Investment report presented at General Council meeting

By Danielle Harrison

Smoke Signals editor

A representative from Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc. briefed the general membership on the Grand Ronde Tribe’s investment portfolio Sunday, Oct. 4, in a hybrid General Council meeting on Zoom and in Tribal Council Chambers.

Before the Baird presentation, the membership heard from Executive Director of Health Services Kelly Rowe, who gave a statement regarding how many doctors were employed by the clinic after some concerns were raised about the matter during a Wednesday, Sept. 30, Tribal Council meeting.

“There were a lot of statements made that weren’t really accurate about what we have going on at the clinic,” she said. “We don’t just have one doctor at the clinic, we have three. Do we need more? Of course. For recruiting, we do use professional recruitment services for medical, dental, all of our hard-to-fill positions. Those professional positions are really difficult…in the United States during COVID, we had so many doctors that retired because it was such a hard time for our country during the pandemic. … So, what we’ve done is fill those positions with temporary doctors as much as we can. We’ve had to use nurse practitioners mainly. … We don’t have a lot of gaps, but we’re always recruiting because we want the best for our membership.”

Rowe encouraged any Tribal members with concerns to stop by her office at the Health & Wellness Center.

“If you’re having trouble getting in to see a physician, please come to me because that is an issue I would like to help resolve,” she said.

After Rowe finished speaking, the membership heard a 26-minute executive session briefing on the Tribe’s investment portfolio, which limits how much Smoke Signals may report. The council entered executive session at 11:25 a.m. and resumed regular session at 11:51 a.m.

There were no questions or comments from the audience.

Door prize winners were Dorothy Leno and Christie Kimsey, $100 each; and Chris Bailey, Denise Harvey, Kelly Nelson, Pamela Patrick White, Rosemary Jameson and Sandra Pichette Davis, $50 each.

The next General Council meeting will take place Sunday, Nov. 8, in Tribal Council Chambers and via Zoom, and feature the annual Tribal budget hearing in executive session.

The council broke for lunch a few minutes before noon, reconvening at approximately 12:25 p.m. for other business. When nothing was presented, the meeting adjourned.

To watch the non-executive session portion of the meeting, visit www.grandronde.org and click on the Videos tab. To view the entire meeting, contact stacia.martin@grandronde.org.