1983-10-01 Char-Koosta News

              PABLO, MONTANA 59655 ISSN: 0528-8592
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NEWSPAPER OF THE SAUSH, PEND (TOREILLE AND KOOTENAI TRIBES' OF THE FLATHEAD INDIAN RESERVATION, WESTERN MONTANA
VOLUME 12 NUMBER 10
THE HUNTING MONTH
OCTOBER I, 1983
Locals jump on * diminish the reservation' bandwagon
The expensive Namen case decision notwithstanding, Lake County's commissioners announced Sept. 9 that they had joined a local citizens group in filing a "friend of the court" brief concerning a reservation-diminish-ment case involving the Cheyenne Tribe of South Dakota
The citizens group, All Citizens Equal (ACE, for short, formerly known as Montanans Opposed to Discrimination, or MOD), "has agreed to fi-
On tap in October. . .
• Quarterly meeting, 9 am. in Pablo, Friday, Oct. 7.
• South-end district meeting, 6:30 p.m. at the Salish Indian Seniors Center in Arlee, Wednesday, Oct. 12. Dinner will be served.
• Reservation-wide war dance championships, Oct. 21-23 at the St Ignatius Community Center. Junior Miss Flathead Nation candidates, please note pageant rules in an article on our 'Places to go, things to do' page.
nancially support [the] cause" while Lake County has authorized the "use [of] our name" in support of a case called Solem v. Bartlett, a news release sent to local weeklies and the daily Missoulian stated
"Was the Cheyenne Reservation reduced in size when a large portion of the original reservation was opened to settlement and subsequently issued a fee patented title by the U.S.?" county commissioner Mike Hutchin and ACE president LeRoy Lake ask. "In the event a favorable decision is tendered, it may be possible to go through the courts and get a similar decision in our own situation, i.e., the Flathead Reservation," the news release concluded.
Tribal officials are dismayed but not surprised at the action. Tribal feeling is that the Flathead Reservation dimi-nishment issue was answered when the Namen case was resolved late in 1982.
Besides questioning jurisdiction over the bed and banks of the southern portion of Flathead Lake the Namen case asserted that the federal government intended to disestablish the Flathead Indian Reservation in the early 1900s when it was opened to non-Indian
settlement A federal appeals court disagreed with the claim, and the U.S. Supreme Court in effect concurred when it refused to consider Namen
Lake County is one of seven counties and two towns in four states that have officially noted interest in the outcome of Solem v. Bartlett.
Commissioner Hutchin, "who handles Indian affairs for the Lake County commissioners", according to the Missoulian, took his opinion on the road Sept. 26 when he invited officials from counties within reservations to meet with him in Lewiston to discuss "the problems we face being surrounded by a reservation". Tribal officials from here and at least one other Montana reservation planned to attend the meeting, results of which (drat our three-days-before-we-hit-the-stands press deadline) will be covered in our October 15 issue.
INSIDE:
Tribes good for county? (page 2) New laws in effect (page 3)