20
S moke S ignals
JUNE 1, 2016
Letters
Dear Smoke Signals:
I just wanted to put a special thank you into Smoke Signals for our
meat donation for Coffee Creek’s spring celebration. Without the help of
our Tribal volunteers and our people, the people in prison would not get
anything.
The women here at Coffee Creek are very grateful for the deer and salmon
that was donated. We get hands-on with the meat and fry bread. It was
an honor to help cook and prepare the food that fed our people.
Thank you to the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde for helping us
women in prison keep up our traditions.
Kristie Jeffers
Roll #1896
Dear Smoke Signals:
There is some confusion regarding the registration for the upcoming
constitutional amendment election. Constitutional elections are admin-
istered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They require a valid registration
form of their own. If you are registered with the Tribe that will not count
for the upcoming constitutional election. You will need to submit the new
registration form you will be receiving from the BIA.
Please place the following dates on your calendar.
Registration and voting:
May 17 — Voter registration forms were mailed out.
June 7 — All registration forms must be returned by mail to the BIA.
This date is extremely important. The forms must be in their ofice and
postmarked received on this date. Plus, please note they are being mailed
to Albuquerque, N.M., so I would allow at least a week for mail time. Get
those registration forms back in the mail no later than June 1 please.
June 13 — Ballots will be mailed to all registered voters.
July 8 — Election Day. This is also an extremely important date. All
voting ballots must be mailed back and in the Election Board’s hands by
this date to be counted. These will be sent to Grand Ronde. So, depending
on where you are I would be getting these ballots in the mail ASAP. I
would suggest no later than July 2. Don't miss your opportunity to make
your vote count.
If you do not receive a voter registration form or a ballot within ive days
of the speciied date, please contact Lori Anderson at the Warm Springs
BIA ofice at 541-553-2439. She is the person coordinating the election.
Remember this is a constitutional election and it takes two-thirds of the
voting members to vote in the afirmation to pass. We need everyone to
reach out to their family members and make sure they vote.
Adrainne N. LLaneza
Roll #1715
Dear Smoke Signals:
Fairness to all Tribal members
The Constitution of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde belongs to
each and every Tribal member: the membership.
This is why I feel this BIA election in the shortened version is not fair
to all the membership. If just one Tribal member is eliminated from the
election process because of a shortened time frame, we have taken a Tribal
right away from them. Each Tribal member should have the same oppor-
tunity to voice their opinion with a vote.
Many of the older Elders do not have computers or the Internet. This
will take that Elder population out of most of the education process of the
election. Many of these Elders still have a vivid memory of a shortened BIA
election that ultimately terminated this Tribe. Regardless of any political
agenda, an election process should be fair to the membership.
Bundling of amendments is also not fair to the membership. They should
be given the opportunity to voice their opinion on each amendment alone
and on its own merit. This would be fair.
The right thing to do
I was a small boy before Termination. I witnessed the hardships and
bad treatment our ancestors endured to give us the sovereign rights to
everything we have and enjoy today.
I hold the highest respect for the ancestors and the Grand Ronde cul-
ture, wisdom and history they passed down through verbal teachings. The
teachings made me aware of just how sacred each bloodline was to all of
our ancestors who enrolled here at Grand Ronde.
I feel it is very disrespectful to the ancestors to add other blood from
other Tribes that did not endure the hardships here at Grand Ronde.
In my opinion, the discussion should be how to elevate, promote and
extend the bloodlines from our ancestors who were here and enrolled in
the Tribe before Termination and did without. They are the members
who give you the right to call yourself Grand Ronde, not someone from
another Tribe.
Jack Giffen Jr.
Tribal Council Vice Chair
Roll #182
Dear Smoke Signals:
I recently attended the constitutional amendment education meeting. I
found it to be very informative and along with the presented materials we
were allowed to ask questions to receive even more clariication.
Over the past several months there has been an aggressive smear cam-
paign waged against the upcoming constitutional amendment, including
attacks on the Tribal Council members who support it and loads of misin-
formation. Now that the education meeting has been conducted, I would
like to share some of the information received and hopefully clear up some
of the misinformation.
