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Drought blocking passages to sea for California coho salmon

The drought has obstructed the migratory journeys of many coho salmon on California’s North and Central Coast, putting them in immediate danger.

By Tony Barboza LATimes

February 9, 2014

DAVENPORT, Calif. — By now, water would typically be ripping down Scott Creek, and months ago it should have burst through a berm of sand to provide fish passage between freshwater and the ocean.

Instead, young coho salmon from this redwood and oak-shaded watershed near Santa Cruz last week were swirling around idly in a lagoon. There has been so little rain that sand has blocked the endangered fish from leaving for the ocean or swimming upstream to spawn.

Scott Creek is one of dozens of streams across California where parched conditions have put fish in immediate danger. With the drought, stream flows have been so low that even months into winter, sandbars have remained closed and waters so shallow that many salmon have had their migratory journeys obstructed.

On the banks of Big Creek, a tributary of Scott Creek a few miles from the coast near Santa Cruz, some 41,000 coho salmon just over a year old are being raised for release this spring at a conservation hatchery operated by the nonprofit Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times / February 5, 2014)

To prevent further stress to salmon and steelhead, state wildlife officials have closed dozens of rivers and streams to fishing, including all coastal streams west of California 1. A storm that soaked parts of Northern California over the weekend should offer a short respite, but experts say streams like Scott Creek will need several inches of rain a week to stay open and connected to the ocean.

Nowhere is the situation more pressing than on California’s North and Central Coast, where a population of only a few thousand coho salmon were already teetering on the edge of extinction.

“This is the first animal that will feel the impacts of the drought,” said Jonathan Ambrose, a National Marine Fisheries Service biologist who stood at the sand-blocked mouth of Scott Creek to offer his assessment Wednesday. “It’s going to take a lot of rain to bust this thing open. And if they can’t get in by the end of February or March, they’re gone.”

Historically, hundreds of thousands of Central California Coast coho salmon started and ended their lives in creeks that flow from coastal mountains and redwood forests to the coast from Humboldt County to Santa Cruz.

Of those that remain, most at risk are coho salmon from about a dozen streams on the southern end of the species’ range in North America. If not for a small hatchery near the town of Davenport keeping the population going and genetically viable, coho salmon would probably already be long gone south of the Golden Gate.

The Central Coast population of coho has plummeted from about 56,000 in the 1960s to fewer than 500 returning adults in 2009. Over the last several years it has hovered around a few thousand, according to estimates from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The population was listed as federally threatened in 1996 and reclassified as endangered in 2005. A 2012 federal plan estimated its recovery could take 50 to 100 years and cost about $1.5 billion.

“Coho are the fish that are really in trouble in the state right now,” said Stafford Lehr, chief of fisheries for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“Right now, they’re cut off in many of the streams. They’re stuck in pools,” Lehr said. “As we move deeper into this drought, every life stage is going to suffer increased mortality.”

It’s not only Central Coast salmon that are in peril.

To the North, on Siskiyou County’s Scott River, more than 2,600 coho salmon returned this winter to spawn — the highest number since 2007 — but they encountered so little water they weren’t able to reach nine-tenths of tributaries to spawn, said Preston Harris, executive director of the Scott River Water Trust.

In the Sacramento River, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to release more than 190,000 hatchery-reared chinook salmon Monday to take advantage of recent rainfall. Commercial fishing groups, however, are urging wildlife officials to consider trucking chinook downstream.

“We’re in such extremely low-flow conditions that they might as well dig a ditch and bury these fish rather than trying to put them in a river,” said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.

On the banks of Big Creek, a tributary of Scott Creek a few miles from the coast near Santa Cruz, some 41,000 coho salmon just over a year old are being raised to be released this spring at a conservation hatchery operated by the nonprofit Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project.

For now, hatchery managers can only wait and hope for rains heavy and consistent enough to swell the creek’s waters and give the fish a route to the sea. Barring that, wildlife officials overseeing the hatchery are considering drastic measures, such as bulldozing a channel through the berm of sand or releasing the young fish directly into the ocean.

Salmon have existed more than a million years and have evolved with California’s climate. Scientists say they have survived dry spells much worse than this one.

What has changed in recent generations is the pressure California’s growing population has exerted on the water supply and their habitat. Farms, vineyards and cities now divert stream flows while roads, logging and urban development have degraded water quality.

