Spilyay Tymoo
Coyote News, est. 1976
January 16, 2019 - Vol. 43, No. 2
Wiyak’ik’ila – Winter - Anm
Ventures, CP Enterprise updates at Council
Tribal Council will soon consider
a funding proposal for the CP En-
terprise-Ventures cannabis/hemp
project. The plan calls for growing
and processing non-recreational
hemp products on the tribes’
Schoenhagen property, off Highway
26 across the Deschutes River.
The Ventures’ request to Tribal
Council is for start-up funding to
begin growing hemp. The sooner
in the year the plants are in the
ground, the larger will be the even-
tual revenue from sales, the Ven-
tures team said.
The start-up funding would come
from the carbon sequestration rev-
enue. Ventures, Natural Resources,
Tribal Council and management
implemented the carbon project
over the past few years, with great
success for the tribes.
As the Ventures board and staff
met this week with Council, they also
discussed the carbon project.
A decision will be whether to ex-
pand the project to include more
forest acreage, as the current pro-
gram has been a welcome source
of much-needed revenue to the
tribes. This will be a project for
review starting with Ventures and
Natural Resources-Forestry.
Discussion this week at Council
also focused on the Ventures enter-
prise itself. Ventures will be recruit-
ing a new chief executive officer.
The position description and salary
will be reviewed and modified as
needed, said Pah-tu Pitt, Ventures
board chairwoman.
Tribal Council established Warm
Springs Ventures, an economic de-
velopment enterprise of the tribes,
about 18 years ago. The enterprise
has seen some turnover in the chief
executive officer position, including
a departure at the start of this year.
“The Ventures staff is dedi-
cated, and have kept the pro-
grams going despite the change
in leadership,” said Sandra
Danzuka, Ventures office man-
ager, who has been with the
enterprise since its beginning.
Regarding the cannabis-
hemp project: The program will
be overseen by a commission
with the specific goal of meet-
ing all regulations. Ventures is
pursuing a non-recreation grow
operation as the state of Or-
egon has a significant over-sup-
ply of recreation marijuana.
Kah-Nee-Ta Resort closed to
the public a little over four
months ago. The tribes
continue to provide security
and basic maintenance at the
resort.
An outside investor-
management partner would be
the likeliest scenario allowing
the resort to re-open. There
are a number of potential
partners who have been in
contact with the tribes.
The Simnasho community and
tribal leadersihp will host a
public meeting on the future of
the resort on Tuesday,
January 22. The meeting at
the Simnasho Longhouse
begins at 7 p.m., dinner
served at 6.
An issue to keep in mind are
the confidentiality agreements
that could limit what
information can be disclosed
publicly.
ECR WSS
Postal Patron
U.S. Postage
PRSRT STD
Warm Springs, OR 97761
Bloodline
referendum
pushed back
a month
Tribal Council moved the blood
quantum referendum from mid
February to March 15. Recent
changes at Administrative Services
have required more time to orga-
nize the election.
The referendum will ask the
members whether the tribes should
change how blood quantum is de-
termined for the purposes of au-
tomatic enrollment.
The change would be the addi-
tion of the 1980 census to the list
of baseline census years for deter-
mining the Confederated Tribes
blood quantum.
The change for some would al-
low the recalculation of the degree
of tribal blood—Wasco, Warm
Springs and Paiute—a person has,
based on the 1980 census. A tribal
website explains the issue. See the
site:
youtube.com/channel/
UCjttQ4Dd25tMGGy85R8gikA
The presenters are tribal attor-
ney Howie Arnett, and former
Administrative Services director
atwai Lynn Davis.
New hiring
process at
Indian Head
Allowable timber cut
question at Council
Each year the Tribal Coun-
cil approves an allowable cut of
timber from the reservation
forest land. The allowable cut
is reviewed and modified, as
needed, every five years.
This year is the third of the
current five-year period. Tribal
Council on Monday will con-
sider a resolution from the
Branch of Natural Resources-
Forestry to establish the 2019
allowable cut.
