Thursday, July 15, 2010

Tulalip Matters

Tulalip Matters is a weekly news program produced by the Tulalip Tribes Communications Department.

Tulalip Matters is your destination for information about what is happening on and around the Tulalip Reservation. Feature stories, Lushootseed language lessons, news updates, messages from the Tribes’ General Managers and Board of Directors, and a lot more can be found in each edition of Tulalip Matters.

If you have a suggestion for topics or issues you would like to see covered in a future episode of Tulalip Matters, contact the Tulalip Tribes Communications Department at 360-716-4202 or email editor@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov.

Tulalip Matters is replacing the GM Report in the KANU TV schedule. Many of your favorite segments of the GM Report like “Upcoming Events” and “News From Around The Rez” will still be included in each episode of Tulalip Matters.

You can watch Tulalip Matters each week on KANU TV channel 99 and online at www.kanutv.com.

If you would like to watch previous episodes of the GM Report, you can find them here.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

A Message from Shelly

It is with mixed emotions that I send this message to all of my team mates at Tribal Government.
I have accepted a new position as the Director of Heritage High School. My new responsibilities will start on July 19th; therefore, my last day as the Tribal Government General Manager will be July16th. The Board is now planning the process for selecting my replacement and will announce that by the end of June.

My advanced degree is in Education and education has always been my love. When I received my Masters degree, both my sister Cecile and I had dreams of being principals someday. Therefore, when the position at Heritage High School became open, presented an opportunity for me to use my skills to serve my community and to follow my dream. The leadership skills training and experience I have learned as your GM will allow me to be a part of the team to continue the vision of Heritage High being the school of excellence that will train the future leaders of our community. More importantly, the connections that I have made with each of you and the community will allow me help make Heritage a community school – one where the community is actively involved and dedicated to improving our youth’s education.

As I look back on these past four and a half years, there have indeed been many challenges: serving the ever-increasing number of Tribal members with little or no budget increases while also dealing with a global economic downturn; But by working together, we learned to do more with less and to raised the level of service in programs to our people. I thank you for the great work you do every day that gave us so many successes which include: consolidating a widely dispersed work force of nearly 300 to the administration building; construction of a multi-faceted cultural center which will be opening in the fall of this year; achieving new levels of performance with our annual performance-based budgets, performance plans and performance evaluations; improving our leadership and management skills through training and being team members who assist and support each other; and realignment of several departments to allow us to more effectively and efficiently serve our people.

I personally have been given many opportunities; I was privileged to represent the Tribe locally, statewide and nationwide. I was fortunate to personally witness growth in many of you as you took on the challenge of new positions or reinvented the ones you were in because you realized the importance of your work to our community. I watched you as you worked with our community and our team to give that hand up, not a hand out. I thank each of you for the lessons that you have shared with me and contributed to my growth as a leader and a person. It has been a wonderful opportunity for me to learn, grow and develop relationships.

I thank our Tulalip Board of Directors for allowing me to serve the Tribal Government team members and our community. It was due to their support, guidance and caring that we were able to make changes, provide training and continue to grow as team members.

I thank my Executive Team. We faced many challenges together and have grown as a team. Each member was a piece of a whole, each of them brought their needed skills sets and ideas to the table so that we were balanced in making decisions not only for today, but also for our future generations.

Once again, I thank each of you for the work that you do every day. You are the ones who are making sure our Tribal members’ needs are met, while still planning for future generations.
As I mentioned at the outset, it is with mixed feelings that I leave. I will miss working with each of you every day. At the same time, I am very excited to be able to utilize all the knowledge I have gained to make our youth’s education a priority. I know that each of you will continue to keep up the great work!

This is not good-bye; I will still be seeing you in the community and may be working with some of you in my new position.

Shelly

I will be seeing you!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Message From Chairman Mel Sheldon

Good afternoon,

Attached is the Tulalip Board of Directors response to Michael Kunde's email that was racist and discriminatory. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact your Board of Directors Marlin Fryberg, Jr, Chuck James, Marie Zackuse, Glen Gobin, Don Hatch, Jr., Mark Hatch, and myself.

Thank you,


Mel Sheldon
Chairman of
The Tulalip Tribes Board of Directors

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Tribal member Komplex Kai plays Canoes Cabaret


Tribal member Kaiser Jones, Komplex Kai, will be performing at the Canoes Cabaret Monday, May 17th at the Tulalip Resort Casino. Kaiser, performing his original music, is opening for Outtasite, a hip hop hybrid featuring Sir-Mix-A-Lot. Check out more info on the resort’s website, http://www.tulalipcasino.com/events.aspx.

cisanla;

Shelly L. Lacy

Friday, April 23, 2010

Salmon Ceremony Practice

Thanks for your input at the Community Meeting!

Last night we held our third Community Meeting of 2010. It was a fairly small turnout, but it was a great meeting! I know beda?chelh is always a sensitive subject. We care so much about our children and we want always want them to be with their families, so when anything happens to threaten that togetherness, we get very upset about it. Lead Case Manager Dan Althoff and Prevention Worker Drew Wilson took the time last night to walk us through the process and explain why how beda?chelh staff do the things they do.

One thing is very clear, beda?chelh staff members don’t just take children. When a referral is done, there is a preliminary investigation about the call, then that information goes to tribal court. It’s actually the judge that decides whether there is enough risk to do an emergency pick-up. The court makes the final decision, not beda?chelh staff. Dan also cleared up several myths about beda?chelh. One of the myths is that case managers receive a bonus for every child they pick up. This absolutely not true. Another myth is that all beda?chelh case managers are non-native and that case managers don’t care about kids. That is not true either. Of the eight case managers, five are native and they all care about kids.

After the presentation we had some great participation in the discussion groups. Some of the feedback we got was that families need more support and prevention before there is a CPS (Child Protective Services) referral. That our community wants to address problems before they get serious. Other members said we need to have better education and wrap-around services when something does happen. We also had a request for more parent support and outreach to connect parents to resources. And some members asked for a revision of the youth code so that it reflects our community and values instead of mirroring the State’s code.

Community members also asked for information in more places, not just the See-Yaht-Sub or KANU TV, but also in community gathering places, at community events and on-line and take home materials. Please tell me what you think. What information would you like to see about beda?chelh? Is there something you’ve seen in another community that worked better than what we’re doing here? How do you want the information? Would you sign up if the tribe had a Facebook, MySpace or Twitter account, do you want material you can take home or is the See-Yaht-Sub and KANU TV working for you? Feel free to leave comments here on my blog or on our concern line, 360-716-4006.

At our next Community Meeting, on May 27th, we’ll learn about the Maplewood Development. I hope to see you there!

cisanla;

Shelly L. Lacy

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

9th Annual Tribal Bingo Night, April 26th!

Hello everyone. It’s that time of year again. Get your bingo dobbers ready and let’s play! April 26th is Annual Tribal Bingo Night. This is one of those fun times when we can get together and enjoy each others company, have a meal together and hopefully win some great prizes. Bingo has a wonderful night lined up for us, including 10 regular games at $1,000 each. The doors open at 3:00pm for elders and seniors (age 50 and older), doors open at 4:00 for the general membership. Can’t wait to see you all there!

cisanla;

Shelly L. Lacy