ALASKA NATIVES COMMISSION
JOINT FEDERAL-STATE COMMISSION
ON
POLICIES AND PROGRAMS AFFECTING
ALASKA NATIVES
4000 Old Seward Highway, Suite 100
Anchorage,
Alaska 99503
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Witness List | Exhibit
List
| PDF Version
ALASKA NATIVES COMMISSION
HEARING
Nome, ALASKA
SEPTEMBER 21, 1992
Stella Weyiouanna*
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Next would
be Stella Weyionanna, instead of Josie, and the (indiscernible)
Stella will be speaking on their behalf.
(Pause.)
MS. WEYIONANNA: You'll have to excuse my cold.
My name is Stella Weyionanna. I'm the president for our IRA Council
at
Shishmaref,
Alaska.
REPORTER: Can you spell your last name, because
I didn't have you.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Yeah, it's the same
as Josie -- Josie.
REPORTER: Okay.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Just cross
out Josie and put Stella.
REPORTER: Right, thanks.
MS. WEYIONANNA: Actually,
we had directed our general manager to get more information regarding
this Alaska Natives Commission
testimony, so we didn't quite have anything prepared. I'll just
kind of bring out some main concerns that usually come up from
-- at our meetings.
One that I could kind of touch up on is the
Native education. As Stanton was saying, I had this kind of written
down, 'cause
it was stressed that -- at an AFN resolution that was introduced
-- a youth resolution that was introduced at the ICC, it was
stressed that an elder should be placed in a school system where
Inupiat, or where our languages -- or where our bilingual staff
are not fluently talking it; but in those schools where our bilingual
instructors are teaching like the culture and tradition in English
and not having our Inupiat language spoken, that an elder should
be placed along with the bilingual staff to pass on -- even to
have the kids recognize the Native language when it is spoken,
and then to converse with the other bilingual staff, and in that
way they at least exposed to the sound and maybe start to understand
and even talk the language. So that was -- and als -- not only
the language, but also to teach the culture and tradition of
those people.
The other priority, I think, that we're always
coming up with in the villages is the water and sewer. That should
become a
priority in the villages, because some of the villages do not
have water and sewer, and they end up with a system where it's
-- like in Shishmaref they have the honey-bucket system; and
they have like a bin placed in each home; and this happens to
-- this tends to draw a lot of these real unhealthy flies. We've
been getting a lot of those, and we have like a dump at the other
si -- other end of the village, and I think it should be stressed
that water and sewer should become a priority to make it more
healthy for the people in the villages. And that way I guess
it would kind of lessen so -- a lot of the illnesses that's go
around.
And as for our IRA Councils and offices, we, in
the last few years, have hardly any moneys to operate on, because
of our
104-A
moneys being -- I'm not sure if you call it distinguished --
or I mean extinguished; but, in order to have a strong governing
body to address important issues as these, like the subsistence,
we need to have moneys in our IRAs to fund like a full staff
-- not only a general manager, but a full staff, like a secretary
--
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Administration fund.
MS. WEYIONANNA: Administration, yeah.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: ‘kay.
MS. WEYIONANNA:
That type. Because, without that, we can't keep addressing issues
that come up like this, without having a full
--
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Right.
MS. WEYIONANNA: --
a full staff.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Do you call 'em 104-A?
MS. WEYIONANNA: They used to be called 104-A moneys.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Okay.
MS. WEYIONANNA: Through BIA.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK:
Okay, okay.
MS. WEYIONANNA: But I guess we need to try to find
moneys to make our councils more stronger, so we can address
issues such
as these.
And also under the education, this has, I guess,
been brought up with the school districts, but the classified
staff
payroll
is usually like during the school year; and they're left without
any type of income during the summer months. And we weren’t
sure which direction to go to, even to somehow get unemployment
compensation for those classifieds now. I don't know if that's
a federal or state issue, but it seemed like that we should look
into this, so the staff like during the summer months wouldn't
have to apply for public assistance or that type situation.
And
another point that I had wanted to bring up was that it would
have been beneficial if this testimony would have been right
after the regional conference, where all these issues -- all
the Native issues would have been brought up. They would have
been reviewed and discussed, and if they were -- if they had
discussed these and then brought them to like a hearing like
this, I'm sure that that would have been very beneficial for
our region.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Okay, Stella.
MS. WEYIONANNA:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Thanks. I have
checked into the unemployment issue, and it was originally
a federal responsibility,
and they paid the BIA staff, you know; and when the states
took
over the
BIA, the state paid in the neighborhood of three and
a half million, four million a year. And in order to keep it
going,
they would
have had to put about a four-million-dollar thing in
there, and this is one of those things that Willie Hensley tried
unsuccessfully to get; and we helped him trying to get
it;
but thanks for
bringing
it up here at a Commission hearing (indiscernible). Putting
it in the record is valuable, so. . .
MS. WEYIONANNA:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Yeah, even if it -- they did get -- I
mean, they find other sources, you
know,
to try
to get their income, such as like public assistance,
and that still does use, you know, considerable moneys
to try
and get
them back up.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: 'kay.
COMMISSIONER ELLIOTT: Just for -- well, to help me, and I think perhaps there may
be others on the Commission
who don't
know
exactly what you meant by 104-A money. If you could
just
-- for the record, maybe if you could just let
us know what that
is.
MS. WEYIONANNA: Those used to be BIA moneys
that were what they call 104-A moneys, and the IRA would
operate
on these
moneys
that were allocated like from the -- I believe,
the federal government. And like they had these
for years,
and in
the last few years,
they kind of started to become smaller and smaller,
until now the villages are no longer receiving
these moneys.
But if you
wanted to get a clarification of that, the BIA
area office should have that information. I'm
not too
sure if I clarified
that.
COMMISSIONER ELLIOTT: All right. Thank
you, Stella.
MS. WEYIONANNA: Uh-huh (affirmative).
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: What we'll do right now is stand in recess until we
receive more
people to
prepare testimony,
and we will
resume when more people come in. Thank
you.
(Off record at 2:00 p.m.)
This document was ocr scanned. We have made every
attempt to keep the online document the same as the original,
including the recorder's original misspellings or typos. The
correct spelling is supposed to be "Weyiouanna".
