Anniversary Event this Saturday, August 16, 2014. Hibulb will host demonstrators all throughout the day, with extended hours of 10:00am-6:00pm.
Category: Local News
Youth become government employees though summer program
By Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
TULALIP – Each year Tulalip youth, 14 -18 years old, have a chance to gain work experience before graduation through the Tulalip Tribes Youth Employment Program. The program, funded by the Tulalip Tribes Youth Services Department, is designed to provide Native youth with a positive work experience to foster future growth.
This year funding was available originally for 70 positions with a stipulation that youth applying attend a three-day orientation and meet a 2.0 GPA standard. After receiving additional funding allocated by the Tulalip Board of Directors, the GPA restriction was removed and 30 additional positions added. The program, at the time of this article, had 75 youth employed.
“The most important role of this program in the community is that we are showing our youth that work and dedication is important. Starting work at a young age is a good thing, then they they turn 18, they are more prepared to get a job and be successful employees,” said Jessica Bustad, Tulalip Youth Services Education Coordinator.
The goal of the program she says “is to have youth gain skills, confidence and knowledge that they can use to obtain a full time job in the future.” This essentially puts youth who participate in the program ahead of their peers when applying for future jobs. These youth will have already established critical job skills that ensure success, such as abiding by professional standards, keeping confidentiality, and time management.
In fact, the Tribe has hired youth who have participated in the program said Bustad, due to the youth’s excellent work while in the program. “There have been several throughout the years and it is an awesome thing to see. Two years ago we had an 18-year-old start the Youth Employment Program and resign from it because she applied and received a regular position with the department she was assigned to.”
Youth are treated like regular employees, which means they are required to work a typical 40-hour workweek, a task that may seem daunting for those who are suddenly required to conduct themselves in a professional manner in a government setting, such as the Tulalip Tribes. However, many youth relish in the opportunity to be responsible. Demery Johnson is one of them.
Despite being only 15, and in her second year working in the program, she chose to work in the Tulalip Tribes Probation Department at the Tulalip Tribal Court, a position that requires strict confidentiality and professionalism.
“I chose this department because I wanted to get a more business feel,” said Johnson who worked last year at the Tulalip Boys & Girls Club and plans to open her own bakery one day. “I wanted to be able to put on my resume that I have worked in a professional environment. I have learned how probation works and how the court operates.”
Although a court house and a probation department may seem like high-risk positions to have youth work, Bustad explains the Tribe’s youth services education staff decide job placements based on surveys youth fill out that ask questions such as what their interests are.
“We provide the youth with a survey and look at what requests we have for youth. We try to place youth where they will be successful and interested. This can also be a challenge if we do not receive youth worker requests from departments that youth wish to work at,” said Bustad.
“This program helps in many different ways,” said Bustad. “Supervisors and co-workers provide youth with training and other learning opportunities within the departments. This program is teaching them good work ethics and how to communicate properly with others in the workforce.”
“This program benefits me and other youth in a way that we can actually experience what the real world is like and be put into real world situations and actually experience them with a little bit of training wheels instead of just being put into them without any guidance,” said Johnson, whose job duties include office tasks, such as answering phones, greeting clients, taking messages, and filing and data input. Her position in probation teaches her how court cases are processed and how to interact with clients in addition to how a probation department supervises clients during criminal proceedings
“What I like most about the probation department is that I am not treated like a child. I am treated like an equal. I thought it would be boring but what surprised me was going into court and seeing how it works. I am glad to be here and gain this experience. I would encourage everyone to participate,” said Johnson.“The GPA requirement wasn’t a problem for me. A 2.0 is a C-, and having a GPA requirement is a good thing. Last year there were many kids who didn’t want to work, and this is actually achieving a goal. They are hanging a paycheck in front of you saying you have to be able to at least get this, and it is doable. I think that it is a great thing to do. Just like making them take a drug test, which is perfectly normal, it is what you would do in the real world. It shows you that you have to actually work to get stuff in the real world. I don’t see what would hold anybody back. Other than amusement parks, I would be just sitting at home. There is nothing to lose, you get paid and you get experience.”
Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulalipnews.com
Native Americans rally to protect the Salish Sea
By Kim Kalliber, Tulalip News
Crowds of peaceful supporters came together at Seattle’s Sculpture Park on Monday, August 11, standing in solidarity to protect the Salish Sea and decrease oil train traffic in the Northwest. Proposed terminals include Cherry Point, located on the Lummi Nation’s sacred grounds.
