Tulalip Tribes Archives - Page 43 of 45

Health, Innovation and the Promise of VAWA 2013 in Indian Country

Valerie Jarrett and Tony West, Indian Country Today Media Network

Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett speaks to Tulalip Court leaders about the implementation of VAWA 2013 in Indian country. September 5, 2013. (by Charlie Galbraith, Associate Director of Intergovernmental Affairs)

[The morning of September 5], we made our way north from Seattle, past gorgeous waterways, and lush greenery to visit with the Tulalip tribes of western Washington, where we were greeted by Tribal Chairman Mel Sheldon, Vice Chairwoman Deb Parker, and Chief Judge Theresa Pouley. We saw first-hand, a tribal court system which serves to both honor the traditions of its people and to foster a renewed era of tribal self-determination.

The Tulalip Tribes of Washington, like many American Indian tribes, have built a tribal court system that serves the civil needs of their community, holds criminals accountable, and protects the rights of victims and the accused in criminal cases. By engaging the entire spectrum of stakeholders, including judges, the police, public defenders, tribal attorneys, as well as tribal elders, and even offenders in many cases – the system they have put in place is producing impressive results with a unique focus on innovative, restorative, and communal solutions.

Because of the successful 2013 Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which President Obama signed into law on March 7, 2013, tribal courts and law enforcement will soon be able to exercise the sovereign power to investigate, prosecute, convict, and sentence those who commit acts of domestic violence or dating violence or violate certain protection orders in Indian country, regardless of the defendant’s Indian or non-Indian status. The tribal provisions of this landmark legislation were originally proposed by the Department of Justice in 2011 to address alarming rates of violence against Native women. We believe today, as we did then, that this is not only constitutionally sound law, but it is also a moral prerogative and an essential tool to ensure that non-Indian men who assault Indian women are held accountable for their crimes.

The 2013 VAWA reauthorization might never have happened without the relentless efforts of Native women advocates like Tulalip Tribal Vice Chairwoman Deborah Parker, whose personal courage and dedication to this cause helped carry the day. The Tulalip Tribe was but one example that helped demonstrate to Congress and many others that there are tribal courts prepared to exercise this important authority that was swept away by the Supreme Court’s 1978 Oliphant ruling.

This new law generally takes effect on March 7, 2015, but also authorizes a voluntary pilot project to allow certain tribes to begin exercising this authority sooner.

After a visit to the Tribal Courthouse, we then visited the Tulalip Legacy of Healing Safe House, a domestic violence shelter housed in facilities renovated with federal Recovery Act funds, to provide victims a safe place, and the chance they need to start fresh and rebuild.

And finally, it wouldn’t have been an authentic trip to Tulalip lands and the Pacific Northwest without a traditional salmon luncheon. We joined around 50 tribal members at the Hibulb Cultural Center to learn more about the ancient tribal traditions of the Tulalip people, and of course, to enjoy the region’s most time-honored and delicious delicacy.

We were reminded this week of how much progress is being made by tribal justice systems across the country. These efforts are being led by courageous Native people like the Tulalip who are dedicated to making the promise of the VAWA 2013 Reauthorization into a reality for generations of Native American women.

A White House Blog Post. Valerie Jarrett is the Senior Advisor to the President and Tony West is the U.S. Associate Attorney General

Tulalip on Lopez Island

Lopez-group — Tulalip youth at Lopez Island
Photo/Andrew Gobin

Lopez Island − Two aging piers, a bit of history and a lot of fun. Tulalip kids paid a visit to the tribes’ property at MacKaye Harbor on Thursday, August 22.

Tulalip Youth Services offers a plethora of activities during the summer to occupy kids, including movie premiers, whirly ball, and trips to Wildwaves. This year, youth services wanted to do something different.

“We usually do the same things, make the same trips, but those things are typically open year round,” said Tony Hatch, who organized the trip. “We wanted to do something special, something different. So we brought the kids up here to learn about the tribes’ fishing history.”

He and Ron Iukes reminisced about fishing and staying on the docks during the summer.

“It’s good that the kids see this part of our history, and where we fished off the reservation,” Hatch added. “Here, they also get to see some of the tribes’ property that has been put on the back burner.”

Tulalip fishermen used to fish the San Juan Islands more frequently, which led to the purchase of land. Today, four tracts of land are owned by Tulalip, the first purchased in 1986, two in 1993, and one in 2005, according to the San Juan County Assessor. They still fish there today, though not as often as the decades leading in to the 1980s and early 1990s.

The tribe did plan to renovate the docks, and began work on one in recent years, but the project has not progressed since.

