We are live.

Okay.

All right.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Hello.

Hello.

We appreciate everyone here on this busy, busy May Tuesday evening.

Miss Lexi, if you could uh call the rule, please.

Yes.

David Bible.

Linda Leaf Bowen.

Daniel Carter.

Cheryl Cohenauer.

Here.

Joe Deer.

Warren Harjo.

Stacey Lasky.

Wynetta Laurie or Brandy Payton.

Winnie Guest Purdue.

Pat Powell.

Here.

Warren Keaton.

Here.

Thank you.

Joyce Roberts.

Matt Roberts.

Here.

Teresa Runnels.

Amanda Swoke.

Actually in the roll call today.

Kim T.

Mark Van Kierren.

Erica Welt.

Sorry.

Mark Van Kieran.

He is here.

We just took this one.

I think he took a restroom break.

Yeah.

Erica, I have been marked as here.

Erica Waltz Carter.

Dorcas Williams, Sheree Williams here.

And our land acknowledgement.

We begin by acknowledging the tribal governments on whose reservations we stand.

Oklahoma is home to 38 federally recognized Indian tribes, and local schools serve students belonging to more than 60 tribes.

The City of Tulsa sits within the reservation lands of the Cherokee Nation, Muskoki Creek Nation, and Osage Nation.

Each of these great nations have vibrant cultures, unique histories, and distinct languages.

We acknowledge and honor these nations, their citizens, their enduring commitment to our community and their land.

We begin with gratitude, appreciation, and respect.

Oh my god.

Thank you.

We appreciate it.

Once again, want to welcome everyone.

Great rollout tonight.

It's good to see uh Brandy here for her busy schedule.

Uh good to have you here.

Um yes, there's a copy of last month's uh minutes before you.

Uh there at there's a couple of typos just spelling wise that they have been corrupted already.

Let's just take care of those, but if you could uh review the minutes from the our April meetings, and uh hopefully we can prove the approach.

I'll move for approval.

All right, we have a motion to approve the minutes following the edits of the typo.

We have a second.

Great.

We have a second all favor.

Any opposed, all right.

Motion carries, we appreciate it.

Uh as far as chair and vice chair reports, uh, a very big busy time just talking to Commissioner Bible, you know, Catusa just had a graduation.

Uh Walso has a graduation tonight.

I'm I'm sure that uh our other commissioners, uh, then the graduation.

Family members graduating and everything like that.

And I do want to pass this around, and I know that uh Commissioner Williams will bring this up in her report, but I I had left this out, and it's it's been real busy.

So today I had an office and make some copies, so I'll you can get a copy of this, but just so you can look at this because many of you were there, but you can review this and then Commissioner Williams will uh Cherie will uh talk to you a little bit about that in the education report, and then we'll we'll send this around.

And uh, you know, the thing that those of us that were able to make it that you know warms our heart is you know, uh we talked about we'll talk about the Navy Mercury celebration shortly, but our focus on on that is obviously our our youth and giving them an experience and let them uh experience and grow for their culture and experience their heritage and uh you know to pass that on to to future generations and so it's been an honor and a joy to to uh celebrate and see our our uh our youngsters that are moving forward uh you know with their lives and the accomplishments that they've had, and so wanted to uh to share that uh with you uh and you know as commissioners as commissions we can then we continue to meet with the other title five commissions and uh you know they they do they look to the the Union Affairs Commission as we're the longest running and you know we'll have a retreat this this summer and uh and the times that Commissioner Cohen hour and Daniel would attend or uh commissioner deer and uh Commissioner Cohen our tenant myself and Daniel that are we get a lot of questions whether it'll be about bylaws or how we put together Native American day and what we do education wise so uh this time of year is it's is a big one and and so I just wanted to touch on that and I'll turn it over to our vice chair um chair Carter.

Thank you Chair appreciate all the the hard work that you do and and Commissioner Williams does on behalf of of the commission with our students it's it's very important.

