Five of the six lawmakers appointed to the Wyoming Legislature’s Select Committee on Tribal Relations this year hail from Fremont County, including the two co-chairs: Wyoming Rep. Ivan Posey, D-Fort Washakie, and Wyoming Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander.
The committee also includes local lawmakers Wyoming Sen. Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, Wyoming Rep. Pepper Ottman, R-Riverton, and Wyoming Rep. Joel Guggenmos, R-Riverton, as well as Wyoming Sen. Eric Barlow, R-Gillette.
Priorities
Posey and Case presented the committee’s proposed interim priorities to the legislative Management Council last month, beginning with Priority No. 1: education and juvenile justice.
“Of course education is always the top priority on (the) reservation,” Posey said. “We have three reservation schools … and they all pretty much have the same concerns.”
The priority description says the select committee will discuss Wyoming’s “delivery of K-12 education on the Wind River Reservation” and the “challenges Native families face in achieving educational success.”
The committee would also like to “see how the Indian Education for All Act is progressing over these years,” Posey said.
For juvenile justice, Posey pointed out that there has been an increase in youth crime in general, both on the Wind River Reservation and elsewhere in the state, so that is “one area that we need to collaborate on and continue to address.”
The priority description says the committee will discuss “challenges which are facing youths and families on the Wind River Reservation and how to better help juveniles thrive.”
Health is listed as Priority No. 2 – a topic that Posey called “pretty broad.”
The priority description says the select committee will “discuss the progress of the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone health care services and explore ways in which the State can help.”
Specifically, the description says the committee will “discuss and receive testimony regarding tribally operated health care services under section 638 of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEA).”
For Priority No. 3, the committee plans to receive updates about missing and murdered persons and law enforcement jurisdiction.
“The Select Committee will receive an update from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, law enforcement, and victim services to discuss how investigations involving missing and murdered persons are progressing,” the priority description states. “The Select Committee will also discuss how crime is managed on and around the Wind River Reservation and how to better foster collaboration between Tribal and State law enforcement agencies. This will involve discussions with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Wyoming Highway Patrol.”
The jurisdictional boundaries in and around the Wind River Reservation are “pretty checkerboard,” Posey pointed out, and Case said that checkerboard makeup can create an “amazingly difficult” situation for law enforcement agencies in the area.
“We’ve been able to do a better and better job of sharing information to get alerts up faster when someone goes missing, but we have a long, long way to go,” Case said. “It always pays to bring those people together in a meeting and ask them questions and see if you can get them to work together a little bit better.”
Later, he said the committee would also take some time to focus on “issues of understanding regarding the role of the state and the role of the sovereign nations of the Wind River Indian Reservation,” noting that “there’s a lot of change in the makeup of our committee” this year in addition to “a change in the makeup of the legislature and (a) change in the makeup of the governance of both the Shoshone and Arapaho Tribe.”
Priority No. 4 on the committee’s list involves a discussion about telecommunications on the reservation, including the loss of 911 landline services for Tribal members.
“The Select Committee will investigate ways to restore connection for tribal members,” the priority description states.
Solid waste and irrigation facilities were listed as priority No. 5, including a discussion about “issues surrounding illegal dumping and coordination with State and Federal agencies to help with solid waste clean-up and enforcement.”
The same five priorities were included in the finalized list of interim committee topics the legislature released this week.
May meeting
The Select Committee on Tribal Relations plans to hold two, two-days meetings during the interim, beginning with their first meeting May 22-23 in Classroom 7 at the Frank B. Wise Business Center, 3 Ethete Road in Fort Washakie.
The agenda for Thursday, May 22, begins with introductions and opening remarks at 8:30 a.m. followed by reports on inter-Tribal development efforts and a K-12 education discussion.
The committee will also receive updates on:
- the process for promoting higher education for Native students
- St. Stephen’s Indian School
- Indian Education for All
The agenda for the afternoon on May 22 includes:
- 911 service disruptions on the Wind River Reservation
- juvenile justice update and discussion
- health update and review
The meeting will reconvene at 8:30 a.m. Friday, May 23, with a missing and murdered persons update.
The committee will also hear about law enforcement jurisdiction “overlap” and solid waste and irrigation facilities before adjournment at noon.
Both days of the meeting are open to the public for in-person attendance and will be live-streamed on the Wyoming Legislature’s YouTube channel.
The committee’s second meeting is currently scheduled to take place Oct. 23-24.
Case said that meeting would likely be held in Cheyenne or Laramie to “try to include more people from the state in those discussions.”
For more information, call the Legislative Service Office at (307) 777-7881.