Gov. Tina Kotek announced Thursday she will not veto a $45 million award to the Willamette Falls Trust, a nonprofit working to expand public access at the storied waterfall, after its leaders convinced her the funds would be effectively used.

The outlay, which lawmakers tucked into a massive spending bill in the final days of this year’s legislative session, will help the nonprofit purchase dozens of acres of land near Willamette Falls, a site that has recently been the home of intense intertribal conflict.

The Grand Ronde Tribe, which has ancestral connections to the waterfall, urged Kotek in June not to give money to the nonprofit, which is led by former Gov. Kate Brown and includes among its members four other tribes with ancestral ties to the falls.

The chairwoman of the Grand Ro

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