I know it's a busy time of year and you know it it's tough to take time to recognize these deserving students when you're educators yourselves and you know it's a busy time in that role as well so uh greatly appreciated uh for the vice chair report um I think I'll I'll still some of Commissioner Swope's thunder and talk a little bit about the state of the tribal nations uh event uh that happened last week it's the regional Tulsa chamber puts on the the state of the tribal nations of I saw several commissioners in attendance but um it's a time for the the chairs or chiefs of the of the Osage Nation the Cherokee Nation and the Muscogee Creek Nation to talk to business leaders and other tribal leaders in this region about what tribes are currently doing and how we're partnering how tribes are partnering with different educational facilities or health facilities or businesses in the area and to sort of explain the economic impact the community impact that tribes have in the greater Tulsa area and I think it's it's significant to have that outreach to non-natives to non-tribal businesses to non-Indian health facilities to non-tribally run education facilities to find the benefits of collaboration and putting resources and minds together to to grow the community as a whole in many different ways.

I know the Cherokee Nation really emphasize their their health facilities which is a big concern uh not just in the Greater Tulsa area but especially in the rural communities talking about continuing to get necessary medical care to our tribal citizens and those communities so it's great to hear the Cherokee Nation emphasize that if you if you didn't get the chance to attend I encourage you to attend or read some articles about what was said because it really is sort of the forefront of the future of the greater Tulsa Tulsa area so that was last week and you know we had uh commissioner swope as a moderator on one of the panels and she had a great job but um that was a great event I was uh it was an honor to be able to attend but I think that's all I have I'm gonna yield my time for some of the other reports.

I appreciate it uh Vice Chair Carter all right director Swope with the tribal policy and partnerships report.

Alright, so a couple of updates on stuff.

Let's see where to start um we've received the latest draft for the settlement with Muscogee Nation uh we received uh final draft from them last week uh we had a few minor amendments uh internally.

So I've added those in and I've asked um our public safety commissioner and our city legal um city attorney Jack Blair to kind of read through it one last time.

But kind of finally coming to a close on that.

The plan afterward, after you know, we've both kind of signed off on it being a final draft, is for us to organize a meeting with Chief Hill and Muscogee's leadership as well as with Mayor Nichols just to kind of talk through some of the it's really an action plan that came out of our meetings with the nation.

So kind of checking the boxes on what has been addressed and what's been accomplished versus what are some areas where we're still needing to take some sort of action or improvement.

So I'll hopefully have more for you all on that here soon.

Since our last meeting, we had the Dreamkeeper Park Cultural Advisory Committee, which I'm sure Commissioner Cohenhauer will talk about.

I attended the Tulsa Indian Club spring festival.

Been going to the community conversations.

The next one for that is actually going to be next week on the 26th at TU.

If any of you all are interested in attending, I attended the Student of Excellence Awards that we did, did the State of the Tribal Nations panel.

I went to other couple of things that are a little less on our radar but that were significant.

We hosted the Monroe Demonstration Academy's debate class here a few weeks ago at the city.

So I went to their debate showcase over one weekend.

I also went to go see a Black and Indigenous film project called I Love Boosters that was directed and created by Boots Riley.

That was a fun event to go to.

So we're trying to just kind of help them get the paperwork that they need to get that across the finish line.

I met with NYU recently.

This was kind of something to me that I didn't realize that they would be looking into, but they're interested in connecting with some of the tribes about kind of wildfire mitigation.

They're doing a lot of research into kind of different preventative measures that can be put in place.

So wanting to connect with the nations on some of those efforts.

Cheryl and I have continued to meet with a group, as well as Commissioner David Bible and who else?

Rob, he's not a commissioner though, about a potential cultural center here in the Tulsa area.

We met with Anna America and Parks to kind of brainstorm some different location options.

So hopefully I would say we get to a place where we get some final decisions made on at least a location for that, so that we can get a grant submitted by July.

So hopefully I'll have a little bit more concrete information for you all on it in the coming months.

Let's see what else.

We had another meeting with the City of Jinx and the Muscogee Nation over the South Tulsa Dam project.

We basically kind of got together in a room, gave a couple of different options to kind of lower the overall expense of the project.

