KWSO News 5/22/19

This Sunday, Elliott Palmer Post #4217 will be handing out commemorative flags in memorial for a veteran who has passed on. A family member will be given one flag that will be placed on the grave of their loved one. VFW post members or auxiliary members can also handle placement of a flag if the family chooses. This will also give the post and family members the opportunity to verify any missing or potential misinformation needing correction for the Veterans’ Memorial being built now at the Museum at Warm Springs. Stop by this Sunday, starting at 10am.

Jefferson County’s second, scaled-down vote on a jail operating levy passed in yesterday’s election – 55 percent yes votes to 45 percent no. And, Courtney Snead will keep her position on the 509J School Board – defeating challenger Casandra Moses, 58 to 41 percent. In the race for Position 5, Kevin Richards won the with about 53 percent of the vote to 30 percent for Carina Miller and 16 percent for Taylor Lark.

The Warm Springs Health and Welfare Committee began conducting a community satisfaction survey this week. There are two more opportunities coming up where folks can help the committee by taking the survey. They will be at the Simnasho Longhouse tomorrow from 6-7pm and at the Community Center social hall next week on Tuesday from 5:30-7. They are gathering information on services offered in Warm Springs and will use that data to help guide upcoming community meetings.

President Donald Trump’s first Supreme Court pick, Justice Neil Gorsuch, has regularly sided with the court’s liberals on one issue – strengthening the treaty rights of tribes. Twice this term, including in a decision handed down this week, Gorsuch has signed onto 5-4 rulings that entrenched the rights of Native American tribes under 19th-century treaties. On Monday, the court affirmed the right of the Crow Tribe to hunt in the Bighorn Mountains, a range that straddles Wyoming and Montana, under the terms of an 1868 treaty. Gorsuch joined with the four liberals on the bench to sign onto an opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The opinion clarified that treaties signed in territories that later became states cannot be terminated simply on the basis of statehood. In March, Gorsuch joined the same majority, in a case concerning the Yakama tribe’s importation of fuel into the state of Washington.