A man wanted in connection with the slaying of his grandparents is an “extreme danger” to police and the public, King County sheriff’s detectives say.
By Christine Clarridge, Seattle Times
A man wanted in connection with the slaying of his elderly grandparents may be seeking to buy firearms, and represents an “extreme danger” to the public and police, the King County Sheriff’s Office said late Sunday.
Less than two days after Michael Chad L. Boysen completed a nine-month prison sentence at Monroe Correctional Complex, his grandparents were found dead in their Renton-area home. A warrant has been issued for his arrest in connection with the killings.
Detectives also said Boysen was conducting online searches of gun shows across the Pacific Northwest and Nevada just before or after his grandparents were slain.
A judge issued the warrant for the 26-year-old Sunday after investigators with the Sheriff’s Office said he was wanted for questioning in connection with the slayings of his 82-year-old grandfather and 80-year-old grandmother.
The couple were slain on Friday night or Saturday morning, detectives said.
A statewide alert for the couple’s missing car, a red 2001 Chrysler 300 with license plate 046-XXU, also has been issued, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Detectives urged anyone who spots the vehicle, or Boysen, to call 911 immediately. He is white, 5 feet 10 and 170 pounds, and has hazel eyes.
Boysen served time for a 2012 conviction for attempted residential burglary, according to the state Department of Corrections (DOC). He was released Friday, said DOC spokesman Chad Lewis, who noted Boysen had reported to his community corrections officer in Kent later that same day.
Sheriff’s spokeswoman Sgt. Cindi West said the victims’ bodies were discovered Saturday.
The couple had not been heard from since Friday, and a concerned relative went to their home in the 16200 block of 145th Avenue Southeast and knocked repeatedly on the door but received no answer, West said.
The King County Medical Examiner’s Office has not released the victims’ names, and investigators have not said how or when the couple were killed, other than to say the deaths were being investigated as homicides.
West declined to divulge the contents of the warrant against Boysen.
According to documents filed in King County Superior Court, Boysen has a criminal history that spans a half-decade and includes convictions for first-degree robbery, second-degree robbery and trafficking in stolen property.
His 2012 conviction stemmed from an incident in which he tried to break into an occupied home in Kent, according to court documents.
He also pleaded guilty to a series of robberies in 2006 after his mother called police to report she had found empty prescription bottles and a demand note.
According to court documents, he and a friend ultimately admitted to robbing several pharmacies and a grocery store in Kent to feed their addictions to the narcotic OxyContin.
In 2006, a prosecutor asked that his bail be raised from $5,000 to $50,000, saying Boysen posed a danger to the community and “the danger he presents is escalating,” charging documents show.
Lewis said Boysen had been labeled a high risk to reoffend.
Photo by ERIKA SCHULTZ / The Seattle Times The tsunami flotsam is part of a broader array of marine debris, such as crab floats and plastics that ends up the Northwest coast. John Anderson, who lives near Forks, retrieves a plastic jug that has a label with Chinese writing.
As Japan notes the second anniversary of a powerful earthquake, flotsam that has made a trans-Pacific journey continues to wash up on U.S. and Canadian coasts, and federal officials predict this debris will continue to sporadically pulse on to beaches for years to come.
By Hal Bernton, Seattle Times
FORKS —From a distance, John Anderson thought he had spotted another plastic float, like the hundreds he has gathered since debris from the Japanese tsunami began washing ashore along the Northwest coast.
He got closer, reaching behind a log last spring to discover one of the most memorable finds in three decades of beachcombing: a volleyball covered with inked Japanese inscriptions. Some of the writing, faded by the sun, was illegible. Other characters, once Anderson scraped away barnacles, were surprisingly clear.
“This was a shocker,” said Anderson. “I wondered whose ball it was, and whether they were still alive.”
Two years ago — on March 11, 2011 — a 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a powerful tsunami that killed nearly 19,000 people as it transformed large swaths of coastal communities into giant debris fields.
Survivors’ cellphone videos captured the terrifying movements of the ocean as dark raging waters — filled with boats, houses and cars — pushed onshore. Here in the Pacific Northwest, those images also were powerful reminders of the tsunamis that have struck our coasts in centuries past and are predicted to hit again.
As the second anniversary of the quake arrives, large areas of shoreline in Japan have been largely cleared of rubble, yet flotsam that has made a trans-Pacific journey continues to wash up on U.S. and Canadian coasts, and federal officials predict this debris will continue to sporadically pulse on to beaches for years to come.
