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August 30, 1999
Townhouse plan leads to dispute
VANCOUVER (AP) -- American Indians and the Clinton administration are opposing legislation that would require the Shoalwater Bay Tribe in Washington state to get approval from local officials before starting work on a proposed townhouse development.
Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., slipped the proposal he wrote with Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., into the $14.1 billion measure that finances the Interior Department and other federal agencies. The appropriations bill is awaiting action on the Senate floor.
The Baird-Gorton language also would prevent the Bureau of Indian Affairs from placing the land in question -- 170 acres near Ridgefield, Wash., about 60 miles from the Shoalwater Bay reservation in Pacific County -- into a trust until the tribe reaches an agreement with Clark County officials on its development.
The tribe had asked the BIA to put the land into a trust earlier this year, and the request is pending. Trust status would remove the land from tax rolls and exempt it from zoning and other regulations.
Shoalwater Bay officials want to build 1,580 townhouses on the site as well as commercial buildings such as an outlet store or light-manufacturing plant.
But officials from Ridgefield and the county contend such a development would snarl traffic, burden schools, threaten a wetland and conflict with an urban-growth plan.
"If we allow this project to go forward, it will create a nightmare in that community," said Chris Horne, deputy Clark County prosecutor.
The Gorton-Baird proposal is intended to bring the two sides together to work out an agreement, their offices said.
But the proposal itself will face opposition when the Senate returns from a recess next month, said Ron Allen, president of the National Congress of American Indians.
"I think we can beat that one," said Allen, chairman of the Jamestown S'Klallam tribe in Washington state.
He and other tribal officials say the proposal would erode tribal rights and runs counter to current federal law.
The Clinton administration opposes the Baird-Gorton proposal because it would give local governments a veto over BIA trust-land decisions.
The BIA already considers state and local concerns when deciding whether to place land in trust, said Elliot Diringer, spokesman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Herbert Whitish, chairman of the Shoalwater Bay tribe, said the tribe may sue the government if the BIA uses the Baird-Gorton proposal as a reason to reject the trust land application.
Such squabbles have become more common as tribes gain revenue from casino operations and try to develop land beyond their reservations.
The BIA last year rejected a request by Minnesota's Shakopee Mdewakanton tribe to place 593 acres into trust status for a planned shopping center in a Minneapolis suburb. State officials fought the tribe's proposal.
In Connecticut, the state and three towns are in court trying to prevent the Mashantucket Pequot tribe from placing 165 acres into trust status, in part so it can be paved as a casino parking lot.
In April, the Interior Department proposed new rules that would require the BIA to give greater weight to local concerns before approving tribal trust-land requests. No decision has been made on the change, which is opposed by tribes.
Indian officials say that as a sovereign nations, tribes should not be forced to comply with local regulations on tribal land. Local officials often discount the economic-development revenue and jobs such developments bring into a community, they say.
The Shoalwater Bay reservation near Tokeland, Wash., covers only about a square mile -- and half of that is saltwater tideland, Whitish said.
"We have nowhere to go for economic development but off the reservation," he said.
The local officials say that while they are not opposed to development, tribes should comply with the same regulations every other would-be developer must comply with.
The Shoalwater plan would bring at least 500 children into the Ridgefield School District, but would not help add building space in an already overcrowded district, Superintendent Dale Scott said.
Home Depot settles discrimination claim
SEATTLE (AP) -- Home Depot will pay $92,000 to a former employee who claimed he was harassed because he is Jewish.
The home improvement chain denies any wrongdoing but has agreed to increase its efforts to follow laws protecting workers from discrimination.
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit in September 1998 after investigating the complaint of Louis Gorchoff, an employee in Home Depot's Bothell store, northeast of Seattle. Under terms of the settlement, specific details of Gorchoff's allegations were not revealed.
"We brought this suit on behalf of a Jewish man who was subjected to repeated, degrading comments about his religion," said Jeanette Leino, EEOC district director in Seattle.
Gorchoff worked at the Bothell store from May to October 1997. Home Depot maintained he was a temporary employee who was laid off after the busy summer season ended.
The lawsuit alleged, however, that Gorchoff was subjected to a hostile work environment because of his religion, and that the company fired him after he complained.
A Home Depot spokeswoman said the chain does not tolerate discrimination at any of its stores. She also said managers at the Bothell store worked to provide Gorchoff with a good working environment.
US announces timber settlement
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States and Canada have settled a dispute over timber pricing in the province of British Columbia, U.S. trade officials said Thursday.
The settlement allows British Columbia to continue reduced harvest fees it initiated last year but sets up a new, higher export fee if British Columbia timber shipped to the United States exceeds recent levels.
U.S. trade officials praised the deal as upholding a major 1996 lumber agreement with Canada.
"We are pleased we were able to reach a settlement that will both restore the balance of the agreement and provides a measure of restitution," said Peter Scher, a special trade negotiator at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
U.S. home builders criticized the deal, saying it will sharply reduce home-building supplies and raise lumber prices.
"This new deal between timber barons in the U.S. and lumber mills in British Columbia to restrain trade would be illegal if the government didn't sign on," said Charlie Ruma, president of the National Association of Home Builders and a builder from Columbus, Ohio.
The association contends the agreement will discourage Canadian companies from exporting timber to the United States. That could mean price increases of $300 to $400 on a typical new home, said Michael Carliner, an economist with the group.