MARCH 1, 2017
S moke S ignals
13
Leno calls the agreement 'disheartening'
TERO continued
from front page
16, Oregon Transportation Com-
mission meeting to lodge a strong
protest.
Grand Ronde Tribal Council
Chairman Reyn Leno was accom-
panied by Tribal Council members
Tonya Gleason-Shepek, Jack Giffen
Jr. and Denise Harvey, as well as
Acting TERO Director John Mer-
cier, Tribal Attorney Rob Greene,
Assistant Tribal Attorney Kim
D’Aquila and Tribal lobbyist Justin
Martin.
Leno testified for five minutes
during the commission’s public
comments period, calling the mem-
orandum of understanding between
ODOT and Warm Springs “dis-
heartening.”
Leno’s testimony comes on the
heels of Department of Transporta-
tion Director Matt Garrett visiting
Tribal Council on Tuesday, Feb. 14,
where he said that the department
had “exhausted all avenues” in try-
ing to reach an agreement that was
acceptable to both Tribes.
The proposed ODOT-Warm
Springs agreement would run
through January 2019 and include
a 60-mile radius that would begin
on the Warm Springs Reservation,
which would create the contentious
overlap on the west side of the
Cascades.
Leno said before giving his Trans-
portation Commission testimony
that Tribal Council wanted to
explain its position to the mem-
bership.
And that position boils down to
treaties. The Grand Ronde Tribe
has seven ratified treaties with
the United States, including the
Willamette Valley Treaty of 1855
that ceded most of western Oregon
to the federal government.
The Warm Springs Tribe has the
largest Reservation in Oregon that
is located east of the Cascade Moun-
tains. However, its agreement with
the Department of Transportation
would give Warm Springs Tribal
employment rights over the crest of
the Cascade Mountains into Grand
Ronde’s ceded homelands.
Leno reminded the Oregon Trans-
portation Commission that Grand
Ronde signed a memorandum of
understanding with ODOT in Jan-
uary 2014 that ensures contractors
engaged in federal-aid highway
construction projects within a 60-
mile radius of the Grand Ronde
Reservation work with the Tribal
Employment Rights Office to pro-
vide employment preference to
qualified Native American workers.
Grand Ronde also collects a fee –
2.25 percent for the first $2 million
– for qualified construction projects
that helps fund the TERO program.
“The boundary in the MOU in-
cludes the Portland metropolitan
area, an area within a reason-
able commuting distance from
Grand Ronde and part of our
treaty homelands,” Leno said.
“Since 2014, Grand Ronde’s Trib-
al Employment Rights Office has
supplied qualified Indian workers,
including members of the Siletz
and Warm Springs Tribes, to serve
in Grand Ronde’s ceded
homelands.
“The area of overlap is
well beyond a reasonable
commuting distance for
residents of the Warm
Springs Reservation, and
it includes a large part
of Grand Ronde’s treaty
homelands,” Leno said.
“Recognition and preser-
vation of Grand Ronde’s
history in the area and
the positive contractor
relationships we have de-
veloped are of the utmost
importance to the Tribe.”
Leno requested that the
Oregon Transportation
Commission not move
forward with any TERO
agreement that creates
an overlapping boundary
until Grand Ronde, Warm
Springs and ODOT devel-
op a solution that can be
implemented when the ex-
isting Grand Ronde MOU
expires in January 2019.
“Grand Ronde raised
with ODOT and Warm
Springs these and other
concerns with overlap-
ping project boundaries
when it first learned of
Warm Springs’ proposed
project boundary,” Leno
said. “To our knowledge,
our concerns will not be
addressed in the Warm
Springs MOU.
Map created by George Valdez
“We understand that
Depending on where the center of the
Director Garrett is in the
60-mile radius is designated in the Oregon
unenviable position of nav-
Department of Transportation and Warm
igating different Tribal in-
Springs Tribal Employment Rights agreement terests, but simply ignoring
that is currently being negotiated, the
Grand Ronde’s concerns
overlap with the Grand Ronde Tribe’s already
is a betrayal of our past
established TERO area in the Willamette
partnerships and govern-
ment-to-government rela-
Valley varies. From top to bottom, the
tionship with ODOT.”
overlap changes if the Warm Springs center
Leno also cited the Tribe’s
is designated from the center of the Warm
substantial financial con-
Springs Reservation, the town of Warm
tributions to state road-
Springs or the northwestern boundary of the
way projects designed to
Warm Springs Reservation with Highway 26.
relieve congestion and im-
prove traffic safety, such
as $4 million donated to the New-
as flaggers, laborers, masons and
berg-Dundee Bypass and the Grand
painters on more than 38 highway
Ronde Road improvement project.
projects, including 17 projects in
Transportation Commission
the Portland metropolitan area.
