A decision on the fate of a five-acre parcel known as the Ridge at the southeast corner of Bolsa Chica Street and Los Patos Avenue has been postponed. (Kevin Chang / Huntington Beach Independent / December 31, 2013)
The California Coastal Commission has postponed a decision on whether to allow new housing construction on land in Huntington Beach that opponents say is home to Native American artifacts and remains.
At the request of the city, commissioners voted unanimously this week to postpone deciding whether to allow Huntington Beach to amend its Local Coastal Program — local governments’ guide to development in the coastal zone — to allow for new homes on the northwest portion of Bolsa Chica.
Huntington Beach Planning Director Scott Hess told commissioners that city officials and housing developers want more time to analyze and respond to late changes made to a report by coastal commission staff which had recommended denying the proposed amendment because it would “eliminate a higher priority land use designation and does not assure that significant culture resources and sensitive habitats will be protected” under the California Coastal Act.
Property owner Signal Landmark and developer Hearthside Homes want to build 22 “green” homes on a five-acre parcel called the Ridge near Bolsa Chica Street and Los Patos Avenue, the Huntington Beach Independent reported.
Preservationists say the Ridge site, as with the rest of the mesa, contains Native American artifacts and remains.
The updated report recommends that before the commission considers rezoning the Ridge, the city and the property owners “irrevocably” offer an adjacent 6-acre parcel to be dedicated to a governmental or nonprofit organization to be used as open space.
Other new recommendations include requiring a cultural resources protection plan and requiring current biological assessments to be done for both sites.
Huntington Beach Councilwoman Connie Boardman, who was at the hearing Wednesday with 30 or more Bolsa Chica Land Trust members, said the coastal commission made the right move in postponing the hearing.
“It’s appropriate to postpone something when the developer brings in something the morning of the hearing so that the public and the commissioners have a chance to evaluate the changes that they’re proposing,” she said.
Underneath the asphalt of a modern highway can be treasures of history. This proved to be the case for workers trying to install a water pipe in Davie, Florida. The workers were apparently working on a historical site, as upon survey, inspection, and some digging of archaeologists, a 2,000-year-old intact human skeleton on Pine Island Road was found.
The bones belonged to a five feet tall woman who might have been a member of the Tequesta native American tribe and estimated to be in her 20s or 30s at the time of her death. The remains did not indicate trauma, leading experts to conclude that she died of a disease.
“It’s unusually well preserved, considering it’s been under a highway with thousands and thousands of cars going over it every day,” said director of the Archaeological and Historical Conservancy Bob Carr.
Ryan Franklin, another member of the archaeological team corroborated Carr’s assessment.
(Photo : Lindsey Gira) A native American woman. In Davie, Florida, experts have unearthed an intact set of human bones at a construction site. The bones are believed to have belonged to a native American woman who lived 2,000 years ago.
“It was pretty exciting to find. We found the toe, which became a foot. When you find a toe, there’s a good chance there’s something else going on. We had to stop and contact the state,” Franklin said in an interview. “She was almost perfectly intact, which is unusual. Usually when we find graves that are this old, the acidity of the soil can deteriorate the bones, it was unusual given her age.”
Indications that this can be historical site led to a three-week pause of the construction work on Dec. 18, in accordance with Florida laws. The construction resumed last Thursday.
Out of respect to the tribes,, the skeleton cannot be photographed. Scientists cannot also chip a part of it to do carbon dating and accurately check its age. To estimate the age of the skeleton, experts based it on artifacts found earlier in the area.
According to experts, the Tequesta woman was accustomed to the life on the Pine Islands about 2,000 years back. She could have been a skilled weaver and knew how to prepare smoked fish. The woman might have also hunted and fished from her canoe. The area where the remains were discovered were actually surrounded by the Everglades that stretched as far as Fort Lauderdale and Davie.
In the 1980s, three intact skeletons were discovered in the area. The latest archaeological dig is considered as one of the oldest recovered skeletons and among the best preserved ones.
Death. Family. Loss. Love. Wealth. Poetry. Spirituality. Genocide. Prejudice. Sherman Alexie’s new poetry collection, “What I’ve Stolen, What I’ve Earned,” demonstrates the National Book Award-winning writer’s ability to tackle big themes, weaving them together in the context of his Indian identity and with his wry, unapologetic sense of humor.