Hatch said, “It is unclear what Tulalip will do with the land, but we’d like to plan an end of the year camp next year.”

MLK’s ‘I Have a Dream’ legacy celebrated in shared memories

Julie Muhlstein, The Herald

EVERETT — In poetry and song, proclamations, speeches and shared memories, the essence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech was celebrated Wednesday night in Snohomish County.

An overflow crowd packed the Jackson Center at Everett Community College to hear leaders, young people and those who remember the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement reflect on King’s words, spoken in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963.

County Executive John Lovick, noting that King’s birthplace of Atlanta has adopted the slogan “a city too busy to hate,” suggested a positive variation: “Snohomish County — a county that is not too busy to love.”

Two presenters were given standing ovations, one representing a new generation, the other an Everett elder, former City Councilman Carl Gipson Sr.

Gipson, first elected to the City Council in 1970, recalled harsh realities of his youth in Arkansas, when he wasn’t allowed into restrooms or restaurants. In Everett, he knocked on doors for a job, finally talking his way into one at a car dealership.

Gipson’s expressed gratitude to Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson for his efforts in naming the city’s senior center in his honor.

Many expressed a common theme, that King’s dream is not yet fully realized.

As they did for Gipson, the audience stood to applaud at the end of a poem recited by Rahwa Beyan, a 17-year-old leader of the youth chapter of Snohomish County’s NAACP organization. Her powerful recitation centered on the shooting death of black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.

Lynnwood Mayor Don Gough spoke about a new “Let Freedom Ring” event earlier Wednesday in his city. Bells rang, and members of the public were given a minute each to say what King’s speech meant to them. Gough said social justice and civil rights “must meld with labor and worker rights.”

Shirley Sutton, of Lynnwood, read proclamations from her city, from Everett and Snohomish County officially recognizing the 50th anniversary of the march on Washington.

Tulalip Tribal Chairman Mel Sheldon offered a brief history lesson about his people.

It was 1924, he said, before American Indians were granted the right to vote. Sheldon praised current leaders of local government for forging strong relationships with the Tulalip Tribes.

There were speakers representing “Yesterday’s Wisdom,” “Today’s Focus” and “Tomorrow’s Dreams.”

Angelina Karke, a student at Discovery Elementary School in the Mukilteo district, shared an ambitious dream of her own:

“My dream is to be accepted into Harvard Law School. I will get my law degree and become president of the United States,” the girl said

Study launched to examine declining salmon runs

Bill Sheets, The Herald

Millions of dollars have been spent to restore fish habitat in Western Washington.

Property owners pay taxes to local governments to control stormwater runoff.

State government and tribal fisheries have put huge investments into hatcheries.

“While all that has been going on, we’ve seen a precipitous decline in the survival rate of both hatchery fish as well as wild fish,” said Phil Anderson, director of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

That’s why the department, along with the Tulalip Tribes and 25 other organizations, are beginning a five-year study to determine why some species of salmon and trout are having trouble surviving their saltwater voyages.

The Salish Sea Marine Survival Project, as it’s called, is an international effort. Canadian groups are agreeing to pay half of the estimated, eventual $20 million cost of the study.

The decline has been seen in fish runs both in Washington and British Columbia.

“The fish don’t know there’s a border,” said Mike Crewson, fisheries enhancement biologist for the Tulalip Tribes.

The marine survival rate for many stocks of Chinook and coho salmon, along with steelhead, has dropped more than 90 percent over the past 30 years, according to Long Live the Kings, a Seattle-based non-profit group formed around fish preservation.

Numbers for sockeye, chum, and pink salmon have varied widely over the same time period.

For some reason, many of these anadromous fish — those that spawn in fresh water and spend most of their lives at sea — are not doing well in saltwater, particularly in the inland waters of Western Washington.

The Snohomish and Skagit river systems have been hit particularly hard, Crewson said.

While there’s a solid understanding of the factors affecting salmon survival in fresh water, according to Long Live the Kings, the issues in the marine environment are more complex.

From what is known so far, the survival problem has been traced to a combination of factors. Pollution, climate change, loss of habitat and increased consumption of salmon by seals and sea lions are all playing a part, Tulalip tribal officials have said.

Tribes and government agencies have been collecting information on their own, but it hasn’t yet been put together into context, Crewson said.

That will be one benefit of the new study — synthesizing the work done so far, he said. More research will be done as well.

The Tulalips, for example, have two smolt traps they use to catch young fish to track their progress and survival rates. The tribe already spends about $500,000 per year on fish survival programs and will increase their sampling efforts as part of this study, Crewson said.

