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What should it look like?

Tribal officials need your help planning tribal parks

By Niki Cleary, TulalipNews

As the houses and debris were slowly cleared away, tribal members began returning to Mission Beach, one of few open, accessible beaches on the Tulalip reservation. Although the homes are gone, the bulkheads remain, leaving room for an exciting opportunity: A tribal park.

Grassy areas, handicap accessibility from the road to the beach, interpretive signs that play Lushootseed place names at the touch of a button and, of course, nice restrooms. These are just some of the ideas tossed around at the public meeting that Housing staff hosted to gather input from tribal members about what they’d like to see in a ‘Mission Beach Park.’

The meeting was a brainstorming session with no limits, and while a water slide (that twirls and loops and then dips underground before shooting you into the water) might not make it into the final plan, many of the ideas will

“This is a great opportunity for tribal members,” said Public Works Executive Director Gus Taylor. “There are so many tribal members who go down there right now.”

Mission Beach’s accessibility has also sparked the creation of a Parks Committee.

“The Parks Committee formed last month,” explained Patti Gobin who works on Special projects for Tulalip. She pointed out that the return of Mission Beach to tribal members is only the latest and most visible reason that parks planning is needed.

“In the past we never called them parks, they’ve just been gathering areas,” she said. “We’re growing so fast and we’re starting to have more open spaces for our people to gather and enjoy. We need some criteria for those areas to make sure they stay clean, safe and sustainable for our people. We’re going to create a parks ordinance that will set those criteria with sensitivity to our culture and traditional ways. In hundreds of years we, the tribe, will still be here. We want to make sure our open space and parks will be here for generations to come.”

The Parks Committee is still in its infancy. Right now it is composed of staff from the different tribal departments (Natural Resources, Community Development, Public Works, Administrative Services and Cultural Resources) that are currently managing the common spaces on the reservation.

Unfortunately, the Parks Committee isn’t just an optimistic endeavor to construct parks, it’s also a reaction to some of the negative activities that are taking place in the tribe’s recreational areas. Since the Mission Beach home removal, several people have reported groups of both tribal and non-tribal members under the influence and verbally abusive on the beach, graffiti has sprung up along the old bulkheads and some of the bulkhead has been burned away.

“We need to be proactive in monitoring and providing maintenance for these areas,” said Patti. Ultimately that means a Parks Department. “That will require budget to pay for staff, and we’ll have to decide, what will be the criteria for those jobs? Will it include park rangers?

“This isn’t just for Mission Beach,” Patti went on. “We have gathering areas at Totem Beach, Hermosa, Spee-Bi-Dah, Tulare, and off reservation too, at Lopez Island, Baby Island, and Hat Island. Those are just the areas I can think of off the top of my head. Eventually a parks department would also be responsible for the connectivity and maintenance of walking trails throughout the reservation.”

Patti and her team are hoping to have a first draft of the Parks Ordinance submitted for Board of Directors Review by January 2014, but, she said, Mission Beach won’t wait that long.

Because Mission Beach is designated as lease property, it currently falls under the authority of the Tulalip Housing Department, although once a parks department is created and staffed, Mission Beach will revert to parks. Housing is currently requesting input from tribal members about what they’d like to see in the future.

“Right now we’re unsure when the next meeting will be,” said Anita Taylor of Housing. “We’re presenting the ideas from our first meeting to the board, then we’ll have another community meeting, hopefully in July.”

In the meantime, a sign outlining general park rules will be going up at the parking lot and on the beach, and tribal staff will continue to maintain garbage cans with the expectation that if you pack it in, you pack it out. For other concerns or to submit your input to the park plan, contact Housing staff.

“If you have an emergency, of course call 911,” said Anita. “But if you have any other issues, want to report graffiti, find needles or paraphernalia on the beach, contact myself (360-716-4449, ataylor@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov), or Malory Simpson (360-716-4454, msimpson@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov) and we’ll arrange to have staff take care of it as soon as possible.”

The following images from Brian Way of WHPacific, illustrate some of the proposals for Mission Beach. These include pathways, viewpoints, restrooms, fire pits and a rinse station.

Oglala Sioux Tribe president arrested in White Clay, Nebraska

Oglala Sioux president Brian Brewer being harassed before arrest. Photo: Intercontinental Cry

Levi Rickert, Intercontinental Cry Magazine

WHITE CLAY, NEBRASKA – Oglala Sioux Tribe President Bryan Brewer was arrested today [June 17] in White Clay, Nebraska.

It was not immediately known what he is charged with at press time. He was reportedly taken to Rushville, Nebraska for booking, according to Toni Red Cloud, public relations director of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, who talked to the Native News Network just after the arrest.