After welcoming friends that arrived from water and land, members of the Duwamish tribe led the group in a healing song for the waters.
Native Americans, environmental groups and concerned citizens joined in the opposition with singing, dancing, prayer and strong words.
Water is one of the first things to go,” said Michael Evans, Snohomish Tribe of Indians Chairman. “We’ve already noticed that some of the fish are starting to die. If the fish can’t live in the fresh water, neither can man. We really need to pay attention to what we are doing to ourselves and to the land, it all affects the Salish Sea.”
One young supporter at the event said it was “all about Indian solidarity” and stressed the importance of standing together to oppose the increase of fossil fuels in our Puget Sound waters.
Monday’s rally was organized by Idle No More Washington, 350 Seattle, Protect the Sacred and Backbone Campaign.
2014 totem pole journey honors tribes’ stewardship of land, water
By Jewell James, courtesy to the Bellingham Herald August 11, 2014
For generations, tribal peoples have witnessed the impact of faceless “persons” — corporations — on the land, water, air and human and environmental health. Though at times consulted, we have not been heard as a real voice in defending our traditional homeland territories. Instead, we have seen and experienced degradation of environmental integrity and destruction of healthy ecosystems. We suffered as our traditional foods and medicines were lost, and our people’s health plunged.
The Lummi, the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, and all Coast Salish tribes, face devastating proposals that would bring coal by rail from Montana and Wyoming to the West Coast for export overseas. Indeed, the Cherry Point (in our language, Xwe’chi’eXen) proposal poses a tremendous ecological, cultural and socio-economic threat to Pacific Northwest tribes.
Xwe’chi’eXen is a 3,500-year-old village site where many of our ancestors lived and made their final resting places. Today, 60 percent of Lummis have direct ancestral ties to this site. Around it, the Salish Sea supports a Lummi fishing fleet (450 vessels) that feeds and supports tribal families.
Coal exports threaten all of this. We fear the desecration of Xwe’chi’eXen, the first archaeological site to be placed on the Washington State Register of Historic Places. We wonder how Salish Sea fisheries, already impacted by decades of pollution and global warming, will respond to the toxic runoff from the water used for coal piles stored on site. How will Bellingham’s recreational and commercial boaters navigate when more than 400 cape-sized ships, each 1,000 feet long, depart Cherry Point annually — each bearing 287,000 tons of coal? What will happen to the region’s air quality as coal trains bring dust and increase diesel pollution? And of course, any coal burned overseas will come home to our state as mercury pollution in our fish, adding to the perils of climate change.
Already, coal export officials have shown breathtaking disrespect for our heritage. To save time and boost profits, Pacific International Terminals bulldozed what they knew to be a registered archaeological site and drained our wetlands without a permit.
This proposal is not based on economic necessity. The inflated number of jobs promised is an old, old story; one filled with promises made, and broken. At the end of the day there would be far fewer jobs created and many sustainable jobs lost or compromised. The defeat of this madness is our aboriginal duty as the first Americans, but it also speaks to the collective interest of all citizens and — most importantly — as members of the human family who are part of, not masters over, creation. But this is a new day.
To those who would sacrifice the way of life of all peoples of the Pacific Northwest, we say: Take notice. Enough is enough! This summer’s proposed changes to the site design are beside the point. Mitigation is not the issue. We will stop the development of the export terminal and put in its place a plan that honors our shared responsibility to the land and waters of Xwe’chi’eXen and all our relations.
In August we make our journey from South Dakota to the Salish Sea and north to Alberta, Canada, stopping with many of the tribal and local communities whose lives unwillingly intersect with the paths of coal exports and tar sands. We will carry with us a 19-foot-tall totem that brings to mind our shared responsibility for the lands, the waters and the peoples who face environmental and cultural devastation from fossil fuel megaprojects. We travel in honor of late elder, and leader, and guiding light Billy Frank, Jr., who would remind us that we are stewards placed here to live with respect for our shared, sacred obligation to the creation, the plants and animals, the peoples and all our relations. He guides us, still. Our commitment to place, to each other, unites us as one people, one voice to call out to others who understand that our shared responsibility is to leave a better, more bountiful world for those who follow.
We welcome you to the blessing of the journey at 9:30 a.m., Sunday, Aug. 17 at the Lummi Tribal Administration Center, 2665 Kwina Road.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jewell James is a member of the Lummi Nation and head carver of the Lummi House of Tears Carvers.
Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/08/11/3792147/2014-totem-pole-journey-honors.html?sp=/99/122/#storylink=cpy
Hagar to rock at Tulalip, other big names coming
Source: The Herald
August is a busy month during the Summer Concert Series at the Tulalip Amphitheatre.
Up next is the Sammy Hagar concert on Thursday, Aug. 14. Tickets start at about $55 for the standing-room-only beer garden. It’s one of Tulalip’s most popular concerts this season. Earlier this week, the show was just about sold out.
The next day, Aug. 15, Tulalip hosts Sugar Ray, Gin Blossoms, Blues Traveler and Uncle Kracker. Tickets start at about $39, also in the SRO beer section. On Aug. 21, the 1970s band “Yes” plays the amphitheatre, with similar ticket prices.
Singer and songwriter Hagar, 66, will be joined in the show, “A Journey Through the History of Rock,” by bassist Michael Anthony, drummer Jason Bonham and guitarist Vic Johnson. Anthony, another Van Halen alum, plays with Hagar in the band Chickenfoot and guitarist Johnson plays with Hagar in the group Wabos. Bonham is the son of Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham.
The former front man of Van Halen and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Hagar was a young man when he “burst on the scene from San Francisco as the lead vocalist of Montrose, whose song ‘Rock Candy’ has gone on to become a certified rock class,” according to Hagar’s website.
After a bunch of solo albums and cross-country tours, Hagar, known as the Red Rocker, joined Van Halen in 1985.
Later he performed with his band the Wabos, enjoyed a 2004 reunion tour with Van Halen and now plays primarily with his current band Chickenfoot, which also includes guitarist Joe Satriani and drummer Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame.
Hagar’s fans, known as “Redheads,” can expect a variety of tunes from the rocker on Thursday.
A set from a stop on the current tour included the songs “There’s Only One Way to Rock,” “Rock Candy,” “Good Times Bad Times,” “I Can’t Drive 55,” “Whole Lotta Love,” “Moby Dick,” “Best of Both Worlds,” “Right Now” and “Rock and Roll.”
Along with his music, Hagar is known for raising money to benefit charities in the cities where he performs. Hagar plans to donate a portion of proceeds from the show to the Tulalip Food Bank.
More information about the Tulalip Amphitheatre shows can be found at www.tulalipresortcasino.com/Entertainment/TulalipAmphitheatre.
Tulalip Health Watch’s “Diabetes” examines the disease and preventions
By Mike Sarich, Tulalip News
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Indian Health Service, Native Americans are at a 2.2 times higher risk for diabetes than their non-Indian counterparts. Between 1994 and 2004 there was a 68 percent increase in diabetes diagnosis in American Indian and Alaska Native youth, aged 15-19 years old.
Tulalip Health Watch’s “Diabetes” examines what diabetes is, how it is diagnosed, and what your part is in preventing this disease, which has taken Indian country with epidemic proportions. Medical professionals from Tulalip Karen I. Fryberg Health Clinic provide information on testing, treatment, and prevention. Also, a tribal elder defines how diabetes has affected his life, and how he is proactive in the treatment of the disease.
Starting Monday, August 11th on Tulalip TV Channel 99, and streaming on TulalipTV.com
10:30am
7:30pm
1:30am
National Night Out Draws Large Crowd
By Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
Tulalip and Marysville Police Departments partnered with Snohomish County Sheriff’s Department to host the Annual National Night Out held at the Tulalip Amphitheater at the Tulalip Resort Casino on Tuesday, August 5.
The national event brings together law enforcement, local organizations, and community members to strengthen relationships to promote crime prevention, while educating community members about crime prevention methods, such as neighborhood watches and citizen patrols.
Traditionally Tulalip Police and Marysville Police Departments have split hosting duties, each taking a turn hosting the event in their respective cities. As this year’s host Tulalip invited local service organizations such as Snohomish County Volunteer Search and Rescue, Tulalip Bay Fire Department, Tulalip Behavioral Health, Medical Reserve Corps, Tulalip Legacy of Healing and others, to participate in the national event that celebrated its 31st anniversary this year.
An estimated 250 community members from the Tulalip/Marysville area attended the event and were able to ask questions about crime prevention and gain crime prevention awareness resources. In addition, were two K9 unit demonstrations that enabled participants to learn how K9 officers search and find drugs.
