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APRIL 15, 2007
Natural Resources Presents At General Council Meeting
Enrollment topped concerns expressed by a large Eugene turnout, but Tribal members also asked about health care and housing.
By Ron Karten
Tribal Chair Chris Mercier opened
the meeting at the Valley River Inn
in Eugene, and Tribal Council mem
ber Wesley "Buddy" West offered
the invocation.
The Council thanked Leonard
Whitelow II, who last August and
in February this year donated many
historical documents to the Tribe. The
records, from the end of the 1800s and
the beginning of the 1900s, reported
on supplies made available to the
Grand Rondes by the Department of
Indian Affairs, the U.S. Indian Ser
vice, and agent records.
Whitelow, who was not present at
the meeting, had requested a formal
acknowledgement of his gift.
Tribal member Mike Wilson pro
vided the Natural Resources report to
the Council. Wilson has worked for
the Tribe for 14 years. He recently
was named Manager of the Natural
Resources Division, a position he has
held on an interim basis since 2006.
"I'm honored to serve the Tribe
in this position," he said and talked
about his family's history in the
woods, including grandfather, Dewy
Parazoo, who was a logger, and his
mother, Joyce Wilson Parazoo, who
worked as a fire lookout.
The department's six divisions
were busy in 2006, said Wilson. Forty
two department employees were
"red-carded" (approved) to fight fires
last year, and logged 32 hand crew
days. Tribal firefighters traveled to
the Crow Agency in Montana and to
Winnemucca, Nevada to fight fires.
They did meadow and prairie res
torations, planted 36,600 seedlings
including douglas fir and western red
cedar in the process of reforesting 84
reservation acres.
Lumber sales amounted to $2.4
million in 2006, while 17.63 miles of
gravel road were graded in support
of that harvest as well as providing
general maintenance and care of the
road.
"While lumber sales vary from
year to year," said Wilson, "the
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Tribal member & Natural
Resources Manager Mike Wilson
Tribe remains on track with its
cutting plans."
Last year's fish weir project on
Agency Creek will allow the Tribe
to monitor fish coming up stream,
and other projects will allow the
department to monitor the travels
of deer and elk.
Across the Tribe's ceded lands,
the department is involved with 60
projects including work with fish
hatcheries, habitat issues, cleanups
and restorations, some on federal
forest land.
Staffer and Tribal member Shonn
Leno offers a hunter safety course.
Tribal members and leaders have
for a few years been given tours of
important historic Indian sites in
the Willamette National Forest,
and Tribal Chair
Chris Mercier said
that the Tribe and
the Forest staff have
agreed to initiate
more such tours in
the future.
Discussion items
included enroll
ment, health insur
ance and housing
questions.
Amended Tribal
enrollment statutes
intend to reduce the
problem of "split
families" (in which
one child is a Tribal
member and another
is not) and are in the
middle of a long, bu
reaucratic process
heading toward ap
proval. "I don't want any
body to think that
this will fix the
enrollment issue,"
said Tribal Council
member Valorie Sheker. "There
are always going to be enrollment
issues."
And perhaps the same could be
said for Tribal health insurance.
"Tribal (health) insurance is be
coming a real frustration," said Tribal
member and Eugene Satellite Office
Manager Jon Darcy-Chantell.
"We need some help with this,"
said Barbara LaChance, spouse of
Tribal Elder Gene LaChance.
Risk management will be a subject
at the upcoming community meet
ings. For individual help with Tribal
health insurance, contact the Tribe's
Risk and Insurance Programs Admin
istrator Allyson Lecatsas, or on the
internet, go to: www.hcdirect.net.
Freelance photojournalist Richard
Archambault (Standing Rock Sioux)
and Lane Community College Instruc
tion and Student Services Associate
Vice President Donna Koechig, Ph.D.
(Cherokee), updated the Council and
Tribal members about the progress
of the Lane Community College long
house. Still about $250,000 short of
the project's total $1.4 million cost,
building phases 1 and 2 are moving
forward. Ground broke for the long
house within a week of this meeting.
The Sweet Home Forest Service
district has offered to provide logs for
the project and an "Apache woodcut
ter" with a portable lumber mill has
volunteered to cut the logs to size.
The project begins pouring con
crete in May and upon completion,
it could be the first longhouse at a
community college in the nation.
Tribal member Mary Court asked
who to thank for the Vietnam Memo
rial. "I took a Vet there," she said,
"and he cried when he saw it."
Tribal members Clifford Olson,
Becky Weston, and Tribal Elder
Clarice Ellison each won $50 door
prizes; while Tribal member Anne
Pichette won the $100 prize.
Community meetings will begin
on Sunday, April 22 at the Embassy
Suites Hotel at the Portland Airport.
Next up will be Sunday, April 29 at
the LaQuinta Hotel in Tacoma, then
on Sunday, May 6 at the Community
Center in Grand Ronde. On Satur
day, May 12, the Tribe will sponsor
a community meeting in Eugene at
the Columbia Ballroom of the Valley
River Inn. And on Sunday, May 20,
the last of this year's community
meetings will be held at the River
house Resort in Bend.
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Tribal Elders and staff gathered together with Dr. Diane Pratt (wrapped in Pendleton blanket) at the community center on Thursday, March 29. Dr.
Pratt had decided to move back to her home state of New Mexico after four and a half years as Grand Ronde's Clinical Director.