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About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 11, 2012)
r Spilyay Tyruo January 11, 2012 Coyote News, est. 1976 P.O. Box 870 Warm Springs, OR 97761 ECRWSS ostai Patron S. Postage PRSRTSTD Warm Springs, OR 97761 Voi. 37, N o. 1 Jan u ary- Wiyak’ik’ila - Winter-Anm 50 cents Finishing construction, opening soon B y Dave McMechan S p ilya y Tymoo To Vendors Tribal m em ber vendors with an interest in either sell ing or consigning jewelry, crafts br art to the Cedar Bas ket Gift Shop are encouraged to set up an appointment for Friday, Jan. 20. If you have an interest, please call Janell Smith at 541-325-1472 for more infor mation, or to schedule an appointment. Work crews last week moved the gaming machines from Kah-Nee-Ta to the new casino. The furniture for the new building is arriving this week. The opening dedication ceremonies, for tribal members and their guests, is fast-approaching: The dedication is set for Saturday, Feb. 4, from 1-6 p.m. The general public is invited after six. The grand opening is Friday and Saturday, Feb. 24-25. The new Indian H ead Casino is 40,000 square feet in size, and will house 500 slot machines, a restaurant, gift shop, snack bar, and offices. The casino is about twice the size o f the previous Indian Head Casino at Kah-Nee-Ta, which opened in 1996. A t the Highway 26 location, the ca sino will draw more visitors from Ma dras, Redmond and Bend. Meanwhile, an average o f 8,000 cars, many travel ing between Portland and Bend, drive by the location each day. Many new jobs . The architecture o f the new casino is inspired by images o f Celilo Falls fishing scaffolds. C onstruction began nine m onths ago, in May o f 2011. “Right now, w e’re one day ahead i • . Casino and construction employees are on scene during the final building phase. o f schedule,” K en Billingsley, casino general m anager said. Team w ork has been the key to a sm ooth transition from K ah-N ee-Ta to the Highway 26 casino, Billingsley said. “W hen we w ork together and Council again rejects Biomass A deeply divided debate ended ten years o f research, planning and nego tiations for the Biomass project. The tribes’ ten m em ber Council ap peared to be evenly split over the m er its o f the project, which was a week away from formal closing o f the es sential business transaction. Council Vice-Chairman Ron Sùppah earlier this m onth chaired a special meeting called by six members under the authority o f the Constitution and By-laws. A majority o f the Council then voted to not approve and move forward with a 37-megawatt Biomass Energy Project on the reservation. O ne reason why five members voted against it was because there was no way to require tribal mem ber employment at the project. T he developer had agreed instead to provide tribal m em ber scholarships until mem ber employ m ent was at 60 percent o f total pay roll. The Biomass project was originally proposed as a forest health initiative to Jobs fo r tribal members, ' annual payments and fu el procurement were among central issues. reduce fire fuels. Particularly since 1996, there have been 15 catastrophic wild fires that have burned several hundred thousand- acres o f the tribes’ forest lands, de stroying homes and threatening com munity safety. The Biomass Project as proposed would have enabled the tribes to treat forested areas to remove heavy accu mulations o f residual forest m atter and ladder fuels, which would have begun to address tribal leaders concerns over the number o f wild fires that have come o ff federal forest lands and on to the reservation. T here is also a grow ing need to treat thousands o f acres o f dead and dying forest areas infected by disease and harm ful insect infestation. A dev astating attack from m ountain pine beetles has killed thousands o f acres o f trees in conditional use zones that are adjacent to federal forestlands to the w est and south o f the reserva tion. T he Biomass Energy Project devel opm ent had evolved over a ten year period. The project ran into a wide range o f development challenges associated with the national economy, investment, production, and renewable energy tax credits related financing and vital busi ness partnerships. The effort produced a partnership and $150 million financing agreement to build the W arm Springs’ facility. Council concerns The commercial terms, environmen tal and economic elements o f the p ro posed transaction w ith O regon Bio E nergy failed to w in approval o f a quorum the Tribal Council after sev eral