Valerie "Nurr'araaluk" Davidson, commissioner for DHSS, along with Lt. Gov Byron Mallott in the background, watch as Gov. Bill Walker signs a compact affirming tribal sovereignty and commitments to improving child services at the Alaska Federation of Natives Conference in Anchorage October 19.
Wrangell delegates returned from last month's annual conference for the Alaska Federation of Natives at Anchorage's Dena'ina Center.
AFN is the largest statewide Native organization in Alaska, representing 151 federally recognized tribes, 150 village corporations, 12 regional corporations, and various nonprofit and tribal consortiums. Its annual October conference, this year held between the 19th and 21st, provides AFN membership the opportunity to put forward resolutions as well as to discuss and prioritize issues pertinent to Alaska's Native communities.
Representing Wrangell Cooperative Association was its tribal administrator, Esther Ashton.
"The conference was very amazing. It was my first one ever," she said afterward. The conference – AFN's 51st – was the first WCA had sent a representative to for a while. "I was pretty honored to be a part of this one specifically, because the Walker administration recognized tribal sovereignty."
At AFN, Gov. Bill Walker announced and signed a compact to strengthen the state's child welfare system, specifically reducing the disproportionate number of Alaska Native children kept in foster care. Though only making up 19 percent of the youth population, they account for 55 percent of children in out-of-home foster care. Of these, 61 percent of Alaska Native children in foster care end up being placed in non-Native homes.
The historic agreement recognizes the authority of Alaska's tribal governments to provide child welfare programs and services on behalf of the state's Office of Children's Services, the first of its kind in the country. The intergovernmental arrangement was the product of negotiations between the state's departments of health and law, Native governments and organizations.
"It's a big step forward," said Ashton. She expressed hope that it would be followed by further commitments to self-determination, improving cooperation in future.
Related to that, one of the issues Ashton came to AFN with was to seek an audience with Alaska officials to discuss a monofill site proposed by the Department of Environmental Conservation. Over 18,000 cubic yards of treated, lead-contaminated soils removed from Wrangell's former Byford junkyard last year is due to be interred in a permanent monofill site next April. However, the site's proximity to Pats Creek and other anadromous water sources has been disconcerting to WCA, which had not been consulted during the course of the project.
DEC has since delayed the project to allow more time for site alternatives, and the Tribe has come to an agreement with the Wrangell Assembly to work more closely on finding a solution.
"I got to meet with the Lieutenant Governor (Byron Mallott) and Barbara Blake," senior advisor to Walker on tribal affairs, fish, game and marine resources, said Ashton. "I got them up to speed on the monofill, and the collaboration that was happening between the Tribe and the City to come up with an alternate location or potentially ship the material off-island. He said he is going to meet with the governor and commissioner on this."
Per their discussion, Ashton said Mallott had recommended WCA's coming to the Governor's Advisory Committee with a resolution requesting greater collaboration between state and tribal government agencies, and for greater transparency in such projects. One of the Tribe's complaints had been the agency's site selection process, which it felt had lacked public input.
"With the monofill issue specifically, we want to make sure this doesn't happen to other tribes in future," she said.
One resolution presented to the convention Wrangell had hopes for would have gotten AFN's support to site a residential accelerated high school there. The Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program has since last year courted the idea of developing a 400- to 450-student school at Wrangell's former Institute property. The campus would offer an accelerated curriculum centered on mathematics and science to primarily rural youths living around the state, enabling them to finish high school in as little as three years. Students in the program also have the opportunity to earn college credits along the way, better preparing themselves for that next step after graduating.
An ANSEP accelerated high school is already operating in the Matanuska-Susitna area, though inclusion in the program is largely limited to students living in the area. Only in its second year, the school from the start has had an extensive waiting list of interested pupils, and the opening of a second, residential institution is expected to better meet that surplus demand in the state.
Since the idea's introduction last year, a steering committee was formed that included input from WCA, the Public School District, City and Borough Assembly, and Chamber of Commerce. Lobbying for outside support, the concept received the endorsement of the Tlingit and Haida Central Council in April, which then submitted the resolution to AFN.
At the convention, ANSEP was one of many programs and groups setting up informational tables at the convention center. Wrangell school superintendent Patrick Mayer participated there, meeting with delegates and making them aware of the proposed school.
"It was great," Mayer said. "We got a lot of positive feedback on ANSEP."
Recommended to the convention by AFN's review committee on October 10, once submitted, membership chose to table the ANSEP resolution. Whether the proposal would be taken up at a later time or sat upon was uncertain.
"It's in the hands of the AFN," Mayer commented. He said the steering committee would continue to seek out support for the proposal.
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