Coho salmon also have a rigid life cycle that makes them more vulnerable during droughts. After three years, they must return from the ocean to the stream where they were born to spawn and die.

That urge was all too apparent when scientists observed this winter’s returning Central California Coast coho salmon. Hundreds of the roughly 1,000 adults that arrived were schooling in estuaries, waiting for rain to provide them passage upstream.

“Many of these fish may simply die in the estuary without reproducing if they can’t access spawning grounds,” said Charlotte Ambrose, salmon and steelhead recovery coordinator at the National Marine Fisheries Service. “While some rain has come, for coho this year it may be too little too late.”

tony.barboza@latimes.com

Oglala Sioux vow to stop Keystone XL on the ground if Obama won’t say no

Chief Phil Lane Jr. (left) participates in the Vancouver signing of the International Treaty to Protect the Sacred From Tar Sands Projects. Photo courtesy of Phil Lane Jr.

By Erin Flegg, Source: Vancouver Observer

In the latest in a series of announcements escalating resistance to oil and gas development in North America, the Oglala Sioux nation and its allies have committed to stopping the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline on their territory if Obama approves the project.

In response to the US State Department’s environmental report that says Keystone wouldn’t increase the country’s carbon emissions Oglala Sioux president Bryan Brewer, along with organizations carbon emissions, Owe Aku and Protect the Sacred, released a statement declaring they will stand with the Lakota people to block the pipeline. The statement, seen by many as a significant step toward approval, sparked solidarity action across the US on Monday.

Moccasins on the Ground is a grassroots direct action training organization, and trainer Debra White Plum of the Lakota Sioux nation said the group has been working toward this moment, giving nations the skills they need to defend their land, for years now.

The training is available to anyone who invites the group onto their land, and it consists of four days of training in areas such as knowing your rights, blockading and self-defence, first aid and social media. White Plume said a large part of the impetus for offering the training is the size of the territory at risk. Tribes can be several hundred kilometres away from each other, often making quick help hard to come by.

“This way a community can do whatever they need to do when threatened and they’ll have the skills right here, and that’s really important out here where we live,” she said. “We want this non-violent, direct way that everybody engaging in across the country to be successful,” she said. “But if it’s not and if the final door is closed, then that’s why we’re doing the training.”

The organization has toured the United States and has received requests for training from several nations in Canada. She said the political process has left the people with little choice.

“Every door has been closed through this process. Court decisions have been made that favoured the corporations and there are a few cases here and there where the landowners are still asserting their rights under American law.” But if the government can’t be counted on to uphold its own laws, she said, there’s nothing to stop them violating indigenous treaty rights.

“As red nations people we have seen the federal government violate treaties clear to this day.”

The violation of the treaties—in the case of Keystone it’s primarily the Fort Laramie Treaty between the American government and the Oglala Sioux—is the key reason Phil Lane says it’s unfair to call direct action by indigenous people civil disobedience.

“It is not civil disobedience. This is simply acting out of an aboriginal legal order to stand up for what is right. It is standing up for an ancient aboriginal legal order that has never been extinguished.”

Just as the US and Canada and any other sovereign nation has the right to enter into legally binding treaties, so do First Nations. When a treaty such as the one between the Sioux and the American government is broken by one of the parties bound by it, Lane said a third legal party is required to resolve the situation. Because the governments of the United States and Canada are handling the administration of the treaties they themselves have broken, Lane said it’s impossible to expect justice from them.

What direct action resistance against Keystone looks like will ultimately be up to the Obama administration.

“What’s going to happen if he chooses to give in to the oil companies and their allies is he’s going to empower the rising of indigenous people everywhere on Mother Earth,” he said. “This will be another final violation people aren’t ready to take.”

Ottawa-based Idle No More organizer Clayton Thomas-Muller added that it’s crucial to remember that opposition to Keystone XL was initiated and pushed forward by indigenous people. And what’s more, that much of the progress made has been thanks to the indigenous peoples who have demanded recognition of their rights, namely consultation.

In December of 2011 at the annual White House Tribal Leaders Summit, indigenous leaders, including former president of the Rosebud Sioux nation Rodney Bordeaux, presented President Obama with Mother Earth Accord, a document stating indigenous opposition to Keystone XL. The document was endorsed by numerous nations from both sides of the border, NGOs, landowners and the NDP party. Thomas-Muller said it’s the only such document that was delivered into Obama’s hands directly.

