VT Senate Committee votes out S.222 Mark Mitchell March 10, 2010
The VT Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs, today voted out unanimously S.222, (an act relating to recognition of Abenaki bands and tribes).
The AG's efforts to use “unintended consequences” simply comes from the same old playbook. The committee although, took the first step in righting a wrong.
Fifteen other states have recognized their resident native people as American Indian Tribes, without any of those tribes previously or subsequently acquiring federal recognition.
In May of 2006, the General Assembly passed S117, in an effort to recognize the Abenaki people fell short. The act failed to comport with the recognition requirements of the IACB.
U.S. Announces $42 Million In Grants For Native Americans
National News
Written by Administrator
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
U.S. Announces $42 Million In Grants For Native Americans Tuesday, 09 March 2010
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Administration for Native Americans (ANA) announces the availability of $42 million in competitive grant funding for fiscal year 2010 for community-based projects.
The projects will need to promote economic and social self-sufficiency and cultural preservation for American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and other Native American Pacific Islanders from American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
The fiscal year 2010 funding includes $27 million for continuing multi-year projects.
“Many Native Americans continue to face profound social and economic challenges,” said Carmen R. Nazario, HHS assistant secretary for children and families. “The funding opportunities we are announcing today will help provide the stability and financial assistance designed to improve the lives of Native children, youth and families.”
Salazar sets countdown to Cape Wind decision Tribal nations decline $1m offer to abandon opposition By Gale Courey Toensing Story Published: Mar 9, 2010
WASHINGTON – Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has ended the historic preservation consultation process on a controversial wind energy proposal off Cape Cod after the developer failed to convince the Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag nations to abandon its opposition to the project, which would be built in an area they consider sacred.
The nations declined a $1 million incentive from Cape Wind to give up their opposition.
Salazar, who had set a March 1 deadline for the tribes to reach an agreement on the proposal, announced in a media release that he has notified the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation “that the parties to the consultations have not been able to reach agreement on mitigation actions for the proposed wind turbine farm in federal waters off Nantucket Sound.”
Nantucket Sound is a sacred area to the Wampanoag nations – the People of the First Light. The wind energy plant would obscure their view of the rising sun in ceremony, and the Sound, which was once dry land, is where the ancestors lived and were buried, the nations say.
Mohawk tribe evicts non-natives From PRI's The World 08 March, 2010
A Mohawk community near Montreal, Canada, is divided over the basic question of who is allowed to live in their community. Last month, Mohawk leaders of the Kahnawake Reservation issued eviction notices to 25 non-native residents.
The move is based on a tribal law that is meant to protect the community’s Mohawk culture and identity. It says only people who are at least 50 percent Mohawk can live in the 20-square-mile reservation.
But some of the people who received the order to move out are fighting back. They say the eviction is unfair and amounts to racism.
That’s not the way Joe Delaronde sees it. He’s a spokesman for the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake.
RI gambling dispute headed to trial By Associated Press Monday, March 8, 2010
CHARLESTOWN, R.I. — A $10 million dispute between the Narragansett Indian Tribe and its former gambling partner appears headed to trial after efforts at reaching a settlement failed.
Paul Beckwith, a lawyer for Capital Gaming International LLC, tells The Westerly Sun of Westerly that a trial date will likely be set later this month.
Mohawk tribe exploring public transportation By LORI SHULL TIMES STAFF WRITER SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 2010
HOGANSBURG — St. Regis Mohawk tribe members might have another way to get around soon.
The tribe is beginning to conduct a feasibility study about the potential uses and profits of a public transportation system. The study is being funded through a $25,000 grant from the federal Food and Drug Administration.
"The last couple of years, the tribe has wanted to explore this," said Steven B. Cook, tribal director of economic development. "This is an important step we need to do to see if it's worth starting before we just do it."
The tribe is beginning to interview residents about their interest in such a system to determine whether the community would use it. Though no route has been discussed formally, drop-off and pickup locations might include Massena's St. Lawrence Centre mall, other locations in Massena and Malone and links with other bus systems and routes.
Teen suicide and infant mortality in Indian country rising
National News
Written by Administrator
Monday, 08 March 2010
Teen suicide and infant mortality in Indian country rising By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji) March 8, 2010
The British statesman, Benjamin Disraeli, purportedly said, "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies and statistics."
Native Americans have been the guinea pigs of statistics since the politicians in Washington began to use arithmetic to figure out their landholdings and numbers before embarking on God's mission of conquest and divestiture in the name of Manifest Destiny.
Since that time innumerable governmental agencies and consulting firms have joined the circle of statisticians to turn the lives of Native Americans into a virtual pie-chart of statistics. There are stats for health, housing, gaming, education and more. There are consulting firms that make their entire living by compiling statistics on Native Americans.
The statistic are compiled and filed. What happens next is anybody's guess. If the tons of statistics compiled over the past 100 years have made any impact upon the lives of Native Americans the results are far from discernable. It seems that the only benefactors of statistics are the consulting firms, but I do not have the statistics to back up that assumption.
The only problem with basing all of the ills of society on statistics is that it entirely removes the human factor. And that is why it is nearly impossible to compile statistics that would explain the extremely high rate of teenage suicides in Indian country. The infant mortality rate on Indian reservations is so much higher than in any other place in America that it should have set off alarm bells from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota all the way to the office of Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services the titular head of the Indian Health Service.
All most of us living out here in Indian country need do when discussing the high rate of teen suicide is to read the obituary columns in any newspaper on or bordering an Indian reservation. Statistics be damned: Indian children are killing themselves and we do not seem able to stop it. Babies are stillborn or die shortly after birth and we are not able to stop it. I counted eight stillborns on the Pine Ridge Reservation in a span of two months. And the loss from teen suicides and infant deaths go on with no end in sight.
Indian housing money cut By Mark Fogarty, Today correspondent Mar 2, 2010
It’s either feast or famine for American Indian housing.
In fiscal year 2010, the federal Indian Housing Block Grant was funded for a record $700 million. In addition, tribes got a one-time boost from the stimulus of $510 million for housing, for a total of $1.2 billion.
But the fiscal 2011 request would cut the block grant to just $578 million, the lowest it has been in many years. That’s nearly 50 percent below the FY 2010 amount.
Tribes reject wind-fall Cape Wind CEO offers millions to halt opposition By Christine McConville Saturday, February 27, 2010
Cape Wind developer Jim Gordon has offered two Native American tribes millions to halt their opposition as the clock runs down on the review period for the controversial wind power project slated for Nantucket Sound.
Sources told the Herald that Gordon, through a middleman, offered to pay the two tribes a total of $50,000 a year for 20 years if they would support the project.
Cape Wind spokesman Mark Rodgers said the offer represented “financial mitigation.”
Cedric Cromwell, chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoags, which is one of the two tribes involved, said the offer was rejected “out of hand.”
“This issue has never been about money for us,” Cromwell said.
For nine years, Gordon has fought for approval of his estimated $2.6 billion, 130-turbine project, proposed for a 25-mile stretch of federal waters, located between Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.