reviews. Please see BIOMASS on page 4 M iss Warm Springs Pageant next week T h e M iss BC/ aw Springs Pageant is n e x t Thursday evening, Jan. 19, a t Jive o ’clock a t the A gency Tonghouse. Hollowing the competition, M iss W arm Springs 2 0 1 1 T am era M oody w ill present the crown to the new M iss W arm Springs. The contestants are ju d g ed on a variety o f categories: There is a Dave McMechan/Spilyay communicate, and everyone does their job, then things get done very smoothly,” he said. The new Indian H ead Casino will be a 24-hour operation, employing 240 people. O ne-hundred-and-fotty o f the jobs are new, w hile the others are tra n sfe rs fro m K a h -N e e -T a , said Margie Tuckta, director o f gam ing H um an Resources. H er d ep artm en t received ab o u t 400 applications for the new jobs, she said. Probably the hardest to fill has been the chef for the casino restau rant. This job is expected to be filled soon, Tuckta said. Meanwhile, no decisions has yet been made on the future use o f the area at K ah-N ee-Ta that housed the casino since 1996. Telecom hosting Jan. grand opening The W arm Springs Telecom will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony at the new tribal telecom central office and customer service center on Fri day, Jan. 27. The ceremony will begin at 11:30 a.m., followed by an afternoon o f activities and food for the com m u nity to celebrate the newest tribal telecom com pany in the U nited States; T he Warm Springs Telecom office is located at 4202 Holliday Street, at the Warm Springs indus trial park. A fter m ore than five years o f planning, the Confederated Tribes o f Warm Springs is now the ninth tribal telecom company in the country. Like many tribes across the U.S., m em bers o f the W arm Springs tribal nation have been underserved by the telecom companies serving the community. Rather than wait ing for improvements, the Confed erated Tribes decided to take con trol o f their telecom future and build their own company. W arm Springs Telecom will of fer basic land-line wired telephone service and broadband, high-speed Internet access. “Telecommunications is a critical infrastructure that we can’t continue to live without,” says Telecom board chairman Sylvester ‘Sal’ Sahme. “Education, jobs, healthcare and economic developm ent all rely on having sophisticated telecommuni cations. We can’t afford to lag fur question an d answer session, regarding ther behind other Americans. “ We needed to do this and build out this new company to serve our people and bring us into future,” Sahme said. “This is an exciting day for our tribes.” Warm Springs Telecom O pera tions Manager Jose Matanane, for merly the general manager for trib- ally owned F ort Mojave Telecom, com m ented recently: “W hen I started at Ft. Mojave, we had many o f the same problems as Warm Springs now has, includ ing very high unemployment. N o t only did the tribal telco create jobs, but it created opportunities for tribal members and businesses to use the netw ork to expand their personal businesses and the tribe to do fur ther economic development. The unemployment rate has gone down at Ft. Mojave as the phone com pany built out its network.” Tribal Lifeline T he Warm Springs Telecom will build a state-of-the-art fiber and fixed wireless network and eventu ally serve everyone on the reserva tion with telephone and Broadband. As it also has received its federal Eligible Telecommunications Carrier certification (ETC), the company will also be able to offer Tribal Life line services, enabling eligible tribal members to receive telephone ser vices for $1 / month. Please see TELECOM on page 3 the contestants’ knowledge o f the reservation an d the contestant’s tribe, traditionalfoods, ceremonies, clothing, Survey asks about Chieftainship crafts an d social activities, and tribal history. O ther ju d ging categories are the candidates’ poise an d personality, beauty an d appearance. M iss W arm Springs represents the tribes a t many events in Indian Yvonne Iverson/Spilyay Beadworkforthe 2012 crown and bannerare by Sandra Danzuka. C ountry during the year. A survey was mailed out last week to Wasco descendants in the Agency District. The survey asks w hether the ques tion o f Wasco Chieftainship succession should be put to a vote. I f the responder answers that the matter should not be put to a vote, then the survey asks for a suggestion as to how to proceed. A total o f 1,244 survey form s were mailed out. Please return the com pleted form to the ballot drop box at the administration building. L a I 11 J (4