“It was only through native rights-based framework being used by indigenous organizations and networks that provide that unparalleled access to the state department and White House,” he said.

He traveled to New York City on Monday night to speak at one of more than 300 actions across 44 states this week. He read a statement written by Debra White Plume and spoke on behalf of Idle No More in Canada.

So many people have been preparing for this moment, he said, and are now coming together for a final push.

“Moving forward, we have a very short timeline. Within the next couple of months we will see a variety of very direct messages like the one we heard from Bryan Brewer of Oglala Sioux nation.”

Ballots must be returned by Feb. 11

Source: Marysville Globe

Local voters still have time to fill out and return their ballots for the Feb. 11 Special Election.

Voters in the Marysville School District are being asked to vote on two levies.

Proposition 1 is a replacement Educational Programs Maintenance and Operations Levy and Proposition 2 is a new Technology Levy.

Voters in the Lakewood School District are being asked to vote on Proposition 1, a bond to renovate Lakewood High School.

Ballots returned by mail must be postmarked by Feb. 11. Ballots can also be dropped off at ballot drop boxes. Drop boxes are available until 8 p.m. on Election Day, Feb. 11.

Ballot drop boxes are located in Arlington at 135 N. Washington Ave. (near the library), and in Marysville at 1015 State St. (behind the Municipal Court).

For more information, go to the Shonomish County Elections website at www1.co.snohomish.wa.us/Departments/Auditor/Divisions/Elections_Voting.

Frustration Surrounds New Tribal Labor Force Report

Rob Capriccioso, ICTMN

Is the 2013 Indian Population and Labor Force Report making anyone happy?

Tribal leaders and citizens have yet to say whether they are gaining anything useful from the report, which was issued in January after a long delay by the Obama Administration over apparent data collection problems.

The 151-page Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) document includes a lot of data. It generally says that there is a lot of poverty on many reservations, many Indians work for tribal, state or federal governments, and Native youth are especially having trouble finding jobs.

It says precious little about what is working for some tribes, and how other tribes can copy the success stories. And it provides no data on how federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) investments in tribal reservations in 2009 and beyond actually impacted Native employment, and whether there were lasting economic impacts that would call for greater federal investment in certain areas. Congressional leaders who lambasted the lateness of the report in summer 2012 had hoped that when it was eventually released that it would at least provide a little insight on how ARRA worked—or didn’t work—for struggling tribes.

With roots going back to 1982, the report is supposed to be a tool for both tribes and Congress, depicting the labor and employment landscape across a wide range of tribes facing a multitude of economic situations.

Congressional supporters of the rationale for the report say that tribes could ideally use the data, which is supposed to be issued every two years, to make fact-based quantitative arguments for improved federal and other assistance.

But that ideal situation is not happening, says Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chair of the Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs, and he does not think it is likely to happen given the new data in the current report.

“The 2013 Indian Population and Labor Force Report recently released by the Bureau of Indian Affairs is far from a helpful document,” Young tells Indian Country Today Media Network. “In reality, this document has more potential to cause harm than good. What was published is essentially a reprint of unhelpful and outdated U.S. Census Bureau data, all of which was publically available prior to the release of the report.”   Young notes the failings of Census Bureau data collection, including the miscounting and undercounting of thousands of Alaska Natives and American Indians, are already well known.

“From what I’ve seen, the report contains huge gaps in data for many parts of Indian country and relies heavily on making estimates about tribes’ economic circumstances,” Young adds. “Additionally, the report’s labor and employment statistics are not accurate metrics for providing a realistic picture of the actual circumstances in Native communities.”   Young believes that Alaska Native and American Indian communities will actually suffer if agencies use this report for making policy decisions or determining how best to allocate federal resources meant to support programs in Indian country.

Young’s view is representative of other Congress members focused on Indian affairs who want the report to be doing more than the current one. Retired Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) echoed Young’s concerns in July 2012 when the report was gaining attention for being long overdue. “It is crucial to have an accurate record of employment statistics in order to best assess need and to appropriate financial resources to tribes,” Akaka then said. “Understanding the current economic outlook will better help us to put forth legislation that will increase economic development and job creation in Indian country.”

One of the reasons the BIA cited for the long delay surrounding the current report – the last of which highlighted 2005 tribal data—is that they wanted it to be better than previous ones. “When we are able to release something, I am confident that it will be far more accurate than any report we’ve ever released before on this issue,” Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn told ICTMN in August 2013 when asked why the report still had not been released.
The new report may be more accurate, but it is still a source of frustration, BIA leadership concedes.