So far, only 21 items have been definitively declared tsunami debris by U.S. and Canadian officials who — with the help of the Japanese consulates — have been able to identify owners.
They include a motorcycle, a plastic tote and a 65-foot-long stretch of dock from the city of Misawa that lodged along a remote stretch of Olympic Peninsula shoreline in December. In the coming weeks, that dock will be cut up and hauled away by helicopter in a $628,000 salvage effort largely financed by the Japanese government.
“We don’t like to leave a mess,” said Tomoko Dodo, acting consulate general in Seattle for Japan, which has donated $5 million to debris cleanup in the United States and another $1 million in Canada. “(U.S. officials) say it is not our fault, and we agree with them … I think that it is a goodwill gesture. We want to show the United States our gratitude for the support we received from your country during the tsunami.”
Remnants returned
A handful of items have been returned to Japan in the past year for longshot reunions with owners. A yellow buoy retrieved in Alaska was emblazoned with a large Japanese character, Kei, and traced to Sakiki Miura, a widow who had used the float as part of a sign for a restaurant destroyed in the tsunami.
Last June, Miura was overjoyed to regain the buoy, and decided to reopen the restaurant.
“Kei-Chan has returned,” she tearfully declared, according to a report published in The Asahi Shimbun.
Anderson, of the Forks area, is planning to return to Japan this summer with filmmakers producing a tsunami documentary entitled “Lost & Found,” and hopes to reunite the volleyball with its owner.
So far, a translator’s review of the inscriptions found a few partial names, and well-wishes that make it appear the volleyball was a farewell gift, possibly to a graduating student, from other team members.
“I’m sure you will have a great life,” said one inscription.
“I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your new endeavor,” said another.
But so far, no owner has been identified.
“There have got to be other teams that they played that would recognize those names from somewhere that didn’t get wiped out — you would think so,” Anderson said.
Two Washington kayakers who surveyed the coast last summer found a soccer ball with an inscription that was traced to a team in a town on the northeast coast.
During one of their survey trips, they also came upon an eerie scene: a pile of house timbers that contained a child’s potty, a bottle of cough syrup, a laundry hamper and a piece of a washing machine.
“It was one of those slowly developing things. We realized, we were in someone’s bathroom … in someone else’s house, “ recalls Ken Campbell, a kayaker who has produced a documentary about the their surveys, which is called The Roadless Coast.
Federal and state officials caution that it is difficult — and often impossible — to figure out just what debris came from the tsunami, and what is part of the broader stew of plastics and other items carried by Pacific currents toward the Northwest coast, where some blows ashore and the rest head in gyres that loop south along the West Coast and north up to Alaska.
Impressive display
For Anderson, through decades of beachcombing, the ocean’s marine debris has yielded plenty of treasures, which have been put on impressive display at his homestead just outside Forks.
In his front yard, a towering beachcomber’s monument made up of thousands of floats rises like some kind of maritime totem pole. In an upstairs loft, his museum includes Saki bottles thrown out of ships, Nike shoes and thousands of other items.
All this on the beach has given Anderson a keen sense of the yearly ebbs and flows of marine debris. Within the past 18 months, the pace of his beachcombing finds has picked up dramatically, with many items that appear likely to have come from Japan.
Last week on stroll along Second Beach near La Push, Clallam County, Anderson’s found a chunk of what once appeared to be a dock, house beams with the notches typical of Japanese construction, a black float of the type used by Japanese oyster farms and bottles bearing Japanese markings.
Trapped within the driftwood, Anderson found hunks, pellets and slivers of blue, yellow and white foam insulation, which were among the first objects to arrive more than a year ago and continue to show up on the beaches.
“I’ve seen pockets of Styrofoam packed 2 feet deep,” Anderson said. “Before the tsunami, I never saw anything like that”
“Certainly, the change in foam has been notable in many areas,” said Peter Murphy, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official who is helping monitor marine debris. “And it does pose a cleanup challenge.”
The insulated foam, as it breaks up into small beads, can be ingested by birds and other creatures. Concerns about foam pollution have prompted National Park and Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary officials to opt for the salvage of the Misawa dock that came ashore in December. Buffeted by rocks and surf, it is no longer seaworthy so it can’t be towed off the beach, and that prompted the decision to launch the helicopter airlift.
