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News from Indian Country Page 8 Spilyay Tymoo August 3, 2006 U.S. House says tribal casinos roam too far ■ ANTHONY, N.M. (AP)— Legislation approved by a U.S. House committee could hinder Jemez Pueblo’s plans to build a casino on New Mexico’s south ern border. The bill by House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., takes aim at the trend o f off-reservation gam bling— what some critics call “reservation shopping.” The bill, which passed the com m ittee 27-9 on Ju ly 26, would amend the Indian Gam ing Regulatory Act of 1988 to eliminate an exception that al lows tribes to build off-reserva tion with the approval of the Interior secretary and the state’s governor. Jemez Pueblo and Santa Fe art dealer G erald Peters are seeking perm ission to build a casino in Anthony— 300 miles from the northern New Mexico pueblo— under the provision. Their proposal calls for the land in Anthony to be put into trust for the pueblo. The House measure would allow applications subm itted before March 7 to move for ward as long as the tribe has primary geographical and his torical ties to the land. Jemez Pueblo submitted its ap p licatio n in D ecem ber o f 2004, meeting that cutoff date, but it’s unclear whether the tribe’s application meets the land con dition. At least three tribes have ties to the land, including the Fort Sill Apache tribe in Oklahoma, which opposes the casino. Paul Chinana, former Jemez Pueblo governor and chairman o f the Jem ez Gaming E nter prise Board, said the pueblo can prove its historical ties through o ral h isto ry if it need s to. Chinana said he w ould need approval from the tribe’s reli gious council. David Wilson, a spokesman for Peters, contends Jemez does have the necessary ties. Tribal members from several pueblos, including Jem ez, traveled with Territorial Gov. Don Antonio de Otermin 325 years ago, estab lishing settlem ents along the lower Rio Grande, Wilson said in a news release. A group that opposes the Anthony casino, the Committee to Protect Dona Ana County, said the House bill “spells death” to the Anthony proposal. “They have no ties to the area, and that’s why Congress has tried to put this to an end,” saidjoe Monahan, a spokesman for the group. “If that’s going to be the law, we challenge the Jem ez Pueblo and Gerald Pe ters to show direct historical or geographical ties to the area.” Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., Scholarship fills wish of late Indian woman TUCSON, Ariz. (AP)— As Pauline Miguel lay on her deathbed in 1999, she looked lovingly at her eight daugh ters, living embodiments of one o f h er lif e ’s go als achieved. From the first day her old est daughter, Mary, went to school more than 50 years earlier, Miguel had sworn to keep her girls from making the same mistakes she made as a yo u n g T ohono O’odham student. She wanted all of them to graduate from high school in stead o f dropping out and living with an eighth-grade education. The family realizes now that M iguel was trying to make sure her descendants wouldn’t be subject to the worst American Indian ste reotype: lazy, illiterate and de linquent. B ut on an o th er le v e l, M iguel, w ho w ould have been 79 July 18, knew it re ally wasn’t enough to moti vate her family to get the best education possible. The week before she died, she m ade a req u est o f her daughters: Sell her red Nissan truck, as well as the home in Phoenix, and put the money into a scholarship to help Tohono O’odham students pay for col lege. Seven years later, the Pauline Miguel Scholarship Fund is still giving $1,000 annually to a de serving student— som etim es two if the committee can’t pick just one. The fund is handled by the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona. The three daughters who con- tributed $4,000 each to the scholarship—Alberta Flannery, N ed d ie B lain e and M ary B lis s — spoke re c e n tly o f a mother who never gave up on her daughters, even when they begged for just one day away from school. “She was very pro-educa tion,” said Flannery, now 58 and a retired administrator for the Tucson Unified School District. “We never m issed a day o f school. E very year w e’d get those little certificates on the last day o f school.” Investigation finds Indian trust officials broke rules WASHINGTON (AP)— Officials in the federal agency that oversees American In dian trust assets had an im proper social relationship with an accounting firm and pres sured subordinates to give the firm preferential treatment, a government investigation found. Senior m anagers in the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians based in Albuquerque golfed, drank and partied with the execu tives o f the New Mexico ac co u n tin g firm C h av arria, Dunne & Lame}7, which won $6.6 million in contract work over eight years, according to the report by the Interior Department’s inspector gen eral. The investigation, first re p o rted this w eek by U.S. News & World Report, found that employees in the trustee’s o ffice “ felt p ressu red by these senior OST officials to continue to award work” to the firm and that they feared retaliation for speaking out. The officials’ relationship with the firm “created an ap p e a