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About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 20, 2007)
jOl vav 1 P.O.BOX 870 Warm Springs, OR 97761 • I no. 26 ® 20, 2007 ™ ™ Æ v C o yo te News, e s t 1976 Æ ™ ^ flp 1299 University of Oregon Eugene OR 97403-1205 Æ . w.w. i uo iay c December 20, 2 0 , 2007 2007 V oi. 32, 32, N o. 26 26 PRSRTSTD warm springs, or 97761 50 cents Council considers future o f m ill, tribal forestry B y M a re n C o h n W arm S p rin gs V entures A strategy team is recommending to the Confederated Tribes thé establish ment o f a new forest management en terprise, and careful consideration o f a $25 million investment in the Warm Springs Forest Products Industries mill. The long-term strategy team respon sible for examining the thill and its fu ture gave its report earlier this month to Tribal Council: A full house gath ered on Dec: 7 to hear the presenta tion. f Ten Council members attended, along with several mill employees, and representatives from other branches o f the tribe’s forest management and har vesting Operations, including loggers, andlay out timber sales. the Natural Resources Branch, and the It would operate in accordance with BIA. the tribe’s Integrated Resource Man- Tom Tomjack, a longtime forest , agement Plan (IRMP) and other tribal products ind ustry executive w ho policies, and would consult with Warm chaired the strategy team, delivered the Springs Forest Products Industries group’s report. The team’s recommen (WSFPI), Natural Resources, and the dations dealt separately with the two BIA in reaching its silvicultural deci revenue-producing components o f the sions and harvest plans. tribe’s timber resource: forest manage A s for the mill, the report made ment and mill operations. clear that investment o f $20 million in Regarding forest management, the a new small log line, plus $5 million in team recommended that the tribe es .working capital would be necessary for tablish a new enterprise to be the sole WSFPI to become profitable on a con manager o f its fo rk in g forest. sistent basis. ' The new entity Mould oversee the The mill’s current equipment is 18 activities currently administered by the years old and was not designed for the BIA, would be responsible for imple smaller diameter logs currently being menting the annual cut, and would plan harvested. A s a result, WSFPI cannot keep up with the high-tech machinery o f its com petitors and is unable to operate prof itably. Whether or not to make the capital investment in a new small log line will require further study from Council. In the m eantim e, C ouncil has asked WSFPI to prepare a bridge plan show ing how it would minimize its losses and preserve jobs pending installation o f the new mill. Forest management The strategy team was created early in the summer at the behest o f Mark Jackson, WSFPI’s chief executive of ficer, and Jody Calica, the tribe’s secre tary-treasurer, to assess current forest products operations and recommend to Council a ten-year economic strategy for WSFPI. Early on, the team discov ered that management o f the forest was a major issue and would have to be ad dressed as part o f WSFPI’s future. “How the mill is operated has no' impact on forest management, but how the forest is managed has a tremendous im pact on the m ill,” said Clyde Hamstreet, a member o f the strategy team. “The mill needs a three-year pan try, or backlog o f sales to choose from, and reliable projections o f what is com ing out o f the woods at any given time. The tribe’s current forest management has not been able to provide those things on a consistent or reliable basis'.” See WSFPI on 9 Tribal commercial code takes effect New Year’s Day January 1 will usher in more than a new year on the Warm Springs Reser vation—it also marks the effective date o f the Tribe’s, new commercial code. “M ost people w o n ’t think that sounds very exciting,” said Lonnie James, managing director for the Warm Springs Com m unity A ction Team (WSCA'J). “But it’s an important step for the tribe^Cretting these taws drafted, • riassfed, and implemented' his been a long and complex process. I believe they will be very beneficial to tribal mem bers and I’m glad they’re finally going into effect” '& t Just how the new commercial code will affect, and hopefully benefit, tribal members will be the subject o f two information sessions to be held next month, on January 14 and 16. Sandra Danzuka at Warm Springs 8 Ventures will have details about the meetings after the New Year. A ll com- j^Munity residents are encouraged to stop ,"> j p'. in and fiqd, out what to expect from fthe new laws. Long development process ' Leslie Mitte/Spityay Katrina Wolfe, Derrek Main, Josh Olney and Aurora Squiemphen, from the Early Childhood Education center, serenaded residents of High Lookee Lodge last week with Qhristmas carols, sgng in the three traditional languages of the Confederated Tribes. W inter Family Craft N ight this evening Warm Springs Elem