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President Barack Obama’s VAWA Law Signing Spotlights Native Women Warriors

Diane Millich (Southern Ute Indian Tribe) (second to left) and Deborah Parker (Tulalip Tribe) (third to left) joined President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, members of the administration and Congress, women's rights advocates, and domestic abuse survivors for the signing of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization on March 7. Courtesy National Congress of American Indians — Diane Millich (Southern Ute Indian Tribe) (second to left) and Deborah Parker (Tulalip Tribe) (third to left) joined President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, members of the administration and Congress, women’s rights advocates, and domestic abuse survivors for the signing of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization on March 7. Courtesy National Congress of American Indians

By Rob Capriccioso, Indian Country Today Media Network

During the March 7 signing ceremony in the offices of the United States Department of the Interior of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), Vice President Joe Biden had a difficult time remembering all of the many advocates and legislators he wanted to highlight and thank for their hard work on making the enhanced law a reality.

Similarly, it is difficult to single out all of the Native American women warriors who worked overtime to make the tribal provisions of the new law come to life.

There were tribal leaders like Terri Henry, Deborah Parker, and Fawn Sharp. There were lobbyists like Holly Cook Macarro, Kim Teehee, and Aurene Martin. National Indian organization leaders like Jackie Johnson Pata, Juana Majel Dixon, and the crew at the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) led conference calls, action alerts, and legislative visits. There were advocates on the ground including Pamela Dalton Stearns, Theresa Sheldon, Jax Agtuca, and countless other Indian grassroots activists. And there were the male crusaders, too, like Wilson Pipestem, David Bean, Ernie Stevens, and U.S. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.).

“I felt elated,” said Henry, a tribal council member with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, in summing up the day. “I’m incredibly happy and proud of our team of strong hearts—Native women and Native nations. I am humbled and honored that our collective effort to obtain this slice of justice was supported in so many ways by Native people across America.”

“It’s a miracle of such strength,” Dixon, secretary of NCAI and a Pauma tribal citizen, reflected in a YouTube video posted on the day of the signing by the U.S. Department of the Interior. “When we see the first case go through with the protections in order and our Native women protected … that’s going to be a breath of freedom, a breath of certainty that we can protect our people.”

All of them worked together for years for the greater good of Indian country as a whole—trying desperately not to allow tribal divisions on other issues get in the way (although Alaska Native women and families did lose out in the end due to a compromise pushed by their state’s legislators who fear expanding tribal jurisdiction in the “last frontier” state—a front that tribal women, including Johnson Pata, have said they plan to take on in the coming weeks).

Cole and his colleague, Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), were told many times throughout the ups and downs of the legislative process in the House that Indian country would not compromise on the inherent tribal court jurisdiction provision, first offered in the Senate version of the bill; nor did tribal leaders want the removal process to federal courts to be overly simple, as that outcome would have treated tribal courts as lesser judicial bodies. In the end, the House on February 28 passed the Senate’s version of the bill that tribal advocates had been pushing all along—inherent tribal authority and a strict removal process intact.

The strong voices of female tribal advocates played a major role in the process, with some of them, like Parker, going so far as to share their own personal tales of familial abuse to help sway legislators’ minds. They were stories that drew national media attention, and they led at least one congressman, Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), to change his mind to end up supporting the tribal VAWA.

Indian women also got the attention of the White House early on, and they secured the Obama administration’s unwavering support, with the Justice Department directly rebutting Republican legislators who argued that the tribal provisions were unconstitutional.

At the president’s signing ceremony, Diane Millich, a citizen of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, was invited to introduce Biden, and to share her personal story of marrying a non-Indian man when she was 26 who ended up assaulting her soon after he moved in with her on her reservation.

“After a year of abuse and more than 100 incidents of being slapped, kicked, punched, and living in horrific terror, I left for good,” Millich told the audience. When she asked the tribal police for help, they could do nothing due to legal restrictions that said the tribe could not prosecute her husband because he was non-Indian. “If the bill being signed today were law when I was married, it would have allowed my tribe to arrest and prosecute my abuser,” she said to applause.

Many of the non-Indian advocates who gathered at the Department of the Interior headquarters to witness President Barack Obama sign into law the VAWA probably didn’t really understand how much the law alters the playing field for tribes by recognizing their “inherent” sovereign power to have jurisdiction over their lands—still, they cheered loudly all the same, largely because they got what they wanted in VAWA, and because the overall basic message was simple: All women and families, regardless of skin color, should be able to live without the fear of domestic violence and abuse. If increased tribal court authority over non-Indians could make that happen for Native women, the non-Indian advocates were on board.