And he wastes no time doing it. Alexie takes on all these topics in the collection’s first poem, the wide-ranging and powerful “Crazy Horse Boulevard,” always through the lens of his Indian identity (a member of the Spokane Tribe, he uses the term “Indian” almost exclusively). He addresses being Indian in a white world (“Most of the people who read this poem will be white people”), as well as within Indian culture, on and off the reservation (“Among my immediate family, I’m the only one who doesn’t live on the reservation. What does that say about me?”). The poem brings historical prejudices into a modern context, and Alexie calls things as he sees them, especially when it comes to the choices people make from what he sees as places of luxury (“If my sons, Indian as they are, contract some preventable disease from those organic, free-range white children and die, will it be legal for me to scalp and slaughter their white parents?”).
The focus on racial and cultural identity comes through strongest in the book’s first section. “Happy Holidays” pointedly discusses the complicated relationship modern Indians have with American holidays. “Sonnet, with Slot Machines” wrestles with the politics of Indian casinos and issues of gambling.
“Slot Machines” is one of many so-called “sonnets” in the book; the poems comprise the second section and are scattered throughout the others. In labeling these poems sonnets, Alexie initiates a conversation about form, forgoing the traditional 14-line rhyme and metrical structure and instead following formulas of his own. This reinvention of form allows Alexie to stay true to his own voice, never sacrificing his natural vocabulary for the sake of someone else’s definition of “poetic.” Yet Alexie pays homage to formal poetry and to his literary forbears by recognizing the significance of the form’s constraints while giving it his own spin.
Whatever form he uses, Alexie stays true, too, to his own style of storytelling. And “What I’ve Stolen, What I’ve Earned” is, at its core, a book of stories, told piecemeal, which hit the reader with their poignancy in the way Alexie weaves the seemingly disparate pieces together. In “Sonnet, with Tainted Love” he does this with a missing persons case, nightmares and the movie “Dirty Dancing.” “Hell” links Dante, Jimmy Durante, Moses and a fear of heights.
At 156 pages, it’s lengthy for a poetry collection, and the book does drag at times. (“Phone Calls from Ex-Lovers,” for example, probably doesn’t need to list all top 100 songs from 1984. Surely 10 would have made the point.)
But the slow moments are overcome by the tenderness of “Steel Anniversary,” by the undeniable momentum of “The Naming Ceremony,” and by the sledgehammer truths that catch us off-guard, the laugh-out-loud surprises and the utter honesty with which Alexie delivers it all.
“What I’ve Stolen” creates a world that, to borrow a line from “Sonnet, with Tainted Love,” “is equal parts magic and loss,” and it’s a book worth savoring to the final line.
By Mark Gnadt | House Democratic Caucus 01/10/2014
Alaska Native News
On Thursday, Representative Charisse Millett (R-Anchorage), Representative Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins (D-Sitka), Representative Benjamin Nageak (D-Barrow), and Representative Bryce Edgmon (D-Dillingham) announced they are pre-filing the Alaska Native Language Bill to make each of the Native languages in Alaska an official language of the state.
In current state law, English is Alaska’s only official language. This bill would expand the list to include Iñupiaq, Siberian Yupik, Central Alaskan Yup’ik, Alutiiq, Unangax̂, Dena’ina, Deg Xinag, Holikachuk, Koyukon, Upper Kuskokwim, Gwich’in, Tanana, Upper Tanana, Tanacross, Hän, Ahtna, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian.
“Losing a language is losing a way of understanding the world,” said Kreiss-Tomkins. “We hope this legislation will add even more momentum to the revitalization of Alaska Native languages.”
“Native culture enriches the lives of Alaskans in so many ways,” said Millett. “Naming Alaska’s twenty indigenous languages as official languages of the state of Alaska demonstrates our respect and admiration for their past, current, and future contributions to our state.”
“This legislation will highlight the importance of preserving and revitalizing the rich and diverse cultural legacy inherent in Alaska Native languages,” said Edgmon, chairman of the House Bush Caucus. “We recently celebrated our 50th year of statehood. In another 50 years I would like to see the many languages of our first Alaskans playing a vibrant role in the lives of people all over the state.”