Other studies more focused on certain areas, such as a joint effort between the Tulalips and the Nisqually tribe focusing on the Snohomish and Nisqually river systems, will be folded into the larger effort, Crewson said.

“The survival’s especially poor in Puget Sound (as opposed to the open ocean),” he said. “We’re trying to figure out what’s different in Puget Sound.”

The state recently appropriated nearly $800,000 toward the new study. The Pacific Salmon Foundation, a Canadian group, has raised $750,000 to support project activities north of the border. That group is serving as the organizer for efforts there, as is Long Live the Kings on the American side.

The Pacific Salmon Commission, a joint Canadian-American organization formed to implement treaty agreements, is putting in $175,000.

The rest of the money will be raised as the study progresses, officials said. A report and action plan is expected after five years.

John Lovick: ‘Dr. King’s speech … was a turning point in my life’

Photo courtesy of John LovickSnohomish County Executive John Lovick was raised by his grandmother in this house in Robeline, La. It had no running water when Lovick was a child. — Photo courtesy of John Lovick
Snohomish County Executive John Lovick was raised by his grandmother in this house in Robeline, La. It had no running water when Lovick was a child.

By Julie Muhlstein, The Herald

He was 12, old enough to know what it meant.

“Dr. King’s speech, frankly, it was a turning point in my life,” Snohomish County Executive John Lovick said last week.

Lovick grew up in the tiny town of Robeline, in Louisiana’s Natchitoches Parish.

He was raised by his grandmother, Elsie Lee Lovick. A mother of 11, she had picked cotton and scrubbed floors to support the family. Their house had no running water.

Robeline was far from Washington, D.C., where on Aug. 28, 1963, tens of thousands of people joined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The march ended with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s history-making “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

Many Americans watched the landmark events of the Civil Rights Movement in their living rooms. Lovick didn’t have that luxury.

“We didn’t have a TV. We would hear about it, or listen to the radio. Obviously, we knew these things were going on,” said Lovick, 62, who lives in Mill Creek.

Mark Mulligan / The HeraldSnohomish County Sheriff John Lovick speaks to the media about his intention to seek appointment to the position of Snohomish County Executive in front of the Snohomish County Courthouse Monday morning. — Mark Mulligan / The Herald
Snohomish County Sheriff John Lovick speaks to the media about his intention to seek appointment to the position of Snohomish County Executive in front of the Snohomish County Courthouse Monday morning.

For a child in a segregated school, in a region that was ground zero in the struggle for racial equality, King was a towering figure.

“There were conversations about him in school — always Dr. Martin Luther King. He was the one black public figure you could really see,” Lovick said.

As Snohomish County’s top public figure, Lovick will join in a celebration marking the 50th anniversary of King’s speech at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Everett Community College’s Jackson Center. Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson, former Everett City Councilman Carl Gipson and Tulalip Tribes Chairman Mel Sheldon are also scheduled to speak at the free event.

Lovick said that as a boy in Louisiana, “not in a million years did I imagine I’d be executive of a very large county — that level of success.” Yet he took to heart a message brought forth by King’s powerful words.

“As I watched him, as I listened to his speeches, he always said things were going to change. There will be opportunities. He wanted to make sure we were prepared, by staying in school, staying out of trouble,” Lovick said.

“Things were very, very tough growing up down there. But there’s a future out there. It was a message that always resonated with me,” said Lovick, who served in the U.S. Coast Guard, and as a State Patrol trooper, a state lawmaker and as county sheriff before being chosen in June to lead Snohomish County after Aaron Reardon’s resignation.

The systematic segregation of Lovick’s childhood is gone, but not the hurtful memories.

In all his years of school in Robeline, where Lovick graduated from Allen High School in 1968, he never had a white classmate. “It was just the way life was,” said Lovick, who remembers seeing school buses go past carrying white students.

Schools in his Louisiana town remained segregated long after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that found separate educational facilities are unequal. In 1957, King had taken a strong stand in the fight for integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.

It wasn’t until the early 1980s, Lovick said, that Allen High in his hometown was ordered closed by a federal judge.

There was dismay in his voice as he described a visit to Robeline after finishing boot camp in 1970. “I went to a movie theater and had to sit in a segregated section — in my Coast Guard uniform. There was a sign, ‘colored,’ with a finger pointing in one direction,” he said. “That stirred up some terrible memories.

During his boyhood, the Ku Klux Klan was active. Lovick said his grandmother, who died three years ago at 97, feared for his safety when he would walk home. “She was always afraid of what would happen to me. At the time, there was a lot of hatred,” Lovick said.

