Both Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute tribal leaders requested infrastructure aid from state officials and greater cultural understanding from citizens during a six-hour Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs meeting last week in Towaoc.<\/p>\n
Ute Mountain Ute Chairman Manuel Heart explained that the first line to provide treated drinking water to the 2,100 people in Towaoc had started to fail. Set in 1992, the decades old infrastructure, which spans about 30 miles, had three breaks in March alone. Repairs totaled nearly $1 million, said Heart.<\/p>\n
Southern Ute Chairman Clement Frost said his tribe was also experiencing water issues, citing the 1,400 people in Ignacio lacked adequate resources to maintain irrigation ditches. Southern Ute farmers are one month behind in production, said Frost.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout water, we really suffer,\u201d said Frost, citing he sympathized with water woes on the Ute Mountain Ute reservation.<\/p>\n
Lt. Gov. Joseph Garcia chaired the CCIA meeting on Friday, May 29. In addition to both Heart and Frost, the 15-member panel also included Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs executive director Ernest House, Jr., as well as representatives from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, Colorado Department of Transportation, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Colorado Department of Education, Colorado Department of Human Services, History Colorado and Colorado Department of Healthcare Policy and Financing.<\/p>\n
Colorado Department of Local Affairs official Ken Charles said his agency would be willing to help work on tribal water issues.<\/p>\n
Climate change<\/p>\n
Citing the area\u2019s recent funnel cloud sighting, Heart eluded that more severe weather could be possible in the Four Corners because of climate change. He proposed possible U.S. Department of Homeland Security funding to install a Doppler weather radar on Ute Mountain Ute lands. Currently, the area sits in a \u201cblack hole\u201d for adequate weather-related warnings, said Heart.<\/p>\n
\u201cPartnership is the true word that\u2019s going to make things change,\u201d said Heart as he proposed a Native American Summit with Gov. John Hickenlooper.<\/p>\n
Native mascots<\/p>\n
Addressing the elephant in the room at last week\u2019s meeting, Frost was obviously frustrated over failed legislation that would have prohibited the state\u2019s public schools from utilizing Native American images as mascots. Frost explained that Natives were often buried with such items as war bonnets and tomahawks, for example, and those type of logos shouldn\u2019t be used in a way that\u2019s abusive.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou earn the war bonnet,\u201d said Frost. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a symbol.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople need to recognize and be conscious of the meaning behind these images,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Both House and Garcia vowed to keep the mascot discussion alive across the state to develop greater cultural understanding, and perhaps have schools voluntarily work to dissolve \u201coffensive images and names.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to create more opportunities for dialogue,\u201d said Garcia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
concerns include water, climate change and mascots<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6371],"tags":[13,629,547,295,88],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-111988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mt-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-southern-ute-indian-tribe","tag-ute-mountain-ute-indian-tribe","tag-water","tag-weather-news"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111988"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=111988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}