, including Veterans Homes and Fisher House. Come Join us! Lean what the State of Washington has to offer you, and met Alfie.”