Obama seemed to understand, singling out the Native provisions and the people who supported them: “Tribal governments have an inherent right to protect their people, and all women deserve the right to live free from fear,” he said. “And that is what today is all about.”

The president also noted that Indian country has some of the highest rates of domestic abuse in the country. “And one of the reasons is that when Native American women are abused on tribal lands by an attacker who is not Native American, the attacker is immune from prosecution by tribal courts. Well, as soon as I sign this bill that ends,” he said to major applause.

The president’s speech was televised, and if one looked closely, Indian women were well represented in the audience of his speech, and some like Parker and Millich made it onto the stage to shake his hand and to show their pride as he signed the bill into law.

Although the overall signing event was a celebration, it was also difficult because the tribal legislation of the hour wouldn’t be needed if Indian women weren’t getting abused at such alarmingly high rates. Aurene Martin, a citizen of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and founder of Spirit Rock Consulting, touched on that point, saying it was a “bittersweet” victory. “I was sad, because of all the women who had to suffer to make the amendments to VAWA necessary,” Martin said. “I cried during Diane Millich’s speech because of how terrified she must have been in her own home and on her own reservation, among her own people.”

At the same time, Martin was “proud and elated because of the awesome, unified effort made by all of Indian country to support the changes to VAWA.”

Many of these women warriors are now being honored in their communities, as well as via phone calls and social network messages. During the VAWA signing week, some of them were honored at the National Indian Women Honoring Luncheon, organized by Washington, D.C. tribal advocates who wanted to support them and to encourage their future successes.

Cook Macarro, a Red Lake Ojibwe citizen and lobbyist with Ietan Consulting, was one of those honored. In all, the VAWA experience was overwhelming for her—and she’s no novice, having been through her share of legislative battles. “To stand with so many Native women warriors and watch President Obama sign the VAWA into law was one of the proudest moments of my career,” she shared. “As my tears flowed, I thought of the women back home in Red Lake, working and staying at Equay Wiigamig (Women’s Shelter), and of the many other Native women who will now be protected and have access to resources because of this effort. For so many reasons, this was the sweetest of victories.”

Cook Macarro also shared a message for the abusers who made this law necessary: “To every non-Indian perpetrator of domestic violence or sexual assault on an Indian woman on Indian lands who went unprosecuted—take that!” she exclaimed. “You provided us with the story and legislative opportunity to touch the minds and hearts of Democrats and Republicans alike on the Hill and restore partial criminal jurisdiction to tribes for the first time since 1978.”

CBS Won’t Apologize for ‘Drunk Indians’ Crack on ‘Mike & Molly,’ Protests Begin

Indian Country Today Media Network staff

Activist and ICTMN reader Raven Ross has sought resolution to the Mike & Molly situation from CBS — in vain. And now she’s taking her grievances to the street.

The “Mike & Molly situation” refers to an offensive comment made on a recent episode of the show.

“Arizona? Why would I go to Arizona?” said Molly’s mother-in-law, played by actress Rondi Reed. “It’s nothing but a furnace full of drunk Indians.”

Ross contacted CBS, and here is her report:

CBS/Mike & Molly show are not going to apologize!

I personally received a call back from CBS, Ms. Tiffany Smith Anoai, who told me that no apology would be coming from the Mike & Molly show!

Ms. Anoai said she is “speaking directly with Mike & Molly’s writers.” I asked, Is the Native voice is present and being heard at these sessions? Her answer: No. But, she said, the writers do attend a once-a-year diversity workshop!

(I bet the writers for Mike & Molly were either asleep, had headphones on, or were engaged in selective hearing!)

Ross is taking action today where she lives, and is hoping that other Natives will do the same.

I have organized in Phoenix, Arizona, today (3/11) an All Tribes Peaceful Anti-Racism Protest at CBS TV station-Channel 5! I recommend that all Native peoples do the same in their hometown.

CBS and the Mike & Molly show are perpetuating 500-plus years of racism, prejudice, and bigotry toward the original landowners and the original inhabitants of great North America! Anti-American Indian sentiment is here and growing throughout the USA. It has come to my attention, from articles published this past year on ICTMN, that Our People have been experiencing heightened racism. Western Society is using their tools of racist stereotyping and continue to engage in cultural and spiritual misappropriation and exploitation through the media to diminish our people to insignificance! It’s time to take a stand! No longer shall we be swept under the rug, and dismissed by an insensitive and ignorant segment of western society.

Protest and boycott CBS and the Mike & Molly show now. For our ancestors, yourselves, and future generations of indigenous people everywhere.

A Miscalculation on the Sequester Has Already Harmed Indian Health

Yvette Roubideaux, Indian Health Service director. AP photo.

