Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Monthly Meeting

The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal monthly meeting was held on Saturday, October 1, 2016. The meeting agenda included previous action items of a community member’s concern with the manner and complete disregard in burning brush and its aftereffects. When this issue was brought to various levels of authority outside of the community of Akwesasne, the community member was informed the Amish had certain rights. This issue is now being brought to the Franklin county legislature.

The second action item was banning billboards that promote and/or advertise cigarettes and alcohol. This will be discussed at future Tribal meetings.

Two presentations were made: the Summer Employment Program by Stephanie Cook and Emergency Planning by Sarah Lee Diabo.

The SRMT Education Division Summer Employment Report stated an increase from 25 students being employed in 2014, to employing 104 students in 2016. Students were employed under the JOM College & Career Readiness Program and the Career Intern & Youth Program. Funding was provided from the Room Occupancy Fee and the Tribal General Fund.

The Emergency Planning Office provided an update of coordination efforts of the Akwesasne Joint Emergency Measures Planning as well as training, planning and coordination exercises. The ALECP consists of thirty first responders certified in New York State, Quebec, Ontario and governs the Joint Emergency Operations Plan, the Akwesasne Hazardous Materials Contingency Plan and the Training Response Initiatives. All Tribal employees are trained at various levels to use the National Incident Management System. The Emergency Planning Office completed a Boom Deployment Exercise on the St. Lawrence, the Strategic Planning Communication Interoperability Planning Workshop and the Clandestine Lab Training. They also have Hazmat, OSHA and Gotham Shield Training planned for 2017.

The Strategic Planning office is looking for 30 community members to volunteer for CERT or Community Emergency Response Team. The volunteers would be trained to assist in a community wide emergency when needed.

After answering several questions from the floor, Chief Ron LaFrance, Chief Beverly Cook and Chief Eric Thompson signed the SRMT resolution to explore medical marijuana and industrial hemp. A referendum will take place after three public meetings required by the Election and Referendum Ordinance are held. The public meetings are Wednesday, October 5th at 6pm for medical marijuana and 7 pm for industrial hemp. The second meeting is Thursday, October 6th at 5pm for medical marijuana and 6pm for industrial hemp. The last meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 19th at 5pm for medical marijuana and 6pm for industrial hemp.

New Business

After a lengthy discussion brought to the floor by a community member over the involvement of the Tribal Chiefs in land disputes, which in part involved emails to a certified land surveyor and hindering the office of the clerk, a verbal commitment was made by the Chiefs. They stated they would not become personally involved in any future land disputes as said, “We have learned, we had the best intentions, we shouldn’t have been involved.”

A community member had concerns on the recent announcement of furnace cleaning for elders. She said the price of insurance to cover this is cost prohibitive for the men/women doing this type of work. The Chiefs made a commitment to look into this and will work with the Compliance Office on the cost of insurance.