Image provided by: The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs; Warm Springs, OR
About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (April 14, 2005)
Pqge 12 Spilyqy Tymoo, Wqrm Springs, Oregon April 14, 2005 Compact: 2000 video lottery terminals and 70 table games (Continued from pac 1) The recitals also explain ihc tribes' aboriginal, historical, and legal ties to Cascade Iocks based on the 1855 treaty and tradi tional occupancy of the area at treaty time. In addition, the re citals explain the connection be tween the Cascade Locks project to the tribes' proposal to build a casino on the Mood River trust lands, and the con troversy regarding the develop ment of that land and the own ership of the old Columbia River Gorge Highway. These provisions are non-binding but arc important because they lay out the basis for the Secretary of the Interior's approval for an off-reservation casino under Section 20 IC.RA. Scope of gaming The compact authorizes 1800 video lottery terminals (VLTs) and 61) table games at opening, with expansion to 2000 VLTs and 70 table games fol lowing the first year of opera tion. Unlike other Oregon ca sino agreements, the compact also permits the tribes and the state, after one year, to negoti ate a memorandum of under standing regarding the extension of credit for gaming. Revenue sharing After the first seven years when the loans have been paid off, the state's share is fixed at 13 percent (17 percent less two percent credit). The state is pro jected to receive $265 million over first 10 years of operation, which is 1 0.5 percent of net win. Revenue sharing funds will not go to the state's general fund. Instead, revenue sharing pay- mehfe"'will go to a fax-exempt non-profit foundation set up by the tribes, called the "Warm Springs Tribe-Oregon Benefit least one tribal member will sit on the foundation's board of directors. The foundation will distribute money partly for Co lumbia Gorge Scenic Area en hancements, partly for projects in economically distressed areas of the state, and mostly for fi nancial aid for Oregon students going to Oregon colleges. The state's right to revenue share is subordinated to the bond holders' secured lien on casino revenues. This is advantageous for the tribes and is rare among Indian gaming compacts. It will help with the cost of financing. Revenue sharing is eliminated if the Oregon Constitution is amended to allow non-Indian casinos. Revenue sharing is adjusted downward, and in some in stances eliminated, if this gov ernor or a future governor con curs in taking land into trust for another Indian casino, which has a 25 percent or greater impact on the revenues of the Cascade Locks casino, Class III gaming is to cease at Kah-Nec-Ta upon opening of Cascade Locks casino. The tribes are to transfer Hood River fee lands to the state. The state will pay the tribes for fee lands through credit against revenue-sharing obliga tion in year 10. With regard to I lood River trust land, the tribes grant the state a conservation easement, which restricts future development on the trust land to recreational uses and prohib its gaming. The state and tribes resolve the dispute regarding ownership of Columbia River Gorge Highway across trust land, as the tribes agree to give a right-of-way to the state. This is a perpetual compact; that is, it does not have a termination date. This is a major advantage to the tribes and is rare among state-tribal gaming compacts. dinance will govern organized labor at Cascade Ixcks in ways that arc different from the Na tional Labor Relations Act (NLRA) process. Union organiz ers may voluntarily choose to utilize the tribal labor ordinance instead of organizing under the federal NLRA process. The tribal labor ordinance will pro hibit union organizing for eight months following opening of the casino. Community benefit fund with Cascade Locks There will be a nine-member board to administer the commu nity benefit fund. The board is to be composed of four tribal representatives, and four com munity and state representa tives, with the final member se lected jointly. The community benefit fund will represent 6 percent of the annual net operating profits of the casino. Tribal commitments to help pay for infrastructure, road and highway improve ments, police and fire protection improvements in Cascades Locks will, in large part, be paid out of the community benefit fund in the early years. There will be new standards for licensing of employees and contractors, and procedures for Tribal Gaming Commission Tribal labor ordinance regulation and oversight moni- The tribes agree to adopt a toring by the state police, tribal labor ordinance applicable ' Standard dispute resolution "to the Cascade Locks casino' procedure'uscs'rnediatidn'and within six months of approval arbitration. There will be an of compact. The tribal labor or- option for either party to seek Wood product: goal to create more jobs (Continued from page 3) Using WSFPI's waste wood reduces Composite Products' raw material cost, and helps WSFPI by creating a built-in waste recovery system. "If you expand your