“I want to thank Representative Kreiss-Tomkins for starting the process of the passage of this bill. We, the co-sponsors, feel this bill will be a positive and long overdue formal legislative recognition of all the Native languages still spoken in this great state of ours and the people who still speak their own language,” said Nageak.
Nageak continued, “Those of us who still speak and write our language want to make sure that all Native languages in the state of Alaska do not die off and want them passed on to the younger generation and the generations that will come in the near and distant future. The first words I ever spoke in my life were Iñupiaq words. My generation spoke only Iñupiaq when we were growing up and did not learn to speak English until the age of 6 years old when we started school as kindergartners. Our generation has struggled with and has been somewhat complicit in not speaking our languages when we became parents, therefore the majority of the generation we parented does not speak or write the different Native languages that were spoken entirely by Native people from generations past. We, as prime co-sponsors, feel that this bill is a start in making sure that future generations of Native speakers multiply until someday all of our Native people will once again be totally fluent in their own Native tongue with the added capability of speaking the English language.”
Making these languages official languages of the state of Alaska is a symbolic gesture to acknowledge their importance to Alaskans and the state’s heritage. Passage of the bill will not require public signs and documents to be printed in multiple languages, and it will create no additional costs to the state.
The bill will be assigned a bill number and released on Friday, January 10. It will be read into the official record and assigned committees of referral on the first day of the upcoming legislative session, January 21, 2014.
NEAH BAY –– The U.S. Department of the Interior will soon offer to buy land from individual property owners on the Makah reservation under a new federal program aimed at helping tribes consolidate ownership.
The Makah reservation is the second in the nation to be part of Interior’s Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations.
Over the next 10 years, Interior will use $1.9 billion to buy land once allotted to tribal members that has ownership that has become “fractionated” among heirs of the original owners — meaning some plots are owned by hundreds of people.
The land will then be put into a trust for the tribes.
Dale Denney, Realty officer for the Makah, said the tribe has been allocated $2.55 million to buy fractionated lots within the tribe’s 30,000-acre reservation.
The tribe now has 14 allotments it has appraised to buy under the program.
Under the Dawes Act of 1887, tribal members were given allotments of land by the federal government, Denney said.
As those original owners died, the land was often split among heirs who over time have taken ownership of mere fractions of property.
One particular piece of allotment land now is now owned by 353 owners, Denney said.
“We’re talking places where people own just a few square feet now,” Denney said.
Genevieve Giaccardo, tribal relations adviser for Interior, said the first purchase offers under the program were made late last month to members of the Oglala Sioux tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southern South Dakota.
“It’s exciting to see the numbers with the Makah and Pine Ridge and seeing how things are beginning to work out,” Giaccardo said.
“We have a lot of work to do and a lot of logistics to work out. But these tribes have done a great job of finding ways to make this work.”
Tribal and U.S. officials are hosting a pair of meetings in the Makah Marina conference room, 1321 Bayview Ave. in Neah Bay, on Monday and Tuesday.
Monday’s meeting runs from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday’s runs from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
The program eventually will be expanded and offered to 150 tribes across the nation, including others on the North Olympic Peninsula.
Meetings to explain the program to tribes in Washington will be Thursday and Friday, Jan. 16 and 17, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Philip Starr Building at the Muckleshoot Wellness Center, 39015 172nd Ave. S.E. in Auburn.
Giaccardo said convoluted ownership complicates decisions about use of land and resources as thousands of owners have to be consulted before decisions can be made.
“This has all been going on for 125 years,” she said. “So there’s a lot of heirs to get in contact with. That’s where the tribes are going to have a lot of work to do.”
The buyback stems from the $3.4 billion class-action settlement in 2012 of a suit brought by Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet woman who brought suit against the U.S. government for mismanaging royalties from oil, gas, grazing and timber rights on tribal lands.
The Makah previously received $25 million from that settlement.
Makah Tribal Chairman T.J. Greene testified to the U.S. Senate last month about the tribe’s buyback plans.
