TECA Board Approves Projects, Council Passes Resolution of $7.4 Million to Fund

HELLO RELATIVES!

Another round of projects and funds approved from TECA (TehCha meaning "new") Tribal Equitable Compensation Act.  The TECA Board held meetings to review the proposals submitted to the first window. They approved of 23 projects including the Green Grass Community Building, Lesmeister Land Development, Movie Theater, Youth Baseball Park just to name a few.

Council passed the resolution that funds the 23 projects in the amount of $7.4 million total.

Description of Approved Projects & Resolution Council Passed

Click on the Link ^^ above for the Description of the Projects and the Resolution that Council passed.

This is the process that is stated within the TECA Law Ordinance 74.  Where the TECA Board approves of the projects and Council approves of the funding draw downs from Office of Special Trustees. A couple years ago the TECA draft law was taken to the community's and comments were given.  The people did not want Council in sole control of the TECA money.  So a separate Board was created to select the projects.

Money for loans for businesses and community financial literacy.  Also, money to purchase existing fiber optic lines in the township in Timber Lake, SD.

The Tribe used a Shakopee grant to purchase the "Lesmeister" land along the Highway 212 across from the powwow grounds.  Also, purchased adjacent land from Mrs. Two Hawks.  All this land is next to the still in development "Badger Park" housing.  Now, the $397,089 TECA money can be used to do the engineering and design so we can plan out the infrastructure and best use of the land.   The Cultural Center will get the renovations that is needed for many years now. Property & Supply grant will allow them to continue to the tribal member's Housing Repairs Program. 

The long awaited project for a Movie Theater has finally raised enough money to start the process constructing.  The monies came from the Tribe's $750,000 General Fund, $500,000 Shakopee grant and now $675,000 to finish the fund raising for the Movie Theater.  The project "Sacred Children" is for planning of taking over the SD DSS and Foster-care Home.  I am going to look for other funds perhaps we can find other sources to fund this project maybe from the 4 - E funding and save some TECA.

CLICK HERE for entire description of the Projects that was provided to us at Council. Also the draft resolution that Council approved.

There will be 3 more approval processes for TECA funding this year til September 2014 not to exceed the 20 million dollar ceiling.  Council appropriated this ceiling amount of 20 million for the fiscal year back in August 2013.

Hechetu, Toksa ake!

Nov. 26, 2013 District Meeting Report.

Hello My Relatives!

Here below is my District 5 (Old Agency) report provided at the Nov. 26, 2013 meeting.  The District meeting was held at the CR Elderly Nutrition Center.  We had a good meeting that night.  Lots of district members there.  Some of the issues that were discussed were Lakota Code Talker Eagle Boy's enrollment, Rescinding a Council referral to investigate a tribal member business, Lowering Council pay, among other things.  The District wanted to make sure Eagle Boy was enrolled if not eligible then for the Council to do a "honorary" enrollment.  I submitted my report for the record.  Here it is below.  Take care!

Report to the District October Session 2013

Hello!

I wanted to share the report I prepared for the District 5 (aka Old Agency) meeting held on Oct. 29, 2013 at the CR Elderly Nutrition Center.  I am also getting papers together to give separate report on the Range Unit Allocations and Ord. 71 Grazing Law changes but that will be at a later date.  For this District Meeting there was no quorum (needed more community members) so was unable to give a formal address to District for reporting.  Nonetheless, here below is a copy of the report I prepared.  Click on the report to enlarge.  Take care & Stay warm.

First Round of TECA Funds

JTAC now called TECA (Tribal Equitable Compensation Act).  

And also in our language teca means “new”.

TECA ordinance was created and passed by council.  This law is the “plan” for TECA dollars.. however its not actually a plan but a process.  What it does is sets up a process of how the money will be accessed and spent.  Basically, a funding window is announced by the TECA office usually this window would be for 3 month period.  Within this time folks could submit proposals projects to be funded by TECA $.  Proposals would be submitted to the TECA office, then to the TECA Board, then to the Council for approval.  I think this is a good process..  it is better than Council just spending TECA anytime for anything. 

1st Round of TECA Proposals approved by Council.  Within the Law, Council made themselves the TECA Board until September 31, 2012.   So we were the Board..  I didn’t support this action.  Council has the power now they have all the Money.  However, Sept 31^st 2012 is passed and advertising is ongoing for the 6 member Board (1 from ea District) will need to be filled.  So far one person applied.  For this initial draw, Council found a loop hole, within TECA law and made the application window open for only 30 days (instead of 90).  Likely this short of time made it more difficult for the communities to apply for TECA monies.  Because of this limited time frame, it made it difficult for the TECA office to conduct grant TRAININGS for the communities.