“Most of the mass is foam, enough to fill about 20 large dump trucks, and it is a significant risk to the intertidal area,” said Rainey McKenna, a spokeswoman for the Olympic National Park.
This Olympic Peninsula dock is one of four identical pieces that the tsunami tore away from Misawa. One went inland, while a second has been seen off Hawaii. A third piece washed ashore in Oregon, where a chunk has been preserved in an interpretive exhibit that will help educate people about what happened in Japan, and what could happen here.
In Washington state, kayaker Campbell and his survey colleague Steve Weileman also are trying to spread the world about the tsunami and other marine debris. They formed an organization called The Ikkatsu Project, which they hope can help fund future survey expeditions.
“Ikkatsu is a Japanese word that means ‘all together as one,’ ” Weileman said. “What happens on that side of the Pacific will one day happen on this side.”
Council representatives from four Sioux tribes met this weekend in Rapid City where they laid the groundwork to work as one nation to address issues important to their communities, Oglala Sioux president Bryan Brewer said Sunday.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe hosted representatives of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe at the Holiday Inn in Rapid City for three days of meetings. The tribes have not come together in such a way for over 100 years, according to Brewer.
“This has been something the tribes have talked about for years,” he said. “It has always been a dream of our tribes, but it actually happened now. This is a historic event for us all to pull together again.”
Brewer said close to 60 tribal representatives attended the convention that began Thursday and ended Saturday when they signed a proclamation declaring their intent to work together as the Oceti Sakowin, or the seven council fires of the great Lakota/Dakota/Nakota people.
The conference also produced a set of bylaws, a mission statement and the preliminary planning of commissions to address the most pressing issues for the communities.
“We identified some areas that have the most need, including our land issues, environmental issues like with the oil pipelines, economic, education and child welfare,” Brewer said.
He said the coalition will release position papers soon, and the group hopes that together their actions will have a bigger impact.
“We have been divided for quite a while so we got together to try to be one voice,” Brewer said. “The government has singled us out so we are going to speak to the government with one voice and we think that may help our tribes. Individually we are not very strong, but together we are hoping to be a pretty strong organization.”
There are 22 Sioux tribes eligible to join the organization, according to Brewer.
The next meeting will be hosted by the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and is scheduled for April 4-6.
Contact Jennifer Naylor Gesick at 394-8415 or jennifer.naylorgesick@rapidcityjournal.com.
A U.S. Navy Prowler warplane on a training mission crashed near Harrington, Wash., about 9 a.m. today. The plane crashed just off Coffee Pot Road about 10 miles outside of Harrington, said Scott McGowan, fire chief for Lincoln County Fire District No. 6. Stan Dammel, manager of the Odessa Municipal Airport, flew over the crash site and took this photo.
By Greg Rasa, Seattle Times
All three crew members on a Navy jet based at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island were killed this morning when their aircraft crashed in Eastern Washington’s Lincoln County, Navy officials have confirmed.
The crew’s names will not be released until 24 hours after their families have been informed, said Lt. Aaron Kakiel in San Diego.
The crew was flying an EA-6B Prowler jet assigned to Electronic Attack Squadron VAQ-129. It crashed about 9 a.m. into a field in an unpopulated area near the town of Harrington, about 50 miles west of Spokane.
A spokesman for the Whidbey base confirmed that the crashed jet was based there. Whidbey is home to EA-6B Prowler and EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft. P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft and EP-3E Aries reconnaissance aircraft are also based there.
The Spokane Spokesman-Review reported that a pair of Navy jets were operating in the area, according to Magers. The other plane reported the crash and then returned to base because it was low on fuel, he said.
The Grumman EA-6B Prowler. (Naval Air Systems Command photo)
Stan Dammel, manager of the Odessa Municipal Airport, told the Spokane paper he flew over the crash site and photographed it.
“It looked like an ink spot down there,” Dammel said
The type of electronic-warfare plane that crashed today had been involved in crashes in the past. Among them:
In 2006, after an EA-6B Prowler from the Whidbey Island base crashed near Pendleton, Oregon, the Navy ordered a half-day grounding for all its aircraft for an internal safety review, according to The Associated Press. In 1992 and again in 2001, crews parachuted to safety when their Prowlers crashed on the Olympic Peninsula. In 1998, three crewmen were lost overboard when a Prowler crashed into another jet on the deck of the USS Enterprise. Four died in a 1996 crash near Yuma, Ariz., and three died in 1992 near El Centro, Calif.
