TRIBE: Unsettling settlements
Coeur d'Alene Press | UPDATED 12 years, 4 months AGO
When Jeff Selle interviewed Helo Hancock of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, Mr. Hancock told him that tribal members (nonmembers too, actually) had not been getting their lease income from the BIA. That was the reason for the class-action lawsuit started by Elouise Cobell. But the $1,900,000,000 settlement with the government is now being sent to the tribal governments rather than those individuals who were damaged. Isn’t there something wrong with that picture?
Solving the problem of fractionalized interests is a good idea that is long overdue, but it should not be done with money that is due to the individual allottees.
And if those individuals are to sell their property rights to the Tribe, who will look after their interests in those transactions? Certainly not the BIA, which has demonstrated an inability to manage. And not the Tribe which is on the other side of the transactions. This is not a very good situation for the individual owners who have always been denied the authority to act independently for their own best interests.
JOHN McFADDIN
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