Several dozen Oglala Sioux tribal members were in the border town of White Clay to protest the sale of alcohol. The protest began as a walk into White Clay. A sheriff deputy asked the crowd to allow a beer truck through the road.

When the protesters did not move fast enough, security and police officers moved. One deputy began shouting at President Brewer and pointing his finger in the president’s face prior to President Brewer being arrested.

White Clay, Nebraska, is just over border from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. It is a small town of 14 people, but sells almost five million cans of 12 oz. beer annually.

Last week, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council on Tuesday, June 11, passed a resolution that allows for a referendum to have tribal citizens living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to decide if sales of alcohol should be legal.

President Brewer was threatened with arrest when he led some 100 tribal members in a protest at White Clay in March, 2013.

[Of all the protesters, ] only President Brewer was arrested.

Power Struggles at Interior Department Impact Indian Affairs

Washburn-Jewell-Hayes — AP Images
Kevin Washburn, Sally Jewell, David Hayes.

Rob Capriccioso, Indian Country Today Media Network

When Kevin Washburn became Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in September 2012, he had some work to do. Not just the typical demands of running a complex subsection of a large federal agency, but also the complicated work of regaining a portfolio that had been siphoned off by overeager Obama administration officials.

Tribal officials and Indian insiders nationwide saw firsthand the shift in power away from the assistant secretary’s office in the early days of this administration, when Larry Echo Hawk, Washburn’s predecessor, was forced to recuse himself in several important Indian issues due to family ties and other possible conflicts of interest.

Concurrently, David Hayes, retiring Deputy Secretary of the department, began taking credit for progress in Indian affairs, including the Cobell settlement, water and other tribal trust settlements, while shifting any blame for problems in Indian affairs to others. Hayes, in perhaps his last leadership action on Indian affairs before exiting the department, has scheduled a June 18 teleconference on the latest aspects of the Cobell settlement land consolidation tribal trust land buyback plan. Washburn is scheduled to join him on the call.

Early on in Washburn’s tenure, Kevin Gover, who was Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs during part of the Clinton administration, warned that Washburn was coming into a power-depleted office. “He has to confront the reality that decisions about Indian affairs are being made all over the department—not just at the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs],” Gover told ICTMN. “His predecessor… recused himself on a lot of key issues, including Cobell, trust, and the federal recognition cases. That means somebody else, somewhere else in the building, handled those issues. Those are major responsibilities for the assistant secretary to get back under his portfolio.”

There were some early signs that Washburn, former dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law, was working hard to take back the reins—he made several early land-into-trust decisions, announced plans to release a long overdue tribal jobs report, expressed concern that gaming has wrongly “hijacked” the federal Indian policy agenda, and promised to clean up the federal tribal recognition and trust systems.

But in the middle of this shift, his new boss, Secretary of the Department of the Interior Ken Salazar, announced he was moving on; his replacement was Sally Jewell, former CEO of an outdoor gear and clothing company, who beat out Hayes for the top spot at Interior.

That meant Washburn had a new boss to deal with, while the old guard at Interior, including Hayes, was advising Jewell on how they thought the BIA should run. Jewell has never worked in the federal government, and has little familiarity with Indian issues, which set up a potentially precarious position for Washburn.

His peril was evident on May 15, when Jewell testified before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs for the first time to explain her Indian affairs agenda. On that day, Washburn was a thousand miles away, attending a child welfare conference in South Dakota. The same week, Jewell announced a long-awaited fracking policy affecting Indian lands with Hayes at her side; Washburn was not part of the announcement ceremony. Interior Department officials also attended and offered input an Indian affairs-focused hearing before the House Natural Resources Committee. Again, no Washburn.

Did this mean Washburn was being cut out of the loop? Jewell insists that’s not the case, telling ICTMN in a press conference call that nothing should be read into his absence, and that his attendance at the child welfare conference was a priority. “It’s difficult to get everybody in town when you want to do these,” she said, referring to the fracking announcement. “There was certainly no intent, in any way, to exclude.”

When Washburn returned to D.C., he immediately made news. Big news. He announced a so-called “Patchak Patch” to remedy a controversial and problematic Supreme Court decision tribal trust. His decision is expected to close the door on some costly lawsuits facing tribal projects on lands put into trust by the Department.

When he called ICTMN to talk Patchak, he made it very clear he was still the boss of Indian affairs—and he had a compelling argument for the recent power blips. “I was upset as anybody that I couldn’t be with the Secretary during her inaugural appearance before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, but I had this prior engagement that was exceedingly important and very substantive,” he said. “The Indian child welfare summit was crucial to a lot of tribes, and that’s why I was there.”