ran c e o f p re fe re n tia l treatm ent,” violating ethics standards and an intern al memo directing employees to avoid close contact with con tractors, Inspector General Earl Devaney wrote to de partment officials in the let ter accompanying the report dated May 16. The office was created in 1994 to im prove account ability and management of Indian funds held in trust by the government. * S p ecia l T ru stee Ross Swimmer said in a statement that he had directed his man agers to take new ethics train ing as a result o f the report’s findings. “Any appearance o f an ethics violation at any level within OST is a great con cern, and I believe that the additional ethics training will allow everyone to be fully informed of the rules,” Swim mer said. Accounting firm execu tives said in a statement that they believe their contracts were awarded under the ap propriate guidelines. T hey pointed out that the report does not allege that they did anything wrong. “We b elieve th at O ST management has acted ap propriately and that the (In spector General’s) concern o f ‘an appearance o f pref erential treatment’ for CD&L is subjective and unsubstan tiated,” the statement said. Devaney’s report outlines how the firm’s executives and trustee managers exchanged gifts o f m eals and drinks, took out-of-town trips to a major golf event and played golf together almost weekly. An eight-page chart details the dates o f go lf trips and meals, which often fell just days before contracts were awarded. And their m other, who at tended the Tucson Indian Train ing School before it closed in 1960, was a shining example of community involvement. She p a rtic ip a te d in the wom en’s rights movements in the 1960s. She spoke on welfare rights. She helped the Tohono O’odham Nation’s elderly with the creation of a nursing home. Miguel’s scholarship isn’t the only grant for Tohono O’odham students. It’s one o f a growing number of scholarships created to help these students, who of ten struggle on standardized tests and attend schools that earn poor marks, too. Schools in the Indian Oasis- B aboquivari U nified D istrict, where many O’odham students go, regularly have more students fail the state AIMS test than pass it. They’ve been labeled “failing” in state and federal accountabil ity reports, too. And even if stu dents make it through school, the dream o f college often is washed away by lack of money. M ary Juan, 19, last year’s re cipient of the M iguel Scholar ship, said it would have been dif ficult to pay for books at the University o f Arizona without the $1,000. A m erican Indian students often have a tough time believ ing they can succeed in college, said Maria Valencia, field coor dinator in the Native American E d u catio n P ro gram in the Sunnyside Unified School Dis trict. “They’re very shy,” Valencia said. “They’re really the minor ity in the big schools. They’re just a speck in a sea o f blond and red hair, and for some o f them, that’s very uncomfortable.” Those who have spent their entire lives on the reservation find less help with school, too, Valencia said, though she noted that’s changing. “D eep in the reservation, there aren’t enough libraries and resources to become success ful,” she said. “Sometimes, they believe they aren ’t go in g to make it, and that’s w hen you have to guide them.” A bout 4 p ercen t o f Su n n ysid e’s 16,800 students are A m e ric a n I n d ia n , th e th ird -largest ethnic group in the d istrict. Som e 43 p erc e n t o f American Indian students in Sunnyside graduated in 2003, according to the most recent data available. In the In d ian O asis- Baboquivari district, 99 per cent of students are Ameri can Indian and 43 percent graduate. To q u alify for M igu el’s scholarship, applicants write an essay about their commu nity outreach projects and aca dem ic accom plishm ents as well as what they expect to do with a college degree. A pplicants also need to have a GPA of at least 2.5. The sisters— who aren’t in volved in picking the recipi en ts— said th eir m o th er wouldn’t stand for her money to go to a student who was just getting by. “She always em phasized the im p o rtan ce o f h ard work,” Blaine said. “She never liked seeing people just sitting in front o f the TV.” a m em ber o f the R esources C om m ittee, said the H ouse committee’s approval is a step toward closing loopholes that allow casinos in communities without residents’ approval. “These loopholes are wrong not only because they violate fundamental principles of local control but also because they threaten the lo n g-term eco nomic health and sovereignty of Native American tribes,” Pearce said. Michigan man killed by enemy gunfire HESPERIA, Mich. (AP)— A Native Am erican man from a small town in west Michigan has died while fighting in Iraq. A rm y S p c. D e n n is K. Samson Jr., 24, o f H esperia in O cean a C o u n ty, w as k ille d M onday by enem y gunfire in Taqaddum. He was assigned to the 4th Brigade Troop B attal ion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st A irb o rn e D iv isio n , at Fort Cam pbell, Ky. Samson, a 2000 graduate of Hesperia High School, was de scribed as a kind person and a “free sp irit” who excelled in cross country, his coach said. “He was a four-year