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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 2002)
OCTOBER 1, 2002 Smoke Signals 3 Tribes' Natural Resources Staff, Committees Gather For Annual Meeting Cow Creek Tribe serves as hosts at Seven Feathers Casino and Resort. i r fTr, ft . ( I- Statement Tribal member Pete Wakeland, the Tribe's Natural Resources Di rector, addresses the crowd.while Tribal Elders Merle Holmes (left) and Leon "Chips" Tom look on at the annual Natural Resources Retreat at Seven Feathers in Canyonville. By PetaTinda The annual Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde's Natural Resources Department workshop was hosted by the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians at their Seven Feathers Casino and Resort. The yearly meeting was a chance for the Tribe's Natural Resources depart ment, the Fish and Wildlife Commit tee and the Timber Committee to re view polices from the previous year, plan new policies, elect new officers and talk to experts from other Tribes with successful Natural Resources depart ments. "We're looking at plans for 2003," said Tribal Elder Merle Holmes. "We're also looking at our ten year for est plan and pinpointing the things that our forest needs to do." The Natural Resources department's stated mission is to re sponsibly manage, develop and protect the timber, fish, wildlife, recreation, mineral, air, water, and other natu ral resources. With over 9,811 acres of Reservation land to look after, this is no small job. "There is a delicate balance. We have to protect our resources, our cul tural sites and protect our animals on the Reservation. Elk and deer, they're a resource too," said Holmes. "That's why we have these annual meetings, to see if we're doing the best we can for our people and our forest." Long-term goals have always been high priorities for the Natural Re sources department. "Barring any catastrophic forest fire or bug infestation, I see a big, strong healthy forest, sustainable resource for the Tribe," said Holmes. "We have to take care of that forest, the land, the animals. I see good things happening as long a we stay focused and look to the needs of the Tribe and people on down the line." One of the items on the agenda this year was the development of rock pits on the Reservation to provide gravel for the Tribe's construction projects. "We do have a desire to explore the Tribes mineral resources," said Natu ral Resources Manager Pete Wakeland. The Tribe wants to develop rock pits for construction of the road system and new housing projects, as well as possi bly selling some to the state for high way projects. Tests are being done right now, to see if the rock is of high enough grade. There are three or four different sites, with different grades of rock. Any money that's generated will be plugged into the annual timber revenue. Another matter that was under dis cussion was the wild fire situation in eastern Oregon. The Natural Re sources department recognizes the threat that fire poses to the Tribe's for ested lands. At present they are work ing on improving the fire program. They want to hire more staff and pos sibly buy more fire engines. "We have two now, we need more," said Holmes. To be brought up to speed on the latest fire fighting techniques, the de partment brought in Tony Harwood, Fire Management Officer for the Con federated Salish and Kootenai Tribe in Montana, a renowned expert who heads up a very successful fire pro gram. Harwood gave a presentation on the most recent developments in fire management. He stressed the im portance of finding and retaining good people to work in fire management. Tribal member Pete Wakeland, who is the Manager of Natural Resources for the Grand Ronde Tribe, invited Harwood to come and speak. "We wanted to find a Tribe that is a compact Tribe, like us, and has a good fire program," said Wakeland. "What they do provides revenue for their Tribe. They make $4.1 million dol lars annually in wages paid by the government to firefighters. And it doesn't cost the Tribe any money. We want to use their program as a model for ours." After two days of meetings, discus sion and planning, the Natural Re sources work shop wrapped up, with all of the attendees leaving armed with better knowledge on how to protect the Tribe's valued natural resources. "We're doing good business for the Tribe here," said Holmes. "I really believe that in my heart or I wouldn't be here. I'd be doing some thing else." Setting The Record Straight Reports Say Grand Ronde Tribe Is Looking To Newberg As A Possible Site For A Casino Warm Springs' relocation efforts could change the rules of the game. By Justin Martin, Intergovernmental Affairs Director Recent news articles in various Oregon newspapers have featured headlines that include "Hints surface of Casino interest in Newberg" and "Tribe Looking to Hedge it's bets on Casino" and finally "Grand Ronde Tribal members sit down with city manager and discuss possibility