12/16/2024
“Great Falls This Week” is reported and written by Matt Hudson. Send your news and tips to [email protected].
Much has changed in 5 years for the Little Shell Tribe
Prior to 2019, the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians had rich cultural ties but few physical assets.
“Without federal recognition, we had an enrollment office, which was it,” tribal Chairman Gerald Gray recently told Montana Free Press. “And then a part-time receptionist.”
They have been referred to as “landless Indians” who refused a 19th-century reservation treaty in North Dakota and spread out. Many migrated to what is now Montana. For decades, that treaty refusal kept the tribe out of federal programs that support Indigenous people in the wake of destructive westward expansion. And the Little Shell, a small organization, relentlessly pursued federal recognition.
Colleen Hill, now the tribe’s secretary and treasurer, has been a tribal member since 1987. When she was younger, she saw her mother work in the early pushes for recognition.
“It was a struggle,” Hill said. “Once my mom got involved, I was in my early 20s. And I’m 66 now.”
The tribe’s status changed on Dec. 20, 2019, when Congress approved federal recognition of the Little Shell.
Montana’s federal delegation had worked for years to pass bills recognizing the Little Shell. What ultimately worked was tucking official recognition into a massive 2019 defense spending bill. It noted that the Little Shell formally petitioned the federal government for recognition in 1978 — a request that remained pending by 2019.
The defense bill passed, and Little Shell recognition along with it.
Now five years after that recognition, the Little Shell is starting to see its holdings grow around the tribe’s Great Falls headquarters. The tribe has institutionalized cultural programs, developed housing assistance with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and has made business investments around the region.
Gray said that those are the direct results of the tribe’s formalized status.
“All of them,” he said. “We would not have had these opportunities if not for federal recognition.”
The most visible mark of progress so far is the Little Shell Tribal Health Clinic, which opened in 2022 in conjunction with the federal Indian Health Service. Gray said that in early conversations with federal officials, he was shown a priority list with a Little Shell clinic at the bottom.
“So you’ll probably get a clinic in 40 years,” Gray said. “And I said that’s not acceptable.”
Like so many things, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the situation. Funding from a COVID-relief bill, the CARES Act, put the clinic on the fast track.
The clinic is available to the tribe’s 6,000-plus members, though not all of them aren based in Montana. There are enrolled Little Shell members in 49 U.S. states, Gray said.
Another big development in the works is the construction of a community housing complex on acreage in the shadow of Hill 57, which was a physical center for the landless tribe but historically a site of impoverished Native American residents living on the edge of Great Falls. Now, Gray said, architects are working on plans for up to 30 single-family homes, as well as apartments and duplexes. Nearby, the tribe already operates a cultural center and the Shawn Gilbert Event Center.
“On that same area, we have a food distribution building that is growing in terms of being able to help those in need with food boxes,” Gray said. “It’s grown every week, it seems like. As costs have gone up, people are in need to get groceries.”
There are also plans for a ceremonial center to be built on those grounds. Hill said that the tribe’s unique standing as a landless tribe scattered across the continent can be a strength, finding opportunities for growth within the mainstream cultures in which they’ve lived. And there’s much more to be done.
“Our list is long,” Hill said. “It keeps us quite busy. Our main objective is to get things in order to benefit our members.”
Still, Gray said that working with federal bureaucracy is a positive but slow process. The agency wasn’t used to working with a newly recognized tribe in Montana without a reservation, he said.
“We’ve had a lot of citizens that expected things like a light switch to turn on and they would have immediate access to things that other tribes have built over hundreds of years,” Gray said. “Some of those aspects don’t work that way.”
But it’s a period of growth — a new era, as Montana poet laureate Chris La Tray wrote in his book, “Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home.” Given the long and fraught road the tribe has been down, La Tray expressed cautious optimism about the Little Shell’s new working relationship with the federal government.
“Of course we deserve to be seen by the feds, whatever the reasons for it,” he wrote. “We never chose to be a diaspora. We never left our homeland; it was taken from us. We never chose to live on the fringes; we were pushed there. Finally being seen is necessary and important.”
5 Things to Know in Great Falls
Albertsons has sued fellow grocery giant Kroger after a $24.6 billion merger failed amid disapproval from two judges. The Associated Press reported that Albertsons, which owns 2,200 stores, carried $7.9 billion in debt against $18.5 billion in revenue for the most recent quarter and has warned about store closures. The Albertsons on Third Street Northwest was among hundreds of locations slated for sale in the merger. Now that the merger isn’t happening, it’s unclear what actions Albertsons might take across its network.
The Russell 2025 is shaping up to be a big event as the C.M. Russell Museum announced that it will be the largest sale of western art in the 57-year auction history. The Russell will feature more than 125 historic pieces, including 20 Russell works. The catalog is in part thanks to a large consignment from the family of Sam and Elaine Rosenthal, according to the museum. The Russell is March 20-22.
Family Promise Great Falls celebrated a generous donation from City Motor Company. As part of an annual fundraising event, City Motor raised $13,250 from the sale of 53 vehicles, which the company rounded up to $15,000. Family Promise serves families who are unhoused or on the verge of homelessness.
The Great Falls Area Community Foundation will take over the 2025 Give Great Falls, a fundraising effort for area nonprofits. Previously, the Great Falls Area Chamber of Commerce ran the operation. Give Great Falls is April 28 through May 5. In 2024, the event raised $57,495 for 53 organizations.
City officials will hold five community workshops in January as part of the public outreach effort for the Future Great Falls Growth Policy. The workshops will take place between Jan. 27 and Jan 30 at multiple locations across Great Falls. More specific information will be announced during a presentation Tuesday evening. Other public events are in the works as well. The growth policy website can be found here.
By the Numbers
The number of street signs in Great Falls, according to the just-released 2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report. While compiling a ton of financial information related to city government, the report also has data about area demographics and top employers, as well as mundane facts like the number of street signs and fire hydrants (3,368).
In Case You Missed It
Cascade County recently settled a wrongful death lawsuit with the estate of Aleesha Mae Kempa, who died by suicide in 2022 while she was an inmate at the Cascade County Detention Center.
The settlement is for $200,000. It’s the second wrongful death settlement made by the county since 2023 related to jail inmates. The previous settlement, concerning the suicide of Michael Lee Alexander, Jr., resulted in a $550,000 payment.
Read more in this Dec. 11 article.
Following the Law
The Montana Supreme Court recently affirmed a lower court’s ruling in favor of unions in Great Falls, which opposed the city’s move to revise random drug and alcohol testing.
It all started in 2019 when the city of Great Falls announced revised policies that expanded random drug and alcohol testing mandates beyond city workers with specific duties, such as those with commercial driver’s licenses. City Manager Greg Doyon told city commissioners in 2019 that the city had a “management right” to adopt a new random drug testing policy to ensure worker and public safety.
Unions filed a complaint with the Montana Board of Personnel Appeals saying that the city should have negotiated these changes with them. The unions named in the Supreme Court case are the International Association of Firefighters Local No. 8, the Montana Federation of Public Employees and the City of Great Falls Craft Council.
The Montana Board of Personnel Appeals sided with the unions in 2020, noting that the city had negotiated drug policies in the past. The city appealed to the district court, which resulted in another ruling favoring the unions. Attorneys for the city appealed again, this time to the Supreme Court.
In an opinion written by Justice Dirk Sandefur, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision, essentially saying that the city could have explored other legal options before the Board of Personnel Appeals.
In a statement, IAFF Local No. 8 President Carter Marsh reiterated the union’s position that the drug testing policy is a “condition of employment” that should have been negotiated and that the union isn’t opposed to a testing policy in general.