By Rob Capriccioso, Indian Country Today Media Network

The many ways the federal government’s sequester will hurt Indian country are easy to see. The National Congress of American Indians has released a policy paper saying that tribal economic growth has already been thwarted; the National Indian Education Association has said the cuts “devastate” Indian education; and Native journalist Mark Trahant estimates that the overall financial reduction for funding in Indian country totals $386 million—and that’s just through the end of September.

In all, the joint decision by Congress and the Obama White House, first made in 2011 and carried out on March 1, to allow an across-the-board 9 percent cut to all non-exempt domestic federal programs (and a 13 percent cut for Defense accounts)—known collectively as the sequester—amounts to a major violation of the trust responsibility relationship the federal government is supposed to have with American Indians, as called for in historic treaties, the U.S. Constitution and contemporary American policy.

While all of the cutbacks are troubling and difficult to bear, perhaps the most problematic of all are the ones happening at the Indian Health Service (IHS), housed in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The IHS must offer healthcare to enrolled tribal citizens, providing services for what are often the poorest of all Indians who live on reservations and can’t afford other healthcare.

With even the smallest of federal cuts, the agency—which has been vastly underfunded, by most tribal accounts, for decades—would have a more difficult time carrying out its mission. But it turns out that a sequester miscalculation—made through a combination of IHS error in misreading relevant law and a judgment call by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)—has ended up costing tribal citizens much more than they were originally told.

IHS Director Yvette Roubideaux and her staffers had said at various tribal meetings and in letters throughout 2011 and early 2012 that “the worst-case scenario would be a 2 percent decrease from current funding levels” for IHS, rather than the 9 percent that was forecasted for most federal agencies if the sequester went into effect.

But Indian country began to learn late last year that Roubideaux’ predictions were wrong. IHS would be cut on March 1 at the same rate as every other non-protected agency. And since IHS was late to the game in planning for the larger cut, it didn’t work as aggressively at saving and protecting its resources as it could have. Also—and perhaps most egregiously—it fed tribes misinformation that cost them months of planning and advocacy time. “It’s unfortunate that we all relied on [IHS’s] earlier interpretation, because we could have addressed this earlier with the administration (especially the OMB) and the Congress,” said Jim Roberts, a policy analyst with the Northwest Portland Indian Health Board.

“Had IHS communicated the correct information in the previous fiscal year, tribal care providers that receive IHS funding would have been able to modify their budgets so they would have had more resources for this year—and thus the cuts to tribal citizens wouldn’t be as steep,” added Lloyd Miller, an Indian affairs lawyer with Sonosky Chambers who has worked on many lawsuits involving the agency. “The earlier tribal providers could have been planning for disaster, the better. In this case, tribes lost a whole year.”

Roubideaux’ error happened because she was relying on internal analysis that indicated IHS would be protected in the same way services for veterans served by the U.S. Department of Veterans have been protected from steep cuts. Specifically, IHS leaders relied on the 1985 Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act (BBEDCA), which included a specific provision that named IHS as having a limited percent reduction under a sequester order, according to the agency.

Constance James, a spokeswoman for IHS, confirms that Roubideaux’ statements about the budget reduction being limited to two percent were based on the agency’s reading of the BBEDCA.

But then, in September of last year, OMB told IHS that the 2011 Budget Control Act, which would implement the current sequester, did not contain the BBEDCA provision for the agency. Or at least that was how the OMB’s Office of General Counsel was interpreting it, according to James.

With that OMB direction, Roubideaux quickly began backpedalling, telling tribal leaders since September 2012 that IHS and the thousands of tribal citizens it serves would be subject to the full sequestration.

IHS is now working overtime explaining the change, probably because officials there are worried at least in part about congressional oversight. Indeed they should be, as some Congress members are threatening investigations over the misreading of the law, with concerned tribal leaders saying they too would like answers.

On March 1—the day the sequester order was signed by President Barack Obama—Roubideaux held a conference call with some tribal leaders in which she explained that because of the shortened fiscal year, the full amount of this reduction will be done over the next seven months, since the first six months of fiscal year lump-sum funding has already been released to tribes.

Roubideaux has also asked tribal care-providers to be very conservative in their spending until the full impact of sequestration is known. The agency is also working to transfer any remaining continuing resolution-funding out to self-governance tribes as soon as possible, in accordance with the terms and conditions of respective Title V compacts and funding agreements.

**********

The agency is trying to deflect blame for this mistake from Roubideaux. When asked if it was the IHS director’s fault that the law was misread, James said via e-mail, “These are administration determinations based on OMB [Office of General Counsel] guidance. So, no this is not an agency (Roubideaux) interpretation.”

But that response isn’t enough for Roberts and other tribal health and legal experts monitoring the situation. “They misapplied the law,” Roberts says. “Their response does appear to sum it up.”

