Council Corner

By James V. Miles, Sr.

For Puyallup Tribal Council
Published on: July 24, 2008

Dear Tribal Members,

For the past year I have enjoyed the opportunity to represent our Tribe as one of your tribal council members and I very much enjoy coming to work each and every day. Sometimes there are difficulties and disagreement and that’s OK. It is healthy to have disagreement but I would have to say that the council agrees more than 75 percent of the time. In the areas we disagree, we agree to disagree and move forward.

I am excited about our growth and how much our Tribe has accomplished. The revenue is great but that is not what makes us the Puyallup Tribe. It is who we are, our identity, our culture, our traditions and most importantly how we care for one another.

This year is a year of growth – a year of fulfillment: the fulfillment of past promises. As priority one, the construction of our elder’s facility will start this August.

A community clam-dig on Aug. 1 and a feast on Aug. 2 are upcoming events for the tribal community to partake in. Last year we had a great time – the community came together and had a wonderful time digging clams on Vashon Island. Contact our youth program for more information.

The Canoe Journey is underway and they are doing a great job representing our Tribe.

The casino is finishing its remodel and addition at our Fife location and we are starting the preparations of our main casino on the  East Side of Tacoma.

The Tribe will be having more regular membership meetings.

Our divers are experiencing a very lucrative fishery.

The Tribe’s language program is a huge success, our kids are starting to express themselves in our language!

The Tribe is in the process of developing a cultural department to better support our culture and traditions.

There are a lot of positive opportunities and healthy activities in and around our Tribe. Make sure to keep an eye on the tribal paper for community events.

Puyallup Tribal Housing Authority is finalizing its construction permits for new town homes located on Grandview by the day care and preparing for the elder housing project  as well. Housing is starting three new programs to provide mortgage assistance for tribal elders, rental assistance for tribal members and tribal member down payment assistance. These opportunities represents the first time the tribe has provided a grant in the amount of $1,000,000 just for tribal members.

For more information contact the Housing Authority.

The Tribe and the Board of Trustees are preparing to send out the children’s school clothes stipend by mid-

August, as well as preparing for the next school year.

Please keep in mind, higher education needs your infor-mation if you are planning to attend college, vocational college and/or other educa-tional opportunities.

Education is another one of our priorities, to better support education the tribal council has increased tuition grants in the last year from $15,000 to $30,000 tuition for college and an additional $20,000 for the top colleges in the country i.e. Harvard, Yale, Brown, etc...

We are committed to providing percapitas on a timely basis and we have to act responsibility by providing tribal members with factual information about the percapita such as: the percapitas will remain at its current level and is not  intended to be cut. In order to keep up with our population and the economy we are going to have to create more revenue from all areas.

Once again,  I thank you for the opportunity to serve you as one of your Council Members.

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