The many tribal leaders who like Washburn and want him to succeed fervently hope these recent incidents are truly attributable to scheduling conflicts or even honeymoon hiccups between Washburn and his new boss, and don’t signify a continuation of the neutered power structure that hobbled Echo Hawk. With Hayes heading out the door, there is plenty of reason to be optimistic that more strong tribal-centric fixes to federal Indian policy are yet to come under Washburn.

Nooksack tribal dispute heads to federal court

John Stark, The Bellingham Herald

After getting another rebuff in tribal court, Nooksack Indians facing loss of their tribal membership have filed a new lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

Seattle Attorney Gabriel Galanda filed the federal suit Monday, June 17, on behalf of Rudy St. Germain and Michelle Roberts, two tribal council members who are among the 306 who could be stripped of their tribal membership because the validity of their Nooksack lineage has been called into question.

The suit declares that the move to purge the 306 is based on “racial animus,” because all 306 are part-Filipino. That charge is hotly denied by Nooksack Tribal Chairman Bob Kelly and his supporters, who have noted that many other Nooksacks have Filipino ancestors but can demonstrate their Nooksack lineage in a way that meets the requirements of tribal law.

But as Galanda and his clients see it, Kelly and the other five members of the council are in the process of changing that law to keep them out.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs of the U.S. Department of the Interior is currently supervising a mail-in constitutional amendment election that could make it more difficult to qualify for Nooksack membership. Kelly and his five supporters on the council have asked voters to repeal a constitutional provision that makes tribal membership available to anyone who has at least one-fourth Indian blood, plus Nooksack ancestry “to any degree.”

That election is scheduled to conclude June 21.

Galanda’s lawsuit argues that repeal of that provision of the tribal constitution would make it more difficult for his clients and other challenged Nooksacks to re-enroll in the tribe if the current effort to strip them of membership succeeds.

That, the suit contends, denies the affected Nooksacks the right to equal protection under law and is therefore a violation of the Indian Civil Rights Act. Galanda wants the judge to order federal officials to halt the constitutional election.

All of the 306 facing loss of membership are descendants of the late Annie George. Tribal officials contend that George did not qualify as Nooksack under tribal law, because her name does not appear on a tribal census of 1942 or on the list of those who got an allotment of tribal lands. Galanda and his clients have submitted other records and letters from anthropologists indicating that Annie George was, in fact, a Nooksack.

Also on Monday, Nooksack Court Tribal Chief Judge Rachel Montoya repeated the legal arguments of her earlier rulings and refused to stop the constitutional election. She found that a majority of the tribal council was acting within its proper authority in launching the constitutional election to change the membership rules.

The 306 challenged Nooksacks face loss of housing and medical benefits, tribal hunting and fishing rights, tribal jobs and other benefits if they are pushed out of the 2,000-member tribe.

Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2013/06/17/3056967/nooksack-tribal-dispute-heads.html#storylink=cpy

Mayor McGinn testifies in Congress to stop coal trains in Pacific Northwest

kirotv.com

WASHINGTON — Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn is calling on Congress to stop coal trains from rolling through the state.

McGinn doesn’t want the coal trains rolling through any cities in the Northwest, especially not in Seattle along the waterfront.

McGinn made his case testifying before members of the House Energy & Commerce Committee Tuesday.

He updated them on the plan by coal companies, railroads and international shipping companies to build two new export facilities in Washington state.

The arguments against the coal trains are familiar. People are worried about pollution from coal dust in the air and extra traffic from the mile-long trains.

Those who support the coal export expansion plans argue shipping more than 100 million tons of coal to Asia each year helps the state and federal economy and the new export facilities would create jobs.

McGinn called on lawmakers in Washington, D.C., to do an environmental impact study.

United Way announces $7.9 million in targeted community grants

North County Outlook

United Way of Snohomish County will be investing $7.9 million over three years toward 107 programs in Snohomish County addressing a set of priorities identified by three panels of volunteers. These targeted investments represent an increase of more than $300,000 over the last three-year cycle.

Six north Snohomish County programs will receive $370,000 over the next three years.

Two of the programs are local to Marysville. One provides early childhood education and intervention to children living on the Tulalip Indian Reservation and is managed by Little Red School House. The other program supports the expansion of English language learner classes organized by YMCA of Snohomish County. The programs will receive $30,000 and $90,000 respectively from United Way over the next three years.