Miller says the interpretation was “patently incorrect” and that it would be good to know who at the agency was relying on a nearly 30-year-old law as applicable to the current situation. “Were they relying on a legal opinion? If not, why not?” he says.

On top of these concerns, Roberts also cautions that tribes need to be prepared to expect furloughs and reductions in service at IHS direct-managed sites. The National Congress of American Indians says that the sequester will decrease inpatient admissions by 3,000 and outpatient visits by as much as 804,000 in IHS and tribal hospitals and clinics.

There seems to be little or nothing that can be done to ease the devastating pain this sequester will bring to Indian country. Charlie Galbraith, the Associate Director for Intergovernmental Affairs at the White House, said at a February gathering of tribal leaders of the United South and Eastern Tribes in Washington, D.C. that “the way we protect tribal priorities is to avoid sequester.”

But the White House didn’t avoid sequester, so now what? When asked by tribal leaders if tribes could be exempted from sequestration, given the Obama administration’s strong belief in federal-tribal trust responsibility, Galbraith said, “That’s just not going to happen. We have the entire military machine, every lobbyist, every contractor, trying to exempt the military provision—the president is not going to cut this off piecemeal. We need a comprehensive solution that is going to address the real problem here.”

In other words, if the Obama administration protected federal-tribal trust responsibility by preventing cuts to Indian programs, “it weakens our argument as a whole,” Galbraith said. “We need the support of Indian country out there being public, writing op-eds, on Facebook, on Twitter, telling the American people how important it is that we come to a balanced solution that raises revenues and cuts spending in an appropriate, reasonable way.”

In the end, all that’s left to be done is to accurately calculate the damage, and to try to advocate for Congress to restore funding as soon as possible. That’s what Trahant, a citizen of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe, has been doing by detailing the intricacies of the austerity measures on his website, which grows increasingly popular as tribal communities began to realize the extent of the damage as the sequester kicks in.

The staff of the NIHB is also looking for legislative solutions. “[W]e are seeking a legislative fix that would exempt IHS from the sequester,” says Stacy Bohlen, director of the organization. “We [have been noting] that all health programs supported by the federal government, with the exception of Indian Health Service, are not subject to sequestration. This is not okay.”

Indian leaders could also press for Roubideaux to be punished, but some say there is general reluctance to do that, since she’s done a solid job of addressing many tribal needs since beginning her tenure in 2009. “There’s always fear in biting the hand that feeds you,” says Miller. “But these are legal questions, not policy questions. This is not rocket science.”

Members of Congress who have expressed dismay at IHS leadership shortcomings over the years, are less inclined to be forgiving. Laura Mengelkamp, a spokeswoman for Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), says her boss, a medical doctor by trade and vice-chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, is extremely concerned about the IHS situation. “The IHS may have made an unfortunate mistake or misinterpretation of sequestration that created confusion about the impacts of the law,” she says. “Sen. [John] Barrasso [(R-WY)] believes that the OMB should have shared its findings/report and fully consulted with the Indian tribes on this issue much earlier in the process.”

Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chair of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs, went further, saying, “The administration has been playing a political shell game when it comes to the impact of sequestration on the Indian Health Service budget. At first, tribes were assured that all IHS programs would fall under the Budget Control Act’s two percent limit. … Now the administration has backpedaled and claims that IHS’ discretionary appropriation is fully sequesterable. Ultimately, this is another example of the federal government actively undermining its trust responsibility to our Native peoples.

“Fully exempting the Department of Veterans Affairs budget from sequestration is an acknowledgment of our sacred responsibility to our troops,” Young added. “I am angered by the administration’s double-standard. How can they choose to uphold one sacred responsibility and not another? I certainly plan to conduct vigorous oversight of the Indian Health Service in this Congress, and we will obtain answers from the Service as to how it is managing its budget issues.”

Federal Government to temporarily cut Native American loan program

Lender 411

Last Updated: 3/8/2013

By Daniel Duffield

As a result of the failure of Congress to agree on legislation to avoid the automatic budget cuts, the U.S. is now facing the impact of the sequester in a variety of areas. Public services are now being maintained by the Commitment Authority until Congress can find a solution to the budget crisis that has loomed over the American economy.

However, one program has already reached its spending limit and must now be suspended indefinitely.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a written statement to the Mortgage Broker’s Association (MBA) to cease all originations for the Indian Home Loan Guarantee Program (Section 184) that provides mortgage loans for Native American citizens. For mortgages not already approved by the HUD, sources state that the chance of these loans closing is zero.