thinking out a little bit past that, we think there's some opportunities," Darnell said. He said Composite Products can not only recover WSFPI's waste lumber, but it can also identify sources of fiber. Darnell said Composite Products bought saws that will cut off quality pieces from WSFPI's waste lum ber, which might be otherwise marred, that his company can use. "It can be profitable because we don't carry a lot of overhead, we don't carry a lot of plant burden," he said. "Everything is under this umbrella, the Mill stone umbrella, which is now our umbrella. As long as we've got the facility to bring it under our umbrella, it works, and it wouldn't work if we didn't. "We don't care if we just break even on this. I wouldn't buy a business myself to break even, but if we break even, we're okay with that, because the mentality here is we want to cre ate jobs." Darnell said further expan sion is possible using technology Composite Products already has at its disposal, like the means to make wroodcn doors and door jambs fire-retardant. "We have special presses here that we use to make several of our products," he said. "We deal with exotic adhesives, because you can't just take a normal ad hesive and glue the concrete product to wood." Among its products, Com posite Products makes cores for fire doors that are made of a combination of wood fiber and concrete, requiring only a ve neer of wood surface to com plete and use. Move to Warm Springs To make sure the Millstone division's transition from Redmond to Warm Springs is complete, Darnell kept on plant manager Mark Howard. "He's a wood products guy," said Darnell. "He's got a lot of back ground in secondary wood prod ucts, so he's the current teacher. "We're training a lead man. He's not completed his training, but he's close to it. When he's through with that, he'll be able to do set ups for all the ma chines, moldcrs, saws, planers, everything, and then he becomes a teacher." At Composite Products, Darnell said, every job has been cross-trained to several differ ent employees so the operation keeps running, even with occa sional absences due to emergen cies. When the additional saws that were part of the acquisition of Millstone are installed along with the necessary air system, even more employees can be hired, Darnell said. When those things are in stalled, it'll allow his company to produce up to 40 times faster, and thus help WSFPI in its "waste recovery even faster. A finger jointer, the last machine to be installed, will help WSFPI "get into a brand new market." "It allows them to take lower grade material, cut it up, repro cess it and make another prod uct out of it, make money on it," he said. "And that's a good deal. That's a very good deal." The Millstone division works four days a week, 10 hours a day. The band saws used to cut the undulated edges can make eight different cuts. Each one takes between two and three hours to adjust to a different style or slope of undulation, so stock, or an order, of one kind of cut will be filled before an other is tried. Howard worked for Morelock Wood Products in Bend for six years before he worked for Millstone. He had worked for Millstone for its one year of existence before Com posite Products recently ac quired it. Howard said the train ing of his new crew is "going exceptionally well. They went from having never seen the equipment before to, by the fifth day, doing as well as my crew in Redmond," he said. remedy in federal court any time. If the federal court de clines to take jurisdiction, dis putes will be litigated in state court. An expedited dispute resolu tion process will be available to the state in emergency situations involving a threat to public safety or to the fairness and integrity of the games or based on a pat tern of willful compact viola tions. The expedited process calls for the state and tribal represen tatives to meet to resolve the dispute as soon as possible, and requires the tribes, if the dispute is not resolved, arc to implement the state's recommended action unless the tribes go to court. Amendments and termina tion This is a perpetual compact; that is, it does not have a termi nation date. This is a major ad vantage to the tribes and is rare among state-tribal gaming com pacts. In California, for example, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used the 20-year term of exist ing compacts as leverage to gain 25 percent revenue-sharing agreements in exchange for ex tending the compacts. The compact may be amended if both parties agree. Either party may seek to amend the compact by request. The parties are obligated to meet and negotiate in good faith. Warm Springs, please support the businesses you see in the Spilyay. Thank you. Meeting Thursday on casino compact For tribal members who are Inter ested In the Gorge casino Issue, there will be a meeting at the Agency Longhouse on Thursday, April 14 starting at 6 p.m. The meeting will be a chance for tribal members to comment on the recent agreement with the state, as well as to ask questions about this project. 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