Posts Tagged ‘Joseph Brings Plenty’

28
Nov

Sunday brunch: Baby gets free flights, Cobell questions and better Internet coming

   Posted by: admin    in Cobell vs. Salazar, native news, Native women

Louisa Pilurtuut with her newborn son William. William was born on an Air Inuit medevac to Kuujjuaq Nov. 16. (FACEBOOK PHOTO)

Louisa Pilurtuut with her newborn son William. William was born on an Air Inuit medevac to Kuujjuaq Nov. 16. (FACEBOOK PHOTO)


Nunavik mom gives birth at high altitudes
Somewhere between Kangiqsujuaq and Kuujjuaq and more than a month early, Nunatsiaq Online reports, Louisa Pilurtuut brought into the world baby William.

First time mother Louisa Pilurtuut (Kangiqsujuaq) was surprised by labour pains last week and an Air Inuit Twin Otter medevac flight from Kuujjuaq arrived at the community to bring her to a hospital.

But baby didn’t wait and Pilurtuut gave birth on the plane. They were monitored at the hospital and later release.

Here’s the best part, Nunatsiaq reports:

    And although he’s too young to know it, little William can look forward to free flights on Air Inuit for the rest of the life.

    Air Inuit offers a free pass to infants born on its flights — although this offer hasn’t been extended often.

Cheyenne River tribal leader opposes $3.4 billion Cobell settlement
It was a big week for Elouise Cobell – as the lawsuit she’s fought 14 years to win finally garnered Senate approval (it now needs to pass the House and be signed by the president).

But Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Chairman Joseph Brings Plenty says the $3.4 billion agreed on in the settlement is not enough, the Rapid City Journal reports.

Based on the number of people who could get claims under the settlement, it just isn’t enough, he said. Brings Plenty (who is the outgoing chairman) rejects the financial argument that says “something is better than nothing,” the RCJ reported.

    “It’s not really fair, as far as the settlement is concerned, if you calculate what they should be getting paid,” Brings Plenty said. “It’s dangling some funds in front of individuals who are living in a poverty-stricken area. Of course it’s going to be appealing.”

$3.6 million broadband project will benefit Hopi, Navajo communities
Indian Country Today reports that thanks to a loan/grant 61 miles of fiber-optics between the communities of Jeddito and Holbrook, Ariz., bettering the Internet access in the Hopi and Navajo communities.

The $3.6 million loan-grant for a broadband project is funded by federal stimulus dollars.

    (Hopi Telecommunitcations Inc.) reports several entities will directly benefit from this fiber connection including the Hopi Cultural Center, the Hopi Health Care Center, Hopi Police and courts, area schools and tribal offices. HTI also plans to construct facilities and install equipment to provide broadband services to subscribers that are currently not being served around the communities of Jeddito and Spider Mound. Approximately 400 residences in the Jeddito and Spider Mound communities do not have access to telephone or broadband services.

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11
Mar

Tribes in South Dakota rethinking position on historic Cobell v. Salazar settlement

   Posted by: admin    in Cheyenne River Sioux, Cobell vs. Salazar, Elouise Cobell, Indian trust funds, Interior Department, Oglala Lakota, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Rosebud Sioux

(Editor’s Note: Today is a day for light posting as I spend most of it traveling. Please check back this evening for postings of the day’s events.)

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Elouise Cobell, whose name heads the historic Cobell v. Salazar class action case, has been touring the Dakotas this week to answer questions about last fall’s settlement of more than $3 billion in the case. The money is to compensate tens of thousands of Indian people for federal mismanagement of royalty payments due on their lands. The amount, while one of the largest ever in such a case, still falls far short of the roughly $50 billion some estimate is more accurate, and not everyone is happy with the settlement. Here‘s the entire Rapid City (S.D.) Journal story, by Mary Garrigan, on one of Cobell’s sessions this week:

Oglala Sioux Tribe President Theresa Two Bulls

Oglala Sioux Tribe President Theresa Two Bulls

Tribes in western South Dakota are re-evaluating a $3.4 billion settlement proposed in a class action just days after Elouise Cobell toured the state to explain it.

Cobell finalized the proposed settlement in December 2009 after a 14-year legal battle on behalf of more than 300,000 Native American trust land owners. She alleged the Interior Department bungled the accounting on thousands of individual Native trust accounts for more than 100 years.

But as the U.S. House of Representatives’ Natural Resources Committee held a hearing Wednesday on the settlement, which Congress must approve and fund by an April 16 deadline, critics began cropping up on Capitol Hill and on reservations in South Dakota.

After a March 8 public meeting in Kyle, where Cobell and two of the attorneys in the 14-year-old lawsuit answered questions about the settlement, Oglala Sioux Tribe President Theresa Two Bulls said Wednesday that “there are a lot of questions” about the settlement throughout her reservation, and she canceled a trip to Washington, D.C., to speak in favor of it.

“I declined to testify at the March 10 hearing. I need to hear from my tribe first. I can’t go there to say yes or no on the settlement,” Two Bulls said during a radio address Wednesday to the tribe, broadcast live on KILI radio.

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