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Fat with rain, the Chehalis River howls over Rainbow Falls — “Slōsid,” or “fish trap,” these ancient fishing grounds were named. Across the highway are the last old growth trees in this half of the county. Between these prehistoric bodies stands a giant.
His name is David Burnett.
“Yeah,” says 2017-2022 Chehalis Tribal Council Chairman Harry Pickernell with a laugh. “That describes him.”
Others keep Native American culture and independence alive through tradition, study. Burnett reinvented the fight.
For decades, it’s been his vision to restore the sovereignty of the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation through business. To him, it will be secured when the tribe takes its last dollar from another government.
This is the man who took the Chehalis Tribe’s finances from “shaky” to a diversified portfolio that would serve as a “blueprint” for even much larger tribes, says Pickernell.
After losing an election for secretary in November, Burnett plans to work for the Squaxin Island Tribe. His legacy on the Chehalis Reservation, though, is not threatened by his departure. Pickernell says Burnett has a “seven-generation view,” which impacted not only tribal members, but made waves on the state, national and international levels.
“He seemed to be 10 steps ahead of everybody else,” says Pickernell, adding, “We are reaping those benefits to this day and hopefully, beyond.”
50 Cents an Acre
The Chehalis Tribe never signed a treaty. In a 1960s settlement, the federal government made a one-time payment of $1.7 million for 3 million acres of the tribe’s land.
“Pretty good deal, right?” Burnett chuckles, still incredulous. “They called those the land claim settlements. The tribes had made claim to these lands, the federal government said ‘No, you can’t have the lands, but we’ll settle your claim.’ For, in our case, 50 cents an acre.”
Following the 1995 establishment of the Lucky Eagle Casino, Burnett recalls, the tribe was essentially bankrupt. As he departs, he can proudly say the tribe runs about a dozen businesses and employs approximately 1,500 people, with Burnett estimating 350 of those are members.
“Any of our tribal members that are under 30 have no understanding of the dire situation of the tribe. They’ve only known the prosperity part,” Burnett says. “Even among tribes, Chehalis was kind of the one that was looked down on. … In the tribal world, we went from being 20 years behind to being one of the leaders.”
Growing up, his father an Assembly of God pastor and mother a Chehalis Tribal Member, Burnett lived the Christian equivalent of a military brat lifestyle. Despite not living there until high school, the reservation was the closest he had to a home.
After graduating from Centralia College, he worked as an accountant. In 2000, Chairman at-the-time David Youcktan asked Burnett to work as the chief financial officer.
“I have this thought process that if they take ownership, they put more thought into it,” Youcktan says, noting Burnett was a member of the tribe. “The hope or wish that I had came to fruition. He said, ‘Hey, this is my tribe.’ … He took it head on.”
Shortly thereafter, Burnett joined the Chehalis Tribal Council as treasurer, and was elected chairman in 2002. He stayed in the role until 2014 and besides a one-year break, was involved in both the council and business branch of the tribe until November. His first business venture was the Great Wolf Lodge.
In 1999, the casino started making money thanks to what he calls “video lottery terminals,” and most everyone else calls “slot machines.” In 2008, the tribe had $5 million in the bank.
Despite initial hesitancy, Burnett was able to leverage the savings and convince members to invest in the lodge, which would become a $100 million business.
At the time, rumors flew that the property would be the new location of the casino. One of the conditions by the feds when the tribe gained jurisdiction over the lodge lot, Burnett says, was that it would not be a gaming property.
“I don’t know how legal that agreement was. But, morally, for me, it was: ‘OK, that’s the agreement we made. I will never ever consider gaming (there),’” he says. “Local press, local folks, made the assumption that this was a method the tribe was going to use to relocate the casino, and that was never the intent.”
Besides cashflow, the Great Wolf Lodge was one of many transactions that increased the reservation’s physical size, including a Fairfield-Marriott hotel; four End of the Trail convenience stores; Talking Cedar brewery, distillery and restaurant; a construction company; and more. It is now around 5,500 acres.
But while counties have property taxes as a base revenue, tribes, Burnett explains — especially those with only 5,500 acres — have to create their own revenue bases.