In 1993, an A-6E Intruder, the plane the EA-6B is based on, collided with a crop duster over the Palouse near Diamond, Whitman County. The pilot of the crop duster was critically injured, and the Navy crew parachuted to safety.
And in 1998, the Marine pilot of a EA-6B Prowler severed a ski-gondola cable near Cavalese, Italy, sending the 20 people aboard the gondola on 350-foot plunge to their deaths.
The EA-6B Prowler was first stationed at Whidbey Island in 1971 and deployed to Vietnam in 1972.
Diane Millich (Southern Ute Indian Tribe) (second to left) and Deborah Parker (Tulalip Tribe) (third to left) joined President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, members of the administration and Congress, women’s rights advocates, and domestic abuse survivors for the signing of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization on March 7. Courtesy National Congress of American Indians
By Rob Capriccioso, Indian Country Today Media Network
During the March 7 signing ceremony in the offices of the United States Department of the Interior of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), Vice President Joe Biden had a difficult time remembering all of the many advocates and legislators he wanted to highlight and thank for their hard work on making the enhanced law a reality.
Similarly, it is difficult to single out all of the Native American women warriors who worked overtime to make the tribal provisions of the new law come to life.
There were tribal leaders like Terri Henry, Deborah Parker, and Fawn Sharp. There were lobbyists like Holly Cook Macarro, Kim Teehee, and Aurene Martin. National Indian organization leaders like Jackie Johnson Pata, Juana Majel Dixon, and the crew at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) led conference calls, action alerts, and legislative visits. There were advocates on the ground including Pamela Dalton Stearns, Theresa Sheldon, Jax Agtuca, and countless other Indian grassroots activists. And there were the male crusaders, too, like Wilson Pipestem, David Bean, Ernie Stevens, and U.S. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.).
“I felt elated,” said Henry, a tribal council member with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, in summing up the day. “I’m incredibly happy and proud of our team of strong hearts—Native women and Native nations. I am humbled and honored that our collective effort to obtain this slice of justice was supported in so many ways by Native people across America.”
“It’s a miracle of such strength,” Dixon, secretary of NCAI and a Pauma tribal citizen, reflected in a YouTube video posted on the day of the signing by the U.S. Department of the Interior. “When we see the first case go through with the protections in order and our Native women protected … that’s going to be a breath of freedom, a breath of certainty that we can protect our people.”
All of them worked together for years for the greater good of Indian country as a whole—trying desperately not to allow tribal divisions on other issues get in the way (although Alaska Native women and families did lose out in the end due to a compromise pushed by their state’s legislators who fear expanding tribal jurisdiction in the “last frontier” state—a front that tribal women, including Johnson Pata, have said they plan to take on in the coming weeks).
Cole and his colleague, Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), were told many times throughout the ups and downs of the legislative process in the House that Indian country would not compromise on the inherent tribal court jurisdiction provision, first offered in the Senate version of the bill; nor did tribal leaders want the removal process to federal courts to be overly simple, as that outcome would have treated tribal courts as lesser judicial bodies. In the end, the House on February 28 passed the Senate’s version of the bill that tribal advocates had been pushing all along—inherent tribal authority and a strict removal process intact.
The strong voices of female tribal advocates played a major role in the process, with some of them, like Parker, going so far as to share their own personal tales of familial abuse to help sway legislators’ minds. They were stories that drew national media attention, and they led at least one congressman, Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), to change his mind to end up supporting the tribal VAWA.
Indian women also got the attention of the White House early on, and they secured the Obama administration’s unwavering support, with the Justice Department directly rebutting Republican legislators who argued that the tribal provisions were unconstitutional.
At the president’s signing ceremony, Diane Millich, a citizen of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, was invited to introduce Biden, and to share her personal story of marrying a non-Indian man when she was 26 who ended up assaulting her soon after he moved in with her on her reservation.
“After a year of abuse and more than 100 incidents of being slapped, kicked, punched, and living in horrific terror, I left for good,” Millich told the audience. When she asked the tribal police for help, they could do nothing due to legal restrictions that said the tribe could not prosecute her husband because he was non-Indian. “If the bill being signed today were law when I was married, it would have allowed my tribe to arrest and prosecute my abuser,” she said to applause.