Four of the programs are based in Arlington. Village Community Services will receive almost $160,000 over three years for three different programs: a career planning and placement services program, a residential services program to help people with developmental disabilities live with dignity and respect in their own homes and a community access program to provide adults with significant disabilities learn essential life and job skills. The Stillaguamish Senior Center will receive $90,000 over three years for their Comprehensive Senior Social Services program.

Volunteers who serve on United Way’s Kids Matter, Families Matter and Community Matters Vision Councils spent more than 2,500 hours over the past year in a three-step process that included reviewing community conditions, establishing priority investment areas and evaluating grant applications.

“This was the first time I’d participated in the grants review process,” said Karen Madsen, former president of the Everett School Board. “As a donor, I saw firsthand how much time and effort goes into these decisions. Every program, whether or not they were funded last year, was reviewed very closely.”

Madsen and the 52 other volunteers who reviewed proposals work for a range of Snohomish County-based companies, educational institutions, nonprofits and local government agencies. They represent a broad cross-section of our community.

The 107 programs will serve people living in 23 communities throughout Snohomish County from Stanwood and Darrington in the north, Sultan and Gold Bar in the east and the larger cities along Interstate 5. Volunteers gave careful consideration to vulnerable populations, geographic diversity and programs that address critical service gaps in our community.

A complete list of funded programs is available on United Way’s website, uwsc.org.

DOI gives update on land consolidation program under Cobell

indianz.com

The Interior Department will start implementing the land consolidation portion of the $3.4 billion Cobell trust fund settlement by the end of this year, officials said today.

The settlement provides $1.9 billion to buy fractionated interests from willing Indian sellers. The land will be returned to tribal governments as part of the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations.

“Our plan is to begin … initial purchase offers by the end of the year,” deputy secretary David Hayes, who is leaving the department at the end of the month, said on a conference call this afternoon. “We expect to accelerate that process in the next two or three years.”

As part of the effort, the department has established an oversight board that is chaired by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell. Members include Solicitor Hilary Tompkins and Assistant Secretary Kevin Washburn, the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

“This is one of the most important parts of President Obama’s agenda,” Washburn said of the effort to restore tribal homelands.

Washburn said ten to 12 reservations are being targeted for initial offers by the end of the year. They include the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the Makah Nation in Washington, the Crow Reservation in Montana and the Sisseton-Wahpeton Reservation in South Dakota.

The administration is finalizing cooperative agreements with tribes to encourage and accelerate the purchases. “That means the tribal employees will be doing a heck of a lot of the work on this program,” Washburn said.

Additionally, the department has established a $75 minimum purchase for fractionated interests “no matter how small,” Hayes said on the conference call. So beneficiaries with extremely small ownership stakes stand to gain from the program.

While certain tribes are being targeted, Hayes said landowners across Indian Country will be able to participate because the department has imposed a purchase ceiling to prevent the funds from being exhausted in any one reservation or reservations.

“We heard loud and clear from Indian Country that we need to have equity in this program — that every tribe that has fractionated interests needs to be able to participate in this program,’ Hayes said. “And that is our commitment. We are going to do that.”

“Every tribe can be assured the money will not run out” due to the purchase ceiling, Hayes said.

Skagit River bridge on I-5 to reopen Wednesday

Scott Terrell / Skagit Valley HeraldThe temporary span portion of the I-5 bridge over the Skagit River is shown Monday. — Scott Terrell / Skagit Valley Herald
The temporary span portion of the I-5 bridge over the Skagit River is shown Monday.

Jerry Cornfield, The Herald

MOUNT VERNON — The Skagit River bridge on I-5 is slated to reopen Wednesday with slower speeds for vehicles and a ban on trucks hauling excessively large cargo like the one which caused it to crumble into the water.

A temporary four-lane span will open without fanfare just shy of a month after a semi-truck carrying an oversized load struck several of the bridge’s overhead trusses, causing a 160-foot section to fall into the river.

Two vehicles went into the water but the three people traveling in them survived the harrowing May 23 incident.

Gov. Jay Inslee visited the site Tuesday as workers paved and prepared to stripe the roadway, a major artery for commuters and commerce that carries an average of 71,000 vehicles a day.

There will be some new rules when the bridge reopens.

The maximum speed will be 40 miles per hour, down from the 60 mph limit in effect before the collapse. That’s because each of the four temporary lanes will be 11 feet wide, which is about a foot narrower than those on the section that fell into the water.

Nearly all cars, commercial vehicles and big rigs carrying legal loads allowed on the bridge before will be able to use it again, transportation officials said.

There will be a barrier between north and south traffic, but it will be made of steel trusses instead of the concrete that separates traffic on the rest of the bridge.