Greene said 1,158 letters were sent to owners of the most fractionated allotments to inquire about buying the land.
Through meetings with various interest groups, he said, the tribe decided to focus its purchase on lands that will provide opportunity through timber and other economic development, as well as trying to purchase sacred grounds at Tsooes, a coastal village south of Cape Flattery.
Greene said the 14 lots ready for the buyback were appraised at a total value of $1.5 million.
The tribe has another 12 or 13 allotments prioritized for appraisal.
YAKIMA, Wash. — The Yakama Nation is considering an unprecedented move in its fight against legalized marijuana that could have implications for 10 Central Washington counties.
With a marijuana ban already in place on the Yakama reservation, tribal representatives now say they’ll fight the state to keep marijuana businesses from opening anywhere on ceded lands, which constitute one-fifth of the state’s land mass.
The tribe’s options include suing the state in federal court if no compromise can be reached, Yakama Nation Tribal Council Chairman Harry Smiskin said.
“We’re merely exercising what the treaty allows us to do, and that is prevent marijuana grows (and sales) on those lands,” Smiskin said.
Under the Yakama Treaty of 1855 with the federal government, the Yakama Nation was to have exclusive use of the 1.2 million-acre reservation and maintain fishing, hunting and food-gathering rights on more than 12 million acres of ceded land. The tribe has successfully taken court action against federal and state entities as well as private interests in the past to defend those rights, but most of those cases have been directly tied to the tribe’s access to natural and cultural resources.
“To my knowledge, this would be the first time” the tribe has sought to prevent the implementation of a state law on all ceded land, said George Colby, an attorney for the Yakama Nation.
“The tribe’s stance is if you don’t fight, you don’t get to win,” Colby said.
The tribe expects to file more than 600 objections with the state and federal governments against license applicants located in the 12 million-acre area that includes land in 10 Central Washington counties, Colby said. About 300 of those complaints have already been filed, he added.
The ceded area spans from the Columbia River on the Oregon border to all of Chelan County in the north and from the eastern slopes of the Cascades across the Columbia River to as far west as parts of Whitman County. The area encompasses the cities of the Upper and Lower Yakima Valleys, Wenatchee, Ellensburg, Goldendale and Pasco, although not Richland or Kennewick.
Colby and Smiskin draw comparisons to the tribe’s long fight to keep alcohol off the reservation. They say the tribe has had an equally unpleasant history with marijuana use, and that the plant, which was effectively banned by the federal government through a series of campaigns and legislation in the 1930s, never played a traditional role in Yakama culture.
“Aside from the taxation of marijuana, I don’t see any benefits from it,” Smiskin said.
Moves by the tribal government a decade ago to enforce a 150-year-old alcohol ban on the reservation have been complicated by the fact that most of the property in the cities of Toppenish and Wapato are deeded land owned by nontribal members, including proprietors of bars and stores.
In that case, a 2001 opinion issued by U.S. Attorney Jim Shively in Spokane said that the Yakamas’ ban would probably not be enforceable in cities on the reservation.
In addition to the ban on marijuana businesses, it also remains illegal to possess marijuana for personal use on the Yakama reservation. Colby said the fact that marijuana remains illegal under federal law also entitles them to challenge it on ceded lands.
But the author of the 2012 voter-approved initiative that legalized marijuana, Alison Holcomb, said she doesn’t see a legal basis for the tribe’s opposition to marijuana businesses on ceded lands.
“I think they run into the issue of not having standing to, in essence, bring suit on behalf of the federal government,” said Holcomb, the criminal justice director of the American Civil Liberties Union Washington chapter. “The federal government at this time has shown it has no intention of trying to stop the law.”
In August, the U.S. Justice Department sent a memo to Washington and Colorado saying it would not stop the implementation of laws legalizing the recreational use of marijuana. The federal government’s use of prosecutorial discretion could be rescinded if the states fail to implement a robust system of enforcement to prevent interstate trafficking and access to minors, according to the memo.
In October the state Liquor Control Board established a rule that it would not issue a license to any business located on federal lands, such as a tribal reservation, a federal park or military installation. The rule does not address ceded lands, and on Friday a spokesman said the agency wasn’t ready to comment on that issue.