He recently saw “The Butler,” based on the true story of a black man who worked 34 years, under eight presidents, as a White House butler. With its sweep of history, Lovick said the movie was a reminder that “a lot of people sacrificed and suffered for me to be here.”Lovick shared another painful memory. His grandmother, he said, would “crawl on her knees scrubbing floors, but she couldn’t walk in the front door of the house where she worked.”

Yet he chooses to turn away from bitterness, embracing King’s message of love and forgiveness. “Hating people is too much of a burden for me to bear,” he said.

When King spoke those words — “I have a dream today” — Lovick said he was a little too young to join in demonstrations for civil rights.

“I have tremendous admiration for those people who did the hard things,” he said. “I don’t know right now if I would have had the courage to do what they did.”

‘I Have a Dream’ event at EvCC

A free public celebration marking the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Jackson Center on the Everett Community College campus, 2000 Tower St. Speakers include Snohomish County Executive John Lovick, Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson, Tulalip Tribes Chairman Mel Sheldon and former Everett City Councilman Carl Gipson.

“The March,” a new PBS documentary looking back at Aug. 28, 1963, the day King delivered his landmark speech in Washington, D.C., will air at 9 p.m. Tuesday on KCTS, Channel 9.

What Protection Of Traditional Knowledge Means To Indigenous Peoples

By Catherine Saez, Intercontinental Cry

World Intellectual Property Organization member states in July concluded the biennium work of the committee tasked with finding agreement on international legal tools to prevent misappropriation and misuse of genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore.

Indigenous peoples and local communities are holders of a substantial part of this knowledge and are demanding that it be protected against misappropriation but also against its use without their consent.

Intellectual Property Watch conducted two interviews with different indigenous groups attending the 15-24 July WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (IGC) (IPW, WIPO, 25 July 2013).

The IGC is working on the protection of genetic resources (GR), traditional knowledge (TK), and traditional cultural expressions (TCEs or folklore) against misappropriation mainly by commercial interests. Other concerns include knowledge that has been claimed for collection purposes, or research, or has been used for a long time and is considered part of the public domain.

Indigenous peoples’ groups have said that the public domain was basically created at the same time as the concept of intellectual property and their particular knowledge had been put in that public domain, by default, without their consent.

Preston Hardison, policy analyst representing the Tulalip Tribes, Jim Walker of the Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action (Australia), and Ronald Barnes of the Indian Council of South America answered questions about the protection of traditional knowledge, on the issue of the public domain, and what would be an optimum result of the IGC.

“I work for a tribe of 4,600 people, on a very small 6 mile square reservation. They’ve lost 90 percent of their land. They are surrounded by a sea of non-indigenous peoples. Their habitat has been fragmented. When they reserved their treaties they reserved a lot of ‘off reservation rights’,” said Hardison.

“They have this small reservation but they get to hunt and gather fish all around because they knew the reservation was going to be too small to sustain them,” he said. “But now all these lands are getting fragmented, polluted, broken up, rolled over by cities and urbanization, [and] climate change is causing species to move away from their territories, invasive species are coming in.”

The whole IGC discussion started with the problem of biopiracy, he said, and how to protect knowledge from being patented. “However the problem in the IP system, is that the best way to protect against patents is through the public domain because that is prior art.”

“What we very quickly found out is that this defensive approach was not helping us because the patent problem is really just a problem of temporary monopoly and the solution was for us to permanently lose control of our knowledge by putting it in the public domain.”

There are also issues when the knowledge is a pathway to discover the natural resources, “so people discover the value of cultural heritage through the traditional knowledge but the resource itself may not be protected,” Hardison said. “By solving the patent problem, by making your knowledge available, you may have opened yourself up to petty exploitation, to non-monopolistic exploitation.”

“The main problem is not the monopoly [inherent in a patent],” he said. “It is people finding out what the value of our medicinal plants is and coming and taking every single one they can find.”

Ronald Barnes, of the Indian Council of South America told Intellectual Property Watch: “When we talk about protection we want protection against exploitation so that the protection remains in the control of the holders of TK and the owners so that their right to self-determination is recognized and respected.”

People wanting to use the knowledge “have to register and let us know how they acquired it and how they are using it. Perhaps if it is sacred we don’t want it to be developed,” he specified. “Sometimes we try to keep it close to ourselves but it leaks out. There is always a way to go to one person and compensate that one person and then they say we have acquired this from you and now we have the right to develop it but it is still our collective property.”

Colonizers Put Traditional Knowledge in the Public Domain

There are some stewardship obligations that go with the knowledge, Hardison said. “When you receive it you don’t receive it freely to do whatever you want with it, you have obligations to the land, to whatever it is referring, to the spirits or the ancestors. This is a real problem with the public domain. Tribes have often shared their knowledge in the past but they shared it with people who had similar views and concepts and understood these obligations. But now we are in this world with 7 billion people on the internet.”

