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About Siletz news / (Siletz, OR) 199?-current | View Entire Issue (July 1, 2015)
Siletz News Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians P.O. Box 549 Siletz, OR 97380-0549 SILETZ NEWS Delores Pigsley, Tribal Chairman Brenda Bremner, General Manager and Editor-in-Chief Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians Vol. 43, No. 7 July 2015 Missing Moccasins … will not get their per capita check on time! What is a Missing Moccasin? This is the nickname for a Tribal member who has an invalid address on file with the Siletz Enrollment Department. When a Tribal administrative depart- ment receives returned mail that is undeliverable, it notifies the Enrollment Department. Enrollment staff will attempt to contact the Tribal member at the most recently provided phone numbers or any other address provided. Once staff has determined there is no way to get a message to the Tribal member to update his/her address, the Tribal member will be added to the Miss- ing Moccasin list for publication in Siletz News each month. In order to receive any mail from the Tribal administration, including per capita checks, the Tribal member must submit his/her address change on the Tribal Member Information Change Form to the Enrollment Department. For security purposes, address changes are not accepted over the phone and can only be made by the Tribal mem- ber. To submit an address change in time to still receive the mailing of per capita checks, you must submit the address change form in time for the Enrollment Department to receive it by 4:30 p.m. on July 17, 2015. Address changes received after that date will be put into the system, however the address printed for per capita check mailing already will be finalized. As of June 11, 2015, there are 186 adult Siletz Tribal Missing Moccasins. If you are on this list, please update your contact information with the Enrollment Department immediately. Additionally, 112 minor children have an invalid address on file; however, children’s names are not published. If you are not receiving a quarterly statement for your child’s trust account, they may have an invalid address on file. If you know someone on this list, please ask them to contact the Enroll- ment Department. If you have any questions, contact the Enrollment staff at 800-922-1399, ext. 1258, or 541-4448258. To update your address with Contract Health, you must fill out another form that is available on the Tribal website under Tribal Services>Health Care and Download Registration Form link at the bottom of the page. See Missing on page 4 Presorted First-Class Mail U.S. Postage Paid - Permit No. 178 Salem, OR Tribe receives 2 Siletz baskets in separate donations Carl and Deirdre Reynolds from Lincoln City, Ore., have donated a small double-handled Siletz basket with a dyed root design to the Siletz Tribe. Deirdre’s sisters, Betty McBee and Patsy Minter (and her husband, John) from Florence, Ore., accompanied them to Siletz to gift the basket to the Tribe. While they don’t have much history on the basket, they do remember they were anxious to get rid of a rather mean horse at one time and traded the horse for a number of things, including the basket. Another basket has been donated by the late Clarice Lane’s sister, Kathleen “Katie” Overton, who grew up in Siletz and received the basket as a gradua- tion gift in the 1950s. The basket was woven by Ida Bensell. Katie had saved a newspaper article showing Ida posing with one of her baskets and preparing for her 91 st birthday. The article was laminated and came with the basket. Photos by Diane Rodriquez A basket donated by Katie Overton (above); Deirdre and Carl Reynolds (right) with their basket donation Art competition opens for vocational rehab conference The Consortia of Administrators for Native American Rehabilitation (CANAR) has opened its 2015 Annual Conference Art Competition. The conference will be held Nov. 9-12 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The competition is open to staff and consumers of any American Indian voca- tional rehab program in Indian Country. The competition will be judged on how well the entry portrays this year’s mid-year conference theme, We are CANAR: United as Warriors – Telling Our Stories, which represents the con- cept that CANAR’s strength is drawn from all of its members collectively. See Art on page 4 DOJ proposes legislation for Tribal Equal Access to Voting Act of 2015 to guarantee Native voting rights WASHINGTON – The U.S. Depart- ment of Justice in May proposed legisla- tion to Congress designed to guarantee equal voting rights for American Indians. Many Indian reservations and Alaska Native villages are located great distances from polling locations, which contributes to low voter participation rates among American Indians and Alaska Natives. DOJ Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik stated in a letter transmitting the proposed bill, “The Department of Justice is committed to ensuring equal access to vot- ing for Native American voters. We believe that the enclosed proposal would address serious voting obstacles faced by citizens who are members of Indian Tribes ….” The following are a few examples of the tremendous distances Native voters encounter when attempting to vote: • • • • • Duck Valley Reservation – 104 miles from the nearest polling place in Elko, Nev. (a 2-hour, 7-minute drive) Goshute Reservation – 163 miles from the nearest polling place in Erda, Utah (a 2-hour, 47-minute drive) Hopi Tribe – 90 miles from the near- est polling place in Joseph City, Ariz. (a 1-hour, 43-minute drive) Navajo Nation (New Mexico) – New- comb is 34 miles from the Tohatchi polling place and 58 miles from the nearest early voting location in Gallup. Navajo Nation (Arizona) – The near- est polling place is in Kayenta, which is 44 miles (50 minutes) from Shonto. The legislation would require states whose territory contains an Indian res- ervation or Alaska Native village to provide a minimum of one polling place for each Indian Tribe in a location of its own choosing. States also must make voting materi- als available and provide the same hours of operation and payment to poll workers at those locations as it does with all of its other locations. The obligation to provide polling places is contingent on an Indian Tribe filing a timely formal request. “The right to vote is the bedrock of our democracy and must be ensured for Native people living on Indian res- ervations or in Alaska Native villages,” said Brian Cladoosby, president of the National Congress of American Indians. “We are very supportive of this legislation because it comes directly from discus- sions with Tribal leadership.”