“The reality is we haven’t seen a lawsuit,” Liquor Control Board spokesman Mikhail Carpenter said. “Until we do, it would be premature for us to comment.”
A spokeswoman for the state Attorney General’s Office was also unable to comment on the issue Friday.
In the coming weeks, the Attorney General’s Office will issue an opinion on whether cities and counties have a right to ban marijuana growing, processing and retail businesses from their jurisdictions. Because the opinion is a response to a Liquor Control Board inquiry specifically related to counties and municipalities, it is not expected to address tribal rights issues.
“Within the reserved area, it’s not even a contest as to whether marijuana is illegal,” Colby said. “Next is the ceded area.”
Holcomb said she supports the tribe’s right to ban marijuana businesses on the reservation. However, she said it’s unfortunate tribal leaders don’t recognize the disproportionate effects national marijuana prohibition has had on minorities in terms of criminal convictions.
Illegal marijuana grows by cartels on reservation lands and federal forest lands are also the result of prohibition, she said.
“U.S. marijuana prohibition is directly responsible for the fact that there are multinational criminal organizations setting up marijuana grows on reservation lands and ceded lands,” Holcomb said. “They pose a danger to members exercising their hunting, gathering and fishing rights in those lands.”
Smiskin said the tribe will continue to put license applicants, the state and federal governments on notice that marijuana businesses aren’t welcome on the ceded lands. He said no entities have approached the Yakama Nation to discuss their stance and potential legal challenge.
“If we can’t come to an agreement, then there is always that potential it’s going to get litigated,” Smiskin said.
Golfers and other visitors to the Salish Cliffs Golf Course on the Squaxin Island Indian Reservation are greeted by two Coast Salish totem poles that frame sweeping, territorial views of the Kamilche Valley.
A welcome pole, right, originally carved for the Port of Olympia 15 years ago, has found a home at the Salish Cliffs Golf Course on the Squaxin Island Indian Reservation, shown Friday. TONY OVERMAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The shorter — 36 feet — and less colorful carving is a welcome pole that has a long and contentious history, dating to 1997 when the Port of Olympia contracted with Squaxin Island tribal member, carver and fisherman Doug Tobin to carve a totem pole for the port’s new Port Plaza on the shores of Budd Inlet.
Along the way to completion, the pole’s fate became entangled in Tobin’s past, which included a manslaughter rap in a 1986 murder-for-hire scheme that took the life of Olympia’s Joanne Jirovec.
I visited the welcome pole this week with Russ Lidman, a retired Seattle University professor, Olympia resident and president of Temple Beth Hatfiloh.
Lidman for years used the welcome pole case history as a teachable moment for students in the university’s master’s program in public administration. A retrospective review of the case looks like a television drama co-starring whipsawed port commissioners, a port director torn in several directions, angry citizens, the local newspaper that early on gave the story less attention, and a talented Native American artist, who happens to be a habitual criminal.
“It’s a really good case study from the point of view of public administration,” Lidman said. “Real screw-ups like this require a lot of actors dropping the ball.”
Examples include:
• The Port of Olympia in the 1990s lacked a transparent, formal process for spending money on public art. They settled on Tobin to carve a Coast Salish welcome pole for the Port Plaza without fully vetting the artist’s criminal background or considering the potential for backlash from friends of Joanne Jirovec.
• The Olympian didn’t write in detail about the contract, or the artist and his criminal past, before the contract was signed. If I remember right — and I covered the port at the time — the newspaper, along with port officials and Squaxin Island tribal leaders, figured Tobin had served his time — albeit less than six years — on the manslaughter charge and deserved a second chance.
• Tobin, who had plenty of help carving the pole — he did only about 15 percent of the work — missed his contract deadline of February 1998 and didn’t complete the pole until 2000. Months would go by without any work performed on the pole. He missed deadlines for performance payments spelled out in the contract, but port officials figured there would be more to lose than gain by canceling the contract.
Later, it became clear why Tobin fell so far behind. While Tobin was under contract to the port, he was also the ringleader of a major geoduck and Dungeness crab poaching ring in South Puget Sound.