What won’t be allowed are trucks that require a special permit to travel on state highways because they exceed legal rules for height, width, weight or length, said Travis Phelps, a Washington Department of Transportation spokesman.

“If you’re getting a permit to drive on the highway, you won’t be going over this bridge. You’ll be using the detour routes,” he said.

Section of busy Broadway will be closed for up to year

Noah Haglund, The Herald

EVERETT — As they puzzled over how to go about replacing the Broadway bridge, city engineers initially thought they would keep lanes open during construction.

Then they considered a complete shutdown.

Turns out, the city stands to save $1 million and a full year of construction time by closing a block on one of the main drags through Everett until the work is done.

Drivers can expect to find a massive roadblock there about six months from now, when the $9 million project is expected to begin.

“It’s the pain calculus,” Everett city engineer Ryan Sass said. “Do you want 100 percent pain for one year or 90 percent pain for two years? When you look at it that way, it’s an easy choice.”

The planned closure will prevent people from driving Broadway between Hewitt Avenue and California Street for up to a year. The city has planned extensive detours and intends to warn drivers well in advance, through signs along I-5 and Highway 529. A city public awareness campaign is in the works for later this year.

Drivers can be forgiven for not noticing the 101-year-old bridge, which looks like a hump in the road.

The bridge carries traffic over the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks, with about 30,000 vehicles traveling it every day. The only major renovation occurred in 1931.

The city for years as listed the bridge replacement among its top infrastructure needs.

In the meantime, city engineers took precautions. Load restrictions were placed on the span in 2008. Parking isn’t allowed on the bridge either. The structure is weaker toward the edges than in the middle, so trucks are asked to stay in the middle lanes.

The current schedule is to put the work out to bid in October. Prep work is expected to begin late this year and demolition in early 2014.

Construction should be complete by fall of next year, leaving only cleanup before it reopens.

The finished product will look similar, but not identical, to the arched Pacific Avenue bridge near Everett Station, Sass said.

“I hope we get another 100 years out of this one,” he said.

Construction should have no impact on rail operations, BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas said. The railroad expects to expand freight operations with the approximate foot or so of extra clearance city engineers have said the new bridge would provide.

About $8 million of the cost is being paid for with a federal grant. The remaining $1 million will be split between Everett and BNSF.

Santa Fe Indian Market Week Is Ultimate Summer Vacation Venue

Indian Country Today Media Network

With only two months remaining until the ultimate venue for world-class Native art opens in Santa Fe, New Mexico, you might want to start planning your travel now.

From Saturday, August 17 to Sunday, August 18, thousands of esteemed Native artists and collectors will flock to the 92nd Annual Santa Fe Indian Market, presented by the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA). The Santa Fe Indian Market, which draws more than a thousand artists from more than 130 tribes from across the United States and Canada, showcases traditional and contemporary Native art of the highest caliber and quality.

Indian Market Week, a weeklong celebration of Native arts and culture that will begin on Monday, August 12, will precede Indian Market weekend. With an abundance of fine art, famous artists, and exciting events, the 2013 Santa Fe Indian Market will be the cultural and artistic event of a lifetime.

Miss Indian World, Jessa Rae Growing Thunder at 2012 Santa Fe Indian Market Week. (©2012 SWAIA/Max McDonald)

The Santa Fe Indian Market offers collectors the unique opportunity to view and purchase stunning pieces of Native artwork in innovative forms of media. In addition, it provides an ideal venue for meeting and celebrating with the artists themselves. The prestigious group of artists, which includes such acclaimed fixtures of the Native art world as Roxanne Swentzell, Virgil Ortiz, Jamie Okuma, Jeremy Frey, and Jesse Monongya, is subject to strict regulations that ensure the authenticity and superiority of the work brought to the Santa Fe Indian Market. Each artist meets SWAIA’s rigorous standards – and brings pieces of the utmost aesthetic and cultural quality.

Git Hoan Dancers from Alaska on Plaza stage last year (©2012 SWAIA/Max McDonald)

In addition to enriching their collections with new pieces of Native art, visitors to the Santa Fe Indian Market can rub shoulders with the artists at various events and parties throughout Indian Market Week. Art aficionados should be sure to attend the Best of Show Ceremony and Luncheon on Friday, August 16 to toast the lauded artists of this year’s Market. The celebration will continue at the elegant Live Auction Gala on Saturday, August 17, where guests will bid over fabulous works and enjoy a formal dinner with new and old friends. The Santa Fe Indian Market allows collectors to develop life-long relationships with the artists – relationships that will extend over many years and Indian Markets, and even more works of world-class Native art.

For more information on the Santa Fe Indian Market, please visit S antafeindianmarket.com.