NEWS RELEASE
November 24, 2006

Central Council Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska
REPORT FROM PRESIDENT EDWARD K. THOMAS
Juneau Executive Council Meeting

The Executive Council was very busy at its meeting held on November 11th at the Vocational Training and Resource Center (VTRC) in Juneau, Alaska. Prior to the meeting the Executive Council held a joint meeting with the Finance Committee, attended the Payoff Party for Judy George, and the Tlingit Haida Technology Industries (THTI) board met.

THTI is struggling to be profitable. Our contracts with the Department of Defense (DOD) are good contracts that help us employ people in Hoonah and Klawock, but they have not had a sufficient amount of work flow to maintain economies of scale and to pay for our administrative costs. Our Chief of Business Operations (CBO) pointed out that the work flowing from Intertribal Information Technology Company (IITC), the DOD prime contractor, has been less than sufficient to keep people busy, pay for our administrative expenses, as well as our share of the profits. IITC just completed a strategic planning session in Seattle this past week and now it appears that there will be enough work allocated for us to keep things moving without losing money. Richard Peterson, President of POWTEC, offered to partner with THTI until we are able to formulate our own 8(a) partnerships with other companies to take advantage of 8(a) contracting opportunities with the federal government.

The Joint Executive Council/Finance Committee meeting went over a number of policy issues as well as some amendments I proposed to the Executive Council budget. We reviewed our current agreement with our audit firm and approved a renewal of their contract for this year’s audit. The joint group approved a General Fund policy but reserved the right to make changes prior to the next General Assembly. We are recommending that the 2007 General Assembly adopt this policy. The amendments that I proposed to the joint group took the most time. I explained that the commitment we made to meet in all our communities and our increased presence at state-wide and national meetings will cost us more money. Some Finance Committee members feel strongly about keeping costs down and living within our budgets and I pointed out that we must balance that with our presence in our communities. Our meetings in the communities are working very well in our quest to develop stronger relations with our tribal citizens in and outside of Juneau. We have had pretty good attendance and some very healthy discussion on the concerns they have brought forth. We will be forming an Audit Committee before next General Assembly that is separate from the Finance Committee and I will be appointing members before the end of January.

The Executive Council decided to form a new Indian Child Welfare/Foster Parenting Taskforce (Taskforce) in the very near future. This Taskforce will explore the challenges and pitfalls of keeping Native children in Native homes and will also come up with recommendations as to what we can do to reduce the number of children who are taken away from the Native families in the first place.

Finally, the Executive Council reconfirmed plans to have our 2007 General Assembly in Wrangell be a Constitutional Convention. This means that all proposals to amend the Constitution will take priority over other business and presentations at that General Assembly. I will be appointing a special Constitution committee in the next couple of weeks to review our current constitution and come up with some proposed amendments that will improve this important document.

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For More Information on Executive Council Meetings Contact:
Ashli Hobbs, Assistant to the President
320 W. Willoughby Avenue, Ste. 300
Juneau, AK 99801
Ph: (907) 463-7142

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