1) No change to 1/16th minimum blood quantum requirement.
2) Will only help descendants of Grand Ronde Tribal members. This will
not open the loodgates for members from other Tribes.
3) Relinquishment from another Tribe for a minimum of ive years will
remain in effect. Basically, no Tribe hoppers (sorry I personally do not
care for this term).
4) Grand Ronde Tribal members enrolled prior to 1999 included all In-
dian blood. The 1999 amendment changed that to “all Indian blood from
a direct ancestor on the Restoration Roll only.” The purposed amendment
will allow descendants of a direct ancestor on the Restoration Roll through
the date of the 1999 amendment to claim all Indian blood and not only
ixes the split family problems but creates equality for our membership.
5) A slide presentation was given during the meeting (I believe the Tribe
will be posting this presentation on its website). Page 18 titled “Statistics:
Net Membership Applications Denied by Reason for Denial September
1999 to March 21, 2016.” I wish I could include a copy of this page, but
that is not allowed per Smoke Signals policy. Penny Deloe (Enrollment
Department) and the legal department compiled the data utilizing denied
enrollment applications for the past 17 years in an effort to give some
idea how many people we are actually looking at. Deneen Aubertin Keller
(Tribal attorney) stated the majority of these are children.
Please note: There were seven different line items included. When I ques-
tioned Ms. Aubertin Keller about which statistics listed on the graph actually
pertained to the proposed constitutional amendment, she replied the third
one from the top covers Deinition of Grand Ronde blood with 113 denied ap-
plications and the one at the very bottom covers parent on the roll at the time
of your birth with 176 denied applications. Hardly the loodgates that some
would like us to believe. However, they made it very clear that there will be
more and they can’t be sure exactly how many, but these are actual applica-
tions they have denied due to the 1999 amendment over the past 17 years.
The others statistics listed will not be affected by the purposed amend-
ment. This amendment in no way helps anyone who meets zero require-
ments. Really have no idea why they even included the other statistics.
I hope this helps clear up some of the misinformation that has been
spread for the past few months.
Please vote “yes” for this upcoming constitutional amendment. It has
been 17 years. This amendment is not about loodgates. This amendment
is about equality. This amendment is about healing our split families. This
amendment is about who we are as Native people.
Ann K. Lewis
Roll #3983
Dear Smoke Signals:
I'm writing this letter to let other Tribal members know exactly why I
am voting “no” on the proposed constitutional amendments on enrollment
requirements.
First off I want to say that I agree split families need to be ixed. My
concern is changing the deinition of Grand Ronde blood. I don't feel that
it is right to “increase some individual's Grand Ronde blood quantum”
page 29 from the educational meetings handout prepared by our Tribe’s
legal team. It’s pretty simple: Grand Ronde is Grand Ronde blood; it is
not Chippewa or Navajo or any other blood.
Another concern I have is timing. Rob Greene, in our presentation,
made it very clear “there is a short window here”; he repeated it several
times. At the educational class I learned that the BIA was not ready for
this proposal so it literally sat there for a few weeks. Also this proposal
is bundled together which adds to the challenge of understanding it all.
There were only three educational classes. Seven tribal members at the
Portland meeting, 30 in Grand Ronde and about 15 in Eugene. My guess is
that is about 1 percent of the membership or somewhere close. A lot more
members need to know about this and not just read opinions from Facebook
posts. I’m really disappointment at the turnout. I am also concerned that
because of this short window, not all Tribal members will be able to vote.
My last concern is that “we don't know” was repeated many times in my
educational class with regard to how many people this will affect. Page
18 from the handout clearly shows that 428 applicants were denied. I
don't know why we can’t take our time, do an impact study and provide
answers to what would happen with this much increased membership
to our programs and budgets. There is no plan to deal with this because
again “we don't know” how many people this will affect. There are too
many unknowns for me to give a “yes” vote.
I want to ix split families, but I am not in favor of increasing individual
blood quantum by using blood from other Tribes so applicants can qualify.
Let’s ind another way to ix these split families now and together!
Rich Colton
Roll #1234