“In 2000, when I came, the tribe, probably, had 97% of its revenue from federal and state sources providing basic services,” Burnett recalls. “Today, that is down to about a third, 33% from federal and state sources. The rest is all coming from our business ventures. So, we’ve come a long way toward getting to that financial independence. And I hope I’m around when we’re able to look at the federal government and say, ‘No thanks. We don’t want your money. We got this.’”
The Glass Ceiling
With the lodge, Burnett encountered the first of several fights to maintain full authority over the tribe’s enterprises.
The tribe, he says, went through a lawsuit with Thurston County over property taxes on the Great Wolf Lodge. An initial ruling against the tribe allowed the county to hold taxes it had collected on the lodge property since it was purchased — or, re-purchased — in 2007.
Burnett wanted to appeal. The land was owned by the tribe: A government, he upheld, that was fully independent of the county.
He brought his case to the Native American Rights Fund, attorneys that took on tribal issues. They told Burnett they didn’t like the facts of the case and advised him to amend his argument in exchange for their representation.
“No. Our argument is we don’t owe these taxes,” Burnett says with conviction. “We’re not going to compromise on that position.”
Then, he went to the National Congress of American Indians, a policy advocacy group, as he calls it. The congress eyed the case and advised Burnett to drop it.
He says they told him, "You're going to lose and it’s going to hurt Indian Country.”
He didn’t. In 2010, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Chehalis’ favor, forcing counties across the state to refund taxes on tribal businesses.
“That reverberated across Indian Country,” says Burnett. “We pushed forward. We won.”
The second of Burnett’s battles against long-established oppressions came when the Chehalis Tribe made moves on the Talking Cedar.
By this time, he’d established Chehalis Tribal Enterprises. Separate from the council, it became the business arm and a construction company to continue the creation of new ventures — “lateral integration,” as he calls it.
After what was initially considered for a breakfast place by the Fairfield-Marriott hotel in Grand Mound, the business is now a distillery, brewery and restaurant.
“I remember the day I sent the notice up to the tribal attorney and said, ‘Hey I need a notice to proceed, can you bang one out for me?’ His response was, ‘I think we have a problem,” says Burnett.
The attorney received a letter from the Bureau of Indian Affairs which would not approve the project due to a law from the 1830s, that “literally had never, ever been enforced, not once since it was created,” Burnett says, “that no distillery can be built in Indian Country.”
His immediate reaction, he smiles as he recalls, was, “So what? Pay the fine. Let’s move forward.”
There was no fine. The remedy, per the law, is federal agents will come and dismantle and remove the still. Less than a year later, in what Burnett describes as a whirlwind and Pickernell previously called a herculean effort from former Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Buetler, the law was changed.
A True Sovereign Nation
Aside from his business savvy, his successor says fondly, Burnett’s most significant contribution to the tribe has been a focus on education.
Partnering with businesses and schools, Burnett brought a focus on training students for higher education early on. He founded a scholarship program to ensure “anyone” in the tribe have access to college or career training, Pickernell says.
“Goodness sakes. Every year, you might see one or two tribal members graduate from high school or college,” Pickernell says of the days before the program. “Now, the counts are unbelievable.”
Why did he do it all? Why did he care? Asking Burnett is like asking someone why they go home to their family at night.
“I don’t know. … Financial independence. Earning as much money as the casino does,” he says of his motives. “And I always operated saying, ‘OK. If I make this decision, is this a good decision for my kids? Because, if it’s a good decision for my kids, it’ll be a good decision for all our tribal members. I use that as a yardstick.”
Burnett has been married to his wife, Farralee, since 1984. Together, they have three kids, Sarah, 35, Jake, 33 and Annie, 18, and five grandchildren.
Even after Youcktan credits him with the tribe’s prosperity in business ventures beyond the casino, it is Burnett’s devotion to family that he admires most.
“He had the ability to balance his personal life and family very well to what the tribal needs were,” Youcktan says. “He had an open mind. … If you would have told me we’d have all these businesses, I’m not really sure I’m gonna believe that.”
Pickernell echoes this. Growing up on the Chehalis and Quinault reservations, he says he’s seen many tribal chairs, calling it an “honor and a privilege” to learn from Burnett and others.
“He could see gaming was not going to be forever. Nobody even thought of that,” Pickernell says. “A true sovereign nation. That’s what David wanted. … That’s where all of that comes together. Hopefully, someday, the Chehalis Tribe will be truly sovereign.”
