Article on Soo Tribe’s Future Post-Greektown

From the Detroit News:
That’s the simple question, with complicated answers, facing the Sault Tribe of Chippewa as it decides what to do about Greektown Casino-Hotel.

The bankrupt Detroit gambling hall that began as a dream of self-sufficiency has turned into a legal nightmare and financial albatross that’s divided 38,000 tribal members, choked the tribe’s finances and forced its leaders to rethink long-term ambitions aimed at improving the lives of one of the state’s most historically oppressed people.

“It wasn’t supposed to end up like this,” said Bernard Bouschor, a former Sault Tribe chairman who now sits on its board of directors. “Not after we spent so much time and money.”

The predicament in which the tribe finds itself is serious: likely losing Greektown, which by revenue is the smallest of Detroit’s three gambling halls, to creditors or a new buyer in a federal bankruptcy court hundreds of miles from home. It deeply contrasts with the bright promise the casino held for the tribe when the fight for a crack at the downstate market first started two decades ago.

Back then, vying for a piece of Detroit’s gaming market had a simple impetus: a desire for self-sufficiency.

For decades, Chippewa leaders sought recognition by the federal government, and when that hurdle was finally cleared in 1975, the tribe won the right to receive federal and state assistance offered to Native American groups.

Those dollars were spent to upgrade a standard of living that for decades had fallen far behind the acceptable norm.

Continue reading

TV Coverage of Grand Traverse Band Revenue Sharing Projects

From GTB Chairman Derek Bailey (Bailey Blast July 31 2009):

This past Wednesday, July 29th, the 7&4 News channel did an excellent feature story on the Grand Traverse
Band’s recent 2% allocation. The positive message is a necessary reminder of how through 2% allocations,
citizens of northern Michigan truly benefit from tribal gaming. To view the 7&4 News broadcast, please click
on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_9PEjiKTyk. Especially during these tougher economic
times, the tribes continued financial contributions to schools, organizations, counties equates to communities,
families and individuals being better served and living with more opportunities.
This cycle’s allocation amount was $791, 179.75 and was awarded to 34 applicants (65 applications were
received with a totaled request of $2,642,065.00). Twice a year, 2% gaming revenue allocations are made to
local units of government, resulting from terms of the consent decree which settled Tribes v. Engler (Case no.
1:90-CV-611, U.S. District Court, Western District Michigan).

This past Wednesday, July 29th, the 7&4 News channel did an excellent feature story on the Grand Traverse Band’s recent 2% allocation. The positive message is a necessary reminder of how through 2% allocations, citizens of northern Michigan truly benefit from tribal gaming. To view the 7&4 News broadcast, please click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_9PEjiKTyk. Especially during these tougher economic times, the tribes continued financial contributions to schools, organizations, counties equates to communities, families and individuals being better served and living with more opportunities.

This cycle’s allocation amount was $791, 179.75 and was awarded to 34 applicants (65 applications were received with a totaled request of $2,642,065.00). Twice a year, 2% gaming revenue allocations are made to local units of government, resulting from terms of the consent decree which settled Tribes v. Engler (Case no. 1:90-CV-611, U.S. District Court, Western District Michigan).

Greektown is $755 Million in Debt

From Indianz:

The commercial casino that is majority owned by the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Michigan is more than $755 million in debt.

The Greektown Casino in Detroit entered bankruptcy proceedings last year. So far, all of the exit plans that have been submitted would relieve the tribe of its ownership in the facility.

The latest offer comes from businessman Tom Celani, who said he will bid $450 million for the casino.

Get the Story:

Businessman to bid $450M for Greektown Casino (The Detroit News 7/31)

Nottawaseppi Huron Band in Talks to Amend Gaming Compact

From the Battle Creek Inquirer:

The governor’s attorney said Tuesday the revised compact for FireKeepers Casino should be done within 60 days and offered clues to what the new document might look like.

The Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi, owner of FireKeepers, has been in talks the past several weeks with the state of Michigan on changes to the 1998 compact that allowed the tribe to move forward with the casino.

On Monday, John Wernet, general counsel to Gov. Jennifer Granholm, would not offer details to what changes might be made to the compact but said it would be similar to changes made to compacts with the Pokagon Band (New Buffalo) of Potawatomi, the Little River (Manistee) Band of Ottawa and Little Traverse Bay (Petoskey) Band of Odawa Indians.

Continue reading

New Book on Great Lakes Indians’ Resistance in the Early Reservation Years

Edmund Danzinger has published “Great Lakes Indian Accommodation and Resistance during the Early Reservation Years, 1850-1900” with University of Michigan Press. Here is the website.