So we gave kind of four different concepts.

Everyone was willing to increase the amount that they were giving to the project, but there still is a pretty big funding gap in it.

So we're continuing to kind of look at that project and see what we can do to get that completed and to come to fruition.

Let's see.

I attended the Greenwood Legacy Corporation community meeting.

That was really intriguing.

They have a lot going on um with that project.

Doesn't really, I would say get into our commission, but um the some of the funding for it I think is going through a broad ordinance change recently, and so there'll be some changes with that project.

I assume.

Other than that, I'm trying to help plan the Tulsa Renewable Business Alliance Summit for this year.

Um really it's about uh this year the focus is on job creation um and things like that.

So I'll probably be reaching out to some of the nations and some of the people that I work with about um kind of some of the hidden resources uh for jobs working in energy renewable energy um you know they haven't worked with necessarily like the natural resources with different tribes or even um some of their reintegration programs or things like that um so just connecting them to those resources resources and potential speakers for that that's all I really got for this month.

As always very detailed lots of information there so thank you very much for sharing.

Of course we appreciate it.

Alright let's move into uh our committee reports uh Native American day committee.

Okay.

We uh are on our one-month meeting scheduled right now and we've been meeting towards the end of the month our next meeting will be the 28th which is not this Thursday but next Thursday after Memorial Day at my office or on Zoom.

Hope that you all can join us.

We are uh working with the city currently on trying to get our graphics together so that we have that I've gone through the tribal leaders list and updated that so the letters are ready to go out I need to probably uh visit with uh Lexi just a little bit about uh the mail merge on getting I always struggle with mail merge on getting the envelopes out so uh I need to probably have two minutes with you after this meeting if you don't mind ahead and um but everything's moving along you know we have a a checklist that we work off of every year uh these things need to happen first and then move on down the line so we're in pretty good shape there.

Um it's great that we're still gonna be able to have it at Dreamkeepers Park again this year which is lovely.

Um and I know that uh pretty soon it'll be kind of on remote control but it's it's it still takes a lot of us to put things together we need to evaluate the uh the equipment that we have stored at my office and we need to evaluate the the leftover t-shirts and how many t-shirts we're gonna order for this year but we do have a uh parade marshal uh our mayor has agreed to be our parade marshal this year of course our theme is uh sovereign roots shared future and our uh featured artist is Jessica Harjo and Jessica is working with us on the t-shirt design right now and we have her other design that's gonna be on the banner of the page I couldn't pull it up to see if it got stuck on there this week but it should be our uh Native American Day page should have the her banner art on there and it's just all about trying to promote our youth and uh we're instead of having a big program in the afternoon we've decided that we're going to have a dance around dance and TPS is going to help us with that.

So we'll have cultural exhibits round dance so that the students in particular that are still there early enough in the day they can see that kind of exhibition of their culture and heritage.

So it's moving along it's very exciting and I hope you all can come on Thursday the 28th at 6 p.m.

Follow up on that did everyone get the um after our last meeting I sent out the first American email and I I call it our distribution list and it started out as mostly educators and then it's kind of broaden this wing so there's about 120 but if anyone did not receive that let me know if there's someone I need to add let me know the email we will add that out there and I will say our next step is maybe get our postcards and posters designed so we can because we'll send those right now there's not many attachments.

So those will start coming probably after our next meeting very quickly.

Joyce and I've been communicating on the the graphics for the postcard.

We have we have the front of it, we didn't have the back of it, so we've sent it back to the city to see if they can slap the back on it and then PSO be ready to print.

You'll be ready to go go with that.

So and and a lot of it is PR related this year, you know, so that we can really be out there in a bigger way and have some more graphics, you know, and push our people a little bit more.

So and I will say, probably had 10 11 responses just from schools on the email.

I can't wait.

Count of Sen, we'll we'll be there.

So uh so it's it definitely is uh an expectation I think for the school, something that they the Indian education programs in the schools really look look forward to.

And of course, this is number 10 and the growth we had from, you know, just a handful of three agreed before.