“If we decide to exchange knowledge, the problem is that the public domain exhausts all of our rights. It destroys the stewardship obligations that go with the knowledge,” he said.

Some of the indigenous peoples’ knowledge has been in the public domain for a long time, he explained, and allowed to be accessed for all these years, “but we never agreed to that,” he insisted. “We are not looking for monetary compensation but looking get the recognition of our right to control access.”

“We’ve held our traditional knowledge for thousands of years. It is ours,” said Barnes. “Then comes another peoples and we are colonised, why should we be held to a limitation to the knowledge control and the right to protect it?”

Optimum Outcome of the IGC, Carveout from Public Domain

One outcome of the IGC would be the identification of certain kinds of TK associated with GR, TK and TCEs that could be protected in perpetuity, some carved out of the public domain, said Hardison. “We don’t think all can, and we are open to discussion on what is protectable and what is not.”

“We are interested in creation and creativity too and some tribes and indigenous peoples would like to engage in this and some won’t, that is their business,” said Hardison. “For those who engage in it we don’t want the price of that to be the public domain, and that’s how it works.”

In the world system today, “there are very few examples of intangible cultural heritage laws which treat our knowledge in this holistic way,” Hardison said, adding, “what we have is IP law.”

“Our problem is if we ever exchange knowledge with an outsider in any way, the second we exchange it, it falls within the IP regime. We’ve never had a chance to negotiate that. We are not considered in the Berne convention [Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works], or any other WIPO conventions,” he noted.

“We know all cannot be protected but we want a regime to respect our rights where it can, and have that discussion about what can be protected and what can’t. We never put it in the public domain. That was the colonizers who put it in there for us.”

Common Thread, but Common Positions Hard to Achieve

“We might have different views on how we might get there, to achieve certain outcomes,” said Walker.”Circumstances might be different in different countries.”

“Some issues are easier than others,” said Hardison, Part of the problem is financial support, he said. Indigenous groups “are only funded for the minimum amount of time,” he said. “For example, we get three hours on Sunday before the meeting to meet together. That is not a lot of time to start working out common positions, especially on the kind of things that we have now.”

“It has gotten better now that we have translation, generally, coordinated by DoCip (Indigenous Peoples’ Center for Documentation, Research and Information),” he said. “But it is still hard to talk cross-culturally.”

“You need to have the resources back at home,” said Walker. “Getting prepared for those meetings is very difficult because generally you have your other obligations to your organization or to the people back home. Often you don’t have the time or the resources to get around and start consulting everyone to get a unified view or to get other opinions or inputs,” Walker said.

Barnes said that getting a common view was a tough exercise. “Whether or not we like it, we have some indigenous peoples who are paid more, given more funds and they are more willing to cooperate, whereas some of us refuse those funds and they want to retain their property.”

This Interview originally appeared at

www.ip-watch.org

Resurrecting an Estuary: The Qwuloolt Restoration Project

By Monica Brown, Tulalip News

TULALIP – Think of the Puget Sound as one massive estuary, fresh water from the creeks, streams and rivers of the uplands flow into the sound and mix during every tide with seawater from the Pacific Ocean. It’s the perfect recipe for salmon rearing habitat. Then add industry, boat traffic, shoreline development, acid rain and a cocktail of other chemicals. Suddenly, the perfect salmon nursery has become a precarious, dangerous and sometimes deadly environment.

Today, in the Puget Sound, about half of historic estuary land remains. Urban areas such as Seattle and Tacoma have lost nearly all of their estuaries, but cities are not the only places losing this vital habitat; according to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, only about a quarter of the Skagit Bay Estuary remains. Our own home, the Snohomish River watershed, which produces between 25-50% of the Coho salmon in Puget Sound, retains only 17% of its historical estuarial land. With the loss of estuaries and pollution on the rise it’s not a mystery why salmon runs and coastal wildlife are diminishing with every passing year.

An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water, (a mix of seawater and fresh water), with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it that also has a connection to the open sea. The Puget Sound is essentially a huge estuary. It’s the second largest in the U.S., Chesapeake Bay, located on the east coast, is the largest. Brackish waters are where young salmon go to feed, grow and make the transition to the salt water; they’re also an ideal place to hide from both freshwater and saltwater predators. Without suitable estuaries, many young salmon don’t survive long enough to make the journey to the ocean.