“Our economist did the best he could with imperfect data,” Washburn says. “We are neither the U.S. Census Bureau, nor the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those agencies both exist and we do not believe Indian country wants us to become them. We are not a statistical agency. Our primary mission is to provide services to tribes.”

Washburn, hearing the critiques of Young, says it was a tough situation. “We hired [the economist] to help Indian Affairs make more accurate (and therefore hopefully more compelling) budget submissions to Congress,” he says. “However, the economist was hijacked from this equally important task and reassigned to help with the labor force and population report in hopes of making it more accurate than in the past.”

On why the ARRA tribal outlook was not covered in the report, Washburn cites the limited resources of his agency. “The fact is that we had only one economist working on this, and I believe that it would have taken a battery of economists to produce an analysis of all the effects of ARRA,”’ he says. “It was hard enough simply trying to gather the labor and population data for 566 tribes in twelve BIA regions. Moreover, the requirement for the report was enacted with the 477 law, many years before ARRA. The data was not intended to show anything about ARRA. The report simply has no relation to ARRA.”

Washburn also suggests that Congress should re-evaluate whether it is wise to have the BIA and, in turn, tribes shoulder the costs of this biannual report. “A tribal administrator with the Citizen Band of Potawatomi told me in a public meeting that it would cost her tribe $500,000 to do everything the tribe needs to do to accurately report labor and employment data for this report,” he says. “That is one out of 566 tribes. I do not feel that the 477 law was intended to impose such costs on tribes.

Washburn also says he doubts that Congress intended the BIA to bear such costs, but he adds that his agency plans to issue the next report on time, in accordance with the law.

Cladoosby Hopes to Initiate Repatriation Discussion With France

Courtesy Brian CladoosbySwinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby introduces President Obama as the "first American Indian president" of the U.S., at the 2012 White House Tribal Nations Conference. Cladoosby and his wife will be the Obamas' guests at the White House State Dinner for French President Francois Hollande, February 11. — Courtesy Brian Cladoosby
Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby introduces President Obama as the “first American Indian president” of the U.S., at the 2012 White House Tribal Nations Conference. Cladoosby and his wife will be the Obamas’ guests at the White House State Dinner for French President Francois Hollande, February 11.

Richard Walker, Indian Country Today Media Network

National Congress of American Indians President Brian Cladoosby doesn’t expect he’ll have more than an opportunity to shake the hand of French President Francois Hollande at a White House state dinner February 11.

But he hopes that introduction will open the door to negotiation of an agreement for the repatriation of Native American objects in French museums.

Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish Tribe, and his wife Nina were invited by President Barack Obama and Mrs. Obama to the state dinner being held in honor of the French president.

During the French president’s visit to the U.S., Obama and Hollande “will discuss opportunities to further strengthen the U.S.-France security and economic partnership,” Obama said in a statement posted on www.whitehouse.gov.

“Michelle and I look forward to welcoming President Hollande … on a state visit to the United States,” Obama said.

“The United States and France are close friends and allies, including through NATO, and our countries have worked together to support democracy, liberty, and freedom at home and abroad for more than two centuries.”

The state dinner comes two months after a French judge’s decision to allow an auction house in Paris to sell 24 sacred Native American artifacts, despite the protests of the Hopi Nation, the U.S. Embassy, and indigenous civil rights organization Survival International.

The Annenberg Foundation intervened, submitting a winning bid of $530,000 U.S. for the sole purpose of returning the objects to their rightful owners – 21 items belong to the Hopi Nation, three to the San Carlos Apache.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act gives indigenous nations in the U.S. a way to reclaim funerary objects and ceremonial items from federal agencies and museums in the United States. The law, however, does not apply to items held internationally.

Christopher Marinello, executive director and general counsel of Art Loss Register London, the world’s largest private database of lost and stolen art, antiques and collectables, told ICTMN in April 2013 that the Hopi and Apache objects should have been repatriated under the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. France ratified the convention in 1997.

According to the convention, “the [Hopi and Apache] pieces should have been pulled off, parties should have had a discussion to see which pieces could be sold, which were not genuine, what were the moral claims, what was important to the tribe, what is the compensation,” Marinello told ICTMN.

Marinello said there are no international agreements specifically addressing Native American artifacts, and said “it is something that the Americans should be convening and discussing because the laws in the USA protecting those Native artifacts have no weight overseas.”