You know, we have not even a month to prepare for the first one, and so yes, it it will uh it will be good.

Any any questions on Native American Day?

All right, Dreamkeepers Committee.

This is another one that we all are a member of of this committee and Commissioner Quiton is graciously agreed to help out and help chair the dreamkeeper committee since our last meeting, we do have two names, two nominees, and uh if I could challenge anyone or but because after you know it's May, so we're gonna have a June meeting, then we get a month off.

So if I could challenge you maybe to get one nominee in before our month on, that would be great because when we come back in August, we're gonna have August, September.

Then we have to vote September because I will say to tie in both the Native American Day uh report and dreamkeepers report.

Yes, we are changing up where we're gonna do a lot more activities with the dancing, and but we still later in the afternoon before we finish up, we are gonna recognize those Dreamkeeper Award recipients on stage, and it probably won't be as long where we'll say this year's Renard Strickland Education Award recipient is and they can say a few words, but we're uh it's so we still are gonna uh recognize your dreamkeeper award recipients at the Native American Day celebration and then uh November at our at our commission meeting.

So yes, that's a that's a challenge out there if uh you know just get a get a photo of them and just put a little bio together.

Uh Commissioner Quiton, what would you like to add?

Because I know one year you nominated you had three recipients that you nominated.

You know, you just loaded us up.

I think the year before last you know you were you were all in.

I think I'll follow up with an email just to let people know uh if you want to send it to how do they normally send it to you?

They just yeah, they just send the bio and and what I will do, I'll share we have an updated list of all the recipients included last year.

And then the and then the uh the bio uh basically the description of each award, the eleven awards that we have, but it is it is updated with last year's uh recipients, which we covered all 11 categories.

I'm just gonna take this off his plate and then uh consolidate everything so we can kind of have a good list of what we're gonna and maybe just follow up the monthly, letting you all know what we got names for these.

We still have these spots that are open, and so just look for my email.

I'm trying to think of it.

Can I do an incentive for we want to submit?

And there's not a bad nominee.

No, they are there's not one nominee we've ever had that doesn't fit into multiple categories because it does so much you know in their in their life, but they can they just fit in multiple categories.

Yeah, I don't know.

I have a lot of uh commissioners are not allowed to accept gifts.

Oh, okay.

As they carry out their official commissioner duty, it wouldn't be a key, too.

I think it's opening the email.

Sorry, I'm just looking at an incentive like that.

But is it something that's available to all?

Oh, so like uh like uh Indian taco or something.

Yeah, all right.

And we are uh getting close to the we need specific parameters, yeah.

We'll get close to 30 years.

That's a lot of eight.

Okay.

Sorry to take us down that tangent.

I'm just thinking about it incentivize somehow.

But yes, thank you for helping out.

That is greatly appreciated.

Can I make a suggestion too?

So what possibly could help with us submitting stuff is if we standardized what we're submitting.

Sure.

Because we're like, oh, just give a bio and just something, but let's just make it template.

So we're not like something where we're saying, okay, here's just basic information, education information, what you know accomplishments they have, so you're not having to really get a lot of wordy, but you got all the data you need there.

That's great.

Yeah, we've always done a bio because we used to have the big program at the big event.

We had the big program we would do, so uh, but recently we've had some submit nominations that was just kind of bullet points.

Yeah, kind of like a resume uh type of thing.

And so, I think either one of those either one of those would be great.

Thank you.

For sure.

So, um right.

I stole a little thunder, but education committee, Commissioner Williams, Commissioner Williams here.

Um first I'm gonna say Tulsa Public Schools, we are we appreciate the partnership with the Greater Tulsa Indian Affairs Commission and acknowledging our students each year, something we look forward to this year.

We had 12 students, deserving students.

Uh we had multiple valedictorian salutatorian students um in this in this mix, and so those that were there, we gave them an additional um honor in in their achievement, and so we just appreciate everyone that was able to come out and be a part of that.

Um TPS has two more weeks of school.