Many of the non-Indian advocates who gathered at the Department of the Interior headquarters to witness President Barack Obama sign into law the VAWA probably didn’t really understand how much the law alters the playing field for tribes by recognizing their “inherent” sovereign power to have jurisdiction over their lands—still, they cheered loudly all the same, largely because they got what they wanted in VAWA, and because the overall basic message was simple: All women and families, regardless of skin color, should be able to live without the fear of domestic violence and abuse. If increased tribal court authority over non-Indians could make that happen for Native women, the non-Indian advocates were on board.
Obama seemed to understand, singling out the Native provisions and the people who supported them: “Tribal governments have an inherent right to protect their people, and all women deserve the right to live free from fear,” he said. “And that is what today is all about.”
The president also noted that Indian country has some of the highest rates of domestic abuse in the country. “And one of the reasons is that when Native American women are abused on tribal lands by an attacker who is not Native American, the attacker is immune from prosecution by tribal courts. Well, as soon as I sign this bill that ends,” he said to major applause.
The president’s speech was televised, and if one looked closely, Indian women were well represented in the audience of his speech, and some like Parker and Millich made it onto the stage to shake his hand and to show their pride as he signed the bill into law.
Although the overall signing event was a celebration, it was also difficult because the tribal legislation of the hour wouldn’t be needed if Indian women weren’t getting abused at such alarmingly high rates. Aurene Martin, a citizen of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and founder of Spirit Rock Consulting, touched on that point, saying it was a “bittersweet” victory. “I was sad, because of all the women who had to suffer to make the amendments to VAWA necessary,” Martin said. “I cried during Diane Millich’s speech because of how terrified she must have been in her own home and on her own reservation, among her own people.”
At the same time, Martin was “proud and elated because of the awesome, unified effort made by all of Indian country to support the changes to VAWA.”
Many of these women warriors are now being honored in their communities, as well as via phone calls and social network messages. During the VAWA signing week, some of them were honored at the National Indian Women Honoring Luncheon, organized by Washington, D.C. tribal advocates who wanted to support them and to encourage their future successes.
Cook Macarro, a Red Lake Ojibwe citizen and lobbyist with Ietan Consulting, was one of those honored. In all, the VAWA experience was overwhelming for her—and she’s no novice, having been through her share of legislative battles. “To stand with so many Native women warriors and watch President Obama sign the VAWA into law was one of the proudest moments of my career,” she shared. “As my tears flowed, I thought of the women back home in Red Lake, working and staying at Equay Wiigamig (Women’s Shelter), and of the many other Native women who will now be protected and have access to resources because of this effort. For so many reasons, this was the sweetest of victories.”
Cook Macarro also shared a message for the abusers who made this law necessary: “To every non-Indian perpetrator of domestic violence or sexual assault on an Indian woman on Indian lands who went unprosecuted—take that!” she exclaimed. “You provided us with the story and legislative opportunity to touch the minds and hearts of Democrats and Republicans alike on the Hill and restore partial criminal jurisdiction to tribes for the first time since 1978.”
Activist and ICTMN reader Raven Ross has sought resolution to the Mike & Molly situation from CBS — in vain. And now she’s taking her grievances to the street.
“Arizona? Why would I go to Arizona?” said Molly’s mother-in-law, played by actress Rondi Reed. “It’s nothing but a furnace full of drunk Indians.”
Ross contacted CBS, and here is her report:
CBS/Mike & Molly show are not going to apologize!
I personally received a call back from CBS, Ms. Tiffany Smith Anoai, who told me that no apology would be coming from the Mike & Molly show!
Ms. Anoai said she is “speaking directly with Mike & Molly’s writers.” I asked, Is the Native voice is present and being heard at these sessions? Her answer: No. But, she said, the writers do attend a once-a-year diversity workshop!
(I bet the writers for Mike & Molly were either asleep, had headphones on, or were engaged in selective hearing!)
Ross is taking action today where she lives, and is hoping that other Natives will do the same.
I have organized in Phoenix, Arizona, today (3/11) an All Tribes Peaceful Anti-Racism Protest at CBS TV station-Channel 5! I recommend that all Native peoples do the same in their hometown.