That’s what Cladoosby hopes to initiate, noting, “We want to ensure our most sacred items are treated the same way” as those covered by other repatriation conventions.

Three Tribes to Begin Prosecuting Non-Indian Domestic Violence Offenders

Rob Capriccioso, ICTMN

Three pilot tribes have been chosen by the Obama Administration to take early advantage of Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) provisions passed by Congress last year that allow tribes to prosecute non-Indian offenders for domestic violence offenses on reservations.

The Justice Department announced February 6 that the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, the Tulalip Tribes of Washington, and the Umatilla Tribes of Oregon will be the first in the nation to be able to exercise criminal jurisdiction over certain crimes of domestic and dating violence, regardless of the defendant’s Indian or non-Indian status, under the 2013 VAWA law.

“Our actions today mark a historic turning point,” Associate Attorney General Tony West said in a press release announcing the decision. “We believe that by certifying certain tribes to exercise jurisdiction over these crimes, we will help decrease domestic and dating violence in Indian country, strengthen tribal capacity to administer justice and control crime, and ensure that perpetrators of sexual violence are held accountable for their criminal behavior.”

Beyond this pilot required by Congress, the law allows increased tribal jurisdiction to go into effect for all tribes in the lower 48 states in March 2015. Tribes at that time will not need Justice Department approval if they meet provisions of the law required for enhanced jurisdiction over domestic and dating violence cases.

Justice officials said West chose the three tribes for pilot participation because their tribal court systems have adequate safeguards in place to fully protect defendants’ rights under the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968. They further said the decision to choose the three tribes were based on reviews of application questionnaires submitted by the tribes in December 2013, along with excerpts of tribal laws and policies.

“The Tulalip Tribes is honored to be among those chosen for the Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction pilot program,” Tulalip Chairman Mel Sheldon said in a press release. “Getting justice for our tribal members, where it concerns domestic and intimate partner violence, has been a long time coming.”

“This is very positive news for tribes,” added Troy Eid, the recent chair of the Tribal Law and Order Commission who is scheduled to testify on VAWA and other tribal justice issues before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs February 12. “It’s wonderful to see that three were approved, and the hope is that the other tribes that submitted applications are getting strong assistance from the Department of Justice to get up and running very soon.”

Six tribes in total have applied so far to participate in the pilot project, according to the National Congress of American Indians. The three that applied that that were not approved on February 6 are still under review, said Wyn Hornbuckle, a spokesman for Justice; they are the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, the Penobscot Indian Nation, and the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation. Tribal justice advocates say Justice has shown a willingness to work with the tribes to help them be able to take part in the law, and Hornbuckle said tribes may submit applications to participate in the pilot project any time before March 7, 2015. Some tribes were opposed to the pilot portion of the law, believing they should have been given immediate increased jurisdiction upon passage of the law, but the pilot was a compromise between Senate and House legislators added into the law in 2013 so that it could gain enough support to be approved by both chambers.

Once the full law goes into effect in 2015, Eid predicts many people will be asking why tribes were not trusted for so long. “The idea that local governments should have jurisdiction over these kinds of offenses is a basic bedrock principle of the American justice system,” he says. “There is no reason for tribes not to have this local control, as do all other local communities.”

Before the 1978 Supreme Court decision opinion in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, federally recognized tribes were widely able to exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-Indian defendants. Since that decision, which severely limited tribal sovereignty, tribes and the federal government have documented large amounts of domestic violence and dating violence committed by non-Indian abusers, yet tribes have not been able to prosecute these offenders, and the federal government has been slow to curb the problem with its own justice system.

In conjunction with the announcement, administration officials cited on the White House blog a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found 46 percent of Native American women have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime.

Tribal leaders and advocates spent much of 2012 and 2013 pushing for tribal jurisdictional provisions to be restored in the VAWA reauthorization against intense Republican opposition. After a prolonged battle in Congress, they were finally successful when the reauthorization was signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2013.

“We lift our hands to all those who fought for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, including our own Tulalip Tribes councilwoman, Deborah Parker,” Sheldon added.

Alaska Natives, meanwhile, are currently waging a campaign for passage of a congressional VAWA fix that would give their tribal communities jurisdiction over similar domestic and dating offenses. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska) have introduced legislation called the Safe Families and Communities Act, which does not go nearly as far as the 2013 VAWA law in increasing tribal jurisdiction over non-Indian domestic violence and dating offenders.