Um this Friday and Saturday, uh, will be our graduations, and then for Indian education, we are uh working towards sending all of our pre-K and second grade students home with um books by native authors with activities, so send them off with um something to do in the summertime.

So that's great.

And one thing it is so much more than just the student of excellence.

I mean, one from every high school was recognized, but then every native student that was graduating uh was also recognized.

They they were able to, you know, get uh courts.

Yeah, right.

Get their cords, graduation courts certificate.

They went by high school and uh so uh highlights for for all those students and um, you know, and we had a great turnout by the by the commission as well.

I mean, I know that's tough Thursday night, you know.

Commissioner Deer was there as a as alma mater there at Booker T.

And uh Amanda was there.

Lexi were you there?

Okay, Commissioner Goen Hour definitely was there for everyone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Commissioner Williams, Commissioner Powell, Commissioner Bible.

So it was it was a great it was a great rollout, but I mean how many how many native students graduated do you know from TPS?

We have about 200 201 seniors, and so um in all, and then we had um about 48 present on that night.

So what each graduate senior received?

Each graduated senior received a certificate from Tulsa Public Schools as well as the commissioner uh from the mayor's office, and then we um gave them a parting gift of a glass eagle, I mean glass eagle, glass feather, um, and Indian education provides the cords is it is a popular thing right now with graduating seniors, so um each student received a graduation cord from Indian Education.

We work with Cherokee Nation and Muscogee Nation.

Uh they provide their tribal courts, and so students that receive those that night as well, and then other uh clubs and organizations that uh students participate in they get a cord for that, so um, they walked away.

Some walked away with a lot of courts to where on graduation night, so it's a thing.

Yeah, it is a thing.

And outstanding job by you and your inn education team putting that on, and you also recognize the younger students in a different night they've used that yes.

Yes, yes, we h we we've been uh partying with award ceremonies for several weeks now.

Um we had our two nights of elementary uh since we had 45 elementary schools and um and then for secondary sixth through to uh 11th graders, um, they were honored at the main event um gameplay, so they had it one night.

And so and then our senior night.

I was gonna tell you the chamber gives the same key time blankets at their event from the Delaware tribe so they have those things yes share about what the validator yes we had uh a student from the Delaware tribe and um reaching out to see if they offered a uh stole or a cord for their graduating seniors and she was also the valedictorian at first school and so um they sent a blanket so we were on her we were able to honor her that night with a blanket from her tribe so and the other provided the bike for the other valedictorians and solidatories um that were gives those were gifts from uh Indian education and uh keynote speaker keynote speaker was uh trim and pipe stem he's alumni he graduated from booker T.

Um he was one of my first uh group of students from BTW um that started their Native American club and got you know more students interested in in that just continues to grow today so um very very great message motivation uh motivating the seniors to go out and uh tackle the world.

I believe graduate he I'd like to add that he uh was talking about when he received his uh certificate from the Greater Tulsa Student Affairs Commission would had been seven years previously and I could not believe it had been seven years because I remember him well and and his accomplishments were outstanding then they still are now yep yep so yeah it it's it's special it is special so anyway thank you so much uh for that report we appreciate it all right public relations committee I do not have a report all right sounds good cultural committee uh Dorcas isn't here but I'd like to announce uh Muskogee Nation is getting ready you know the festival will be kicking off but on June 24th which is a Wednesday uh the cultural department preservation they're gonna sponsor our sixth annual honor walk to protect sacred sites and they'll I talk to them today they'll be getting the flyer out and I'll send it to public relations so everyone can get it but it usually starts at 9 a.m with the opening ceremonies and different of the Miko speed and it's for all sacred sites not just uh the creeks even though it's our theme but uh to honor those that have made the walk and families that are still there uh we'll be serving lunch in the afternoon for uh you know everyone so I'll be busy out there cooking and it's gonna be held at the cultural building ground and I'll have that address on there because it's in its own place and they're gonna have activities throughout the day maybe like horseshoe contest or bow shooting or some demonstrations they have two ponds on the property so they're gonna probably try to have a little fishing thing for for the young people so it's just gonna be kind of a whole afternoon event of different things it's sort of a kind of a beginning of the uh the Creek Muskogee festival that will be starting the next day so I'll get that information to them and I'll get it out.