Section 184 refers to an 11-year old mortgage product created specifically for the financing of loans for American Indian and Alaska Native families, Alaska Village tribes, or tribally designated housing entities. Essentially, this loan program was established to offer an opportunity to realize the American Dream of homeownership for populations with few other mortgage options.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan warned for weeks that such housing programs would be adversely affected by the reduction of the budget caused by sequestration.

Donovan criticized the severity of these budget cuts which could potentially push a subclass of Americans into unnecessary homelessness.

Providing an explanation of these ideas to the Senate Appropriations Committee last month, Donovan expressed that a significant portion of the sequester’s impact will be seen as a result of budget cuts to the HUD’s Continuum of Care programs, through which families and individuals that had previously suffered homelessness were promptly re-housed and provided with additional assistance in the hopes of regaining self-sufficiency.

Donovan added that the sequestration’s automatic budget cuts would abolish some of the critical funding for the U.S. homeless shelter system maintained by the Emergency Solutions Grants.

Furthermore, Donovan stated that the sequestration would remove approximately 100,000 formerly homeless Americans, veterans included, from their present residences or their residences as obtained through program which offer emergency housing.

Original Article

27th Annual Seafair Indian Days Pow Wow, July 19-21

Source: United Indians of All Tribes Foundation, http://www.unitedindians.org/powwow/

Dear Community,

United Indians of All Tribes Foundation is excited to announce that our 27th Annual Seafair Indian Days Pow Wow will be held on July 19-21, 2013! As many of you all know, we had to make a really hard decision and cancel this pow wow last year due to lack of funding. This year we plan on making this pow wow bigger and better than ever! Mark your calendars and save the date! We are in need of donations, please click on link to the left to donate!

EMCEE: Jerry Meninick
ARENA DIRECTOR: Ken Gopher and Tony Bluehorse
HOST DRUM: RED BULL

CATEGORIES:

GOLDEN AGE: 1000-800-600-400-200

ADULT: 1000-800-600-400-200

TEENS: 400-300-200-100

JUNIORS: 300-200-100-75DRUMS: SESSION PAY FIRST TEN EACH SESSIONSPECIALS:

Bernie Whitebear, Team Dance: Owl Dance: Others TBA

GRAND ENTRY:
FRI 7:00 PM
SAT 1:00 AND 7:00 PM
SUN 1:00 PMTRADITIONAL SALMON DINNER!!ADMISSION:
FRI: FREE FAMILY NIGHT
SAT AND SUN: $5.00

(Admission funds go towards cost and production of pow wow)

VENDORS:

Vendor Space 10×10: $400

Limited Spaces available, provide own tables and tents
POWER $25 AND (1) RAFFEL ITEM

Professional and SPD Security Available

FOOD VENDORS BY INVITATION ONLY

Contact United Indians for Camping

JOHN ROMERO 206-498-7640

john.romero.sr@live.com
CHRISSY HARRIS 206-285-4425 x1020

charris@unitedindians.org

VOLUNTEERS:

We are in need of many volunteers for this event. Please contact our volunteer coordinator if you are interested!

Willeena George pwvolunteers@unitedindians.org

CHART: The extraordinary rise of Native American casinos

Sam Ro | Business Insider

Mar. 10, 2013, 10:21 PM
When you think about gambling in America, the first thing that probably comes to mind is Las Vegas.

But Las Vegas currently represents just 10 percent of U.S. gaming industry revenue. This is according to a new report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Regional commercial gaming accounts for another 47 percent of the industry.

The remaining 43 percent: Native American gaming.

The Native American gaming story is particularly extraordinary in that it has grown into a $27 billion business from almost nothing in just 20 years.

Here’s a chart from a BAML:

Puyallup Tribe Helps Spring Chinook Program Continue

Source: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The Puyallup Tribe of Indians is making sure juvenile spring chinook will still find their way to the upper White River each year.

The tribe is raising 250,000 spring chinook at their hatchery so they can stock acclimation ponds in the upper White. Legislative budget cuts forced the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to cease their White River spring chinook program.

“We used to get these fish from the state, but now the Muckleshoot Tribe is allowing us to have some of their excess spring chinook,” said Blake Smith, enhancement manager for the Puyallup Tribe. The Muckleshoot Tribe also raises White River springers at one of their hatchery.

Before picking up the state’s effort completely this year, the Puyallup Tribe has chipped in with the cost of clipping the spring chinook.

The state’s White River spring chinook program had been one of the oldest salmon recovery projects in the state. The effort began almost 40 years ago when the state began capturing fish for broodstock from the weak early run. “Probably the only reason we have White River springers to protect is because of the state’s early action,” said Russ Ladley, resource protection manager for the tribe.

