Michigan Indian

Saginaw Chippewa Hosting Meeting on Coal Plants in Michigan — Sept. 4

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the agenda:

10:00-11:00 Registration and Vendor booths on Green building resources

11:00-12:00 Saginaw Chippewa Housing- Guest Speaker, to be announced

12:00-1:00  Lunch (must RSVP below) provided by the Saginaw Chippewa Housing Department

1:00-1:15     Introduction:

1:15-2:15     Peter Sinclair-An Inconvenient Truth

2:15-2:45    Lee Sprague-Michigan Sierra Club, “Coal Rush”

2:45-3:00   Break

3:00-4:00   Steve Smiley-Heron Wind Manufacturing, Renewable Energy as a Tribal Economic Development Strategy.

4:00-5:30   Question and Answer Session

William Brooks, Attorney, and open session to discuss legal and regulatory issues involved with the proposed Coal Fired Plants in Mid-Michigan.

6:00 pm     Dinner provided (must RSVP below) Sponsored by Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Council

You can download the registration form here.

BIA Repairs Roads in Wayland Township

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

from the Kalamazoo Gazette:

WAYLAND TOWNSHIP — Motorists who are enjoying smooth rides on a section of Sixth Street in Wayland Township can thank the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, which helped fund the repaving of the road.

Monte Davis, an environmental specialist for the Gun Lake Band of Potawatomi Indians, said Sixth Street between 126th and 129th avenues was repaved between July 23 and 25. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held there July 28.

Of the project’s $308,000 cost, the township is paying $108,000 and the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Indian Reservation Roads Program is paying $200,000.

Davis said the Gun Lake Band joined the program in 2006. He said he learned in June 2007 that the funding for the Sixth Street project was coming.

“We’re very happy for the tribe, the township and the county. The road was one of the worst roads in Allegan County,” Davis said.

The Allegan County Road Commission’s managing director, William Nelson, said the funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs is the first contribution for roads that the county will receive from the agency.

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Neocolonial Inscription and Performance of American Identity in American Indian Higher Education — Conference Announcement

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

The conference website is here and registration starts soon!

Here is the law panel, hosted by the MSU Indigenous Law and Policy Center:

Law: Who’s Legal and Why Should or Shouldn’t That Matter?

Panelists: Andrew Adams III, General Counsel, St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin; Trent Cable, Makah Nation; Colette Routel, Atty Jacobson, Buffalo, Magnuson, Anderson & Hogen in St. Paul, Minnesota.

John Petoskey, Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, and Kate Fort, MSU Indigenous Law and Policy Center, will be sitting on panels as well.

The rest of the panels are listed here.

ICT Article on Indian Language Textbooks

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From ICT:

SANTA FE, N.M. – Long-talked-about efforts to infuse Native culture and language learning in the public education system have resulted in action in New Mexico.

A textbook co-authored by Evangeline Parsons Yazzie, a Navajo professor at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, has been selected by the state’s education department as a high-quality resource that will soon be made available to all school districts in the state.

State officials believe that New Mexico is the first state to adopt a Navajo textbook for use in the American public education system.

So far, officials from 10 districts have already signed on to have teachers in their systems use the book and its companion teaching guide. BIA schools are also eligible to review the text and decide whether to use it starting in the 2009-10 school year.

”It’s just wonderful that an Indian language is being honored in this way,” Yazzie said. ”It’s so important that American Indians learn about their people, their language and their culture from their own people, rather than just reading about it in a textbook that’s written by a non-Indian.”

Yazzie’s book, ”Dine’ Bizaad Binahoo’ahh,” or ”Rediscovering the Navajo Language,” is filled with cultural and language lesson plans that are suitable for all ages of students, according to the author. It is illustrated with many historical and contemporary pictures of people who have lived on the Navajo reservation. It’s also accompanied by a CD with the voices of Yazzie and her brother, Berlyn Yazzie, a former educator on the Navajo Nation.

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Nottawaseppi Huron Band Casino Progress

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From Indianz:


The Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians is banking on a casino to create new opportunities for the Michigan tribe.

Nearly half of the adult members of the tribe are unemployed. But some are now finding work on the Pine Creek Reservation with the construction of the FireKeepers Casino. “I thank the Creator for the jobs,” Bill Osborn, who was out of work until construction started in May, told The Battle Creek Enquirer. “I think the opportunities in the future are going to be immense.” The $300 million, 236,000 square-foot casino is set to open in the summer of 2009. With $100 million in annual revenue, the tribe plans to improve governmental programs and services for its 850 members. The tribe has already built housing to lure more people back to the reservation. Only about 35 people live there right now. In related news, the tribe is offering a $250 reward for information about the theft of copper wiring from from the casino construction site.

Get the Story:
Tribe: Profits will provide programs for members (The Battle Creek Enquirer 8/17)
Casino will bring change (The Battle Creek Enquirer 8/17)
Neighbors differ on FireKeepers (The Battle Creek Enquirer 8/17)
Tribe reports copper theft at casino (The Battle Creek Enquirer 8/16)

MichGO v. Kempthorne — Stay Issued

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the AP:

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court has issued a stay preventing a proposed tribal casino in Allegan County from moving forward.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the order Friday pending a potential review from the U.S. Supreme Court. Opponents of the casino have asked the Supreme Court to hear the case.