Chair Tammy Baney was the only
In 2016 alone, at least 50 workers
one of four commissioners in atten-
on those projects were sent by the
dance to respond and she remained
Grand Ronde TERO. Contractor
non-committal, thanking Grand
feedback on these workers has
Ronde representatives for their
been uniformly positive.
time in attending the meeting.
“Because of our long cooperative
“I have been briefed on the issue
history with ODOT, it was extreme-
and the partnership is very import-
ly disheartening to learn earlier
ant to us,” Baney said. “It is my
this week that Director Garrett
understanding that there are other
has decided to sign an MOU with
conversations that will be ongoing.
the Confederated Tribes of Warm
I very much appreciate you being
Springs Tribal Employment Rights
here today to share with us. We
Office, which includes a project
are aware of this and we appreciate
boundary that will overlap with the
your time spent in bringing this to
project boundary covered by Grand
our attention.”
Ronde’s existing MOU.”
The memorandum continues the
Leno said that an overlapping
Grand Ronde Tribe’s contentious
TERO boundary between two
relationship with Warm Springs,
Tribes likely will create adminis-
which continues to pursue inroads
trative difficulties and contractor
into the Willamette Valley and
confusion. Other Tribal Council
balked during TERO boundary ne-
members expressed their concern
gotiations at recognizing the Grand
during the Feb. 14 meeting that
Ronde Tribe’s treaties.
Warm Springs will be teaching
In the 2000s, Warm Springs
its history to contractors working
proposed building a casino in the
Columbia River Gorge, which is
part of the Grand Ronde Tribe’s
ceded homelands. More recently,
Warm Springs attempted to ac-
quire hunting tags on the west side
of the Cascades, but was unsuccess-
ful, and the eastern Oregon Tribe
purchased 277 acres in Yamhill
County as part of the Bonneville
Power Administration’s Willamette
Wildlife Mitigation Program.
“Our expectation is that we don’t
go on the other side of the moun-
tain. We’re not going over there
trying to do that to them. This is
really disappointing to us,” Leno
said during the Feb. 14 meeting
with Garrett in Tribal Council’s
conference room.
“This is probably one of the most
disappointing decisions I have ever
seen come out of the state govern-
ment,” Giffen said during the Feb.
14 meeting. “We’ve been restored
for 33 years and we’ve gone through
every agency with a similar out-
come. We make compromises. We
come to the table and we negotiate
and make compromises, but it
seems like some of the other Tribes,
they come in and demand and get
what they want. … We went to the
table with those folks and gave
them a very, very small piece of
language that they just recognize
this as our ceded lands and they
refused that. Then you folks go and
give them the opportunity to fulfill
their dreams.”
Garrett said that Tribal disagree-
ments might become more frequent
in the future as the Siletz Tribe
seeks to establish a Tribal Employ-
ment Rights Office, which would
create another overlap between
Oregon Tribes.
John Mercier, the Grand Ronde
Tribe’s Acting TERO director, said
that the current program has 317
potential workers, including 30
Warm Springs Tribal members.
“We accept all federally recog-
nized Indians in our program,”
Mercier said.
He said the potential solution
is a proposal that is being exam-
ined in Washington state where a
statewide agreement would dictate
that overlapping Tribal boundaries
require the affected Tribes to share
in TERO fees and employment and
the closest Tribe would administer
the project.
“We just want our aboriginal
areas acknowledged,” Mercier said.
“A lot of people always tend to
think that we go argue with other
Tribes,” Leno said during the Tues-
day, Feb. 21, Legislative Action
Committee meeting. “There’s an-
other Tribe that is coming in and
does not want to acknowledge our
treaties and wants to do an MOU
that will overlap with our MOU.
… We met with that Tribe twice
and tried to work things out. Peo-
ple tend to think we go and pick
fights with other Tribes, but in
this case are doing what we need
to do to protect our treaties and
ceded lands.”
The official language of the
ODOT-Warm Springs agreement
is currently being negotiated, Gar-
rett said in the Feb. 14 meeting.