“Last night’s National Night Out against crime was a success,” Ashlynn Danielson with the Tulalip Police Department. “Events like this one bring together community members and law enforcement to promote crime prevention. We received positive feedback from participants.”
Due to the success of this year’s National Night Out event, Tulalip Police Chief Carlos Echevarria is considering planning an annual Tulalip Community National Night Out.
Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulalipnews.com
August is National Immunization Awareness Month
By Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
TULALIP -August marks a national health campaign to raise awareness on the importance of immunizations. All throughout this month health professionals along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases are reaching out to communities to educate and promote vaccines.
According to CDC the use of vaccinations could mean the difference between life and death. Some diseases have become rare or have been eradicated through vaccination use, such as smallpox. However the choice to vaccinate is still optional due to no vaccination law enacted by the federal government, other than the requirement in all 50 states that children receive certain vaccinations before entering public schools. Children are required by most states to receive diphtheria, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella and tetanus vaccines before entering public school, however, medical exemptions can be given if the child has had an adverse reaction to a prior vaccine or is allergic to a vaccine component
During the August awareness campaign the CDC is seeking to decrease the number of people opting out of vaccination by reaching out to communities through education outreach.
“Vaccines have reduced many diseases to very low levels in the United States. For example, we no longer see polio, a virus that causes paralysis, in our country. Not only do vaccines help the patient, they also protect people who come in contact with the patient. Infants and the elderly have decreased immune systems. Being vaccinated helps protect these populations,” said Dr. Jason McKerry with the Tulalip Karen I. Fryberg Health Clinic on the Tulalip Indian Reservation.
This year, Washington State was among 17 other states that experienced a high percentage of measles cases, a first in 20 years. As of July 30, 585 confirmed cases of measles have been reported throughout the nation, 27 of them in Washington. Similarly, cases involving pertussis, or whooping cough, have been on the rise. As of July 26, Washington State Department of Health reported 219 cases of whooping cough, 6 of those reported in Snohomish County, while Grant, King and Pierce Counties each reported 30 or more.
Through the use of vaccinations the risk of infection is reduced. Vaccinations, explains the CDC website, work “with the body’s natural defenses to help it safely develop immunity to disease.” This means vaccinations aid the development of immunity through imitating infection so when the body does encounter the disease, the body will recognize it and fight the infection with antibodies it has created.
“Serious infections like pneumonia, bacteremia, a bacteria infection that gets in the blood and spreads to the whole body, and meningitis, an infection of the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, can occur with lack of vaccinations. Most of these diseases can be treated with medicine, if caught early enough, but serious negative outcomes can occur if the infection spreads rapidly. These include brain damage, hearing loss, chronic lung disease and even death. It is best to be safe and vaccinate early, before you have a chance to contract a life-threatening disease,” said Dr. McKerry about the risks associated with not vaccinating.
Vaccinations can be administered at private doctor offices, public community health clinics and community locations, such as schools and pharmacies for a reduced price, however most insurance plans do provide coverage cost for vaccinations.
“I always encourage a patient to obtain vaccines from a primary care provider who knows them best and can offer the most current advice on vaccines,” Dr. McKerry said, who went onto to explain that children should be vaccinated before the age of two. “Your child should be vaccinated against hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, a virus that causes severe vomiting and diarrhea. Diptheria, tetanus and whooping cough, haemophilus influenza B, a virus that causes pneumonia and ear infections, among other infections, pneumococcus, a bacteria that causes pneumonia and ear infections, among other infections, and polio, measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), varicella (chicken pox) and a yearly flu vaccine.”
For more information about immunizations or immunization schedules, please visit the website www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/. Or please contact the Tulalip Karen I. Fryberg Health Clinic at 360-716-4511.
Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulalipnews.com
National Night Out Returns To Tulalip/ Marysville, Tonight 6 P.M.
By Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
TULALIP – Tulalip Police Department is partnering with Marysville Police Department once again to host the National Night Out for the Tulalip/ Marysville communities.
This year marks the 31st anniversary for the national event, which seeks to bring community members and law enforcement agencies together to strengthen relationships to promote crime prevention.
Over the years the Tulalip Police and Marysville Police have alternated hosting the event. This year Tulalip Police are hosting at the Tulalip Amphitheatre at the Tulalip Resort Casino, tonight at 6 p.m.
