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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1998)
2 News The Grand Ronde Review Tribes and state agencies touch on tough topics y,; n - . " y ; ' ."i I "v p . " mt "1 f " Lull. f " I 111 o By Oscar Johnson, Staff Reporter Oregon tribal representatives heard testimonies and fired questions at an array of state agency spokespersons last month during & meeting set to facilitate state and tribal government cooperation. The Legislative Commission on In dian Service (LCIS), with represen tation from the Grand Ronde, Umatilla, Warm Springs, Coos, Siletz, Klamath and Coquile Tribes, met with state agency officials at the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla's new Tamastlikt Cultural Institute near Pendleton. The commission formed in the 1970s to improve overall services to Native Americans in the state of Oregon. Representatives from Oregon's de partments of human resources, trans portation, occupational safety and education briefed the group on a va riety of agency efforts and issues ranging from new public school stan dards to how to deal with unearthed Native artifacts. State Representative Margaret Carter also made an appearance to assure LCIS members that her bid for state Superintendent of Public In struction was not intended as a "step ping stone for a higher office," but rather a goal "to be an active super intendent." However, it was Oregon Depart ment of Education's temporary liai son, Nellie Vasquez, who was on hand to outline the pros and cons of new school standards which she noted were developed without any in put from Native Americans. The new standards come without new funds to provide adequate re sources for poor schools found pre dominantly in rural and minority ur ban communities where test scores are routinely low. Vasquez also warned that Indian and other minority parents get in ivolved with their local jchod boards j As an example, she noted that one of the seven components of the new Certificate of Initial Mastery. (CIM) which will replace the old credit based high school diploma will in clude a second non-English language that will be determined by individual school districts. The minority education advocate cautioned that without minority par ent involvement, districts stand a good chance of favoring European languages over those that might be more relevant to students with Native, Latino or other ethnic backgrounds. "The Department of Education tends to use a band-aid approach," she said citing the department's be lated use of only a temporary minor ity liaison position as example. "They're not as sensitive as aware as they should be when it comes to minority issues." .But LCIS members seemed to need convincing that the State Department of Human Resources' (DHR) new office of Tribal Liaison was more than just minority issues window dressing. DHR's new Tribal Liaison, Rick Acevedo, met with polite scepticism from many tribal representatives when he reported on department plans for the new position. While Acevedo spoke of the impor tance of compromise and "give and take" between Tribes and DHR in or der to maximize government-to-government relations, tribal representa tives grilled the liaison for some surety that future DHR contracts and train ing would produce concrete results. Although Acevedo admitted that, "one of the problems in government is that attention to Indian issues doesn't go very deep," he believed his new position would make a dif ference by working more closely with Tribes and reporting to the group on a quarterly basis. Pending reports from state agencies on their implementation of the The Tribe's Intergovernmental Affairs Specialist Justin Martin (far left) listens with other tribal representatives to State Representative Mar garet Carter at the Umatilla Cultural Center last month. Governor's Executive Order 96-30, due to be submitted to tribes in time for the first annual government-to-government meeting in Eugene next month, were also discussed. (The 1996 order mandates that state agencies develop contacts with tribal representatives; identify mutual joints of interest; and. develop com munication and cooperation with their tribal counterparts.) Oregon Department of Transpor tation (ODOT) Deputy Director, Tom Lulay, attended last month's meeting to solicit tribal input for the Nov. summit agenda. While tribal representatives re quested that they receive the 26 re ports in plenty of time to study them before the summit, they expressed more interest in what Governor Kitzhaber's agenda would be for the conference. Although Lulay was unable to speak on the Governor's behalf, he made a general call for "trust and under standing, relationship building and cultural sharing, despite that the out come of our discussions have not al ways been agreeable." But ODOT Regional Manager, Tom Schuft, indicated there is one area where his agency and Tribes do agree. Noting previous Memoran dums of Agreement between his de partment and the Klamath Tribe with respect to identifying and repatriat ing Native remains and artifacts, he said the department was willing to negotiate a memorandum with vari ous tribes and develop a written pro tocol for dealing with respected Na tive sites and relics. s 1 1: ; Although Umatilla representative , and LCIS Vice Chair, Jay Minthorne, noted that in the last year ODOT's commitment to respecting his Tribe's sovereign rights to traditional sites and unearthed artifacts and remains appeared to have declined some, he agreed that in general "these agree ments in the past have worked pretty good." However, in the realm of workers' safety reservation-based Native sov ereignty has posed a formidable ju risdiction challenge for the' Oregon Occupational Safety & Health Divi sion (OR-OSHA), according to agency officials. While authority to inspect work sites, help develop training and safety programs, respond to worker com plaints and enforce health and safety laws usually fall to state or federal OSHA divisions, when it comes to businesses on reservation land, the officials complained that their hands are tied. "We're responsible for worker safety in Oregon but because of sov ereignty we don't have much author ity on reservation land, said OSHA Federal Liaison, Brian Sparks. "If an employee is working on a reserva tion they expect to call us if they have a problem." OSHA officials expressed a strong desire to develop an ongoing three way dialogue between Tribes, federal and state agencies in order to wrap up the jurisdictional clarification pro cess which has received little atten tion since the 1970s. Meanwhile, at next month's sum mit OSHA, 25 other state branches and members form Oregon's nine federally recognized Tribes will have a chance to make headway on these and other pending issues in an ongo ing process of implementing what some say could be a national model of how states and Tribes can work together.