Enter Qwuloolt, an estuary located within the Snohomish watershed just south of Marysville. The name, Qwuloolt, is a Lushootseed word meaning “salt marsh.” Because of its rich delta soil, early settlers diked, drained and began using the land for cattle and farming. The levees they established along Ebey Slough, as well as the drainage channels and tide gates, significantly degraded the estuary by preventing the salt water from Puget Sound from mixing with the fresh water from Jones and Allen Creeks.

Luckily, levees can be breached and streams rechanneled. In 1994 Tulalip and a number of national and local partners teamed up to begin the second largest estuary restoration in the Puget Sound. In 2000, Tulalip, along with a group of trustees (NOAA, USFW, NRCS and the Washington State Department of Ecology) began purchasing 400 acres of historic estuary between Ebey Slough and Sunnyside Blvd.

In the years that followed, fish and wetlands biologists, hydrologists and experts in salmon recovery have helped reshape the once vibrant estuary turned farmland. Using historic information about the area, they’ve re-contoured the land to create more natural stream flows and removed invasive species. The final step in rehabilitating the habitat is to break through the earthen dikes and levees and allow the tides to once again mix fresh and salt water, to resurrect an estuary that provides shelter and sustenance for fish, wildlife and people.

Qwuloolt will not only help salmon and wildlife habitat, the restoration protects every resident of the Puget Sound. Estuaries store flood waters and protect inland areas. The plants, microorganisms and soils of the estuary filter water and remove pollutants as well as capture and store carbons for long periods of time.

Qwuloolt is:

Physical stream restoration is a complex part of the project, which actually reroutes 1.5 miles of Jones and Allen creek channels. Scientists used historical and field analyses and aerial photographs to move the creek beds near their historic locations.

Native plants and vegetation that once inhabited the area such as; various grasses, sedges, bulrush, cattails, willow, rose, Sitka spruce, pine, fir, crab apple and alder are replacing non-native invasive species.

Building in stormwater protection consists of creating a 6 ½ acre water runoff storage basin that will be used to manage stormwater runoff from the nearby suburban developments to prevent erosion and filter out pollutants so they don’t flow out of the estuary.

Construction of a setback levee has nearly finished and spans 4,000 feet on the western edge on Qwuloolt. The levee was constructed to protect the adjacent private and commercial property from water overflow once the levee is breached.

Breaching of the existing levee that is located in the south edge of the estuary will begin after the setback reaches construction. The breaching of the levee will allow the saline and fresh water to mix within the 400-acre marsh.

Other estuary restoration projects within the Snohomish River Watershed include; Ebey Slough at 14 acres, 400 acres of Union Slough/Smith Island and 60 acres of Spencer Island. The Qwuloolt Estuary Restoration Project has been a large collaboration between The Tulalip Tribes, local, county, state and federal agencies, private individuals and organizations.

Marysville Tulalip Chamber announces new Board

Kirk Boxleitner, The Marysville Globe

TULALIP — The Greater Marysville Tulalip Chamber of Commerce’s new Board of Directors represents a rare influx of new blood, according to Chamber President and CEO Caldie Rogers.

Although Rogers estimated that the Board already averages a turnover of about one-third of its members each year, she deemed this year’s number of new Board members unprecedented in the Chamber’s history.

“We deliberately seek out folks from small businesses, corporations, nonprofits and the Tribes to represent all segments of our community,” Rogers said. “This year’s Board boasts an especially amazing spectrum.”

Rogers touted the value of a recent team-building retreat at the Cedar Springs Campground in Naches, Wash., in getting the Board members familiar and comfortable with one another.

“We wanted a camaraderie that would allow them to discuss the pros and cons of issues without fear, so that when we do adopt a position, we’re unified behind it,” Rogers said. “That’s why we’ve never lost in our lobbying efforts.”

As the new Board plots the Chamber’s course for the future, Rogers called attention to Lance Curry of Edward Jones & Co., who will be heading up the Chamber’s emissaries program as part of its public relations efforts, and The Marysville Globe Publisher Paul Brown, who will chair the Chamber’s next “Buy Local” campaign.

“Educating the community on our local businesses has been proven effective,” Rogers said. “It’s one reason why we haven’t had to raise our dues for so many years.”

Rogers, Curry and Brown are joined on this year’s Board by Chair John Bell of Willis Hall, Vice Chair Teri Gobin of the Tulalip Tribes TERO, Past Chair David Chin of Go Small Biz, Chair Elect Will Ibershof of Waste Management, and Treasurer Robyn Warren of Langabeer, McKernan, Burnett & Co.