Great thank you Commissioner Powell appreciate it.

Parks committee.

Well the Parks Committee has been busy as usual we're as I've reported we're all in the uh design phase right now so we've had several different uh renderings presented to the cultural committee on May 1st and uh well they they got to give their input on what they thought was good and what was bad about those uh different concept plans and then we meet every two weeks as a project management group group and talk again about it.

And we just reviewed uh last week the the new set of plans.

So they have refined their plans.

We've got them down to to three only right now and and I assume that we'll get them down to two and then to one but I I don't have on my schedule uh a cultural committee coming up.

I know we've got one coming up, but I just didn't have the date on here to present those next set of renderings to the cultural committee and get their feedback.

TSW has done a great job in trying to incorporate the important things from every tribe, all three tribes.

And so they've uh they've really done an outstanding job, and I've been real pleased with what they've come up with.

They uh are looking at more I guess natural play areas, which is a popular thing in the park world right now across the United States, natural play areas like rocks and boulders and dry creek beds and things like that.

Um, and I know that when they went that to on Earth Day, they uh went to Council Oak and had a like a little demonstration and asked the kids of Council Oak Elementary what they would like to see.

So they're really reaching out to the uh neighborhood associations to the businesses and to the elementary school and anybody that uses the park to find out kind of the things that they want to see in the park.

So it's been uh exciting to see them go through the process and also a little frustrating to kind of have to bring them back in and say, Well, we we we want to keep the green the big green open space for you know Native American Day and other events that could occur down at the park, but uh, but trying to design something that could work for any size event, a small event or a large event, and having you know a specific stage area, the monument for our you know Native American monument that we plan on doing down there, and so it's been it's been exciting, but it's been busy, and uh I think that uh they're moving along really well, and hopefully we'll be able to have a finalized rendering here pretty pretty quick.

Uh fundraising for the park is still ongoing.

I've reached out to a lot of the foundations and Tulsa and some of the corporations, and trying to get on their uh fundraising or their donation list, especially the corporations, they have timing, you know, where you submit applications, and so uh that's good.

We're still moving forward and trying to get our matching dollars so that we have all the money that we need to complete the park.

That's it, great information.

We appreciate it.

All right, bylaws committee.

So the amended ordinance is now part of the city code.

Um that went into effect the day after our last meeting.

Um, you should have received an email from Lexi today if you're on the bylaws committee about scheduling our bylaws meeting to discuss, you know, drafting the bylaws and uh what I envision is just having sort of an idea board and concept board of what needs to go into the bylaws.

You don't have to be on the bylaws committee to submit your recommendations, just email them to me, and you know, once we get those ideas and decide what's needed or what's best for the for the commission to go into our bylaws.

I'll start making the drafts to share and have further discussion within the bylaws committee.

Um we did we had our meetings for the bylaws committee immediately before our commission meetings, but now since the commission meetings moved up to 5 30, that makes it difficult.

We're gonna move to virtual meetings.

That's part of the emails to find a time that that works for everyone.

Um so if that timing was one of the reasons you didn't want to participate in the bylaw committee, and now you you do, just email me or Lexi and we'll get you on the circulate email to find a time that works for everyone to be able to participate.

Um, we've kind of taken a deep breath now that we have the ordinance mended and we're ready to go and reset with the tackling the bylaws.

Good.

Great deal, appreciate it.

All right, shifting gears, Roman number six, old business.

Do we have any old business?

I have a question about something that was brought up before.

I just like to ask an update on the local moment trail.

Was there any update or movement?

I know we're gonna write a letter, but I think I missed the meeting after that.

So I followed up with Secretary Butler before the April meeting, and she had told me that her office had been working through compiling a list of options to be discussed for potential names.

Um the uh the family member, the descendant who came and spoke at our commission, um, you know, she reached out, I think um slightly frustrated, just and feeling like she wasn't being involved in the conversation as much anymore.