Alaska Natives are pressuring Begich, who is in a close re-election race, to support a congressional fix that will treat Alaska Native communities the same as tribes in the rest of the country on jurisdictional matters. Alaska Native tribes make up 40 percent of all federally recognized tribes.

Man from Meskwaki Tribe charged for murdering his parents

Detective: Son told relatives he killed parents with machete

Feb. 7, 2014 DesMoinesRegister.com

Written by Sharyn Jackson

MESKWAKI SETTLEMENT, IA. — A 25-year-old man who has been charged with murdering his mother and father told relatives he had killed his parents with a machete, authorities said late Thursday.

The killing of two tribal members and murder charges against a third shook this tightknit community of 1,000 residents Thursday.

Gordon Lasley Sr. and Kim Lasley were found dead late Wednesday night in their home at 669 Meskwaki Road by Meskwaki Nation police. The couple’s son, Gordon Lasley Jr., is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, Tama County Attorney Brent Heeren said in a news release. He was being held on $2 million bond in the county jail.

In a criminal complaint, Craig Karr, a detective with Meskwaki Nation police, said another of the couple’s sons, Tyler Lasley, went to their home and found his mother’s body on the basement floor, his father’s body on the living room floor, and a bloody machete on the couch in the living room late Wednesday.

“The wounds appeared to be from a edged weapon,” Karr wrote.

Early Thursday, when a Tama County sheriff’s deputy found Lasley Jr. driving his mother’s vehicle, the suspect had blood on his clothes, and there was blood in the vehicle from cuts on Lasley’s hands, the complaint said.

Lasley Jr. told “several family members” he was responsible for the killings, which took place about 9 p.m., according to the complaint.

Lasley Jr. appeared before a magistrate judge Thursday, and a preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 14, according to court documents.

Federal, state and local authorities are investigating the slayings.

“The Sac and Fox Tribe is a very close-knit community, and we are all shocked and saddened by this,” tribal chairwoman Judith Bender said in a news release from the tribe. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and all of those who are affected by this horrific event.”

On Thursday, neighbors and family members struggled to comprehend the tragedy.

“They were real good people,” said Gerald Sanache, who lives next door to the Lasleys’ olive-green two-story home, and is a nephew of Gordon Lasley Sr. “It’s a total shock.”

“I would have never expected something like this to happen to them,” he said.

In a community highly protective of its privacy, several members declined to be interviewed. A woman at another neighboring house who described herself as a relative would not comment on the victims or the circumstances of the homicide, saying, “We just want privacy right now, to prepare for funeral arrangements.”

The Lasleys resided for about 15 years at the home where they were found dead, Sanache said. Gordon Lasley Sr. grew up on the settlement and was a carpenter by trade, but wasn’t working recently. Kim Lasley worked in the keno department at the Meskwaki casino.

Sanache also knew the junior Lasley. “Never knew him to be in trouble,” he said.

But state court records show Lasley Jr. had faced charges of interference with official acts, trespassing, eluding police, possession of marijuana and multiple driving and motor vehicle violations. In February 2012, he was sentenced to five years in prison, fined $3,125 and placed on probation to the 6th Judicial District Department of Correctional Services, according to the Tama News-Herald.

Meskwaki tribal police are leading the double-homicide investigation, with help from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, Tama County Sheriff’s Department, Tama Police Department, Toledo Police Department and the state medical examiner’s office.

The FBI is consulting on the case, said Sandy Breault, spokeswoman for the FBI Omaha field office, which serves Iowa. Federal agents always consult on major crimes on Indian land.

Reporter Daniel P. Finney contributed to this story.

Last Native Klallam Speaker Dies in Port Angeles

Source: ABC News; Information from: Peninsula Daily News, http://www.peninsuladailynews.com

The last person to have spoken the Klallam language from birth and the eldest member among the Klallam American Indian tribes of the Pacific Northwest has died in Port Angeles at the age of 103, family and tribal members said.

Hazel M. Sampson was the last person who first learned Klallam, then learned English as a second language, said Lower Elwha Klallam tribal member Jamie Valadez, who teaches the Klallam language and culture at Port Angeles High School.

Her death on Tuesday changes the dynamics of the culture, Valadez told the Peninsula Daily News (http://bit.ly/1gQodE1) in a story Thursday.

