Image provided by: The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs; Warm Springs, OR
About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (March 17, 2005)
SCA OrColl E 73 .sea v. 30 no. 6 March 17. 2005 Univeriity of Oregon Library Received ont 03-22-05 Spilyay tytoo. P.O. Box 870 Warm Springs, OR 97761 Acquisition Dept. Serials Knight Library 1299 University of Oregon Eugene OR 97403 1205 ECRWSS Postal Patron U.S. Postage PRSRTSTD Warm Springs, OR 97761 Coyote News, est 1976 March 17, 2005 Vol. 30, No. 6 50 cents (F - off Tyme New youth center opens April 1 By Dave McMechan Spilyay Tymoo April 1 is the date set for the open ing of the new Warm Springs youth center. The center is a project of the group Extraordinary Young People, which has developed a similar center on the Crow Reservation in Montana. Matt Burton, chief executive officer of Extraordinary Young People, said lie hopes to see results in Warm Springs similar to those seen on the Crow Res ervation. "They report a 50-percent decrease in youth crime," said Burton. The new center will be housed in the building on I lollywood Boulevard that is used as the meeting hall of the Veterans of Foreign Wars-Ladies Aux iliary. Over the past few months, Ex traordinary Young People district man ager Jerry Jacoban has made extensive changes to the building, remodeling and renovating the structure. The outside still looks the same but the inside is completely different. For instance, the building is going to include a retail shop, called the Rez I lip Hop and Hoop Shop. Young people can earn Nike bucks to buy basketball shoes, sweatshirts, hats and other Nike apparel. In time the center will include some kind of restaurant, said Burton. The center will have games for young people such as pool and foos-ball. See CENTER onpage .... B&GClub is doing fine By Brian Mortensen Spilyay Tymoo In its second incarnation, the Boys and Girls Club of Warm Springs is far ing well, thank you. The club hosts around 50 children each day during the school week, mostly from Warm Springs Elementary School, though the club is open for children ages 6 to 18. Since the club was reformed last May in a building just west of the school on W'arm Springs Street, every one, including director June Smith, is still new. "There was an existing club at the Community Center, and that got shut down, and then last May, we were hired on as staff," Smith said. "So we're all new staff." The club has a five-person staff, including Smith. Carol Miller is the membership ser vice coordinator. She helps Smith in bringing information out to the local community about what the club's do ing, and makes sure the kids are checked in each time they come. "She's kind of the centralized point everv Hav fnr lcirls antl narenrs." Smith said. Indeed, Miller is the first person a visitor sees when he or she walks into the Boys and Girls Club's modular build ing. Miller and Allee Jackson, who will soon be the club's arts coordinator, have both been on staff since last May, as well. Kosie Wolfe, who started in Janu ary, is the club's Sports, Fitness and Recreation Director. Leo Gonzalez is split half-and-half between the club in Warm Springs and the one in Madras. "He helps us out, and his official tide is Health and Life Skills Coordina tor," Smith said. "He implements all of the prevention programs for the kids." Soon, the club will also have a coor dinator for the TRAIL program. Set CLUB en page 7 Plan for charter school taking shape By Brian Mortensen Spilyay Tymoo Seeing a charter school as the key to an "elite education" for students from Warm Springs, the tribes' Edu cation Committee this week af firmed its plans to move ahead in its efforts to start such a school. During the committee meeting Monday evening at I ligh Jxokcc I-odgc, the charter school was one of four areas of emphasis. Four members of the five-member Edu cation Committee were present, along with six others who attended. "We were asked by the school district to consider calling it the al ternative school," Education Com mittee chairwoman Marie Calica said. "And I didn't quite agree with that because an alternative school really has just 'at-risk' students. We have students, too, who want to go to a different school, who want to learn more about their traditional ways and culture." Calica described the charter school as "a public school of choice," a school selected by parents and children. Charter schools arc independently nin public schools, created for the pur pose of molding their own curricula or programs. An example is the new Nixyaawii School in Mission, on the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Covering middle and high school students, Nixyaawii incorporates Native language and specialized curricula that conform to Native custom. I lowever, as Nixyaawii is a charter school, it is also a public school, gov erned by a local school district, like 509 J. Though such a school would be lo cated in Warm Springs with perhaps a Native-oriented curriculum, it would have to be open to non-Native students as well. "A charter school would have to be open to all students," Calica said. "So the other thing we'd have to do to get money from the district is provide a lottery for the number of applications, because it might exceed its capacity." Whatever the capacity the building for such a school might be, having as few as 10 non-Native students out of a total enrollment of 100 would entitle it to funding through 509-J, she said. A possible problem looming ahead, though, is an anticipated slashing of Impact Aid monies. Impact Aid provides financial sup port to school districts affected by fed eral activities, including Indian reser vations and military bases, which in clude lands that would otherwise be taxable. "This is something we're lobbying for, to not cut down the national Indian education," Calica said. "The Impact Aid is $1,500, maybe plus, per student that goes to the Jefferson County school district, and if they cut it down, the district is going to be very low on money for the char ter school." See CHARTER SCHOOL on 12 Problem of meth harms whole community By Brian Mortensen Spilyay Tymoo Whose problem is mcthamphct aminc anyway? The answer, it would seem, is al most everyone in a community, as the drug has become a scourge to Western states over the past couple decades for its addictive qualities, low price relative to other drugs, and the swath of crime that follows meth use in a community. The problem was the subject of the day-long "Mcthamphetamine: Whose Prob lem Is It? Part II" seminar at Living Hope Christian Center in Madras Feb. 