Anyway here is what the some of the millions will be spent on:

Tribal Education Department $3,462,322.00  Fund 3.  This includes $ for scholarships for college students.  ALL full time tribal member students are eligible for the scholarships.  The Higher Education office will handle these new scholarships.

Property & Supply Housing Repairs $1,142,874.00  Fund 2.  Tribal members whose homes were damage during the storms (Ice Storm 2010, Storm 2011) or folks that just need help with getting repairs for their homes.  The elderly and folks that have been requesting assistance will get help.  If you need assistance apply at the Property & Supply office.

Medicine Wheel Village $1,677,000.00 Fund 3.  The nursing home has been idle for years now.  And they are currently working on getting the building done. See the report I posted earlier.

 

Solid Waste Landfill $1,906,424.00  Fund 2 Infrastructure.  The majority of the funds will be used to purchase new equipment and trucks for garbage pick up.  As you may have noticed our tribal garbage service is in dire need of new equipment.  So this will help in garbage removal.

Giving Back Community Grants $1,050,000.00 Fund 3.  This project would allocate $50,000 to each of the tribal communities for development. Of course the money amount doesn’t make sense when compared using population.  East Eagle Butte community has thousands of tribal citizens.  And Blackfoot has a couple hundred.  But this money is for the community help in getting them organized so next funding round can submit their own proposal for their own community.

Lakota Thrifty Mart 10,800,000.00  Fund 1 Economic Development.  This is a large amount of $ but it’ll get spread out over 3-5 years.  It includes Convince Store projects in Cherry Creek and LaPlant.  Also includes funding for the LTM Dupree store.  Lastly, the new LTM for Eagle Butte!  This new store will likely go north of the powwow grounds along highway 212 (Leistmiester land).   All these projects will create jobs (construction to store clerk) for the folks.

Mni Waste New Waterline $16,000,000.  Fund 2 Infrastructure.  Mni Wichoni – Water is life.  For us that means a lot and is the truth here on Cheyenne River.  The Tribal Member user owned, Mni Waste Water Company, has been approved for funding thru USDA RD for a Grant 75%/Loan 25%.  The Mni Waste needed to come up with the 25% before any further consideration.  So now if everything goes as planned they will begin water construction in the Spring 2013.   New Housing and new business can go up.  We Shall Endure.  Aho!

There are couple of projects that await Council’s approval.  They are noted in the attachment, not yet funded/approved.  The projects were disapproved but brought back through the appeals process.. projects are tribal member Land Purchase & Sustainable Housing.

The rest of the Funds and Projects are listed below see attachment below:

Baseball Revived at Cheyenne River

Baseball is Revived at Cheyenne River

“Do you like baseball?  I like baseball..”

Back in the day, 1990s there were two Little League teams the Bears & Red Sox.. Greg Bourland, Rob Gangji, and Alvin Rivers amoung others were the coaches.. Soon after this group merged into a Teener Baseball League team was called “Cheyenne River Royals”.  Back then the teams were operated on donations and chip-ins from the parents.  For some reason, after the “CR Royals” there was a gap where there was no more baseball, no Little League or Teen League. 

Baseball practice

However, recently the game has been revived at Cheyenne River!  The CRST Youth Affairs Coordinator Alyssa Beniost was key bringing back baseball to the reservation.  The funding for the Youth Affairs Coordinator was provided by the CRST Alcohol Beverage Control Commission to provide actives for our Youth here on the prairie.  The Coordinator has been busy with the putting together a schedule of activities for summer and into fall.  So far we have Baseball, Softball, Tball.

Good to see the boys playing ball

Baseball for boys ages 8-10 year olds and 11-13 year old.  Some the Teams are the Yankees, Phillies, Avengers, ect.

Softball for Girls ages 8-10 year olds and 11-13 year old.

T-Ball for the Younger ages Boys & Girls.

There will be a 6-8 game season for the baseball / softball/ t-ball.

The Youth Affairs Coordinator had purchased all the equipment: bats, balls, bases, mini score board, some gloves, even a pitching machine (to learn how to hit the ball) and t-shirts (as jerseys).  The City of Eagle Butte was kind enough to pitch in on all this with allowing the children the use of their “upper field”.  The City also made improvements to the baseball field with new dug outs and fresh gravel for the infield. 

pitching machine

Shout out to all the parties that have made this a success Tribe, City, Programs, and to all parents, volunteers and coaches!