“Rebecca and Paul Pukis [of Mosaic Insurance Alliance] are waiting in the wings to chair our military affairs committee,” said Rogers, who named Perry McConnell of Hansen, McConnell and Pellegrini as the Chamber’s legal counsel. “We’re still waiting on a government affairs chair.”

Other Board members include Al Aldrich, Dom Amor, Dr. Becky Berg, Joy Brown, Doug Buell, U.S. Navy Cmdr. Jeff Caulk, Gloria Hirashima, Jessica Joseph, Pastor Greg Kanehan, Ken Kettler, John McKeon, Becky Mulhollen, Dennis Niva, Patrick Sisneros, Jack Schumacher, Rob Toyer and Chris Winters.

Steve Gobin: Retiring after a lifetime of service

Tulalip Quil Ceda Village General Manager Steve Gobin speaks at his last Quil Ceda Village Council Meeting. Steve is retiring July 1st, to enjoy life with his family and especially his grandchildren. Steve Gobin — Tulalip Quil Ceda Village General Manager Steve Gobin speaks at his last Quil Ceda Village Council Meeting. Steve is retiring July 1st, to enjoy life with his family and especially his grandchildren. Photo by Niki Cleary

Niki Cleary, TulalipNews

At 62, short, grey and balding, Steve Gobin is not an imposing figure. He is humble, quiet, enjoys fly fishing and is devoted to his family. But ask him to talk about his tribe, economic development, sustainability, health care or any number of subjects connected to the wellbeing and longevity of his tribe, spark his passion, and Steve goes from mild mannered grandpa to razor sharp advocate in an instant.

After more than two decades of service for his tribe, Steve, General Manager of Tulalip’s Quil Ceda Village, is retiring. His career included labor in fisheries and forestry, 20 years of healthcare experience, work lobbying for expanded CHS (Contract Health Services) programs and funds, a stint in Governmental Affairs and finally his last two jobs, Deputy General Manager and General Manager of Quil Ceda Village. During his lifetime, he’s seen vast changes on the reservation, and he’s been a catalyst for some of them.

“I was born and raised here,” said Steve. “I think the tribe has gone through a lot of different personalities, but the leadership vision for the tribe has stayed consistent through those years. There’s still that consistency in the board today and I think that’s what kept us moving forward step after step after step.”

The tribe’s current prosperity is relatively new. Steve reminisced about his childhood.

“When I was a boy, we cut shakes for $3.00 a day, and we were happy to have the $3.00,” he explained. “We lived on a few thousand dollars a year. We lived on commodities, hunting and fishing. The priorities were making the family whole and feeding everybody.

“A lot of times I didn’t start school in the fall, I had to work and take care of my family,” Steve recalled. “My dad used to fish in Alaska, he used to start in June and go to November, so I got out of school early and started late. But I didn’t know I was poor.”

In his youth, Steve said, unemployment was about 80%. Then in the 1990s Tulalip built a bingo hall.

“The tribe didn’t even have an office until around 1965, and I think we had two or three employees, my mom was one of the employees they hired,” he said. “People didn’t fit in on the outside. There was no place for them to make money, the whole reservation economy was non-existent.”

Although there is always room for growth, Steve is grateful and astonished at what has been accomplished during his lifetime.

“It may seem to a lot of people that we don’t get paid enough, but look at what the tribe has given us, just in the last 20 years. It amazes me,” Steve described a few of the programs now provided. “We’ve funded healthcare, pharmaceuticals, mental health and drug and alcohol programs to help us overcome 200 years of poverty. We have money to pay per-capita payments to our people.

“No one needs to be starving or without a job. This is not the world that I knew growing up. It’s hard for me to look at my kids, even though I wanted them to have what I didn’t, and know they didn’t have the opportunity to experience living on the beach for food and to stay alive. Some of the bonding we did as a family and as a reservation, that really made us strong and we need to find a way to bring that back to our community.”

While some see addiction and social disorder as the pitfalls of prosperity, Steve says those dangers always existed. But now we have a chance to shape our future.

“The killer drug in 1970 was Rainier Beer,” he said. “Today it’s meth and heroin. But the things that stem from addiction are the same; child abuse, not feeling safe in the home, they’re the same now as then, but now there are more of us and it costs more to deal with it.

“But, with economic development,” Steve continued, “I think we have an opportunity to change the past and create a new vision for the future. Where kids don’t have to be hurt and people don’t have to go through those things. We can bring back some of that community pride to the tribe.

“A lot of what we’ve put into the ground, past Board of Directors, John McCoy, I can see it’s a future here, a future for my kids and grandkids and their kids. We’re building a sustainable economy so that our children don’t have to deal with the economic issues that we had. We’re the second largest employer in Snohomish County now. It’s been rewarding to be here.”