of sighting second casino in Newberg..." Those articles site a meeting between Newberg city manager Jim Bennett and representatives of the Grand Ronde Tribe and quote Bennett as confirming the meeting took place and saying that the discussion of placing a casino in Newberg was "an option down the road." Another article quotes representatives of gover nor John Kitzhaber's office saying a Newberg casino discussion could become a viable option, under certain scenarios. To this point, in public, we have chosen to neither confirm or deny the exist ence of any rumors or even discussions specifically surrounding a possible ca sino location in Newberg. Now however, due to this recent onslaught of cover age on the issue, it's time to set the record straight. First and foremost, we know from recent polling that more than 70 percent of Oregonians don't favor any expansion of gaming in our state. However, if the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs proceeds with its efforts to place a new casino in Hood River or Cascade Locks, despite the strong objections of Governor Kitzhaber and numerous Columbia Gorge preservation ists, the rules of the game as they relate to Native American casino gaming in Oregon, change dramatically and immediately. The governor's Chief Legal Counsel Danny Santos has repeatedly explained that it's the opinion of the governor's office that Warm Springs can't locate a casino outside of it's original reservation, without seriously altering the initial gaming compacts that each Tribe has signed with the state. That means tear ing up the current rules and starting over again with automatic compact nego tiations allowing for the possibility of each Tribe to build a casino on lands out side of the reservation. The day Warm Springs begins building a casino in either Gorge location, the possibility of setting off a major proliferation of Indian casinos near or inside of urban centers, becomes a harsh reality. Siletz could then move to Salem, Grand Ronde to Newberg or closer to the Portland area, Burns-Paiute to Bend, Coos and Coquille to Eugene, Cow Creek and Klamath to Medford. Simply put, your Tribal government has a fiduciary responsibility to all of it's members and a moral imperative, to not be left behind if Oregon Indian gaming law suddenly changes due to Warm Springs actions. From a purely competitive standpoint, a new casino from Warm Springs is problematic primarily in that it opens the floodgates and starts the dominoes falling. The real competition comes from every other Tribe also having the right to move into or close to urban centers, once Warm Springs sets the prece dent. So bottom line: Will we do everything we can to explore our numerous expan sion options inside and outside of Tribal trust? We simply can't afford not to. We have gone on record in the recent round of newspaper articles confirming that we are having discussions with all sorts of municipalities about our pos sible options, if we have new compact negotiations as a result of Warm Springs forcing the issue. Those discussions will continue and probably accelerate in direct correlation to Warm Springs determination to ignore state and local lead ers. While we don't agree with the Warms Springs efforts to place a new casino in either location in the Gorge, we can certainly understand their desire to aggres sively produce additional revenues. We note their recent efforts launching a feasibility study to build a 50-megawatt biomass co-generation power plant in conjunction with San Francisco-based United Native Despository Corp. We're told by development experts that's a potential $50 million to $100 million deal. The Warm Springs reservation location and its 600,000 plus acres offers tre mendous economic opportunities in areas of natural resource development that we'll never enjoy with our 11,000 acres and existing location. Yet we completely understand that reservation location is a quirk of history. Following the Indian Gaming Act of 1988, we played by the same rules that all seven other Oregon Tribes played by as we developed Indian Gaming in our state. Those rules have allowed us to pour over $16 million dollars back into our neighborhoods in an 11-county area via our community fund and produced mil lions more in tourism and payroll tax revenues for Oregon. We've made multi million dollar business decisions based on those rules and made multi-million dollar investment decisions based on those rules that we need to pay off in the years to come. If one Tribe is now allowed to alter those rules by ignoring existing laws and the will of a vast majority of Oregonians, we must then do everything necessary to protect our economic future. We promise to keep you informed as to the progress of our discussions with other communities in the coming weeks and months. Let's hope we can build from our success and keep playing by the existing rules, rather than building new casinos that most Oregonians apparently don't want to see.