In 1986 only six spring chinook returned to the White River, putting the viability of the run in question. “At the time, there was a chance that so few fish would return that the run would blink out,” Ladley said.

When the Muckleshoot Tribe opened their hatchery on the White River, fisheries managers began releasing the spring chinook back to the river to supplement the run. Because of diligent hatchery management, the spring chinook population on the White River has slowly increased since, with returns now normally in the thousands.

After being transported to the acclimation ponds, the juvenile spring chinook will be fed by the tribe for eight weeks. Once they are imprinted on the upper watershed creeks, they’ll be released to begin their journey to the ocean.

The acclimation pond program has played a large role in the recovery of the spring stock. “More and more springers are coming back each year to the upper tributaries,” Smith said. “Some creeks went from zero spawners to dozens in the last decade.”

Everett wetland park to see improvements after neglect

Narbeck Wetland Sanctuary has had problems with parking and vandalism. It is currently closed for work.

By Michelle Dunlop, HeraldNet.com

EVERETT — A cherished local wetland is getting a face lift and possibly a new caretaker after nearly two years of misuse.

The past few weeks, the gates have been closed to the Narbeck Wetland Sanctuary near Paine Field. Snohomish County workers have been giving the wetlands, and its parking lot, some extra care as spring draws near. A change in management is also on tap.

The Snohomish County Council will hold a public hearing at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday over a plan to fund the salary for a park ranger, who would oversee Narbeck. The three-quarter-time position would cost $57,641.

The request is due to a “lack of public parking access, increased vandalism and nuisance issues at the Narbeck Wetland Sanctuary,” according to county documents. The issues have meant “a loss of use of Narbeck by the public.”

The wetlands is in the 6900 block Seaway Boulevard, across the street from the Boeing Co.’s engineering complex and Fluke Corp. Over the past couple of years, Narbeck’s parking lot has been taken over by local workers. Some leave their cars all day. Others would drive over from nearby businesses like Boeing for a smoking break. Boeing prohibits smoking on its premises.

The result: People wanting to visit Narbeck — to walk the trails or watch the wildlife that live there — couldn’t find parking in the wetlands’ lot. Regular Narbeck visitors Joan Douglas and Debbie Schols told The Herald last November that they began noticing the overabundance of cars in the parking lot more than a year ago.

“We thought we’d see lots of people on the trail but we didn’t,” Schols said.

Instead, the two women said, they saw people park their cars, gather their briefcases and walk up the road to Boeing. The company has been boosting jet production and, therefore, employment, since 2010 and transferred 900 engineers to Everett from Renton that year.

Schols and others complained about the parking and smoking to officials at Paine Field, which owns Narbeck. The airport established Narbeck in the late 1990s to mitigate damage when an addition was made to Paine Field.

On Friday, Paine Field Director Dave Waggoner said the airport and county parks department will work together on Narbeck. They’re seeking county approval for a park ranger, who will have police authority, to keep an eye on the parking and smoking problems that have plagued the wetlands. The airport and parks department are working with the County Council to develop a no-smoking policy for Narbeck, Waggoner said.

For its part, Boeing has opened parking to employees at its activity center, about a mile and a half up Seaway Boulevard, said Elizabeth Fischtziur, company spokeswoman. A shuttle transports workers to and from the lot. Over the course of 2013, Boeing also will consider reconfiguring or expanding existing parking lots as well as its van pool options, she said.

Over the past several weeks, the county has been giving Narbeck a bit of a makeover. Crews have re-striped the parking lot, cleaned up the park shelter and restored some of the interpretive signs.

“It really looks a lot nicer,” Waggoner said.

Waggoner wasn’t sure how soon Narbeck will re-open. That decision will be made after the public hearing this week.

The Legend of Ojibwe John Beargrease and the Annual Sled Dog Marathon That Bears His Name

This Clayton Lindemood photo won third place in the 2010 Beargrease Marathon Photo Contest.

March 10, the 29th Running of the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon kicked off in Duluth, Minnesota. The race up in Alaska may be getting most of the headlines right now, but the John Beargrease dog sled race is truly an American Indian special: John Beargrease was an Ojibwe man and the inspiration for this annual 390-mile competition. You can follow all the action at the official race site, Beargrease.com. Meanwhile, we present an article on the man and the history behind the grueling test of man and dog that ICTMN.com originally published in February 2011, after the conclusion of the 27th annual marathon.

