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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1998)
OR. COLL fy Smoke Signals SEPTEMBER 1, 1998 7 a 1, 19'3 1 ft ft A Publication of the Grand Ronde Tribe Umpqua Molalla Rogue River Kalapuya Chasta Members choose new Council; Election Board posts results quickly By Tracy Dugan, Editor Once again, the people have spoken. Three Tribal Coun cil members were elected on September 5. They are: Ed Larsen, Kathryn Harrison, and Bob Haller. Below is a list of candidates and the number of votes each one received. Tribal Council announced the win ners at the September 13 General Council meeting, and the winners were posted at the Community Cen ter after the polls closed on Saturday night. Approximately 80 eligible tribal members voted in person on Sat urday, but by far the most votes came in the form of absentee ballots. Thanks to the help of Ink Impres sions, Inc., a ballot tabulation com pany out of Albuquerque, the ballots were counted by computer, and the winners were identified in less than an hour. In recent years, it has taken hours and hours for the Election Board to count the ballots by hand, often with anxious tribal members waiting just outside the Community Center doors. So far, public opinion about the new ballots and the computerized tabula tion system is very positive. "Every year the number of tribal member voters increases," says Val Sheker, Election Board Chairperson. "As recently as six or seven years ago, there were only one or two hun dred voters. Counting the ballots was easy. Now, there are more than one thousand voters. It's impossible to count that many ballots by hand in one evening," .. she said. Some tribes in the Northwest are so big, they take two or three days to count the ballots and make sure the tallies are correct for their Council elections. But the members of the Grand Ronde Tribe have become ac customed to knowing the results the same day. "Not only is the automated system faster," says Sheker, "but it's more accurate. There is no chance of hu man error." Election results: ED LARSEN - 457; KATHRYN HARRISON - 357; robert haller - 355; earl "butch" labonte - 319; marga ret provost - 316; eugene labonte - 250; ken gregg - 184; barbara lake - 150; delores edwards - 141; and richard Mcknight 92. fOruversit of Oregon Library Received on: 09-02-98 (Smoke signals 6 Interim Tribal Court Judge Katharine English swears in the newly elected Council members. Kathryn Harrison will remain Tribal Chair, and Reyn Leno was elected Vice Chair. Tort One: fa. if, if- .tw in this issue of The Review, we have begun a five-part series of in-depth articles on each of Grand Ronde's five tribes. On pages 4-5, you will find the story of the Molalla. We hope that you will find this series of stories interesting. PHOTO: Henry Yelkis, a member of the Molalla Tribe, in Grand Ronde near the turn of the century. Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon 9615 Grand Ronde Road Grand Ronde, Oregon 97347 Address Service Requested PRESORTED FIRST-CLASS MAIL U.S. POSTAGE PAID SALEM, OR PERMIT NO. 178 Serials Dept. - Knight Library 1299 University Of Oregon Eugene OR 97403-1 205 Tribes seek new plan to divvy-up scarce U.S. funding By Oscar Johnson, Staff Reporter Tribal and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) representatives met last month in Portland to develop an alternative to the current method of distributing federal funds in Indian Country. The process is the continuation of a long beleaguered struggle to adequately fund much needed Indian programs. The BIATribal Workgroup on Tribal Needs and Assessments formed early this year and is part of more than a decade-long attempt to come up with a more tribal-friendly method for distributing Tribal Prior ity Allocations (TPAs), the federal dollars used for infrastructure, health and social services as well as Con tract Support Cost (CSC), the expense of administering the various pro grams. At last month's meeting, it was de termined that a draft resolution be sent to the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI) for consideration. The draft proposes that tribal claims to millions of CSC dollars owed by the federal government from previ ous years be relinquished in exchange for 100 percent funding of CSCs in the upcoming year. If approved, the proposal would then be put before Congress as a short-term solution. But Workgroup members say the biggest challenge to their task is that there is simply not enough money to go around and federal policy makers show no intention of doing anything about a long-term solution. "You're always trying to play catch up with the (U.S.) government. We do a workgroup, draft a proposal and they don't do anything then we have to start all over again," said meeting attendee and Grand Ronde Self-De-termination Coordinator, Janell Haller. She said the biggest concern for the Tribe is federal dollars for CSC. "In the law it states that they have to pay 100 percent of CSC but for every dollar we have $0.62 goes to these indirect costs." This rate varies from tribe to tribe but for the almost $2.1 million the Grand Ronde Tribe receives in an nual BIA funding for services such as forestry, child welfare and educa tion, only about $1,301,115 goes di rectly to the programs and services for which they are earmarked. The remainder ($810,595) is used to pay continued on page 2
