KWSO News for Tue., Mar. 1, 2022

Warm Springs Tribal Council passed a resolution last week to partner with Ski Bowl in reopening the Kah-Nee-Ta Village in 2023. The Tribes will invest $4.58 million to repair, improve, and add value to the Kah-Nee-Ta Village. An additional $1.5 million dollars will go toward infrastructure improvements. The allocation will come from the Tribes* American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. Jim Souers is the CEO of the Warm Springs Economic Development Corporation, he talks about the hot springs and their plans. “Kah-Nee-Ta kinda lost who it was, it became this recreational activity, in the summer it’s fun, the hot springs element of it was just getting lost and we really wanted to bring that back and not just reopen it as it is. And so that was a significant part of what we wanted to make different Bringing Kah-Nee-Ta back up, that’s Huge! Adding a bigger footprint of Hot Springs soaking experience is the really big change. And it adds to the fun in the sun that people associated with Kah-Nee-Ta, so we’re not taking that away but we’re just adding that other element. We’re going to have large just natural mineral pool experience in the main pool area and we’re going to distribute smaller soaking areas throughout the property, it’s pretty exciting” Projected employment is estimated at over 50 full time positions with more than 80 part time jobs during the summer season. Ski Bowl would manage and fund operations. Mt. Hood Ski bowl’s origin dates back to 1928. Over the past 30 years their operations expanded to year round offerings and today Ski Bowl also runs the Lake Simtustus Resort plus the Pelton Dam Marina and Park.

The Warm Springs community COVID-19 Update for Monday (2/28/22) reports 0 new cases of COVID-19 from 9 tests conducted on Friday (2/25/22) at the Health and Wellness Center. There was 1 positive test reported by an outside facility and no presumptivepositives. There are currently 7 people with active COVID- 9 and 15 close contacts receiving daily monitoring by IS staff. COVID testing going forward until further notice is set for Monday’s & Friday’s 9am-11am and Wednesday’s 1pm-3pm at the Health and Wellness Center. They will do no testing on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s. Outside of those hours, you will be directed to Emergency Management or Fire and Safety. Oregon’s Mask mandate is set to be lifted March 12th, however 509-J Superintendent Jay Mathiesen has stated the school district is still deferringto the Warm Springs Tribal Council and their COVID Task force on how they want to move forward at the Warm Springs K-8 Academy.

Tribal Offices continue to have limited phone service. The voice service switch for Warm Springs Telecom has failed and a team of engineers working to repair that system has not been able to bring service back. At the same time another team is working to complete installation of new equipment on a new network. Testing for both local and long distance service needs to be done as part of the set up process for the new system to get up and running. Data entry and programming is being done this week and then next week they will need to “port” phone numbers over to the new system. So phone service will continue to be limited for Tribal programs through next week.

The Warm Springs Housing Authority reported near the end of January that funding for the Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) Program was running low. They sent out a notice last week to inform ERA program participants and the community that funding for the program is almost fully spent. They are still trying to process a few applications that were submitted by the deadline for individuals that were eligible to apply or reapply for February rental assistance. With a very small amount of fundingleft to process payments for bills and applications that have been submitted, it is anticipated that these funds will be fully spent this week. There is no guarantee that all payments will be processed for bills submitted by the deadline; payments will be processed until funds are fully expended The Warm Springs Housing Authority has applied for additional ERA funding but have not heard anything from the US Treasury if they are going to receive additional funding, how much might be received or when funding would be awarded. If additional funding is received in the future, notices will be put out to the community and the ERA program will resume.