A base allowable cut is rec-
ommended at 25.1 million
board feet. A question for
Tribal Council will be in regard
to the forestry harvest practice
referred to as ‘tolerance.’
Vernon Wolf, acting Forest
manager at Natural Resources,
explains the situation. For con-
text, Mr. Wolf explained:
For many years Natural Re-
sources-Forestry and Warm
Springs Forest Products Indus-
tries managed the tribal timber
harvest through the cutting con-
tract.
The contract allowed a ‘tol-
erance’ of 10-percent per year:
This provided some flexibility
in the harvest, either slightly
over or below the approved al-
PO Box 489
Warm Springs, OR 97761
lowable cut.
This was practical for a
number of reasons, allowing
for adjustments based on
weather conditions, the fire
season, and market conditions
from year to year, for instance.
After WSFPI closed in the
spring of 2016, Tribal Coun-
cil established the War m
Springs Timber LLC. The
Timber LLC markets the tribal
timber, providing trust rev-
enue to the tribes.
Instead of a cutting con-
tract, the Timber LLC and
Branch of Natural Resources
operate under a memorandum
of understanding.
The MOU does not ad-
dress the tolerance practice,
Mr. Wolf said. Last Novem-
ber and December, the
weather conditions—wet but
not frozen—resulted in a re-
duced harvest by approxi-
mately 3 million board feet
below the allowable cut.
The question for Tribal
Council will be whether to al-
low this unharvested board
footage to carry over to this
and other years in the current
five-year period.
Shutdown impacting
clinic employees, BIA
The Indian Health Service, a
department of federal Health and
Human Services, provides health
care to tribal members. This is an
essential right as provided by the
Treaty of 1855.
The IHS clinic staff continue to
serve the membership; so the clinic
is operating “business as usual,” as
reported at Tribal Council by Warm
Springs clinic director Carol Prevost.
The partial federal government
shutdown, though, has meant that
about 80 employees at the clinic
have been working without pay. If
the shutdown continues, some 638-
contracting programs could be im-
pacted as well.
Meanwhile, the BIA employ-
ees—from administration, Office of
the Special Trustee, and BIA Roads,
for instance—are on furlough.
Warm Springs Head Start and
Early Head Start are federally
funded, but their funding had al-
ready been awarded, so this service
has so far not been interrupted by
the shutdown.
Fire Management also has not
seen an impact, as these are tribal
employees. If the shutdown con-
tinues for long, though, some pre-
scribed burn programs could be
missed, said Trey Leonard, Fire
The offices of the BIA at the
administration building have
been closed since
December 22.
Management general manager.
Warm Springs is feeling the
effect of the shutdown, but so
far has fared better than some
other tribes. The much bigger
Navajo Nation, for instance, has
seen 5,000 federal workers—
nearly all tribal members—
working without pay.
And urban Indians are feel-
ing the impact: The National
Council of Urban Indian Health
has warned that a number of
urban IHS facilities may have
to close by the end of the
month, if there is no resolution
to the shutdown.
Indian Head Casino has imple-
mented a new hiring process for
jobs at the casino and the Plateau
Travel Plaza.
All applicants that submit an ap-
plication online will now receive an
invitation to a preliminary interview
class. The website is:
indianheadgaming.com
The casino and Travel Plaza will
conduct the preliminary interview
class each Tuesday at 1 p.m. in the
Indian Head Casino Human Re-
sources training room.
After attending the class, appli-
cants will be invited to come to an
open interview, held each Thursday
of the week between the hours of
9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
If you do not have access to a
computer, stop by the casino human
resources office. They can help.
For any other questions, please
call at 541-460-7714.
To candidates
for Tribal Council
The election of the Twenty-
Eighth Tribal Council of the Con-
federated Tribes of Warm Springs
is scheduled for April 4.
Candidates are welcome to sub-
mit a written statement and a photo
to the Spilyay Tymoo. Please sub-
mit by next Thursday, January 24.
You can email to:
david.mcmechan@wstribes.org