NEWS RELEASE
January 24, 2007

Central Council Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska
PRESIDENT’S REPORT

Tlingit Haida President Meets With Alaska’s Congressional Delegates
Last week the Tlingit Haida Central Council President, Edward K. Thomas, traveled to Washington, DC at the invitation of Indian Pride. While there he also attended a Bureau of Indian Affairs Tribal Budget Advisory Council (TBAC) Effectiveness Taskforce meeting and met with Alaska’s Congressional Delegation.
TBAC Meeting

President Thomas was appointed tribal co-chair of this special taskforce set up to find ways that the TBAC could become more effective and efficient in its work as an advisory council to the BIA in budget development. The intent of the meeting was good but the results were very disappointing.
It was evident from the beginning that the mission of TBAC was not clear to everybody. This is the major reason why TBAC meetings have been frustrating and not very productive. After much discussion in the taskforce meeting a draft mission statement was presented which reconfirmed suspicions that the meetings themselves were the mission and not the adoption of budgets that addressed the needs in Indian Country.
President Thomas feels very strongly that the mission of the TBAC should be to advocate the money appropriated by congress to the BIA primarily for needs in Indian Country and secondarily for BIA administration. Between the years 2002 and 2008 BIA budgets include an increase of $116 million to Central Office and a decrease of $57 million to Tribal Priority Allocation (TPA), which is the money that goes to tribal programs. This is backwards.
Indian Pride Premier
The Indian Pride program had its premier at the Native American Museum in Washington, DC on the evening of January 18. The event opened with a reception in the lobby of the museum and the actual premier was an introduction of key people involved in the video productions on Native American history and issues.
President Thomas was one of the participants selected to be in the summary of video clips that will be used for a public relations (PR) campaign on the series of 13 video presentations that will be shown on public television this calendar year. It is the intent of Indian Pride to tell the “Indian Story” from the point-of-view of Native Americans. Our history, sovereign rights, contributions to this country, as well as our government-to-government relations with the United States is very much misunderstood by many because they are almost always told to the American people by the “press” who are in the business of sensationalizing our issues.
Meetings With Alaska’s Congressional Delegates
President Thomas, along with Johanna Dybdahl, Chair of the Southeast Tribal Department of Transportation (SE TDOT), and Julie Baltar, SE TDOT Director, met with Senator Murkowski and Congressman Young; Thomas and Dybdahl also met with Senator Stevens. The primary purpose of these meetings were to bring our members in congress up to speed on what the SE TDOT is doing and to solicit their support in getting road inventories certified by BIA administration. All of them agreed to assist in any way to get this accomplished.
President Thomas was also given the opportunity to make a presentation on tribes’ problems with BIA budgeting. All members agree that it is not appropriate for the budgets of BIA administration to grow so rapidly while programs that service needy tribal citizens are reduced. They also suggest that thoughts of increases to BIA funding are not realistic in this budget environment.
President Thomas also brought up to Senator Stevens the landless issue and the transfer of lands to ANCSA corporations who have still not received land due them per ANCSA. Our senior senator is very much aware of where objections have come from and some of the obstacles in Congress. He is concerned that these land transfer issues will be of a lesser priority in Congress under new leadership but there may be some opportunities to work cooperatively with the environmental community who have historically opposed the transfer of federal lands outside of the federal government.

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Media Contact:
Jodi Wolf, CCTHITA Publications
9097 Glacier Highway
Juneau, AK 99801
Ph: (907) 463-7123
E-mail: jwolf@ccthita.org