CBS and the Mike & Molly show are perpetuating 500-plus years of racism, prejudice, and bigotry toward the original landowners and the original inhabitants of great North America! Anti-American Indian sentiment is here and growing throughout the USA. It has come to my attention, from articles published this past year on ICTMN, that Our People have been experiencing heightened racism. Western Society is using their tools of racist stereotyping and continue to engage in cultural and spiritual misappropriation and exploitation through the media to diminish our people to insignificance! It’s time to take a stand! No longer shall we be swept under the rug, and dismissed by an insensitive and ignorant segment of western society.
Protest and boycott CBS and the Mike & Molly show now. For our ancestors, yourselves, and future generations of indigenous people everywhere.
Yvette Roubideaux, Indian Health Service director. AP photo.
By Rob Capriccioso, Indian Country Today Media Network
The many ways the federal government’s sequester will hurt Indian country are easy to see. The National Congress of American Indians has released a policy paper saying that tribal economic growth has already been thwarted; the National Indian Education Association has said the cuts “devastate” Indian education; and Native journalist Mark Trahant estimates that the overall financial reduction for funding in Indian country totals $386 million—and that’s just through the end of September.
In all, the joint decision by Congress and the Obama White House, first made in 2011 and carried out on March 1, to allow an across-the-board 9 percent cut to all non-exempt domestic federal programs (and a 13 percent cut for Defense accounts)—known collectively as the sequester—amounts to a major violation of the trust responsibility relationship the federal government is supposed to have with American Indians, as called for in historic treaties, the U.S. Constitution and contemporary American policy.
While all of the cutbacks are troubling and difficult to bear, perhaps the most problematic of all are the ones happening at the Indian Health Service (IHS), housed in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The IHS must offer healthcare to enrolled tribal citizens, providing services for what are often the poorest of all Indians who live on reservations and can’t afford other healthcare.
With even the smallest of federal cuts, the agency—which has been vastly underfunded, by most tribal accounts, for decades—would have a more difficult time carrying out its mission. But it turns out that a sequester miscalculation—made through a combination of IHS error in misreading relevant law and a judgment call by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)—has ended up costing tribal citizens much more than they were originally told.
IHS Director Yvette Roubideaux and her staffers had said at various tribal meetings and in letters throughout 2011 and early 2012 that “the worst-case scenario would be a 2 percent decrease from current funding levels” for IHS, rather than the 9 percent that was forecasted for most federal agencies if the sequester went into effect.
But Indian country began to learn late last year that Roubideaux’ predictions were wrong. IHS would be cut on March 1 at the same rate as every other non-protected agency. And since IHS was late to the game in planning for the larger cut, it didn’t work as aggressively at saving and protecting its resources as it could have. Also—and perhaps most egregiously—it fed tribes misinformation that cost them months of planning and advocacy time. “It’s unfortunate that we all relied on [IHS’s] earlier interpretation, because we could have addressed this earlier with the administration (especially the OMB) and the Congress,” said Jim Roberts, a policy analyst with the Northwest Portland Indian Health Board.
“Had IHS communicated the correct information in the previous fiscal year, tribal care providers that receive IHS funding would have been able to modify their budgets so they would have had more resources for this year—and thus the cuts to tribal citizens wouldn’t be as steep,” added Lloyd Miller, an Indian affairs lawyer with Sonosky Chambers who has worked on many lawsuits involving the agency. “The earlier tribal providers could have been planning for disaster, the better. In this case, tribes lost a whole year.”
Roubideaux’ error happened because she was relying on internal analysis that indicated IHS would be protected in the same way services for veterans served by the U.S. Department of Veterans have been protected from steep cuts. Specifically, IHS leaders relied on the 1985 Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act (BBEDCA), which included a specific provision that named IHS as having a limited percent reduction under a sequester order, according to the agency.
Constance James, a spokeswoman for IHS, confirms that Roubideaux’ statements about the budget reduction being limited to two percent were based on the agency’s reading of the BBEDCA.
But then, in September of last year, OMB told IHS that the 2011 Budget Control Act, which would implement the current sequester, did not contain the BBEDCA provision for the agency. Or at least that was how the OMB’s Office of General Counsel was interpreting it, according to James.
With that OMB direction, Roubideaux quickly began backpedalling, telling tribal leaders since September 2012 that IHS and the thousands of tribal citizens it serves would be subject to the full sequestration.