• The back of the pole needed to be hollowed out and strengthened with a beam and structural supports to keep it from cracking. It sat enshrouded in a port warehouse for another two years.
That gave state and federal fish and wildlife enforcement officers time to build their poaching case against Tobin, someone they had used as an undercover informant for years before they knew the full extent of his own criminal enterprise.
In February 2002, the port was close to erecting the welcome pole. But on March 18, Tobin was arrested for the theft of geoducks valued at $1.2 million. In 2003, he received a 14-year prison term, nearly twice his sentence in the Jirovec case, and the stiffest poaching penalty in state history.
Soon after the news of Tobin’s arrest broke, friends of Joanne Jirovec descended on the port, demanding that the port scrap its plans to erect the pole to welcome people to the Olympia waterfront. They called the plan an insult to the memory of the slain woman.
• The Port Commission appointed a six-member citizens panel for advice. The panel voted 4-2 to install the pole, but the port commissioners, feeling the heat from the friends of Jirovec, ignored the recommendation.
Port Executive Director Nick Handy tried to sell the pole to the Squaxins, but they declined. Eventually the pole was sold for $30,352 in 2004 to a Seattle art collector, who in turn donated it to the Burke Museum of Natural Culture and History at the University of Washington.
Museum officials initially planned to erect the pole on the university campus, but they, too, deferred action. As the pole sat in limbo, Squaxin tribal members scrubbed every inch of the pole with spruce boughs to cleanse it of any negative energy associated with its past.
In 2005, the museum’s Native American Advisory Board recommended that museum officials contact the Squaxin Island Tribe to see whether they would like to borrow the pole.
The pole sat in storage at museum for several years. Finally, in 2011, the tribe and the museum entered into a 99-year loan agreement, which is reviewed every two years. The tribe brought the pole to the reservation and added it to the entrance to its new golf course.
The welcome pole and adjoining totem pole stand alongside a flag pole that flies both Old Glory and a Squaxin Island tribal flag. There are no inscriptions or plaques describing either pole’s story.
Tribal council member Ray Peters talked to me briefly Thursday about the welcome pole. I think he’d rather talk about the award-winning golf course. But he did shed a little light on the tribal council’s decision to embrace the pole.
“The pole isn’t Doug Tobin’s pole,” Peters said. “A lot of notable artists had a hand in carving and designing the pole.”
Several people familiar with the pole said they were glad it finally found a home, including former Secretary of State Ralph Munro, who served on the port advisory committee all those years ago, and voted to erect the pole at the Port Plaza.
“I’m glad to see the pole up,” he said. “For some people it evokes bad memories, but it’s a beautiful piece of Squaxin art that has inspired a lot of young tribal carvers.”
“We’re pleased that the pole has found a home,” added Burke Museum director Julie Stein.
“I’m glad it’s away from the university,” said Barbara Brecheen a good friend of Jirovec, upon learning the fate of the pole. “I’m surprised the tribe wanted it, but I guess it makes sense.”
I’ve thought long and hard about this column ever since I learned what happened to the welcome pole. I’ve come to the conclusion that the public has a right to know what happened to it. Public money was used to carve it. I’ve also concluded it’s time to separate the art from the artist, to let the art have a life of its own.
“I hope your column doesn’t open up old wounds,” Peters said.
I hope so, too. I don’t think it will.
John Dodge: 360-754-5444 jdodge@theolympian.com
Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/2014/01/12/2926674/benighted-totem-pole-finds-a-home.html#storylink=cpy
Becky Berg opens a meeting between Marysville School District staff and State Legislators.
Marysville School District Superintendent meets with teachers, staff, and legislators
Article and photo by Andrew Gobin
Marysville – The structure of the school day may be changing. There is a discussion at the capitol in which Washington State Legislators are considering lengthening the school day and adding 80 hours to the 1000-hour yearly quota class instruction time. Dr. Becky Berg, superintendent for the Marysville School District (MSD), invited legislators, community leaders, administrative staff, and members of the teaching faculty to come together on January 6th to discuss the needs of the schools, specifically addressing the 6-hour day and 1080, reforms to the school day that are currently being discussed in Washington State. The meeting also emphasized the need to pass the levy this year.