28. Several hundred people attended the eight-hour seminar, sponsored by BestCare Treatment Services, that included panel discussions with law enforcement officials, commu nity activists, business owners help ing law enforcement, drug treatment counselors, and those who have per sonally experienced "meth's" de structive power and fight every day to break free from it. Local filmmaker Duke White showed a 20-minute trailer for his recently completed movie on meth amphctamine use, "Downfall," com pletely filmed in Madras, his home town, and featuring members of the local law enforcement community. Among the 18 members of vari ous panels who both spoke and an swered audience questions during Ike " - 1 4- f M-? -?; jry' J Brian MortensenSpilyay Leona Ike, of Warm Springs Parole and Probation, left, addresses the conference while Sonya Littledeer-Evans listens. the day was Leona Ike, supervisor of the Warm Springs Parole and Proba tion Department since 1993. Ike said she has experienced the dangerous swath created by metham phetamine use on the reservation, both in the Warm Springs community and in her own family. She said the Warm Springs Jail is consistently overcrowded because of methamphetamine use. "A high percentage of our inmates are serving jail time for methamphet amine use," she said. "The majority of them are drug-related cases." Youth, particularly children of meth users, arc affected, she said, in that about 50 percent of drug tests her de partment administers trigger referrals toward investigation by tribal children protective services concerning child neglect. "Tribal probation this year has also began drug testing for Child Protective Services, and approximately 50 percent of those tests have come back posi tive for methamphetamine and mari juana," she said. She said methamphetamine's effect is manifested in the great number of children now living with their grand parents, who are forced to provide such items as diapers and assume the day-to-day responsibilities the children's parents can no longer handle, such as day-care. Theft, always an unwanted by product of methamphetamine use within a community, has reached the point on the reservation that tribal regalia, sacred items criminals al ways left alone, arc being stolen and sold at pawn shops, she said, to buy more meth. The largest problem she said is a lack of available counselors to help meth users who have been caught. "About 80 percent of our clients have minimal contact with their as signed counselors in mental health," she said. "That's due to lack of ad equate available staff when our people are reporting in to Commu nity Counseling. "Treatment is sometimes not an option, or an immediate option for our clients. They have a long wait ing list, and the estimated period of time is three to six months, and with methamphetamine users, its really critical that you get them into treat ment, and if you don't, it's basically a lost cause, and you can expect them to be in your judicial system for a long time." See METH on page 9 The Treaty of 1855 Letter from Billy Chinook describes plight of tribes (The following is an article in a series regarding the Treaty of 1855. This June the Treaty will be 150 years old.) By Dave McMechan Spilyay Tymoo The best way to describe the state of the tribes in 1853 is through the words of an Indian who was there at the time. In November of 1853 William Chinuch, known also as Billy Chinook, wrote a brief but urgent letter to an official of the federal government. His letter reads as follows: Dear Sir: "e are tormented almost every day by the white people who desire to settle on our land and although we have built houses and opened gardens they wish in spite of us to lake possession of the very spots we occupy. VTe re monstrate and tell them that this is our land, they reply that the Gov ernment gives them the right to settle in any part of Oregon Territory and they desire to take land in this very spot. How we wish to know whether this is the land of the white man or the In dian. If it is our land, the white must not trouble us. If it is the land of the white man, when did he buy it? Now we as Indians have no power to defend our rights against the whites; will you inform us how we are to do that. Our country here is very broken and much of it rocky, but little suitable for farming; we have many horses and many of us have begun to plow and sow and more will soon begin; but if the white man comes he must have lands for a large farm; soon all the good land will be taken. Where will we go - where will we make our homes? If we lose our coun try what shall we do? I know that the whites are strong, they have ammuni tions and guns and power; we cannot resist them; but we ask them to leave us our homes for we are poor and have no power. Be so kind as to answer us and fell us what you think. Signed, William Chinuch. I have seen hard times have been from the Dalles to the states with Col. Fremont. P.S. If it is in your power, have the kindness to send two or more plows for the use of the tribe, as we have no means of working the ground, our only plow being broken. If you have the power to give us the plows and some hoes, it will help us much, if not 'tis all right, we would like to have wrought iron plows as cast iron is easily broken. Yours with humble respect. The letter is dated Nov 3, 1853, and Chinuch wrote it from "Wasco Dalles of the Columbia." In an 1853 report, Joel Palmer, BIA superintendent, said the government must act soon to avoid total catastro phe for the Indians. "A home remote from the setdements must be selected for them. There they must be guarded from the pestiferous influence of de graded white men, and restrained by proper laws from violence and wrong among themselves. Let comfortable houses be erected for them, seeds and proper implements furnished, and in struction and encouragement given them in the cultivation of the soil." In his report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Palmer comments on the need for the government to move forward and sign the treaties that had been negotiated with Indian tribes of Oregon. "I would call the attention of the department to the fact that a general restlessness and dissatisfaction exists among these tribes with whom treaties were negotiated on account of their non-ratification. They have become distrustful of all promises made them by the U.S., and believe the design of the government is to defer doing any thing for them till they have wasted away." Such was the year 1853, two years before the U.S. government and the Wasco and Warm Springs tribes would have their treaty signed.