IHS is now working overtime explaining the change, probably because officials there are worried at least in part about congressional oversight. Indeed they should be, as some Congress members are threatening investigations over the misreading of the law, with concerned tribal leaders saying they too would like answers.
On March 1—the day the sequester order was signed by President Barack Obama—Roubideaux held a conference call with some tribal leaders in which she explained that because of the shortened fiscal year, the full amount of this reduction will be done over the next seven months, since the first six months of fiscal year lump-sum funding has already been released to tribes.
Roubideaux has also asked tribal care-providers to be very conservative in their spending until the full impact of sequestration is known. The agency is also working to transfer any remaining continuing resolution-funding out to self-governance tribes as soon as possible, in accordance with the terms and conditions of respective Title V compacts and funding agreements.
**********
The agency is trying to deflect blame for this mistake from Roubideaux. When asked if it was the IHS director’s fault that the law was misread, James said via e-mail, “These are administration determinations based on OMB [Office of General Counsel] guidance. So, no this is not an agency (Roubideaux) interpretation.”
But that response isn’t enough for Roberts and other tribal health and legal experts monitoring the situation. “They misapplied the law,” Roberts says. “Their response does appear to sum it up.”
Miller says the interpretation was “patently incorrect” and that it would be good to know who at the agency was relying on a nearly 30-year-old law as applicable to the current situation. “Were they relying on a legal opinion? If not, why not?” he says.
On top of these concerns, Roberts also cautions that tribes need to be prepared to expect furloughs and reductions in service at IHS direct-managed sites. The National Congress of American Indians says that the sequester will decrease inpatient admissions by 3,000 and outpatient visits by as much as 804,000 in IHS and tribal hospitals and clinics.
There seems to be little or nothing that can be done to ease the devastating pain this sequester will bring to Indian country. Charlie Galbraith, the Associate Director for Intergovernmental Affairs at the White House, said at a February gathering of tribal leaders of the United South and Eastern Tribes in Washington, D.C. that “the way we protect tribal priorities is to avoid sequester.”
But the White House didn’t avoid sequester, so now what? When asked by tribal leaders if tribes could be exempted from sequestration, given the Obama administration’s strong belief in federal-tribal trust responsibility, Galbraith said, “That’s just not going to happen. We have the entire military machine, every lobbyist, every contractor, trying to exempt the military provision—the president is not going to cut this off piecemeal. We need a comprehensive solution that is going to address the real problem here.”
In other words, if the Obama administration protected federal-tribal trust responsibility by preventing cuts to Indian programs, “it weakens our argument as a whole,” Galbraith said. “We need the support of Indian country out there being public, writing op-eds, on Facebook, on Twitter, telling the American people how important it is that we come to a balanced solution that raises revenues and cuts spending in an appropriate, reasonable way.”
In the end, all that’s left to be done is to accurately calculate the damage, and to try to advocate for Congress to restore funding as soon as possible. That’s what Trahant, a citizen of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe, has been doing by detailing the intricacies of the austerity measures on his website, which grows increasingly popular as tribal communities began to realize the extent of the damage as the sequester kicks in.
The staff of the NIHB is also looking for legislative solutions. “[W]e are seeking a legislative fix that would exempt IHS from the sequester,” says Stacy Bohlen, director of the organization. “We [have been noting] that all health programs supported by the federal government, with the exception of Indian Health Service, are not subject to sequestration. This is not okay.”
Indian leaders could also press for Roubideaux to be punished, but some say there is general reluctance to do that, since she’s done a solid job of addressing many tribal needs since beginning her tenure in 2009. “There’s always fear in biting the hand that feeds you,” says Miller. “But these are legal questions, not policy questions. This is not rocket science.”
Members of Congress who have expressed dismay at IHS leadership shortcomings over the years, are less inclined to be forgiving. Laura Mengelkamp, a spokeswoman for Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), says her boss, a medical doctor by trade and vice-chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, is extremely concerned about the IHS situation. “The IHS may have made an unfortunate mistake or misinterpretation of sequestration that created confusion about the impacts of the law,” she says. “Sen. [John] Barrasso [(R-WY)] believes that the OMB should have shared its findings/report and fully consulted with the Indian tribes on this issue much earlier in the process.”
Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chair of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs, went further, saying, “The administration has been playing a political shell game when it comes to the impact of sequestration on the Indian Health Service budget. At first, tribes were assured that all IHS programs would fall under the Budget Control Act’s two percent limit. … Now the administration has backpedaled and claims that IHS’ discretionary appropriation is fully sequesterable. Ultimately, this is another example of the federal government actively undermining its trust responsibility to our Native peoples.
“Fully exempting the Department of Veterans Affairs budget from sequestration is an acknowledgment of our sacred responsibility to our troops,” Young added. “I am angered by the administration’s double-standard. How can they choose to uphold one sacred responsibility and not another? I certainly plan to conduct vigorous oversight of the Indian Health Service in this Congress, and we will obtain answers from the Service as to how it is managing its budget issues.”
As a result of the failure of Congress to agree on legislation to avoid the automatic budget cuts, the U.S. is now facing the impact of the sequester in a variety of areas. Public services are now being maintained by the Commitment Authority until Congress can find a solution to the budget crisis that has loomed over the American economy.
However, one program has already reached its spending limit and must now be suspended indefinitely.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a written statement to the Mortgage Broker’s Association (MBA) to cease all originations for the Indian Home Loan Guarantee Program (Section 184) that provides mortgage loans for Native American citizens. For mortgages not already approved by the HUD, sources state that the chance of these loans closing is zero.
Section 184 refers to an 11-year old mortgage product created specifically for the financing of loans for American Indian and Alaska Native families, Alaska Village tribes, or tribally designated housing entities. Essentially, this loan program was established to offer an opportunity to realize the American Dream of homeownership for populations with few other mortgage options.
HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan warned for weeks that such housing programs would be adversely affected by the reduction of the budget caused by sequestration.
Donovan criticized the severity of these budget cuts which could potentially push a subclass of Americans into unnecessary homelessness.
Providing an explanation of these ideas to the Senate Appropriations Committee last month, Donovan expressed that a significant portion of the sequester’s impact will be seen as a result of budget cuts to the HUD’s Continuum of Care programs, through which families and individuals that had previously suffered homelessness were promptly re-housed and provided with additional assistance in the hopes of regaining self-sufficiency.
Donovan added that the sequestration’s automatic budget cuts would abolish some of the critical funding for the U.S. homeless shelter system maintained by the Emergency Solutions Grants.
Furthermore, Donovan stated that the sequestration would remove approximately 100,000 formerly homeless Americans, veterans included, from their present residences or their residences as obtained through program which offer emergency housing.
Source: United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, http://www.unitedindians.org/powwow/
Dear Community,
United Indians of All Tribes Foundation is excited to announce that our 27th Annual Seafair Indian Days Pow Wow will be held on July 19-21, 2013! As many of you all know, we had to make a really hard decision and cancel this pow wow last year due to lack of funding. This year we plan on making this pow wow bigger and better than ever! Mark your calendars and save the date! We are in need of donations, please click on link to the left to donate!
EMCEE: Jerry Meninick ARENA DIRECTOR: Ken Gopher and Tony Bluehorse HOST DRUM: RED BULL
CATEGORIES:
GOLDEN AGE: 1000-800-600-400-200
ADULT: 1000-800-600-400-200
TEENS: 400-300-200-100
JUNIORS: 300-200-100-75DRUMS: SESSION PAY FIRST TEN EACH SESSIONSPECIALS:
Bernie Whitebear, Team Dance: Owl Dance: Others TBA
GRAND ENTRY: FRI 7:00 PM SAT 1:00 AND 7:00 PM SUN 1:00 PMTRADITIONAL SALMON DINNER!!ADMISSION:
FRI: FREE FAMILY NIGHT
SAT AND SUN: $5.00
(Admission funds go towards cost and production of pow wow)
VENDORS:
Vendor Space 10×10: $400
Limited Spaces available, provide own tables and tents
POWER $25 AND (1) RAFFEL ITEM
Professional and SPD Security Available
FOOD VENDORS BY INVITATION ONLY
Contact United Indians for Camping JOHN ROMERO 206-498-7640
Mar. 10, 2013, 10:21 PM
When you think about gambling in America, the first thing that probably comes to mind is Las Vegas.
But Las Vegas currently represents just 10 percent of U.S. gaming industry revenue. This is according to a new report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Regional commercial gaming accounts for another 47 percent of the industry.
The remaining 43 percent: Native American gaming.
The Native American gaming story is particularly extraordinary in that it has grown into a $27 billion business from almost nothing in just 20 years.