entary Scbqrib . Tables wilt b t set up with craft ma will host W inter Family Craft Night terials, and the event will be free to the fro m 5:30 to. 7: p.m, this evening Warm Springs community. Thursday, Dec. 20 at the elementary ^.Assistance will be provided’to make school gym. Christmas ornaments and decorations: For more information on W inter Fam ily C ra ft .Night, call M ariana Àtencio or Lucinda Heath at 553- 1128JÉ Ellsbury jerseys to be raffled at hoops games Red Sox jerseys autographed by One medium, one. large, and- one Jacoby Ellsbury will be raffled at home extra'large jersey will be raffled: basketball games this winter. : Five hundred tickets per jersey will The raffle will raise money fo r the’ be sold &t home basketball games soon, Class 'of <2008 and Senior All-Night and the three winning raffle tickets will Party that is .hosted by the sènior par- be drawn on Feb. 21 during a home •ents.Ä game against Bend. . However, if all f , 500 tickets are sold earlier, the drawing could be held ear lier as well. Tickets will cost $5 each. ! W ith questions', please contact Shawna 'McConnell at Madras High School.- - - Jâriies has been part o f the Com mercial Code Advisory Committee for the past three years— though his vision for a commercial code on the reserva tion goes back much further than that. He got started with the Advisory Com mittee after his Action’Team held com munity focus groups in 2002 trying to get at the root causes o f poverty in the area.. «“The inability to garner investment from outside, was a key,” he said. “In addition, we found that it was hard for people to do things like build hoilses.” To change that state o f affairs, Shawnele Shaw, James’ predecessor at WSCAT, prompted the group to ap proach Tribal Council and, with their blessing, began to develop some new laws. The A d v iso ry C om m ittee has worked with tribal attorneys to draft several laws that together make up the tribe’s new Commercial Code— the part o f the law that regulates business operations and commercial transactions on the réservation. Commercial codes are universally used by states and the federal govern ment, and they are becoming increas ingly common on Indian reservations. “They’re a very important piece o f the economic development picture,” James said. “Without laws that estab lish the basic rules o f sales and leases, for instance, or that tell lenders they’ll be able to get their money o f property back i f a debtor defaults on a loan, creditors just don’t lend money. O r else they do lend the money at an outra geous interest rate. • % “Until recently, that’s how it’s been on reservations. Indians without a good credit report find it hard to get financ ing to buy a car or get a business started, without paying through the nose in in :. terest. Which they often can’t afford to do, not to mention that they shouldn’t have to deal with predatory loans.” Efforts to. establish a-commercial code to support economic development have been dn arid o f f the table since the early 1980s. Some bits and pieces "of a code were passed along the way When Tribal Council got serious about drafting a comprehensive code in 2002, the project started making more head way. By the middle o f 2006, the advif sory committee had drafted laws that applied to business entities, taxation and regulation, commercial transactions, real property secured transactions^ and consumer protection. Although each set o f laws addresses different kinds o f business needs, they all have the purpose o f establishing clear rules known to all parties, on which every one can rely in getting things done. In the event o f a dispute, the rules apply to clarify everybody’s fights and solve the problem fairly. Personal Property Secured Trans* actions Before the new code could go into effect, however, rules o f court had to be developed. “You can have the bfest code in the • world,” James explained, “but without the "court system to back it up, it won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on/’ Promulgating those rules is the job o f the tribal court, and that has taken time. Meanwhile, the Advisory Com mittee used the waiting period to com plete yet ariother section o f the code. “The most recent section deals spe^ dfically -with secured transactions on personal property,” said James. Secured transactions occur when a lender lends money for a specific purchase and re ceives a security interest in the pur chased item. I f the borrower does not repay the debt according to the terms o f the loan, the lender has the right to go to court to reclaim the item. “It’s the second to last part o f the code,” James said; “We knew it would be the thorniest one to draft, because it involves extending jurisdiction ovet non-metribers. We gave consumer pro: tection ordinances priority and wrote that part first, so people would see they weren’t being left behind in the whole process.” See COMMERCIAL CODE on 9 University of Oregon Library Received on: 12-27-07 Spilyay tymoo