Representative from local organizations are joining Tulalip and Marysville Police Departments, in addition to Snohomish County Sheriff’s Department, to answer community questions about crime prevention and provide crime prevention awareness resources.
The event will feature fun activities for the family, along with food and a raffle.
National Night Out is held annually on the first Tuesday of August and is coordinated by the non-profit organization, National Association of Town Watch. The event involves over 35 million people across 16,124 communities in the nation with a goal to increase awareness, strengthen community relations and send a message to criminals that neighborhoods are organized and fighting back against crime.
For more information about National Night Out, visit their website natw.org.
Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulalipnews.com
Inslee Water Quality Plan Too Little, Too Late
Note: Being Frank is the monthly opinion column that was written for many years by the late Billy Frank Jr., NWIFC Chairman. To honor him, the treaty Indian tribes in western Washington will continue to share their perspectives on natural resources management through this column. This month’s writer is Russ Hepfer, Vice Chair of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and an NWIFC commissioner.
“Being Frank”
Inslee Water Quality Plan Too Little, Too Late
By: Russ Hepfer, Vice Chair of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe
More delay is about the only thing that any of us who live here in Washington can count on when it comes to a badly needed update of state water quality standards to protect our health.
After decades of foot-dragging by previous governors, Gov. Jay Inslee recently unveiled his plan to revise our state’s ridiculously outdated water quality standards. While the plan offers a small increase in protection from 70 percent of the toxic chemicals regulated by the federal Clean Water Act, it maintains the inadequate status quo for the other 30 percent.
At best Inslee’s plan offers minimal progress in reducing contamination; at worst it provides a tenfold increase in our cancer risk rate.
Water quality standards are based in large part on how much fish and shellfish we eat. The more we eat, the cleaner the water needs to be. Two numbers drive our water quality standards: our fish consumption rate and our cancer risk rate from pollution in our waters.
Inslee’s plan rightly increases our fish consumption rate from the current 6.5 grams per day (about one serving of fish or shellfish per month) to 175 grams per day (at least one meal of fish or shellfish per day).
Support for that amount is a huge concession by tribes. Most tribal members, as well as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders eat far more than 175 grams of fish and shellfish per day. Current studies show daily consumption rates of 236 to 800 grams. Even those numbers represent suppressed rates. If more fish and shellfish were available for harvest, more would be eaten.
While giving a little with one hand, Inslee takes away a lot with the other, increasing our “acceptable” cancer risk rate tenfold, from one in a million to one in 100,000. Do you think anyone who gets cancer from the pollution in our fish and shellfish would find that risk rate acceptable? Would you?
That one in a million rate has protected all of us for the past 20 years. By increasing the cancer risk rate Inslee effectively cancels out most of the health benefits and improved water quality provided by the increased fish consumption rate.
The fish consumption and cancer risk rates are supposed to protect those who need it the most: children, women of childbearing age, Indians, Asian and Pacific Islanders, sport fishermen and anyone who likes to eat local fish and shellfish. When the most vulnerable among us is protected, so is everyone else.
To make up for the loss of protection under the cancer risk rate, Inslee proposes a statewide toxics reduction effort that would require legislative approval and funding. While the idea of a large toxics reduction program is a good one, it is not a substitute for an updated state water quality standards rule that carries the force of law.
No one knows what the Legislature might do, but two things are certain. There will be more delay and more opposition to Inslee’s proposal. Boeing and other opponents to improved water quality rules will likely engage in full-strength lobbying during the session to block any meaningful change, claiming that it will increase their cost of doing business.
The state has a clear duty to protect the environment to ensure that our treaty foods such as fish and shellfish are safe to eat. If not, those rights are meaningless. We will not put our hard-won treaty rights or the health of our children in the hands of the governor or state Legislature.
Our treaty rights already are at risk because most salmon populations continue to decline. The reason is that we are losing salmon habitat faster than it can be restored. What good is restored habitat if it does not include clean water?
Washington could have joined Oregon as a leader in protecting human health and natural resources. Oregon two years ago increased its fish consumption rate to 175 grams per day and kept the one-in-a-million cancer risk rate. Now Oregon has the highest standards of protection in the United States.
Meanwhile, the Oregon economy hasn’t suffered and not one company has gone out of business as a result. Don’t we all deserve the same level of protection as Oregonians?
Any kind of justice that is delayed is justice denied. That includes both social and environmental justice. Further delays and weak water quality standards only worsen the suffering of many. Inslee’s plan is too little, too late.