By Konnie LeMay, February 09, 2011, Indian Country Today Media Network

When one of the longest and most-respected dogsled races in the lower 48 was run January 30 through February 2, it included a tribute to the Ojibwe man for whom it is named. The 390-mile John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon honors the mail-carrier who braved appalling weather and questionable trails to deliver mail at the turn of the 20th century, traveling by dog team or by boat the 90 miles between Two Harbors and Grand Marais along the sometimes treacherous shoreline of Lake Superior. More than 100 years after his death, John Beargrease seems an unlikely candidate for celebrity status, but he has been the inspiration for this race, a children’s picture book and at least two biographies, one of them (as yet) unpublished. He is also one of the Minnesota Historical Society’s 150 people, places and things that make Minnesota great. Beargrease now inspires a new generation of mushers, including a young woman who is a distant relation—Billie Diver, a musher and member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe. Diver, a nursing student at the University of North Dakota, became interested in mushing when she was just 3, after her mother took her to visit a friend’s dog team. She was smitten with the dogs and the idea of riding behind a team, and when she was 7, she began working with teams. Diver first participated in the mid-distance portion of the John Beargrease race when she was 15. “It was really cool,” she said. “It meant a lot more to me [because of Beargrease’s name].”

Billie Diver

While it took John Beargrease two to three days to travel one way with four dogs from Two Harbors, northeast of Duluth, to Grand Marais, it takes mushers about two days to make the complete circuit with teams of eight dogs. John Beargrease was born in Beaver Bay, Minnesota, in 1858. His father, Moquabimetem, also called John Beargrease, had recently moved there with several Ojibwe families to work at a sawmill founded by German immigrants. John and his two older brothers were taught to hunt, trap and fish by their father and they became very familiar with the trail that runs along the shore of Lake Superior that was blazed by the Ojibwe people and later used in the fur trade and commercial fishing. When he was about 19, he married Louise Wishcob of another well-known Ojibwe family in the area, and they had 11 or 12 children. As was true for many men in the Ojibwe and European immigrant families who lived in this rugged place that still didn’t have roads in the late 1800s, John Beargrease acquired a broad range of skills. He provided for his family by fishing and hunting, but he also worked in the sawmill, joined the crews of freight and passenger ships on the big lake, did commercial fishing, served as a guide and worked the ore docks in Two Harbors. He is most remembered, though, for his nearly 20 years of delivering the U.S. mail along the Minnesota shore of the lake, often using that old Ojibwe trail.

Beargrease Biography, Holy Cow Press, 2008 He was a sinewy man just under six feet tall whose mail delivery in the small towns was heralded by his frequent singing and the bells attached to his dog harnesses. Until Lake Superior got too icy each winter, Beargrease and other mail carriers used a rowboat with sails. He once made the 90-mile trip from Two Harbors and Grand Marais along Minnesota’s North Shore in just 20 hours by boat—28 hours was his fastest time by dog team. “It was the North Shore version of the Pony Express,” said Daniel Lancaster, whose book John Beargrease, Legend of Minnesota’s North Shore was published in 2008 by Holy Cow Press. While researching for that book, Lancaster was struck by the friendly interactions between the Ojibwe and European immigrant families in Beaver Bay from its beginnings in 1856, shortly after the La Pointe Treaty of 1854 opened the North Shore to white settlement. “It’s a great story because it’s very much a symbiotic codependency that formed between those two communities,” he said. “What I enjoyed… was to see how the one culture influenced the other culture. And it seemed to be a really positive relationship on both sides.” Last year Bob Abrahamson, a registered nurse and photographer in Superior, Wisconsin, found an unpublished biography of Beargrease among his great uncle William Scott’s papers. Scott was a probate judge in Two Harbors who became involved with the Lake County Historical Society. In the late 1950s he collaborated on a series of books about the North Shore that was to include the Beargrease biography. Scott interviewed several octogenarians who had known Beargrease. A Two Harbors resident, Madeline James Fillinger, told him: “The Post Office, when John Beargrease carried the mail, was right across the street from where my father then had his drugstore.… Invariably, when John Beargrease arrived with the mail, he left it over at the Post Office and then came over to our store to get warm. The trip from Grand Marais probably took him two or three days, and after such a long time in the cold air, he would quickly become drowsy and would doze off in the armchair.” For John Beargrease and the other mail carriers on Lake Superior, delivery could be dangerous. Story has it that Beargrease got his job after a mail carrier fell through the ice with horses and a sleigh. That man made it out alive but immediately quit. Beargrease knew his environment well enough that he and his four-dog team, and later his two-horse team, rarely encountered such disasters, though they were occasionally stranded by blizzards. His death in 1910 may have been caused by Lake Superior’s icy waters. There are two versions of the story. In one, Beargrease jumped in the lake to rescue a mail carrier floundering in the water near the shore after leaving his rowboat during a storm. The other story, which biographer Lancaster favors, has Beargrease in the floundering boat and jumping into the water to help the other carrier, who was trying to steady their boat. Both accounts say that Beargrease died of pneumonia caught from the chill of the freezing waters. The official record, however, indicates that the cause of death was tuberculosis. Last week, as mushers gathered to run a race that traces his well-worn trail, it was a pleasing turn of history to have a legend made of a humble man who did what needed to be done to provide for his family and his community. As Scott concluded in his unpublished biography of John Beargrease: “[His] fame came not by doing some specific heroic act, but rather, when he had work to do or a job to perform, however humble or big, he did so dependably, cooperatively and conscientiously. He did his best. Can anything be more praiseworthy than that?

