Tribal Council adopts TERO

Tribal Council adopted a Tribal Employment Rights Ordinance at its Nov. 6 meeting.

The new ordinance sets the framework under which new Tribal Employment Rights Office Director Greg Azure will work. It creates a five-member TERO Commission, which will oversee Azure's work and be the ordinance's enforcing regulatory body.

The ordinance is designed to create more jobs suited for Tribal members.

"A TERO ordinance defines who is eligible, how preference is applied, the jurisdiction of the preference and how it is enforced," Azure said previously in Smoke Signals.

The Employment Rights Office will work to reduce joblessness for Tribal members looking for work and for those already working but looking to make a change.

The ordinance will take effect 21 days after Tribal Council's vote.

In other action, Tribal Council:

• Authorized Land and Culture Department Manager Jan Looking Wolf Reibach to approve and execute Chachalu capital campaign grant applications and documentation necessary for the processing and receipt of such grants. Chachalu will be the Tribal museum and cultural center located in the former Willamina Middle School building off Grand Ronde Road
• Disenrolled two people for violating the dual enrollment prohibition of the Tribal Constitution.
• Authorized Finance Officer Julio Martinez to negotiate and finalize an agreement with McGladrey LLP for the 2013, 2014 and 2015 audits. Martinez said during the Nov. 5 Legislative Action Committee meeting that the new audit firm will be a significant decrease in cost for the Tribe from the previous audit firm.
• Approved a memorandum of understanding with the Federal Bureau of Prisons that allows Grand Ronde Police Department employees to use the firing range at the bureau's facility in Sheridan.
• Appointed Kristina Summers to the Tribal Fish & Wildlife Committee.
• And approved applying for a $1,951 Indian Health Service oral health grant that will pay for supplies for Early Head Start home visits.

Also included in the Nov. 6 Tribal Council packet were several authorizations to proceed that:

• Directed Natural Resources Department Manager Michael Wilson to pursue a partnership grant with the Corvallis-based Institute for Applied Ecology to develop plant production beds to increase the availability of culturally significant Native restoration plants and determine the feasibility of a plant materials program in Grand Ronde.
• Authorized the Grand Ronde Tribal Housing Authority to scale back a planned 28-unit apartment complex and recreation center on the Smith property north of Tyee Road. The new plan calls for a 20-unit apartment complex without a recreation center. Future reductions in U.S. Housing and Urban Development funding were cited as the reason for the smaller project, which will be designed and constructed so that additional units could be built in the future on an as-needed basis.
• Appointed Tribal Council member Denise Harvey to serve on the Chemawa Station LLC board of directors.
• Authorized the purchase of 400 holiday turkey and ham gift certificates for Tribal employees and committee members. Any extra certificates will be donated to the Grand Ronde Food Bank.
• Authorized the change of Tribal Council meeting times to 4 p.m. in December, January, February and March to accommodate dark and inclement weather.