The Gun Lake tribe wants to build a $200 million casino in Allegan County’s Wayland Township. A group called Michigan Gambling Opposition has spent years trying to stop the casino from being built.

The appeals court sided with the tribe earlier this year, upholding a decision by the federal government to set aside 147 acres of land where the casino would be built near Grand Rapids.

Creditors Object to Greektown Reorganization Plan

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Detroit News:

DETROIT — Greektown Casino LLC, which is in bankruptcy reorganization, shouldn’t get an exclusive right until June 1 to file a turnaround plan, a group of creditors and a U.S. government representative told a judge.

Greektown’s request to block competing plans for more than eight months beyond the current Sept. 26 deadline should be denied because the company can realistically gauge its success long before then, U.S. Trustee Daniel McDermott said in an objection filed Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit.

“The court should not permit the debtors to remain in Chapter 11 in a shroud of secrecy” while ” keeping other potential plan proponents off the playing field for such an extensive length of time,” McDermott said in the filing.

Closely held Greektown won court approval last June to borrow $150 million to continue operations and construction of a new hotel and gaming floor. McDermott questioned the viability of the company’s projected future operations during an economic decline in the U.S.

“The question that must be answered is whether the projections are reasonable for the foreseeable future in the given economic and political milieu in Detroit,” McDermott said in the filing.

Objections also were filed by the Michigan Gaming Control Board and the official committee of unsecured creditors.

Greektown sought court protection from creditors on May 29, citing cost overruns in a $332 million expansion. It opened in 2000, four years after Michigan citizens voted to legalize three gambling facilities in Detroit. It employs about 1,976 people, and attracts 15,800 visitors a day, the company said.

GTB Chairman Election Re-Run

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the court order referenced in the Record-Eagle article — Bailey v. GTB Election Board

PESHAWBESTOWN — A new election will be held for the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians’ chairman’s post after a tribal court ruled the band’s election board improperly censured candidate Derek Bailey just before the initial vote.

A 23-page order issued by the band’s appellate court last week threw out the results of the May 21 tribal chairman’s election and ordered a new vote for the four-year post.

Bailey lost by 23 votes to two-term incumbent Robert Kewaygoshkum. But he challenged the results because the band’s Election Board held an emergency meeting two days before the election and subsequently issued an e-mail censuring him for allegedly using his tribal computer to visit his campaign Web site.

No date for the new election has been scheduled, tribal officials said.

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Muskegon County Advisory Vote on LRB Casino Proposal

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Muskegon Chronicle:

The Muskegon County Board of Commissioners will put a non-binding casino referendum on the countywide Nov. 4 general election ballot.

The vote will be advisory in nature, giving county commissioners the voters’ direction on how to handle issues concerning the Manistee-based Little River Band of Ottawa Indians attempt to place its second casino at the former Great Lakes Downs horse-racing track in Fruitport Township.

The casino advisory vote was proposed by county board Chairman James Derezinski in response to a citizen group forming in light of a previous casino resolution of support by the county board. A group has formed calling for an open debate of the county board’s support for a Fruitport Indian casino after the tribe announced it had purchased the former racetrack last month.

County officials indicated that a public vote for the casino would not insure the tribe the successful development of a Muskegon County Indian casino. Likewise, a vote against the casino will not necessarily prohibit an Indian gambling facility at U.S. 31 and I-96.

The issue of Indian casino development is decided in agreements between the tribe and the state of Michigan and the tribe and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. The tribe is a sovereign nation under U.S. law.

The specific language for the Indian casino advisory vote will be drawn up by county attorney Theodore Williams. The ballot language is expected to be back before the county board Aug. 26.

Odawa Casino Layoffs

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the Petoskey News-Review:

The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Casino Resort was quiet this morning, as the resort announced approximately 100 job cuts on Monday.(G. Randall Goss/News-Review)
There was turn of bad luck for some employees at the Odawa Casino Resort on Monday. Faulting the rising cost of gas and subsequent poor attendance, management reported that as many as 100 employees were laid off, including tribal and non-tribal members.

“We were ultimately forced to face the reality of too many employees serving too few customers,” said general manager Sean Barnard.

Although some staff members reported being caught off guard by the reductions in a series of mandatory meetings on Monday, tribal chairman Frank Ettawageshik said that he and other tribal leadership were kept abreast of the reductions.

“We knew about it all along,” he said.

Warren Petoskey, an elder with the tribe, said rumblings about layoffs started last month.

“I heard a rumor three weeks ago that this was coming,” he said. “This morning I got an e-mail that said they laid off 40 percent of their workers.”

Barnard denied reports that as many as 200 workers had lost their jobs in Monday’s cutbacks. He confirmed that 55 full-time employees had been let go, in addition to 45 part-time seasonal positions. Although those who lost their jobs were being put in contact with an official from Michigan Works! for outplacement services, Barnard would not give details on the severance package offered to them. He said specific details were “too personal” to divulge publicly.

“We’ve been reviewing our options,” said Barnard. “We did not rush into this. We’ve been working on this for some time to make the right decision.”

Ettawageshik said that there has been an ongoing process to adjust the size of the staff to meet the appropriate needs of the casino’s customers. According to Ettawageshik, the recent round of layoffs were “a continuation of that adjustment.”

Despite the layoffs, Ettawageshik confirmed the tribe was still posting profits and said there were no major financial concerns heading into the second half of the year.