1:00 Business Meeting
1:40 Presentation of Tecumseh Peacekeeping Award to John Wernet
2:00 Program – Implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act in Michigan
Presenters:
Maribeth Preston – SCAO, ICWA resource guide
Matthew Fletcher – Case updates
Angela Sherigan – Benefits of transfers to Tribal Court
From Indianz:
Two employees of the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Michigan want to organize a union at the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort.
Peter Gallinat and Dawaine Penney recently contacted the United Auto Workers. The employees don’t have any complaints but they want to be able to negotiate with Saginaw Chippewa management.
“We just want a voice and a say in the contract. And to be treated with dignity and respect,” Penney, a table games dealer, told The Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun.
Two prior union efforts at Soaring Eagle failed. The UAW is organizing among card dealers at the casino owned by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation of Connecticut.
Get the Story:
Two Soaring Eagle workers contact UAW (The Mt. Pleasant Morning Sun 9/12)
From ICT:
ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Something has long seemed amiss in the spacious halls of the University of Michigan’s Exhibit Museum of Natural History.
Nestled among exhibits of ancient dinosaur bones, prehistoric fossils and avian taxidermy, miniature 3-D scenes depicting Native Americans have been on display for decades.
Indian faculty members, students and others who visit have often felt the dioramas were out of place in the museum. Soon, to many Natives’ delight, they will be taken out.
“We are living, breathing, contemporary human beings,” said Margaret Noori, a professor of Ojibwe language and literature at the University of Michigan. “Many of us felt it was wrong that we had been represented so long as little dolls in the context of a natural history museum.”
Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission hosted a major treaty rights symposium on July 28-30, 2009, featuring many of the stars of Indian law — Kathryn Tierney, Marc Slonim, Henry Buffalo, Jr., Bruce Greene, and others. The symposium website is here.
Webcasts of many of the speeches are here at IndianCountryTV.com.
Written materials are linked here:
From mlive via Pechanga.net:
Rendering courtesy Gun Lake TribeThe exterior of the new Gun Lake Casino in Wayland
After repeated roadblocks that delayed the Gun Lake Casino from becoming a reality, plans for construction of the project finally are in motion, albeit on a smaller scale initially.
“Everything’s a go,” said John Shagonaby, CEO of MBPI Inc., the economic development corporation of the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians.
The federal government in August officially declared the casino site in Wayland a reservation, and a federal judge dismissed the final lawsuit to stop it.
A ground breaking is scheduled for 10 a.m. Sept. 17.
From the CIP website:
The Court Improvement Program created a special workgroup which met four times from September, 2008, to May, 2009, and authored an ICWA Court Resource Guide. The guide, published in September of 2009, contains best practice tips for courts on how to implement the ICWA. The workgroup consisted of representatives from circuit and probate court judges associations, probate registers, court administrators, the Department of Human Services, prosecutors, and the federally recognized tribes in Michigan.
From Indianz:
The city council in Manistee, Michigan, voted in favor of a mutual aid agreement with the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians.
The tribe is offering its officers free of charge. The city police chief said the service is crucial.
“There are many times when there’s only one police car working the entire county outside of the city. My concern is someone’s going to dial 9-1-1 and no one’s going to be available to respond,” said chief Dave Bachman, WPBN-TV reported.
The agreement lasts one year.
Get the Story:
Manistee votes in favor of an agreement with tribal police (WPBN-TV 9/2)
From Indianz:
Derek Bailey, the chairman of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, was among dozens of tribal leaders who attended listening sessions at the White House on Monday.
Bailey, who has served on the tribal council since 2004 and as chairman since 2008, said the sessions were just the beginning of an ongoing dialog with the Obama administration. He hailed White House officials for inviting tribes to Washington, D.C.
“Across the table, we saw indigenous faces, those that are from Indian Country, that understand when we speak as leaders from our own upbringing,” Bailey said in an interview yesterday. He called the meeting “inspiring.”
Jodi Gillette (Standing Rock Sioux) and Kim Teehee (Cherokee) from the White House, along with Indian Health Service Director Yvette Roubideaux (Rosebud Sioux) and Del Laverdure (Crow) of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, participated in the session that Bailey attended. He said they paid close attention as tribes shared a wide range of concerns.
“Never once did i feel that they were not interested listeners,” Bailey said. “They really were engaged.”
During the session, Bailey talked about regional approaches to providing health care, improving access and use of technology and appointing Native Americans to federal judgeships. He also spoke of the need to have a better understanding of the federal-tribal relationship.
“That is part of the consultative process,” he said. “The more of a cornerstone you have of tribal understanding, the better footed you’ll be.”
Bailey, who met with President Barack Obama in Michigan in July, said he has already noticed a change in atmosphere with the new administration. “From my understanding, there’s a huge turnaround, a very noticeable turnaround, and very much appreciated,” he said of the developing relationship.
During the campaign, Obama promised to hold an annual summit with tribes. The issue was raised yesterday but the White House has not said when the first meeting will occur.
From the Petoskey News-Review (miigwetch to A.K.):
BLISS TOWNSHIP — Spurred by last year’s public outcry not to drain Lake O’Neal, the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians set out to collect fishery, wildlife and water quality data.
Now that the compilation is complete, the tribe will present its findings to the public beginning at 7 p.m. on Thursday at the Bliss Township Hall.
Doug Craven, the natural resources director for the tribe, said Lake O’Neal is unique to the tribe and the data was collected to help inform better decisions for it in the future.
“It’s one of the few lakes that’s completely within the tribal reservation area,” he said. “We recognized the gap regarding fisheries data and there was substantial public interest. We conducted the data to see if it matched the public’s perception and it appears that it does.”
Bill Parsons, an inland fisheries biologist with the tribe, said the data helps provide a baseline inventory on the lake cataloguing both the types of fish and birds that populate it. Parsons said he found smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, blue gill, yellow perch, rock bass, pumpkinseed and northern pike making up the fishing, and a large population of water fowl, including osprey and loons, as well as bald eagles nesting around the lake.
“We’ve determined that it’s an important fishery for the wildlife,” he said.
Here. An excerpt:
The Department of Justice is awarding $246,172 to the Uniting Three Fires Against Violence (UTFAV) to hire new staff and establish a resource center. UTFAV will hire a new full-time outreach coordinator to provide assistance in developing appropriate programming in each of the tribal communities, hire a full-time resource center coordinator to collect and develop resource materials and develop a resource center to collect, develop and maintain information on domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and dating violence to ensure that victims receive culturally appropriate services and make information available to women victimized by violence. UTFAV’s service area includes the twelve federally recognized tribes and programs providing victim assistance to women who have experienced domestic violence and sexual assault in the State of Michigan.
Turtle Talk 
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