16
JULY 1, 2021
Smoke Signals
Police Department has
nonemergency text line
The Grand Ronde Tribal Police Department has a nonemergency text
line at 541-921-2927.
“If you have a nonemergency situation or question, feel free to contact
my officer via text through this line,” said Grand Ronde Tribal Police
Chief Jake McKnight. “When one of my officers receives the text, they
will call you back when they have time.”
McKnight said that emergency situations still require calling 911.
For more information, contact McKnight at 503-879-1474. 
Optometry hours
• 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Wednesday
• 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday
• 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday (no eye exams, optical only)
Please call to schedule your appointment
at 503-879-2097 or 800-775-0095. 
Community Health Program
Medical Transport
Services
Medical transportation
services are available to
Tribal members within
the six-county service
area when an alternate
means of transportation
is not available. Advance
notice required.
Please call 503-879-2078
to schedule a reservation.
EDERATED
NF
BES
TRI
THE C
O
THE CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF GRAND RONDE
RA
DE
OF
G
ND RO
N
INDIGENT DEFENSE PROGRAM
The Tribal Court is actively seeking attorneys for
our Indigent Defense Program to represent parents
and children involved in neglect and abuse cases
within the jurisdiction of the Tribal Court.
If interested please contact the Tribal Court:
Shane Thomas
Tribal Court Programs Coordinator
9615 Grand Ronde Road,
Grand Ronde, OR 97347
Phone: 503-879-4623
Fax: 503-879-2269
shane.thomas@grandronde.org
www.grandronde.org/government/tribal-court
Ad by Samuel Briggs III
Haaland orders boarding
schools report by April 2022
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary
of the Interior Deb Haaland, the first
Native American to serve in a presi-
dential Cabinet, has ordered her fed-
eral department to prepare a report by
April 1, 2022, that will comprehensively
review the legacy of federal boarding
school policies.
While speaking before the National
Congress of American Indians mid-
year conference on Tuesday, June 22,
Haaland announced the Federal Indian
Boarding School Initiative that will be
Secretary of the
supervised by Assistant Secretary for
Interior
Deb Haaland
Indian Affairs Bryan Newland.
“The Interior Department will ad-
dress the inter-generational impact of Indian boarding schools to shed
light on the unspoken traumas of the past, no matter how hard it will be,”
Haaland said. “I know that this process will be long and difficult. I know
that this process will be painful. It won’t undo the heartbreak and loss
we feel. But only by acknowledging the past can we work toward a future
that we’re all proud to embrace.”
Beginning with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819, the United States
enacted laws and implemented policies establishing and supporting Indian
boarding schools whose purpose was to culturally assimilate Indigenous
children by forcibly relocating them to distant residential facilities where
their Tribal identities, languages and beliefs were suppressed, often forcibly.
One of those schools, Chemawa Indian School, opened in February 1880
in Salem, Ore. Spurred by the recent discovery of 215 unmarked graves
at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in Canada, the Federal Indian
Boarding School Initiative will investigate the loss of life and the lasting
consequences of residential Indian boarding schools in the United States.
The goal will be to identify boarding school facilities and sites; locate known
and possible student burial sites; and identify children interred at such
locations and their Tribal affiliations.
The Interior Department continues to operate residential boarding
schools through the Bureau of Indian Education, but now the schools
aim to provide quality education to Native students and empower them
to better themselves and their communities, according to the Department
of the Interior.
Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo Nation in New Mexico, also
became the first Native American to lead the Department of the Interior
when she was sworn into office earlier this year after being nominated to
the post by President Joseph Biden. 