SAULT TRIBE FACTS - If it is not a fact it must be fiction................................

Fort Debaude is a joke just like the representatives from Unit 3.

Just had the opportunity to read the Sault Evening News, they sure did a good job of painting those questioning this issue as bad guys. I also noticed how they left out some of the other ideas the "dissidents" suggested, ideas such as directing the funds to road improvement, thus benefiting the city,tribe and perception of the area. I know last time i came down the hill (aka the Y)coming into Iggy I thought the front end of my vehicle was going shake apart, ditto for other main and side roads.

As for the project, museum if you will, do you know if an environmental study has been done on the property. I point that out because I recall my brother working there in his high schoo years in the garage for a auto repair shop, i think it was McGuire Motors, but not sure, anyway I recall him speaking of dumping oil down the drain after sevicing cars.

Perhaps this has been checked and the amount was miniscule, but thought given the EPA and other issues that can come with gaining ownership of property, also come the liabilities, in particular: the unknowns.

Bottom line for me: tribe should buy the artifacts and to hell with the rest.

Where does Brown get the idea another museum, Fort de Buade, is going to make St. Ignace a "cool town"? How long has the Ojibwa Museum been in business? Iggy isn't any cooler and it sure isn't any wealthier because of that museum. Brown isn't qualified to determine what makes Iggy or any town cool and he sure isn't capable of advising anyone on what venture will lead to economic success.

April 23, 2007

Paul Grondin, Mayor
City of St. Ignace
396 N. State Street
St. Ignace, MI 49781

Dear Mayor Grondin:

I note with interest that at a recent St. Ignace City Council meeting, the Council decided to await the results of a public hearing before acting on an offer by the Sault Tribe to fund the private business entity known as Fort de Buade. The delay suggests that there may be some fear in the minds of some members of the Council that the Sault Tribe 2% monies may be cut off before the end of the six-year period of the pending agreement thereby leaving the City “holding the bag” for a significant portion of the purchase price. If such a fear does exist, it would seem to be well founded. As you may be aware, there is a group of Sault Tribe members, including some highly respected Elders, who object to and are working to prevent the allocation of 2% monies for this particular purchase. Some of those objections, all of which were based on the belief that the allocation is improper, possibly illegal and certainly ill considered, have been communicated in an earlier letter. Because of those strong objections, I am taking this opportunity to reiterate some of those objections with a goal of amplifying and perhaps clarifying them.

A red flag of impropriety was raised in the eyes of some Tribal members as a result of the manner in which the resolution to commit 2% monies for the Fort de Buade purchase was introduced and made its way through the Sault Tribe Board deliberation process. For example, it was not known until after a vote of the Board had occurred that the resolution authored by Sault Tribe Board member Keith Massaway had not originated with the City of St. Ignace and, in fact, the City had not been consulted on the potential money windfall until sometime after the resolution had been submitted. That information was not communicated to the Sault Tribe Board of Directors at the time the resolution was first offered and voted on and was not willingly communicated to the Tribe membership at any time. It was also learned subsequently that the monies to be allocated were not really for the City but for the owner of Fort de Buade, a private party, who had agreed to sell the property to the Michilimackinac Historical Society (MHS), a closely held non-profit corporation. According to the minutes of a St. Ignace City Council meeting, the City was to act merely as a conduit – “a pass-through entity” - for moving the money from the Tribe through the MHS to the individual owner.

The allocation process, as it was carried out in this case, clearly was a violation of accepted protocol for the distribution of 2% monies. More importantly, however, it appears to have violated the Consent Judgment between the Sault Tribe and the State of Michigan that states, in part:

Each tribe shall determine which local unit or units of governments shall receive payments and the amounts thereof; provided however, the guidelines governing the tribes in making said determinations shall be based upon compensating said local units of government for governmental services provided to the tribes and for impacts associated with the existence and location of the tribal casino in it’s vicinity.

Neither the non-profit corporation seeking to acquire Fort de Buade nor the private owner of that business are local units of government. Moreover, neither provides any governmental services to the Sault Tribe. Therefore it may reasonably be concluded that the use of 2% monies for the proposed purchase, if ultimately found to be in contravention of the Consent Judgment, will also be found to be illegal.

Several more red flags have been raised as a result of the confusion that has resulted from the apparent composition of the property, its oft-changing price, and who, in the final analysis, will hold title to the property. For example, in mid-2006, the owner offered Fort de Buade, the building and its contents, to the MHS for $500,000. This conflicts with a recent News article by Ryan Schlehuber, in which he wrote, “The collection and other contents would be donated by the family”. In the same News article, Mr. Schlehuber seemed to contradict his own earlier statement by writing; “On the table is an offer from the tribe…to purchase the building and valuable museum collection”. (The emphasis is mine). Does the Fort de Buade property consist of only the dilapidated building or does it also include all of the contents, of which the authenticities and values of many are held to be contentious? Given the above statements, the answer to that question is impossible to know.

In mid-2006, the owner set the price for Fort de Buade at $500,000. An agreement for purchase of the property (building, contents, or both?) by the MHS apparently was made at that time as Mr. Schlehuber recently has written; “Last year, the historical society reached an agreement…to purchase the building for $500,000. (Note: there is no mention of building contents in this statement). Most recently, the purchase price has been quoted as $708,000. This latest price is consistent with that requested by Keith Massaway in the resolution presented to the Sault Tribe Board in early January, 2007 although that figure is fully $210,000 or 42-percent higher than the private owner’s asking price.

