Tribal Council Holds Regular Meeting

Council welcomes two special guests, Jacqueline Johnson and Dave Nicholas

By Shelley Marmor

HOLLYWOOD — At last month’s tribal council meeting, they welcomed University of Miami President Donna Shalala. This month was no different as the council welcomed Jacqueline Johnson, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) and Dave Nicholas from the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ (BIA) law enforcement services department.

Johnson briefly spoke about the up-coming NCAI conference that will take place in Hollywood the week of Oct. 10. She said the dates for this year’s convention have been scheduled earlier than usual to correspond with the presidential election.

“ Never before have we moved our meeting to have it before the presidential election,” she said.

Johnson said the NCAI has extended invitations to both presidential candidates since it will be the largest gathering of Native Americans. She said “NCAI will be here in full force” and anticipates about 4,000 Native Americans attending this annual convention.

She said that Senator John Kerry’s staff has given her “pretty good word” that he will attend. However, she said there has been no response from President George W. Bush’s people.

Johnson then reminded the council that this year is the 50th anniversary of the U.S.’s federal termination attempts on Native American tribes. She said the NCAI provided immense support to the Seminole Tribe of Florida to fight termination.

Consequently, NCAI is attempting to raise money through donations from “the Seminole Tribe as well as other tribes that NCAI helped during that termination” to build a permanent NCAI headquarter building in Washington, D.C.

The council, as well as Tribal Treasurer Mike Tiger, thanked Johnson for bringing this to their attention. The council said they would consider her proposal.

Deputy Chief Will Latchford from the Seminole Police Department (SPD) introduced Dave Nicholas to the council. Floyd told the council that, while preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Frances, Nicholas contacted SPD to let him know the tribe had full BIA support.

“ When Hurricane Frances was approaching we got a call from the Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcement and they advised us that they were going to send out their mobile command vehicles down to Florida just in case Hurricane Frances makes a direct hit on any of the reservations,” Latchford said.

Graciously, the BIA left the mobile command vehicles in the event that they would be needed during Hurricane Ivan.

Nicholas commended the professionalism of the Seminole tribe’s department of emergency services–both SPD and the fire department. He added that the BIA officers who the tribe during Hurricane Frances said they were “very surprised, very impressed” with what they saw from these tribal employees.

Following these two special guests, the council unanimously approved the 12 items on their consent agenda. In addition, they unanimously approved four other resolutions.

These resolutions dealt with a purchase agreement with the Ford motor company, the development of 50 acres in Brighton, the approval of using PriceWaterhouseCooper, an international professional services firm for advisory services and an amendment to the Seminole Indian Casino’s 401(k) plan.