Quilting project honors Native children who died in boarding schools
Jamestown, N.D., resident Ellen Pfeiffer first learned about Indian boarding schools from her former husband, a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe whose grandmother was taken from her family and sent to the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. She found the story heartbreaking, and began to study the era. Barbara Landis, Carlisle Indian School biographer, reports that nearly 10,000 Indian children went to Carlisle in its 40-year-history. Of those, nearly 200 children died, most of them of respiratory diseases such as pneumonia and tuberculosis.

Pfeiffer believes the schools, whose purpose was to assimilate Indian children, did a disservice to Native Americans. Now she’s making quilts to honor the children who died so far from their families. The project involves 186 quilts, according to this Jamestown Sun story distributed by the Associated Press.

Connecticut tribes blast state’s plan to add keno games
Connecticut is looking at adding keno games to help close a $1.3 billion budget shortfall. But tribal casinos – which already offer it – are crying foul, saying it could cut into their profits, Indian Country Today’s Gale Courey Toensing writes here. Jackson King, general counsel for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, says that if the state launches keno, the tribes could stop making payments to the state based on their own earnings, because of a violation of the compact.

Navajo Nation plans five casinos within two years
Despite a drop in gaming revenues around the country, the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise says it has secured the funding for five news casinos, and plans to build them within the next two years, according to the Navajo Times. Investment Committee members say gaming looks like more secure route than the stock market these days.

Seneca Nation stops effort to ban mail-order smokes in New York
The New York Times has this story on how the Seneca Nation turned around a bill designed to halt the shipment of mail-order cigarettes. The bill was approved by the New York House of Representatives and a Senate committee, before the Seneca Nation, which sees more than $1 billion annually in gambling and cigarette revenues, launched a full-scale lobbying effort to stop it.

Nunavut to substantially cut polar bear harvest quota; hunters object
Over the next four years, the annual hunting quota for Baffin Bay polar bears will gradually be reduced from 105 to 65, according to the Nunatsiaq News. Biologists are worried the bears are being overhunted, and Greenland has already reduced its quotas. But some hunters are demanding compensation for their communities.

Salish Kootenai College honors lifelong Salish language teacher Sophie Mays
Last month, family and friends on the Flathead Indian Reservation gathered at Salish Kootenai College to dedicate Sophie’s Room. It honors Sophie “Supi” Quequesah Mays died last year at the age of 56, the Char-Koosta News reports. Mays, who grew up with parents who spoke only Salish, dedicated her life to preserving the Salish language. She was the first Salish teacher when the college was founded.

Gwen Florio

The Crow Tribe has until Nov. 1 to replace its aging, ’70s-era Little Big Horn casino. But getting the money to do that – the casino owes $400,000 to the IRS – is problematic.

Tribal leaders and membes of the Absaloka Casino Enterprise Inc. board, formed in 1994 to develop Crow gaming projects, are working together toward that goal, Susan Olp of the Billings (Mont) Gazette writes here:

The ACE board learned that the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community of Prior Lake, Minn., provides grants and loans to other tribes for economic development.

Leaders from the two tribes met, [tribal Chairman Cedric] Black Eagle said, “and through that process, they viewed this site as a very marketable opportunity for them to invest in.”

The Shakopee agreed to give the Crow Tribe a $1 million grant and a $2.5 million loan for the casino project. The grant can be accepted by the executive branch, Black Eagle said, but the Crow Legislature must be involved in final approval of the loan.

The plan includes not only a new casino, but a 100-room hotel, convention center and RV park. Black Eagle says the casino’s location along Interstate 90, frequented by tourists, makes the idea viable. And, most important, it would – ideally – provide more jobs on a reservation with 47 percent unemployment.

Gwen Florio

Mark Trahant is a Kaiser Media Fellow examining the Indian Health Service and its relevance to the national health care reform debate. He is a member of Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. Comment here.

This New Year I am experimenting, instead of resoluting. (I know, it’s not a real word. But it just sounded right.) I’m interested in how technology can play a role in behavior change, how to eat less, drink enough water, exercise more, and sleep better.

The tool I’m playing with is called a Fitbit. I’ll write more about that later, but it’s already interesting because it measures steps, your sleep pattern (although I am quite ready to argue about falling asleep in the chair while watching TV. The device (and my family) says “yes,” but I know better.

I see how this technology could be helpful to wellness programs. Sunday I walked 11,289 steps (not quite 3 miles), consumed more than 2,000 calories and slept 8 hours, waking up 7 times during the night.

We change what we measure – and that includes our own behavior. Just by watching my personal data, I am inclined to walk more and eat less.

But that’s only part of what could make Fitbit important to a wellness routine. Part two will come when others I know are on the system and add their stats through social networks. Think of a community of folks who are rooting for your success, for your better health, as you urge them forward.

This is more experiment, than a resolution. But this is the season for resolutions – and for many that means it’s time to quit smoking.

Read the rest of this entry »

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It’s about time the federal government recognized the Shinnecock Tribe – actually, it’s about 200 years late, says the New York Times in this editorial.

But having dispensed with congratulations, the Times turns immediately to the matter of a casino being sought by the tribe, whose members mostly live on a small reservation on Long Island that is an enclave of very modest means surrounded by astounding wealth.

While the real estate is undoubtedly valuable, it’s ill-suited for a casino – hence, the tribe’s efforts to obtain permission for an off-reservation casino, possibly at a New York City racetrack or in the Catskills.

The Times does not like that, not one bit:

Casinos are also a magnet for tainted money and a handmaiden to addiction, crime and other social ills. That is why we would urge the tribe to spend its energy on finding other ways to leverage its valuable real estate.

