Senate Committee on Indian Affairs & Job Training

Bravo to Rep Lynch, Stephen F. , MA; Rep Kaptur, Marcy OH; Rep Lipinski, Daniel IL; Rep Quigley, Mike IL; and Rep Shuler, Heath NC. These distinguished people had an issue and they came up with a solution. They needed (?) Native American Iron workers. Or they wanted them, or they just saw an opportunity to help some Indians in need of work. At any rate, they have begun the long legislative journey to provide a means to that end: H.R.1129.

H.R.1129
This fancy piece of social work just passed by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and they liked it. This will provide (with "available" funds) an annual grant to someone, some corporation, some entity (National Training Center?) to train Indians how to become Iron Workers and then assist them with job placement. BRAVO! BRAVO!

Why didn't anybody do this instead of the current Non-Tribal-Contractor-Friendly Cadastral Surveying Program?

We can do that? We can provide necessary training for a specific need? We don't have to accept all these non-native contractors who will hold their hand out for money every year when we NEED cadastral surveys conducted? We don't have to accept State, County, and City Surveyors who are trained as CFEDS surveyors, and who also hold the distinction of having a conflict of interest as it relates to releasing the survey information publicly, and representing entities with whom we may have border disputes, and tax disputes? Wow!

Someone should make up a bill like this to replace the horrible CFEDS program. It's only feeding contractors annual jobs on our reservations and we get nothing more than a survey from it. We aren't becoming empowered; we really are at the mercy of a bunch of people, even within the federal government who will subvert our sovereignty, or who will release our National information to several government entities that never were empowered to sign treaties with us.

I'm sure that the Senate Committe on Indian Affairs would gladly look a bill like this over and pass it along. The Tribes would.

"Think outside the box because the box probably belongs to a contractor"

This isn't new; read more here:

Surveys on a reservation A penny for your appraisal

A Grand Contracted Mess Yet More Motivations

President Obama's Contract Reform memo, a fix to the Grand Contracting Mess

Run the numbers

Ok,
lets run some numbers.
In the 26th Status Report to the Court which is supposed to show Trust Reforms being taken to help settle the Cobell Lawsuit, Donald A. Buhler, Chief Cadastral Surveyor, Bureau of Land Management ( BLM ) signed off on his portion of that same report that says that $16.4 millions dollars were proposed for appropriation to complete surveys in 2007/8/9. The value of the Indian Trust projects would total about $127.4 million dollars. For $16.4 million dollars we're going to fix $127.4 million dollars worth of property pieces. They fix them by performing surveys which is their contribution to managing the land.
But, what if we divided $16.4 million dollars by 200. $16,400,000/200=$82,000 dollars.
$16.4 million dollars
200________________
$82,000 dollars.
16.4 MILLION DOLLARS
200 SOMETHINGS
$82,000 dollars
What does it mean? Lets divide $82,000 dollars by 1/3. $82,000/3=$27,333 dollars
the other 2/3 looks like $54,666 dollars.
So we have $54,666 dollars per 200 somethings to play with.
What are those somethings? Why is 1/3 being set aside for those 200 somethings?

Give up?

If we divide $16.4 million dollars by 200 FEDERALLY-EMPLOYED-SURVEYORS we have a total of $82,000 dollars per surveyor to play with. Of that $82,000 dollars per surveyor we take 1/3 for benefits away leaving us with $54,666 dollars per surveyor for salary. If you look at a recent job advertisement on USA JOBS for a surveying technician in Cherokee North Carolina, I think the pay grade was GS 4/5 which is right around $30,000 dollars.
hmmmmm.....

Spend the Indians' money and make sure that they have to come back next year and spend more money

OR

Spend the money enabling them to do it themselves.

You could be the reason for 200 new federal surveyors in the Bureau of Indian Affairs or you could be anther one who spent the entire "tribal" priority allocation piece by piece, sending it out the window and down the street to a bunch of private firms who will show up next year to do the same thing next year. What do you do? That your final answer?

Spend the Tribal Priority Allocation Funds the way they were supposed to be spent and start up a new division in the BIA (we'd even let you design a cool unit patch for your Survey Crew) or continue to be the lackey who has a hand in destroying the Tribal Priority Allocation Funds' checking account. Maybe the Office of Special Trustee or the Bureau of Indian Affairs Trust Services needs to have the truth explained to them. Maybe even they don't know how these funds are going out the window, keeping Indians dependent on the Federal Government. Not much trusteeship going on here right now, maybe they're not even busy so it might be easy to get into an office way up there at the top of Office of Special Trustee. Somebody "s'plain this to them," and wait for the virtue and beauty to roll out the door! Yeah, well, maybe not in this generation eh?

Maybe it's because Honorable Bill Anoatubbe, Governor of Chickasaw Nation of OK; Bobby Brooks at Bank of Oklahoma; Mr David English, Law professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia; Honorable Jim Gray, Chief of the Osage Nation, OK; Mr Edward Holland CEO Chota Capital Company; Mr Fred Matt, Confederated Tribes of Salish-Kootenai Tribes of Flathead Reservation, MT; Honorable Richard Milanovich, Chmn Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, CA; Mr. Loren "Bat" Pourier, owner Muddy Creek Oil and Gas Inc.; and Ms. Helen Sanders Chmn Allottees Association and Affiliated Tribes of the Quinault Reservation; who are all members of the Special Trustees Advisory Board don't know that this is going on right under their noses. Who knows?

At any rate, if I was in charge of spending my grandma's money at the store to get something to clean the counter off with, I damn sure wouldn't buy cheap napkins-I'd get maybe one or two dish towels so I could have something a year or two from now to do the job.

I would think the decision would be an easy one...but then methinks I think too much.