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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.
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