Why has the price of Fort de Buade escalated by 42-percent? Mr. Massaway asserted that the additional money was needed to cover legal fees, taxes, and other financing costs associated with the purchase. Mr. Schlehuber writes: “The tribe’s offer of $700,000 would be enough to purchase the property and collections and leave enough left over to start up the business”. (The emphasis is mine).

Tribal members have asked for an explicit accounting of the $210,388. One specific question among several reasonable ones: are any proponents of the Fort de Buade purchase expecting to gain financially from the distribution of Tribal 2% monies and, if so, who and how? To date and to my knowledge, no member has received a response to any of the questions. It is difficult to attribute the non-responsiveness to our questions to anything but total disdain on the part of those involved in the proposed transaction for the right of Tribal members to know the purposes for which their monetary resources are being expended.

It is worthwhile to note that in early 2006, a member of the Sault Tribe Board of Directors publicly recommended an outright purchase of Fort de Buade and its contents, citing an unsubstantiated value for the contents in the millions of dollars. It is rather telling to note also that the recommendation received no significant support from the Tribal Board.

The question of title to the property to be purchased is especially confusing. It appears that the City has entered into a number of verbal agreements with the MHS, one of which assigns responsibility for the operation of Fort de Buade and for the maintenance and care of the included artifacts and appears to confer de facto ownership to the MHS. However, MHS member Mrs. Schlehuber has explained ‘…that a second agreement between the city and the historical society would have to be established to give the historical society legal responsibility for operating the museum and its staff”.

Ownership question aside, it is incomprehensible that an agreement would be made through which a sum of money in excess of $700,000 exchanges hands without some written understanding of the use of the money and the responsibility for its proper disposition and accountability. Further, it is even more incomprehensible that the Sault Tribe Board of Directors would authorize such an exchange of monies for which they have ultimate fiduciary responsibility.

In another agreement: “The city and historical society have verbally agreed that items from the collection will not be sold. Any item to be sold would have to be agreed on by all parties involved”. These two sentences clearly are contradictory. It is unclear how two parties can agree on items to be sold after first agreeing that those items will not be sold. However, if even one item of the collection is sold – or otherwise disposed of, the purpose of this ill-conceived and ill-executed undertaking, i.e., “to keep the unique collection of area artifacts and guns in the area…” will have been defeated.

And finally, “Also under the verbal agreement at this time, if the historical society ever disbands, any collections would become property of the City of St. Ignace”. This agreement is additional evidence of MHS ownership of Fort de Buade property. Further, the City has agreed, “the artifacts will be turned over to the tribe in the event the City is no longer willing or able to display them.” The City-Tribe agreement has a rather hollow ring to it. It is possible to visualize a scenario in which the City and the MHS will agree to sell artifacts that they have agreed not to sell until, at some point, they will have sold them all and there are no artifacts left, authentic or not. When and if that happens, the Sault Tribe will then be the one left “holding the bag”.

Clearly the evolution of the Fort de Buade purchase process and the various activities that drive the process are confusing. It is difficult to know if the confusion is the result of careless execution of questionable practices or the skillful execution of unacceptable ones; or perhaps something else altogether. An explanation by those responsible would go a long way toward helping to clear up the confusion.

I have attempted in the foregoing to point out to you a few of the obvious inconsistencies in the proposed purchase of the privately held Fort de Buade and some Sault Tribe member objections motivated by those inconsistencies. It is the desire of those members that 2% monies be used efficiently, effectively and only for projects that satisfy Consent Judgment guidelines. It is our considered opinion that this purchase satisfies none of those criteria.

As is well known, the 2% monies committed to the Fort de Buade project are to be distributed over a six-year period with equal payments made annually. Beyond an initial payment, which in itself is not yet certain, the remaining payments become much less certain for reasons associated with an upcoming election in 2008 and the efforts of those who have expressed strenuous objections to the purchase. In his apparent enthusiasm for the project, and his unwavering faith in the Sault Tribe to come through with funding when needed, Mr. Brown, St. Ignace City Attorney has been quoted as saying, “The majority of the tribe voted for this (the Fort de Buade purchase) and they’ve always carried out what they said they’d do”. Mr. Brown appears to be referring to the Sault Tribe Board of Directors when he refers to “the tribe”. In actuality, “the tribe” is the membership; members of the Board of Directors are the representatives of “the tribe”. They are elected by “the tribe” and responsible to “the tribe”. Some seem to have lost sight of these very important truisms.

I know of a relatively large segment of “the tribe” whose recent efforts to overturn the resolution that authorized this questionable allocation might have succeeded except for procedural omissions in the authorizing petition. I also know that the vote by the Board of Directors to authorize the allocation was not unanimous; four of twelve Board members voted against it. The election in 2008 just might provide the votes necessary to revisit the issue and to reverse the outcome. There are enough Board seats in play to make it happen.

Finally, it is essential to emphasize the fact that knowledgeable Native Americans within and without the Sault Tribe are aware that valuable and authentic Anishinaabe artifacts, some with strong cultural and spiritual significance, represent a small percentage of the Fort de Buade collection. In the near future, we will begin to explore mechanisms whereby those artifacts can be identified and ultimately transferred to the Sault Tribe for perpetual enshrinement. As this effort progresses, we will seek guidance from traditional Sault Tribe members who possess the knowledge, background, and experience essential to the success of this culturally sensitive endeavor. Any assistance that your office might give us in the effort would be greatly appreciated.

Respectfully,

Charles E. Adams, Jr., PhD