KWSO News for Thu., Mar. 3, 2022

Tribal Offices continue to have limited phone service. Warm Springs Telecom reports that they have exhausted efforts to repair their old switch that failed – taking out voice phone service to WSTC customers, including much of the Tribe. A team of engineers has worked to repair that system to no avail. At the same time another team is working to complete installation f a new switch on a new network that will provide voice phone service. This work was planned for 2022 but has gotten bumped up with failure of the old system. Testing for both local and long distance service needs to be done as part of the installment 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. Late Monday (2/28/22) Tribal Offices lost access to the internet. This s a completely separate issue from the phone problems. The cause of the outage is unknown and diagnosis is being done. Because of the connectivity issue – Tribal employees were released from work yesterday at noon.

Work has begun on campus to prepare the site for the Community action team’s Small Business Incubator Project. The old commodities building most recently used by natural resources located behind the warm Springs post office will be moved in April to the corner of Highway 26 and Paiute Street. Asbestos and lead paint removal was completed a few weeks ago in the oldest standing building on the reservation. Renovations will be done to create space that will support local small business along with retail space and a food area. You can learn a little more about the initial planning that went into this project by checking out KWSO‘s YouTube channel in a video titled WSCAT commissary project. HTTPS://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=RHGbiY5j5z8

A new bill to give low income workers $600 is being considered as part of a cost of living relief package passing through the Oregon legislator. The money would go to the over 240,000 low income workers in Oregon who claim the earned income tax credit in 2020. Matt Newell-Ching is with the Oregon food bank. He says that this bill would particularly benefit southern and eastern Oregon. “So for example we see in Klamath County nearly one in five community members in Klamath county qualified and receive the earned income tax credit in 2020 whereas in Multnomah Washington county it was around one in 10“ the payments are to help cover the rising cost of essentials such as rent and groceries in Oregon. If the bill passes the money will be paid out by either direct deposit or by check.

in local sports: the tri-Valley conference has announced their honors for boys basketball. The first team honors go to Joe Fundak of Corbett, Cohen Dave’s Gladstone, Dominic Nacoste of Estacada, Cole Hammack of North Marion and Lane Fort of Corbett. Second team honors go to Jack Davies of Molalla, Seneca Ball of Madras, Carver Mellema of Gladstone Cory Rather of Gladstone and Isaiah Mata of North Marion. Dru Boyle of Madras was named an honorable mention. Player of the year went to Joe Fundak of Corbett and coach of the year went to Cody Aker of Gladstone.