Boozhoo Cousin;
It is great to have this forum, and we all appreciate your hard work and determination to bring this to us. I would like to take this opportunity to share with you my experience with the GRB thus far. You may, if you wish, make this e-mail public domain on the site.
On Sunday, December 15 2002, my brother and I attended the annual (?) meeting which was held in Hart. The meeting, which was chaired primarily by Mr. Ron Yob, was directed at several issues. In attendance was Mr. James A. Keedy, who was represented as our attorney from the Michigan Indian Legal Services, Traverse City branch. Also in attendance were several board members, as well as our enrollment representative, whose name escapes me at the moment.
In the course of discussion of tribal business, the topic of enrollment was heavily covered. The main point of discussion along these lines was getting complete and legible documents to the enrollment board. Also discussed was the subject of tribal recognition. While no concrete information was given, the message that I am sure we all left with was that we would be automatically recognized sometime in 2005, at which point the federal government's deadline for voting on the matter would come and go. Though we would have automatic recognition at that point, we would only have about 75% of the benefits of recognition that we petitioned for. It just seemed to me that our representatives were satisfied with this inevitable conclusion, and that there was really no need to pursue the matter. Personally, I beg to differ. Recognition without the specific terms which we seek, sovereignty being the most important, will be pretty much worthless. Without sovereignty we will still be left with numerous hills to climb in order to get anything in the future. It is my dearest hope that the matter of our sovereignty is not left in the hands of those who currently represent our tribal interests, as they have done so very little to gain any ground for us along those lines. We discussed the current status of our petition, and Mr. Keedy interjected that it was just a matter of the federal government getting to it, and acting upon it. It was brought up that without lobbyists in D.C. acting on our behalf, we are not considered a squeaky wheel, and therefore not requiring any oil. This is unacceptable. But, enough on that subject.
We also discussed hunting and fishing rights of the GRB. Mr. Yob surrendered the floor to Mr. Keedy, who basically shrugged and said that because the GRB is not recognized by the federal government, there has been no rights assigned to us in those areas. Mr. Keedy went on to state that in the few cases he has been aware of involving the matter of fishing rights, GRB members have not been prosecuted for fishing without a Michigan Department of Natural Resources fishing license. However, in the matter of hunting rights, he stated that as of yet, it has not been an issue, and that, and I quote, "No judge in the state of Michigan wants to try one of those cases and establish a precedent which may be overturned in the future." My brother and I left there as much in the dark as when we got there. As a matter of personal preference, I make certain that I have all of the state approved licenses when I either hunt or fish, until further notice. Just seems to be the safe course of action for the present.
Also discussed was the matter of information dissemination. A few of those in attendance indicated that they never know what is going on in the GRB because we rarely receive any updates. Mr. Yob stated that because we are working with a limited budget, it is not possible to mail out regular updates. Also, because our staff is currently working on a volunteer basis, it is asking too much of them to handle enrollment matters, which is currently utmost, as well as regular updates. Having accepted that as a valid reason, I offered my services in ensuring that regular information is disseminated among our members. I offered to help establish a network of people who would be interested in helping out with mailing and printing costs, e-mail networking, and telephone networking. I also gave my e-mail address, home telephone number, and cellular phone number so that we could discuss these matters further. I feel that I made it quite clear that if someone would send me the minutes of all of the meetings, I would be sure to pass that information into the network to ensure that more of our members would have current information at all times. To date, I have received no communications from either Mr. Yob or any other member of the board who took my offer and personal contact information, and assured me that we could look into doing what I had suggested. What I was offering was free postage, telecommunications, printing, internet usage (which I pay for monthly), and my time, which I will give freely to the cause of getting this information out. It is unacceptable that an offer of this magnitude and importance to the GRB can just be ignored by our leadership. We are told that we need to be more involved in the future of our people, then ignored when we offer solutions. I have not contacted anyone to reiterate my offer. I do not feel that it should be necessary to hound our leadership with solutions to our problems. Scott, you may make my e-mail address public in the event that anyone wants to contact me with constructive advice or assistance. I am still quite willing to get involved in this process. What we need is to get this thing established and viable, so that we can at least keep each other informed as to what is going on, and getting what information we can get our hands on out to our members.
That's about all I can think of at present. Should anything else occur to me, I will send it along so that you can post it in this forum. Until then, I will keep my eye on the site and contribute what I can, when I can.
Merle R. Stone
Grand River Band of Odawa Indians, MO 380
E-mail Merle at YLDNDN6@cs.com