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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 15, 2011)
Smoke Signals 1 1 FEBRUARY 1 5, 201 1 Online degree programs Turn your college credits or associate degree into a more powerful four year degree from Portland State University. Undergraduate degrees offered: BABS in Social Science, BABS in Arts & Letters and BABS in Liberal Studies. For more information, call 503-725-4822 or 1-800-547-8887, ext. 4822. E-mauYonlinepdx.edu. B Garage sale seeking donations Tribal Elders are seeking donations of items for their fundraising garage sales. To donate an item or items, call Tribal Elder Linda Brandon at 971-267-0918. B Cowlitz Tribe not federally acknowledged until 2000 COWLITZ continued from front page tary Larry Echo Hawk and Bureau of Indian Affairs Northwest Region Director Stanley Speaks. The approximately 152-acre par cel that Interior approved to take into trust for the Cowlitz Tribe is at the Northwest 319th Street in terchange west of Interstate 5 near La Center, about 15 miles north of Vancouver. The Cowlitz have announced plans to build a large casino at the site. However, Grand Ronde's lawsuit says that the land is approximately 25 miles from the Cowlitz adminis trative offices in Longview, Wash., and 50 miles away from Cowlitz Tribal housing and the Cowlitz El ders Program and Senior Nutrition Center in Toledo, Wash. "Grand Ronde has cultural and historical connections to the north shore of the Columbia River, in cluding Clark County," the lawsuit says. "Indeed, that historical con nection has been expressly recog nized by treaty since 1855. Grand Ronde also considers Clark County, Wash., part of its Non-Treaty Homelands and Cultural Interest Lands, and Grand Ronde Tribal members are buried on the north side of the Columbia River. "Establishment of a reservation for the Cowlitz outside their ab original lands and on lands to which Grand Ronde, by contrast, has a significant connection - would cause further injury to Grand Ronde." The Indian Claims Commission, the Tribe's lawsuit states, deter mined the southernmost area of the Cowlitz's aboriginal land is at least 14 miles north of the parcel. "In the relevant historical time periods, such distances would have been difficult to travel and would have been traveled only rarely," the lawsuit says, which does not support Salazar's finding that the Cowlitz had a significant historical connection to the land. The lawsuit filed by Clark County and the other parties also points out that the Department of Interior's decision appears to run contrary to a 2009 Supreme Court decision that ruled Interior could only take land into trust for Tribes that were rec ognized as of 1934, when the Indian Reorganization Act was enacted. "In approving the Cowlitz Tribe's proposed fee-to-trust, the Secretary ... exceeded his authority under the Indian Reorganization Act, the scope of which the Supreme Court recently clarified in Carcieri v. Sala zar," Clark County's lawsuit says. Clark County says that the Su preme Court ruled that the Indian Reorganization Act defines the term "Indian" to "include all persons of Indian descent who are members of any recognized Indian Tribe now under federal jurisdiction" with "now" meaning when the act was first enacted in 1934. The Cowlitz Tribe was not feder ally acknowledged until 2000. "The available evidence ... dem onstrates that the Cowlitz Tribe was not under federal jurisdiction in 1934," the lawsuit states. Clark County's lawsuit also points out that the Cowlitz Tribe's fee lands and Tribal offices are 24 miles north of the proposed casino site within the Tribe's historic territory, but that real estate developer David Barnett, the Tribe's chairman's son at the time, purchased the option on the La Center parcel, which is a "short 16-mile drive from Portland, Oregon, providing easy access to the Portland gaming market." Clark County's lawsuit also as serts violations of the Indian Gam ing Regulatory Act and National Environmental Policy Act by the Department of Interior in reaching its decision to OK the Cowlitz land request. The Grand Ronde Tribe has re tained the law firm of Robbins, Rus sell, Englert, Orseck, Untereiner & Sauber to represent it while Clark County and the city of Van couver are using staff attorneys and Citizens Against Reservation Shopping, the neighboring land owners and card room owners have retained Perkins Coie law firm. U.S. District Court in Washing ton, D.C., is not expected to hear either lawsuit until this summer at the earliest. B ( g$ Wf . -,i.V I v K -v.. 1 s H S F Ffc B f Nr.: LI I U AS D J B IEa : h in - if r-S A VI k: : -0::-::; Camp Wfestwind 3 WmsMSH v r V Ad created by George Valdez