The 6-hour day and 1080 discussion, as it is called, would lengthen the school day to include 6 hours of instruction time, as opposed to the 5.5 required now, and would add another 80 hours a year to the time teachers and students are required to spend in the classroom together. Consequently, the proposed changes do away with early release days and teacher workshops.
“We (teachers) rely on early release days to come up with time for collaboration and professional development. Enough with reform, if change needs to happen it needs be on a local level. People at the capitol don’t have the answers. People in D.C. don’t know what we need,” said Arden Watson, president of the Marysville Education Association.
Getchell High School Principal Shawn Stevenson agreed, “When you ask teachers what they need, more than anything they need time. Time to be proficient in their job, time to develop a teaching plan, and time to adjust and rework that plan so that students can succeed.”
Marysville Getchell High School Principal Shawn Stevenson explains the teachers’ need for time outside of the classroom.
Jodi Runyon, executive assistant to the MSD Superintendent, echoed, “With funding from the SIG grants, Quil Ceda and Tulalip elementary staff had the resources and freedom to redesign their schools. They were able to create planning time throughout the school day. Now they have enormous student success, which has recently been recognized on a national level. The only question now is where do we find the funding as the SIG grant has come to an end.”
The SIG grant is a three-year federal funding program for schools in need, which culminated this last November with a visit for the President of the National Education Association.
In addition to time for teacher planning and development, the levy was strongly emphasized as a crucial component for the MSD. For example, the technology aspect of the levy will help students and teachers access a state of the art fiber-optic network that is already in place district wide. The problem is there are no points of access. The infrastructure is there, yet the classrooms are not equipped to engage with the network. Currently, it is compared to a freeway with no on ramp. No one has access.
“It goes beyond the school day. At sporting events and after school hours, our Wi-Fi will be open to those at the school. Free Wi-Fi for parents and students, filtered of course, so to eliminate problems of access at home,” said Berg.
Dean Ledford called the levy “paramount to the success of teachers and students.”
The legislators and leaders that attended included Washington State Representatives Mike Sells and Hans Dunshee, Snohomish County Executive and former Snohomish County Sheriff John Lovick, Senator John McCoy, 189 Educational Service District Superintendent Jerry Jenkins, former Mayor of Marysville Dennis Kendall and current Mayor Jon Nehring. They all offered support for what the teachers and staff of the MSD are trying to do, sharing similar concerns about the 6-hour day and 1080 discussion.
Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF) President and CEO T. Lulani Arquette is visibly moved as she describes how the audience responded to the innovative work of Christopher Kaui Morgan at the 2013 Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement Conference. “There was a palpable thrill in the room, a sense that we were witnessing something new and exciting. This is the kind of work we want to encourage,” she says. Not yet four years since it began funding, NACF has made significant investments to nurture native artistic expression, celebrate culture and engage communities. These investments help keep tradition alive — but also help indigenous artists push past old forms and break new ground.
That clearly is what makes the work of NACF so significant. This isn’t just about feeding struggling artists. Underlying everything NACF does is the conviction that native artists and culture-bearers play a vital role in enlivening the community. Through its mission and its outreach, its grants and the platforms it provides for creative expression and collaboration, NACF attests to the importance of the artist as both voice and conscience, healing and keeping alive the hope of a better, more just world.
Native artists cannot always turn swords into plowshares. But they at least give us the beauty of art in place of the brokenness that we see all around us. Native artists, like artists everywhere, give so generously to us all simply through their creativity. We owe it to them — and to ourselves — to give back in some measure what they have given us in priceless cultural treasure. –Arquette
NACF hopes that those who wish to put their wealth to work will see in the work of the Foundation the prospect of a return on investment that is more significant than what the market can offer. Founding NACF Board Member Elizabeth A. Woody (Navajo/Warm Springs/Wasco/Yakama) explains: “The act of giving was part of the ‘gifting economy’ of the Northwest where one’s wealth was measured by generosity, good work and a good heart.” That’s not unlike the spirit that moves those who engage in philanthropy. Thanks to that spirit of giving, donors across the country have allowed NACF to help 85 Native artists and organizations across 22 states. Awardees were part of over 300 events and activities, creating opportunities for 46,000 participants and taking the beauty and power of Native arts and cultures to nearly 850,000 people.
