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.
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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.