LaPUSH — John Miller is back in familiar territory.
The 63-year-old former director of the Clallam County Department of Community Development was named the LaPush-based Quileute tribe’s new executive director last month.
His first day was April 22, he said last week.
Miller, most recently the executive director of the Stillaguamish tribe in Arlington and the former executive director of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, was DCD director from January 2007 to December 2010.
He was defeated in the November 2010 election by current DCD Director Sheila Roark Miller.
Miller succeeds Paul Siewell as the administrative head of the 700-person Quileute tribe.
“John Miller was our top choice, and we look forward to utilizing his vast knowledge of Indian governance, business experience and impeccable human relation skills in conjunction with his commitment to the Quileute Tribe,” said a prepared statement from the Quileute Tribal Council.
The Princeton graduate begins his new job just as the tribe steps up planning for moving 40 homes, about 100 tribal members and key tribal facilities such as a senior center, school and tribal offices from a tsunami zone to higher ground.
It’s been more than a year since President Barack Obama signed legislation giving the tribe 785 acres of nearby Olympic National Park and 510 acres of ceremonial land, resolving a decades-long boundary dispute with the park.
In return, the tribe now allows unfettered public access to national park beaches that are reached by paths that wend their way through tribal land.
Miller said last week he expects to employ his land-use planning skills as the project gets under way.
“We’re just at the beginning of the planning phase, and I am so happy to be involved in it,” Miller said.
“When I considered applying for this position, that was a factor I considered.”
Representatives of the Auburn-based engineering and planning firm Parametrix were in LaPush last week for three days to discuss the project with tribal government leaders and staff.
They also began the process of finding out where tribal members want to locate their new tribal facilities and homes, Miller said.
The legislation authorized the tribe to move forward with planning the relocation but did not appropriate money to do it, Miller said.
“The tribe will have to be continually working with our congressional representatives,” he said.
“I would say, realistically, that construction could take place under the legislation probably within two years if we just get the momentum and keep moving with it.”
Miller is living in a Port Angeles home he owns with his wife, Rebecca Brown, a retired mental health professional formerly with what was known as Peninsula Community Mental Health Center and which is now Peninsula Behavioral Health.
He takes a Clallam Transit bus every day to and from work, making the approximately one-way, two-hour trip with some of his tribal government colleagues.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