Individual Fellowships
Individual grants of up to $20,000 each help native artists continue to practice what has been handed down to them while also moving beyond to open up new ways of seeing the world. Time-honored ways of defining our shared humanity are preserved while new prisms are created through which to see and understand. Powerful voices are amplified in visual arts, music, dance, literature, film and traditional arts.
Community-Based Initiatives
People are not generally aware of the urgent need to map and secure ancestral arts and practices before they are lost forever. Nearly $380,000 has been given to grantees, some tied to universities, for this purpose. Apprenticeships, teaching, participation in youth programs and festivals also help ensure the transmittal of traditional skills to the next generation. This support seeds the ground for ongoing collaborations and exchanges, such as residencies, arts conferences and dialogue across native art disciplines.
Capacity-Building Initiatives
NACF creates partnerships between artists, tribal entities and nonprofit organizations. The spirit behind these partnerships is the recognition that the work of the artist is a lens through which to help the community understand and engage collaboratively in addressing issues vital to the well-being of the community.
Proven leadership in offering broad-based arts services including arts grants, professional development for artists, and market opportunities for Native artists has led NACF to make an investment of nearly $300,000 in organizations positioned to help artists in these ways. In Hawai`i, the Pa`i Foundation received a NACF grant to support their work as part of a group dedicated to recovering the language, cultural traditions, healing practices, voyaging, and agricultural practices of the Native Hawaiians, now a minority in their ancestral land.
Arquette is particularly proud to see artists in her native Hawai`i recognized, and is gearing up to announce new initiatives in 2014.
“Our grants go towards helping artists address issues such as cultural equity, land and water rights, food sovereignty, and Native knowledge,” she said. NACF artists received a Bessie Award for Outstanding Dance Production, had an exhibit at the 18th Biennale of Sydney, Australia, and are taking their film to the national festival circuit and PBS. “This kind of recognition inspires others to help keep the arts alive through their own artistic endeavors — or through their financial support,” she added.
The NACF website offers several examples of the work of artists NACF has supported. “We need the voices of our Native artists and culture-makers. They help make us wiser and more compassionate towards each other, ” said Arquette.
Credit Austin Jenkins / Northwest News Network Initiative promoter Tim Eyman has a plan to resurrect the two-thirds vote requirement for tax increases in Washington
It’s designed to resurrect the requirement that tax hikes get a two-thirds majority in the legislature or be referred to the people. This time Eyman has designed a hammer to get the legislature to act.
Last year, the Washington Supreme Court tossed out Eyman’s two-thirds requirement for tax increases as unconstitutional – something Washington voters had repeatedly approved. Now Eyman’s back with a creative proposal: he would cut the state sales tax by one cent if the legislature doesn’t approve and send to voters a constitutional amendment to bring back the super majority rule.
“Either they let us vote, which costs them nothing, or we get the largest tax cut in Washington state history,” says Eyman.
A one penny cut in the sales tax would amount to about $1 billion a year in lost revenue to the state. Eyman would need to gather nearly 250,000 valid voter signatures to put his measure on this fall’s ballot.
The 2014 initiative season is also underway in Oregon. Measures on same-sex marriage, marijuana legalization and liquor privatization are all expected to qualify for the ballot.
In Idaho, there are proposed ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage and allow medical marijuana.
In current state law, English is Alaska’s only official language. This bill would expand the list to include Iñupiaq, Siberian Yupik, Central Alaskan Yup’ik, Alutiiq, Unangax̂, Dena’ina, Deg Xinag, Holikachuk, Koyukon, Upper Kuskokwim, Gwich’in, Tanana, Upper Tanana, Tanacross, Hän, Ahtna, Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian.
“Our grants go towards helping artists address issues such as cultural equity, land and water rights, food sovereignty, and Native knowledge,” she said. NACF artists received a Bessie Award for Outstanding Dance Production, had an exhibit at the 18th Biennale of Sydney, Australia, and are taking their film to the national festival circuit and PBS. “This kind of recognition inspires others to help keep the arts alive through their own artistic endeavors — or through their financial support,” she added.