And the description:

During the four decades following the War of 1812, Great Lakes Indians were forced to surrender most of their ancestral homelands and begin refashioning their lives on reservations. The challenges Indians faced during this period could not have been greater. By century’s end, settlers, frontier developers, and federal bureaucrats possessed not only economic and political power but also the bulk of the region’s resources. It is little wonder that policymakers in Washington and Ottawa alike anticipated the disappearance of distinctive Indian communities within a single generation. However, these predictions have proved false as Great Lakes Indian communities, though assaulted on both sides of the international border to this day, have survived. Danziger’s lively and insightful book documents the story of these Great Lakes Indians—a study not of victimization but of how Aboriginal communities and their leaders have determined their own destinies and preserved core values, lands, and identities against all odds and despite ongoing marginalization.

Utilizing eyewitness accounts from the 1800s and an innovative, cross-national approach, Danziger explores not only how Native Americans adapted to their new circumstances—including attempts at horse and plow agriculture, the impact of reservation allotment, and the response to Christian evangelists—but also the ways in which the astute and resourceful Great Lakes chiefs, councils, and clan mothers fought to protect their homeland and preserve the identity of their people. Through their efforts, dreams of economic self-sufficiency and self-determination as well as the historic right to unimpeded border crossings—from one end of the Great Lakes basin to the other—were kept alive.

Continue reading

Larry Leventhal on Treaty Rights

From News from Indian Country:

Back in 1974, Attorney Larry Levanthal, teaching at St. Scholastica College in Duluth, instructed two Lac Courte Oreilles tribal members Fred and Mike Tribble about unresolved treaty rights claims in the ceded territories of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

It was illegal for tribal members to spear fish or hunt deer off the reservation except within narrow State statutes. Tribal members were being cited into state courts for trying to feed their families.

After the class, the Tribble brothers dragged their spear fishing shack off the reservation onto State waters, started fishing, and were arrested by Wisconsin game wardens.

The Tribbles’ showed the wardens the 1837 Treaty between the Chippewa and the United States which guaranteed the tribes’  right to hunt, fish, and gather in the ceded territory. But the wardens were unmoved.  A Sawyer County judge upheld the arrest.

On appeal Federal judge Doyle sided with the State. But the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed in 1984  and eventually treaty rights were upheld by the US Supreme Court in 1999 in  Mille Lacs v. Minnesota.

Larry Levanthal discusses the importance of treaty rights for tribal sovereignty and how treaty rights might be used to challenge coal fired, electricity plants and other polluting industries.

Continue reading

GTB Chairman Meets with Pres. Obama During Last Week’s Michigan Visit

Here are the details — Tribal Chairman Email Blast Wk ending 071709

Sault Tribe May Give Up Majority of Control in Greektown to Merrill Lynch

From Indianz:

The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians could give up ownership of its commercial casino in Michigan under bankruptcy plan before a federal judge.

Continue reading

Pokagon Band Election Results

From Indianz:

The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians of Michigan has a new chairman and vice chairman.

Matt Wesaw replaces John Miller as chairman. Wesaw most recently served as vice chairman and served as chairman in the 1990s.

Butch Starrett was elected vice chairman. He replaces Wesaw in the post.

The tribe held its election last Saturday, July 11.

Get the Story:

Pokagon Band elects Matt Wesaw (The Dowagiac News 7/17)

Lee Opinion from the Michigan Supreme Court

The Michigan Supreme Court upheld the lower court terminating the parental rights of Cheryl Lee, stating that there had been sufficient active efforts.  However, the Court did explicitly state that the AFSA does not supersede or relieve the State from providing active efforts.

Unfortunately, the Court also held that:

In this case, however, the fundamental disagreement is not about the nature
of the required services, but about the timing of those services. Indeed, respondent acknowledges that the DHS and the tribe provided active efforts in the past, but argues that 25 USC 1912(d) requires current active efforts, which the DHS failed to provide because it did not offer services in connection with the termination of her parental rights to JL. We decline to read the word “current” into 25 USC 1912(d). This statutory language does not impose a strict temporal component for the “active efforts” requirement.

and:

Similarly, we decline to hold that active efforts must always have been provided in relation to the child who is the subject of the current termination proceeding. Again, the question is whether the efforts made and the services provided in connection with the parent’s other children are relevant to the parent’s current situation and abilities so that they permit a current assessment of parental fitness as it pertains to the child who is the subject of the current proceeding. The evidence must satisfy the court “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the parent’s continued custody of that child “is likely to result in serious emotional or physical damage to the child,” as required by 25 USC 1912(f).

Lee Opinion

Our previous coverage is here and here.