Right now, Steve can’t quite envision what the tribe will look like in a hundred years or more. But, family and culture, he described, have to be part of the future.

“I grew up and raised my family with the assumption that the reservation would always be a cultural center for our people,” he said. “But the sheer growth and population over the next 50 to 100 years is going to take that natural resource away from us. We’re going to have to find another way to be culturally connected to our past without fishing, hunting and the things that are the core of who we are. It’s going to be a challenge for our future leaders to take what’s best of the past and bring it forward to make a place for our people.”

Asked what teaching he’d like to leave for future generations, Steve said, “Take pride in yourself, work for your tribe’s future and the rewards that you will get will be enriching and last forever.”

Steve’s last day is July 1^st. Like all of our leaders, I have no doubts that for the rest of his days, Steve will be looking out for the tribe and teaching future leaders what it means to be Tulalip. Happy retirement, Steve.

Sheldon presents ‘State of the Tribes’

Kirk BoxleitnerTulalip Tribal Chair Mel Sheldon Jr. speculated that the economy might be on its way back during this year’s State of the Tribes address to the Greater Marysville Tulalip Chamber of Commerce on April 26. — Kirk Boxleitner
Tulalip Tribal Chair Mel Sheldon Jr. speculated that the economy might be on its way back during this year’s State of the Tribes address to the Greater Marysville Tulalip Chamber of Commerce on April 26.

By Kirk Boxleitner, The Marysville Globe

TULALIP — Tulalip Tribal Chair Mel Sheldon Jr. expressed optimism for the future, both in the short term and the long run, as he delivered this year’s State of the Tribes address to the Greater Marysville Tulalip Chamber of Commerce on April 26.

“This was one of the strongest economic regions of the pre-Columbian era, and it can be so once again,” said Sheldon, citing the Native American tribes’ commerce in this area, even well before white settlers had ever arrived. “We offer gaming, retail and entertainment to visitors.”

Sheldon summed up the results of the recent Tulalip Tribal Board of Directors election by noting that he, Vice Chair Deborah Parker, Treasurer Chuck James and Board members Glen Gobin and Marlin Fryberg Jr. had all been reelected, while Marie Zackuse was elected back onto the Board as secretary, and Theresa Sheldon was elected to her first term on the Board.

“Deborah Parker has really led the charge on the Violence Against Women Act,” Sheldon said. “It’s a monumental achievement on behalf of Indian Country and all women.”

Sheldon also praised Ken Kettler, president and chief operating officer of the Tulalip Resort Hotel and Casino, for the roles that he and his staff have played in the Tulalip Resort’s host of awards over the past year, including being named “Best Casino of the Year” by KING-5.

“This place is a destination,” said Sheldon, who cited the number of organizations that take advantage of the hotel’s conference rooms. “We’re 100 percent occupied during the weekend and 80 percent occupied during the week. You can build something like the Taj Mahal casino, that people will visit once and then never again, or you can do what we did.”

While the Tulalip Resort is set to add Asian fusion cuisine and sports bar restaurants this summer, the Quil Ceda Creek Casino is due for $15 million worth of remodeling.

“There’s been rumors for a while that we might be adding a new hotel wing, and the truth is that we’re always having conversations about it,” Sheldon said. “If we’re at 80 percent of our total occupancy during the week, we could probably stand to expand.”

Although Sheldon praised the Tulalip Amphitheatre as an intimate outdoor venue for entertainment and various community events, he acknowledged that the Board has asked itself whether there should be a larger capacity events center as well. And with the Tribes meeting their budget projections, Sheldon speculated that the economy might be on its way back.

“Tulalip dollars stretch a long way,” Sheldon said. “Seventy percent of our work force lives off the reservation. We pay out $120 million in annual wages, and most of that money stays in the local economy. Last year, Quil Ceda Village paid $40 million in state sales tax.”

Sheldon touted the past year’s openings of Cabela’s and the Olive Garden, and anticipated the impending completion of 90,000 additional square feet to the Seattle Premium Outlets. At the same time, Sheldon was quick to share credit for the Tribes’ successes with its partners in the cities of Marysville and Everett, Snohomish County and beyond.

“Marysville’s got a great mayor whose work will benefit this community even long after he’s gone,” said Sheldon, who mentioned Marysville Mayor Jon Nehring’s lobbying against the traffic impacts of increased coal trains as but one example, before he directed his comments to outgoing Marysville School District Superintendent Dr. Larry Nyland. “From our hearts, we thank you. We’ve always trusted you. We’re blessed with great leaders all around. If we want a strong economy, we need to keep working together.”