VAWA, Good News-Bad News, and Dirty Oil: How Obama Gave Himself Cover to Kill Native Sacred Sites

By Gyasi Ross, Indian Country Today Media Network

INCREDIBLE NEWS: On Thursday, February 28th, 2013, the House of Representatives finally decided that Native women, LGBTQ women, and immigrant women were worthy of protections from rape, stalking and sexual assaults via Reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act. This was a huge deal for Tribes, ironically as it was a substantial step toward the end of “tribes” and the beginning of “nations” for Native people—being able to regulate all people within their territories. President Obama stood strong for tribal sovereignty in this very important matter for Native people.

Big deal, definitely. All those people and organizations—all federally recognized Indian tribes, NCAI, Deborah Parker, Sarah Deer, Center for American Progress and many many more that helped to organize—you should be very proud.

HORRIBLE NEWS: On Friday, March 1, 2013, the Obama Administration decided that Native sacred sites were not worthy of protections from the rape and pillage via the Keystone XL pipeline. Despite pretty much every reputable scientist who is not on an oil company’s payroll saying the opposite, the State Department somehow concludes that the Keystone XL pipeline “is unlikely to have a substantial impact” on the rate of Canada’s oil sands. “The analyses of potential impacts associated with construction and normal operation of the proposed project suggest that there would be no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed project route.”

If President Obama approves the Keystone XL pipeline, make no mistake, he and his Democratic Party placed themselves diametrically opposed to the interests of Native people.

Let’s be clear: President Obama has been great on many issues for Native people. He’s best on those things that will most quickly speed Native people’s assimilation into western society, e.g. criminal jurisdiction that mimics the western system (that’s what the hold up was on VAWA—due process), economic development further ingratiating Native dependence on the western economic system. Those things are important—Natives must compete in those realms, so that’s fair.

But on those things that are distinctively Native—Obama has been absolutely terrible. Shameful. He’s done nothing on sacred sites—in fact, he’s done the opposite. Keystone XL will run through many sacred sites (some “official” sacred sites according to white man law, and some that are just sacred because we value them) and the damage will trickle into many more. He’s done nothing for Native languages. Zero.

Radio silence.

Look, all the economic development and jurisdiction in the world doesn’t matter if the Earth is, as Winona LaDuke says, “scorched.” After all, what is the point of exercising criminal jurisdiction over lands that are uninhabitable?? Tribes are cognizant of that—land and language is what makes Native people “Native.” Not casinos, not police forces, and definitely not simply repeating the word “sovereignty” over and over. Land–presumably with clean water and clean air—is at the center of our religious ceremonies and our creation stories. And while we’re rightfully celebrating the amazing victory of VAWA, we should also understand that this guy has shown that he’s got many of the same destructive tendencies as his predecessor.

As much as we like this guy, Obama, and we dig that he sings Al Green and seems to like having a few Natives hanging around and was even adopted by Native people like Johnny Depp, we must hold him and his party accountable also just like we did with his predecessor. If the President and Democrats keep trying to cook the earth just like the Republicans, well then we have to get them out of office just like we did them.

The President’s legacy with Native people will ultimately be determined by how he deals with the environment, climate change and Keystone XL. Why? We’re the stewards of this land—we cannot “go back to where we came from.” We come from right here. Some, that do not understand Native people’s relationship to the land, will argue “there are no federally protected sacred sites affected!” Those folks just don’t get it—it’s not just the few places that the government determines are “sacred” that we’re concerned about. No, all of this land is sacred and is not supposed to be ripped apart for a few coins. Soon, after the euphoria of winning the VAWA war wears off, we’ll realize that the Obama’s Administration snuck a fast one past us—the day after VAWA passed!

I hope I’m wrong. Still, the Administration hasn’t given us any reason to think that I am. Idle No More—we’re not going to take this lying down.

To read the work of legal fiction that will allow for the destruction of sacred sites from the State Department, please click here:
http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/609322-keystone-xl-dseis-2013-v1.html#document/p22/a94021

Gyasi Ross
Blackfeet Nation
Activist/Attorney/Author
Twitter: @BigIndianGyasi
www.cutbankcreekpress.com