Fargo Native American Commission Informal Meeting – November 2, 2023
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Fargo Native American Commission Informal Meeting – November 2, 2023
The Fargo Native American Commission met informally on November 2, 2023 at 12:00 PM in the Commission Chambers at City Hall. Due to a lack of quorum (only three members present: Chair Whitney Johnson, Suzanne Senske, and Vice Chair Ashley Littlewolf), no formal votes were taken. The meeting proceeded with presentations and discussions.
Discussion Items
- 2024 Meeting Schedule: Chair Johnson presented a bimonthly meeting schedule for 2024: January 4, March 7, May 2, September 5, and November 7, with a Board retreat planned in July in place of the usual meeting.
- Indigenous Association Report: Chair Johnson reported that Indigenous Peoples’ Day events in October were well received, including a community potluck and a screening of a film featuring former Commissioner Ruth Buffalo. The film is available through Prairie Public. She also announced that Brandon Baity received the Glady’s Ray Award from the City of Fargo Native American Commission.
- Health and Wellness Subcommittee: Chair Johnson stated that she and Member Sargent conducted a training on intergenerational trauma at the Hjemkomst Center on Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The free event had 88 professionals and community members in attendance, filling all registration spots.
- Indian Education Subcommittee: Member Senske reported that a Back to School Night hosted with the Indian Education Board drew about 40 children from Fargo, Moorhead, and West Fargo school districts. The event provided food and school supplies; Senske expressed a desire to partner further to supply additional classroom supplies and athletic equipment, noting the discontinuation of Johnson O’Malley programs.
- Staff Reports: Planning Coordinator Kim Citrowske introduced herself and encouraged commissioners to participate in the Fargo Growth Plan online survey (fargogrowthplan.org) to help guide future community growth.
- Announcements for Native American Heritage Month: Commissioners highlighted several upcoming events: an author talk with Marcie Rendon (November 8 at MSUM); Anishinaabe Star Knowledge presentations (November 18 at 11:00 AM and November 19 at 3:00 PM at MSUM Planetarium); a talk by Dr. Denise Lajimodiere on her book Stringing Rosaries followed by the opening of the exhibit Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories (November 14 at 6:00 PM at Hjemkomst Center); PANGEA: Cultivate Our Cultures event (November 18, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM); and an Oscar Howe exhibit at the Plains Art Museum (November 2, 6:00 – 9:00 PM). Chair Johnson also reminded that December 21 is Homeless Memorial Day, with events to be announced later.
Key Outcomes
- No action items were voted on due to lack of quorum. Approval of the September 7, 2023 minutes and agenda was deferred to the next meeting.
- The meeting adjourned at 12:22 PM. The next regular meeting is scheduled for January 4, 2024.
Meeting Transcript
We can go ahead and start. Thank you for joining us today. I call the November 2nd, 2023 meeting of the Native American Commission to order. Let's begin with an introduction of current commend commission members starting with uh Suzanne. Good morning. I'm Suzanne Senski, the Ho Chunk Nation, Charity, Cherokee, Choctaw, Pawnee, and Ka. Good morning, Ashley Littlewolf, Boys Fort Bandovo Didway. Whitney Johnson, Oglala Lakota. And right now we don't have enough members for a quorum present, so three of us today. So we won't be um voting on the agenda in minutes just yet. So we'll go ahead and move on to item number three in our agenda, which is public comment. The next item, um, so speakers must state their name and be will be limited to two minutes. Comments should not contain profanity or personal attacks. Do we have anybody signed up for public comment? No. Okay. Is there anybody present today that wishes to sign up for a public comment? All right. And so we'll move on to the fourth item in our agenda, which is their our meeting schedule for 2024. Um, members will have that in in our packet. Um we're gonna be just meeting every other month, um, as we had agreed on previously. So for the public's reference, um, the our meetings for the coming year will be January 4th, March 7th, May 2nd, September 5th, and November 7th. And I know that it seems though when you're tracking that, it seems like we're missing a month. We are gonna try to plan to have a board retreat in July. So that would uh take the place of that meeting. Um the next item on the agenda is a report from Indigenous Association. I don't think Brandon is here today, and I don't see uh Tawny either. Um I don't uh I don't know if I can give a full report, but I could give a little bit of brief rundown. Um October was a really busy month for Indigenous Association. There's a lot of events going on, um, the biggest being Indigenous People's Day. That was a really great event again this year. Um it was really, I think there was a lot of things going on throughout the day. I Indigenous Association did an awesome job publishing an event guide. It was a beautiful event guide, and it was nice for people to have that um available to them so they knew what all was going on and when uh even after uh Indigenous Peoples Day, I had some other events going on. Um during the month of October. They hosted the community potluck a few times and um held a screening of a film that Ruth Buffalo was in. Ruth Buffalo is a former member of the Native American Commission. Um, and that was well attended, I heard, and um pretty cool that I believe that film that Ruth was in is uh available on Prairie Public. Oh very cool and it would be good to check out if people are interested in in that. Uh that would all that would be all I would have for kind of a run brief really brief rundown for things from Indigenous Association. Um we can also just add here that uh Brandon Beatty was awarded the Gladys Ray Award from the City of Fargo Native American Commission. So yes, he was, yes, because that was um that was really great. So the the next item on the agenda, kind of breezing right along here. Um is uh subcommittee reports and uh kind of a review of the subcommittees um education and cultural awareness is Suzanne Amanda and Ashley, Health and Wellness, Emily, Whitney and Dale, Housing, Ashley and John Strand. Um, I can start, I don't have much of an update from health and wellness, uh, but I can offer up that uh is the members of the health and wellness subcommittee, Emily Sargent and I volunteered to hold a training on um intergenerational trauma and the effects of trauma disorders arising from that at the Yomcom Center on Indigenous People's Day. That was super well attended. It um it was a free event, but it did we did uh have all the registration spots fill up. So there's 88 um professionals and community members at that. So it was it was great. Um it went really well.
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