The Baseball / Softball / Tball games have begun!  And yes your children can still join!  Play Ball!  Aho!

“Do you like baseball?  I like baseball..”

RJ helping out

schedule 

Nursing Home.. Medicine Wheel Village

Update on the Medicine Wheel Village

For our elders..

A couple months a Task Force was formed in order to get moving on the Nursing Home’s operations and to address any issues with the building.  The building is done, sitting idle with a few construction issues that have been part of the opening delay.  The tribe was able to secure a loan for start up costs in the amount of 1.3 million.  The consultants Health Dimensions were brought back after months of not working because the Tribe did not have the funds to pay them.  The tribe was thinking of using TECA (jtac) dollars to fund this operation but due to that timing of the TECA $ would only become available at the end of the summer.

Assisted Living Facility --> Skilled Nursing Facility.

We will start with a “Assisted Living Facility”..  which is basically a step under the full fledged Skilled Nursing Home.   The tribes goal in this is to eventually develop into a Skilled Nursing Home for our elders.

The task force had identified some of the issues that are prolonging the opening of the facility.. But more importantly  have solutions.. 1) The concrete is draining the wrong way – into the building.  

2) The heating and cooling units on top of the roof are burning out because they are too close to an outside wall.  

3) the roof itself is falling apart or getting ripped apart because of the wind.  The roof is shingles.   So will need a steel roof.  Good thing about the roof it is covered by insurance. 

Sadly the other two major  problems are not covered by the insurance. . Just shoddy construction work by the First Dakota construction company.

Unrelated to our project but same company    http://www.justice.gov/usao/mt/pressreleases/20110809132410.html

Getting Sioux’ed.

How dare they!! Haha  

We the Tribe are being sued by First Dakota for being negligent on how we broke our contract with them.  First Dakota Inc v. Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe .. they saying we owe them some $300,000.00. Nonetheless, instead of waiting for this litigation to be finalized by some judge which could take months even years.  We the Council are taking the advice of the Medicine Wheel Village Task Force and looking at getting bids to have another construction company fix the faulty construction listed above.   Moving forward so we will soon get that place opened for our elderly ki lena.   

OPENING DATE for the Nursing Home

expenditures thus far from the Loan

We as Council Reps and Executives have stopped telling folks dates when the facility may open.. Instead we've been saying “90 days till the Health Dimensions come back”.  Now that the consultants are back we just been saying “soon”.  But the good news is the MWV Task Force will be visiting the communities to provide updates and information to the folks.  See the schedule..  Wicasa Yamni le miye..  Hechetu pelo.

3 month budget

Hau!

Check out what JTAC committee has come up with.. 30 Million dollars worth. Plus, the 8.5 Million but that will be handle & paid by the Interior to the bank.


JTAC COMMITTEE:
We Stressed that we should focus on the immediate needs for the folks. Then PLAN over the winter months for a Comprehensive PLAN concerning: Economic Development, Health, Education, Infrastructure, Recreation, & Social Welfare.

Politics ensues and we are now at 30 million of ideas without a real plan for it..

For some reason committee felt they could at the Council November Session 1. Approve of Ordinance   2. Pass a resolution to approve and draw down the $30 million.  *this is NOT the process in the Ordinance.  I played along.. Reminding them that we still had more work to do to get this money.

Some of these items, I supported and some I didn't. I think the best thing that came out of these meetings were the discussions.

Things felt like they were going fast!

SLOWING IT DOWN: So in the last JTAC committee meeting we passed a motion to extend the comment period by 30 days on the Ordinance & this budget so we can get the peoples buy in or not.

AT COUNCIL:

This motion for 30 more days for Law / Budget review failed at Council.

We will be reviewing all the comments that were made regarding the Ordinance. And possible implementing the comments pending Council approval.

LEGAL REPORTED:  to Council that we have a few more important tasks to complete before we should even begin to discuss the money and allocation of such dollars to Projects.

Also, within the JTAC Ordinance there are certain steps that one must take in order to get a project funded. So this is good.  Slow it all down. The $30 million would need to follow the process which is spelled out in the ordinance. The process starts with a comprehensive proposal then goes to the JTAC Office, then JTAC Board, then to JTAC Committee, then Final Approval by Council. So I think this is a good process. Hopefully we can get qualified community folks to serve on the JTAC Board. Right now it looks like council reps will sit on that board. I am Working to make this change. So we can work TOGETHER in making a better community for the people.

I'll keep ya updated on what happens.


Regards,

RYMAN