“In the U.S., this is happening all over Indian Country,” Valadez said. “They carry so much knowledge of our culture and traditions. Then it’s gone.”

Valadez and Texas linguist Timothy Montler worked with Sampson and her husband, Ed, and other native speakers in the 1990s to compile a Klallam dictionary.

If Ed forgot a word or got it wrong, Hazel would come out of the kitchen and correct him, but she declined to be officially involved in the project, Valadez said.

Klallam is the language of three U.S. tribes: the Lower Elwha, Jamestown S’Klallam and Port Gamble S’Klallam, as well as the Beecher Bay Klallam in British Columbia. The three tribes on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula have a total of about 1,700 members, according to Census figures.

Sampson was born in the Jamestown S’Klallam band in 1910. Her grandfather was Lord James Balch, for whom Jamestown community near Sequim was named. She was married to Edward C. Sampson for 75 years until his death in 1995.

A private service will be held for family and close friends. No public memorial has been announced.

The Klallam are among a growing number of tribes trying to revitalize their languages, which in some cases are spoken by only a small handful of people. Linguists estimate about 200 Native American languages are spoken in the U.S. and Canada, with another 100 already extinct.

Montler developed a series of booklet guides and lessons in 1999 to help students learn the basics of the language through storytelling. The lessons are used in Klallam programs at Dry Creek Elementary, Stevens Middle and Port Angeles High schools, where the largest population of Klallam children are educated.

The Klallam dictionary was published by the University of Washington Press in 2012 and distributed to Klallam and S’Klallam families, local libraries and schools. The others who helped compile the dictionary have died.

Sampson’s death is a loss of not only her language knowledge, said Ron Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S’Klallam.

“She was a strong spirit representing who we are as a people,” he said.

———

Information from: Peninsula Daily News, http://www.peninsuladailynews.com

California county to distribute nearly $270K in gaming funds

Tulare Co. committee solicits casino mitigation grants

02/05/2014

Written by Business Journal staff

Nearly $270,000 is available to governments and special districts in Tulare County to help mitigate impacts from the Eagle Mountain Casino in Porterville.

The money comes from the Tulare County Indian Gaming Local Community Benefit Committee (IGLCBC), which distributes the grants from the Indian Gaming Special Distribution Fund that is paid into by gaming tribes like the Tule River Tribe that operates Eagle Mountain Casino.

The grants, totaling $268,177, will help local governments pay for services related to the casino, including law enforcement, fire services, emergency medical services, roads, public health and recreation and youth programs.

Application forms and selection criteria can be found online atwww.tularecounty.ca.gov/cao/index/cfm/indian-gaming/2013-14-indian-gaming-grant.

Application must be mailed no later than March 21 to Jed Chernabaeff or John Hess with the IGLCBC to 2800 W. Burrel Ave., Visalia, CA 93291.

Staff with the IGLCBC will evaluate each proposal and award the grants based on the merit of the services offered.

The Tule River Tribe must also sponsor the grants and affirm the the proposed grant projects have a reasonable relationship to the impact of their casino.

There are around 58 tribal casinos in California that pay into the Indian Gaming Special Distribution Fund, created in 2004 to help counties, cities and special districts ease the impacts from the businesses.

Oregon School District considers ban on Sherman Alexie novel

By JESSICA ROBINSON Feb 3, 2014

Nwnewsnetwork.com

A school district in Sweet Home, Ore., is considering whether to pull a book by Northwest author Sherman Alexie from junior high classrooms.

Credit Kraemer Family Library / FlickrFile photo of "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian." An Oregon school district is considering whether to pull the book. — Credit Kraemer Family Library / Flickr
File photo of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.” An Oregon school district is considering whether to pull the book.

“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” is frequently targeted for removal from school reading lists for its language and depictions of violence and sexuality.

The Sweet Home school district says it received five requests from parents to have the book re-evaluated.

“It’s not frustrating that parents want to have an alternative unit,” says eighth grade language arts teacher Chelsea Gagner. “Every parent has the right to know what their child’s education is like. I’m not frustrated with that. I am frustrated that a small handful of parents are trying to take it away from the rest of the kids.”

Gagner says her students are already about 100 pages into the book.

Parents had to give permission for their kid to participate in the unit on “Part-Time Indian” – and most did. But the superintendent of the district says the people who filed complaints worried the students who weren’t allowed to read the book would be singled out by their peers.

The school board hopes to make a decision next week.