From the Dowagiac Daily News:
NEW BUFFALO – The Pokagon Fund Board of Directors Friday announced the funding of six new projects in June totaling $195,542.
The Pokagon Fund began funding grant proposals in November 2007. Since that time it has provided more than $2.5 million in project funding to local charities and municipalities.
Grant funding supports initiatives in the fields of health, human services, art, education, recreation and environment.
From the Milan News-Leader:
People often say Milan was founded in 1831. The community we know and love today was started that year with a two-story log cabin built by John Marvin for his family.
The Marvin cabin was placed on the north side of Plank Road, an Indian trail dating back many centuries. Another Indian trail led north and south within a few feet of Marvin’s log structure, along present-day Wabash Street.
Many of the Native Americans were transported out of Michigan just before the gush of settlers from New York, Vermont, England and Ireland who came to the area about the time Marvin arrived. The Erie Canal brought new farming families to the Milan area literally by the boatload.
Here is an outstanding powerpoint presentation about the history from pre-contact to modern day of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians. It’s a large pdf of the powerpoint.
From Indianz:
Since opening last August, the casino owned by the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians has become a tourist destination in southwestern Michigan.
The Four Winds Casino Resort has had a positive impact on the economy, a business leader said. Local hotels are booking more rooms, more restaurants and retail stores are being opened near the casino and more tour groups are inquiring about the area. “Four Winds is part of their visit and that’s what drew them to the area, but they’ve wanted to stay in a bed and breakfast and do other things,” Pam Sudlow told the Associated Press. “Our lodging properties have been benefiting because the casino is very short of rooms.” The success of the casino has the tribe thinking about an expansion, Chairman John Miller said.
Get the Story:
Four Winds casino creates new vacation destination (AP 5/27)
From the AP:
DETROIT (AP) — If smoking is banned in Detroit bars, restaurants and workplaces, Betty Gilbert says it will hurt the city’s casinos.
Gilbert, who was smoking a cigarette Friday with members of her bowling team on a sidewalk near Greektown Casino downtown, should know. The 69-year-old from Cape May County, N.J. — who said she usually gambles weekly in Atlantic City — plans to cut back when that city’s smoking law goes into effect.
“If they cut out the smoking, they should also cut out the drinking,” Gilbert said.
A ban passed by the Michigan Senate on Thursday now heads to the House, which passed a narrower bill five months ago. If the new bill becomes law, smokers could pass up the trip downtown to gamble and head instead to Indian casinos, which aren’t affected, industry observers said.
From ICT:
The federal government’s recent actions involving its authority to make decisions on acquiring land in trust for tribal gaming purposes may inadvertently threaten the authority and duty of the secretary of the Interior Department to take land into trust for Indian tribes.
On April 29, the D.C. Circuit decided an innocuous case involving the secretary of Interior’s decision to take land into trust for the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians (also known as the Gun Lake Band). It was the third such opinion in recent years involving Michigan Potawatomi Indian tribes, each brought by well-funded citizens groups opposing Indian gaming. The suits were mere harassment suits, intended to delay rather than prevent the opening of the Potawatomi gaming operations. Each of the suits brought similar claims.
Of import, one claim was that Section 5 of the Indian Reorganization Act, the statute that authorizes the secretary to take land into trust for Indian tribes, was an unconstitutional delegation of congressional authority. The first two D.C. Circuit panel decisions (2006 and 2007), involving the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians, rejected the constitutional challenge to Section 5 without much discussion or dissent. In fact, since 1995, at least three other federal appellate circuits have rejected the same kind of challenge to the statute, so this is unsurprising.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held the Department of the Interior’s decision to place land into trust for the benefit of the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians near Bradley, Michigan did not violate the National Environmental Protection Act nor did Section 5 of the Indian Reorganization Act constitute an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority.
Other briefs are here.
Funny/sad thing about all this is that the 1993 compacting tribes, who still retain the right to decision where the two percent money goes, never have this problem — and yet the State tries so hard to take it away.
From Indianz:
The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians agreed to share 2 percent of gaming revenues with local governments in Michigan but officials in one county still can’t agree how to distribute the money.
Berrien County’s Local Revenue Sharing Board has been trying for the past six months to decide how to spend $977,266 from the Four Winds Casino. One official became so unhappy with the process that he resigned from the board. The other board members, however, say they have reached an agreement on distributing the money. They hope to receive the first payment in time for the tribe’s second on May 31.
Get the Story:
Disagreements continue over distribution of casino revenue (WSBT 4/28 )
Casino proceeds remain elusive (WNDU 4/28 )
From Indianz:
Despite a lack of construction activity, the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi Indians says its casino near Battle Creek, Michigan, will open in June 2009.
The tribe was supposed to start work on the FireKeepers Casino this spring. But spokesperson Donna Halinski promises that construction will begin before the summer. “We haven’t set a date yet,” Halinski told The Battle Creek Enquirer. “There are still some internal things going on. … The design work is all done. … Everything’s in place.” The tribe’s land-into-trust application for the casino was held up in court for eight years. Get the Story:
Casino project awaits start (The Battle Creek Enquirer 4/28 )
From the South Bend Tribune:
Language is among the most important symbols of a culture. And while there may be as many as 50,000 Potawatomi Indians living today in North America, as few as 60 speak their native language. Just five to seven are able to teach it.
The urgency to keep the language from dying away is at the heart of the Pokagon Band’s participation in a federally funded program that now involves between 25 and 30 adults in Lower Michigan.
The area group meets for two hours every Thursday, alternating between classrooms in Dowagiac and Mishawaka.
Their goal, says Matt Morsaw, language specialist, is to produce three semi-fluent speakers over the next three years.
Turtle Talk 
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