The Times hopes the tribe’s 1,000 members can use the benefits long denied its members as a means toward financial empowerment and urges that it “foresee a future apart from slots and dice.”

We hope the tribe uses – and sees great success with – whatever means toward financial security it deems best.

Gwen Florio

You’d have thought people would have been happy for the success of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux. For generations, members of the tribe struggled financially. Many were destitute.

The Mystic Lake casino in the 1980s changed all of that. But, as so often happens, resentment followed good fortune. As David Peterson of the Minneapolis Star Tribune writes here, that sort of resentment was so acceptable that teachers openly taunted Native children in classrooms, referencing the land and money they received upon turning 18.

Recently, though, the tribe has taken pains to mend those corrosive relationships. Case in point: A medical facility that was turning away 60 people a month just received a $1 million pledge from the tribe.

The tribe has always been generous with assistance to other tribes. But increasingly it’s also helping its neighbors. A page on its Web site highlights those projects.

Joan Fawcett, from the medical center that got the challenge grant, says, “I believe in my heart it’s not self-serving. I think they realized they were fortunate to have those dollars and realized, ‘Oh my gosh, we have to help others.’”

Gwen Florio

Earlier this week, the federal government gave preliminary approval for recognition of Long Island’s Shinnecock Nation – a key step in the Shinnecock people’s quest for a casino.

But as the AP’s Frank Eltman reports here, the tribe still faces huge hurdles if it wants to build a casino anywhere but on its seaside territory in the Hamptons.

Tribal leaders and neighbors alike agree it’s not the best location.

“I don’t feel the type of facility we’re envisioning would be right for eastern Long Island,” Fred Bess, a Shinnecock trustee, tells Eltman.

As Eltman writes:

Tribal leaders have a pending lawsuit in which they are laying claim to more Hamptons land, but have expressed a willingness to negotiate a settlement. Off-reservation possibilities include a planned resort in Calverton in Suffolk County, the Belmont Park horse track in neighboring Nassau County, Aqueduct Raceway in Queens or as far north as the Catskills.

One state senator is pushing the Belmont plan, noting that the racetrack just outside New York City can be reached by several highways and the Long Island Railroad.

But BIA spokeswoman Nedra Darling says only four off-reservation casinos have been approved – none of those since the 1990s. Several tribes around the country, however, are seeking off-reservation casinos on land that was historically theirs.

A Supreme Court decision this year says tribes recognized after the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act can’t have off-reservation land put into trust – a requirement for a casino. Federal regulations also mandate that casinos must be located within 75 miles of a reservation.

But Bess says those obstacles aren’t insurmountable.

“I believe there are provisions set aside for newly recognized tribes that will address this,” he says.

Gwen Florio

Even though Indian casinos have been smacked by the economy, they’re still doing better than nontribal casinos, according to the just-released Indian Gaming Industry Report.

Revenues were up 1.5 percent last year, according to the report by economist Alan Meister. That’s the smallest increase since tribal casinos came into being in 1988 – but far better than the performance by commercial casinos, whose revenues dropped 7 percent, according to the report.

Tribal casinos are a $26.8 billion industry, the AP reports here. They’re doing so well, according to the story, because they’re located all over the country, rather than in big gaming centers like Atlantic City, Las Vegas and Reno.

“Indian gaming is in people’s backyards,” David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, tells the AP.

“A person from Southern California is not going to Vegas, but to a California Indian casino where they can spend a couple of hours. That’s what you’re seeing.”

In 2008, tribes operated 442 casinos in 28 states, compared to 429 in 2007.

Gwen Florio

Tribes across the country are looking to build casinos far from their reservations and closer to cities with the sorts of population that can turn those casinos into moneymakers. And, the Obama administration is looking into loosening regulations that have kept them from doing just that, according to this Associated Press story.

Gambling opponents object, saying more casinos will bring more crime and other problems.

“These are all casinos coming to a highway ramp near you,” Cheryl Schmit, director of a nonprofit group that opposes Indian gambling, tells the AP’s Sudhin Thanawala.

Thanawala uses as an example the Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians, which wants to build a casino overlooking San Francisco Bay, more than 100 miles from its tribal lands.

Off-reservation casinos already exist in Milwaukee and Spokane, Wash.

The AP examined federal records and found that about a dozen tribes have filed applications to set up casinos on distant pieces of land.

Gwen Florio

The pending default of Foxwoods Resort Casino, the nation’s largest, raises questions about whether creditors will be able to pursue claims, according to this story by the Financial Times of London.

Tribes’ status as sovereign nations could complicate matters in the case of Foxwoods, run by the Mashantucket Pequot tribe, or those by any other tribes.

Casinos around the country are feeling the same financial pinch as other businesses. Barclays Capital reports that tribal casinos hae sold more than $5 billion worth of junk bonds.

Foxwoods warned this week that it probably won’t make a full interest payment on $500 million, and could be in default by Dec. 16. It’s still negotiating with creditors to structure more than $1 billion in debt.

“The Mashantucket situation could set a precedent for how financial disputes between Native American gaming issuers and lenders are resolved,” Moody’s Investors Service said in a report. “With casinos such as Foxwoods located on sovereign tribal land potentially out of reach of US bankruptcy law, it remains unclear whether creditors could enforce their rights and exercise adequate remedies against Indian tribes that default on debt payments.”

Steven Smith of the law firm Dechert says bankruptcy law has never been tested as applied to the mesh of sovereignty and federal gaming laws. “An argument can be made that the tribe is a governmental unit, which could bar it from seeking relief under Chapter 11 altogether,” he tells the Times.

Gwen Florio