varsity ru n n er for us,” D oug B aird said. “He had a smile on his face. He was up to the challenge. It d id n ’t m atter how hard the workout would be. He was Na tive American and had this jet black hair about shoulder length. He would come bouncing along into practice, hair blowing in the wind. That’s how I’ll remember him,” Baird said. Canadian chief dies in canoe accident SEQUIM, Wash. (AP)— An Indian canoe heading for an annual intertribal celebration overturned in windy weather, rough waves and chilly marine water, and a Canadian tribal chief from Vancouver Island died, authorities said. All six people aboard the ca noe were dumped into the Strait of Juan de Fuca on Wednes day off Dungeness Spit, Coast G uard P etty O fficer Shawn Eggert said from Seattle. The strait runs between the island and the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state. A man who died as the other five made their way ashore was id en tified by M akah T ribal C h airm an B en Jo h n so n as C h ief Je rry Jack , 55, o f the M o w achaht-M uchalaht F irst Nations of Gold River, British Columbia. The reason the canoe cap sized and the cause o f death w ere not im m ediately d eter mined and an autopsy was pend ing. Jack had been involved in the saga o f Luna, a young killer whale who became separated from his pod and m ade his home at Gold River until he was killed by a boat propeller in M arch. Som e Indians in the area said they believed Luna em bo d ied the sp irit o f a dead chief. A man and two women from the canoe were being evaluated at Olympic Memorial Hospital in Port Angeles and each “ap- pears fine,” nursing supervisor Ann Fischer said. The other two people from the canoe apparently did not need hospital treatment or ex amination, Eggert said. The Coast Guard received a report of the overturned canoe shortly before 6 p.m. and dis patched a helicopter and boat from Port Angeles, Eggert said. The helicopter crew found five people on shore from the overturned canoe, the body of Jack, seven people from another canoe that was beached nearby and a Clallam County sheriff’s deputy who responded to the initial call. The helicopter hoisted everyone to a nearby parking lot where emergency medical crews were waiting, Eggert said. Eggert said none of those in the overturned canoe was wear ing a life jacket. He said conditions in the area includ ed w inds o f about 35 mph, 5- to 7-foot seas and a w ater tem perature o f 54 de grees. The death cast a pall over the annual sum m er’s InterT ribal C ano e Jo u rn e y, w h ich w as started in 1989 as “Paddle to Seattle” and this year has the theme “Past and Present Pull ing Together for Our Future.” The g ath e rin g runs from Monday, when the canoes are scheduled to arrive in Seattle, to the following Saturday and is b e in g h o sted by the Muckleshoot Tribe of Auburn, south o f Seattle. Ancient village on Miss. Coast discovered BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. (AP) — A rchaeologists believe they have uncovered evidence of an ancient village, dating to the time o f C h rist, that once thrived along the shores o f this bay town. Som e o f the recen tly u n earthed artifacts found in ran dom spots near the beachfront suggest a prehistoric village oc cupied about a half-mile stretch between Bayview Court and the Bay-Waveland Yacht Club. City leaders are working with state and federal transportation o fficials to cut a tem po rary beach road, while several agen cies work to rebuild the 30-foot bluff and the bay bridge. By law, the M ississippi De partm ent o f T ran sp ortatio n could rebuild the beach road over the artifacts, so long as the project doesn’t disturb the his toric relics in any way. Buz Olsen, the city’s chief of operations, said the roadwork includes replacing old water and sewer lines that for years ran underneath the road. “We w ere d istu rb in g the ground w here these artifacts were,” he said. “Our trenching for the new utilities may be as deep as five feet and some of the artifacts are just four feet below the ground.” Olsen said the only section o f the project that could be compromised is the laying of the utilities, because the digging re quired could disturb the area. “With the utility corridor, (ar chaeologists) are going to want to sift through every piece of dirt,” he said. “Things like this have been known to hold up projects for years. Hopefully, it w on’t hold up the tem porary road and the beach project.” The scenario will change if human remains are found. Sherry Hutt, a program man ager at the U.S. Department of the Interior, said such a find could tem porarily shut down the massive repair project on Beach Boulevard. “I f h u m an rem ain s are found (on federal land) and th e re ’s fed eral m oney being spent, then you would have to stop activity im m ediately and instigate consultation with the possible descendent groups,” she said. Hutt, national program direc tor o f the N ative A m erican Grave Protection and Repatria tion A ct, w hich regulates the return o f certain cultural items, said the stop-activity consulta tion period is at least 30 days. D avid Seyfarth , a project engineer with MDOT, said nei ther the village nor the archaeo logical excavation is likely to slow work on the U.S. 90 bridge.