Um, you know, I I explained to her that right now the city is just kind of sitting in wait as we wait for the nation to kind of discuss and make a decision on that.

Um, you know, and told her that reaching out to Secretary Butler would probably be best.

Um, and so it sounds like they're still in that process.

I'm hopeful their next meeting is supposed to be next week.

Okay.

So I'm hopeful that they will have it on their agenda for discussion next week and will be able to give us what option they would like it to be.

Thank you.

I just wanted to know, and if the reason is a creek elder came to my garage sale, and very like vocal about uh wanting that to be kind of like he thought that was a great idea.

Yeah, and it was still being discussed, so I'll call him back.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

And I'll whenever I send out emails, I'll make sure to include you on it.

Okay, thank you.

All right, any other old business.

All right, new business.

Commissioner Deer.

Just a quick update.

We have NCI mid-year June 14th through 17th, and we're gonna be in Memphis this year.

And we talked about the resolutions, we talked about Choctaw.

We were dealing with ice detention centers in Durant and Ardmore, and we did get that to Congress, they knew about it, and Chief Batten made a pretty good move after we talked about it, and he bought the store and privately bought it for Chocto Nation.

So that ended that detention center any process of that going.

The veterans we talked about the wounded knee and the awards and having that Pentagon reviewed.

DC reviewed it and their committee denied it, so they said they couldn't find anything as far as that.

So we are gonna take that a little farther, and I'll give you an update after mid-year.

Um, so the big next thing was IGA.

We did an election, and we kept Matt Morgan as the head for Oklahoma and Billy Friend as the vice, and they're concentrating on predictive markets right now.

It's been a big issue.

So at mid uh NCAI, they had a event during gaming, and they raised about four million dollars because instead of just doing a resolution, they're gonna they think it's just gonna go straight to court, and so a lot of tribes jumped in and brought a bunch of money and donated at the event.

So I think it was around four million dollars they got into.

So that was a quick report and uh intertribal July 7th through 10th, and I think it's at Riversbury.

So that's all I have.

Thank you.

Any other new business?

Yes, ma'am.

Miss Lowry wanted me to report.

Um, so there was a lot of excitement about our new uh North Tulsa Cherokee community building.

Um, some of you I think joined us um for our grand opening, um, and then we haven't seen much activity there.

So my understanding is uh, you know, after we had the grand opening, there was some more construction things that needed to be done.

I think we're nearing the end of that.

Um so she just wanted to update you all right now.

Um there's not a flyer or anything, but she wanted me to let you all know just to kind of save the date.

Um, something official will be forthcoming.

Um, but we're planning on hosting an open house on Saturday, June the 6th from 12 p.m.

to 4 p.m.

And I think we're gonna grill um hot dogs and different things like that.

So just um really like to have you all there, and if you didn't get to join us for grand opening, come join us, come look at the building.

It's really really nice.

Okay.

At 12 p.m.

to 4 p.m.

on Saturday, June the 6th.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you for sharing.

Of course.

Any other new business?

All right, announcements, slash public comments, but anything else, public comments.

I have something to share.

Um, so a team member in my department um loved by many, so you may know Miss Kyra Carvey.

Coordinates our um Emmett Hill Cold Case Grant, which is a grant that our our department has from the um department of justice.

As part of that, she helps coordinate community genealogy to kind of help um connect the link of um you know the 1921 race massacre mass grapes investigation when those bodies are exhumed or or artifacts are identified being able to have a database of folks that can help identify potential current living descendants of those individuals.

It's very heavy but very important work and she wanted me to share that um their last genealogy event and workshop is coming up it's completely free.

And especially on Friday June 19th one of the workshop sessions will be Oklahoma native genealogy and DAW's records research.

So I have several flyers over here if that sounds interesting to anyone or you want to learn more information you can find more online at the Greenwood Cultural Center's website.

That's our collaborator in this work and there's a fun QR code for you to scan as well but happy for you all to take some flyers great thank you.

Any other announcements or public comments this weekend is Memorial Weekend so there's a lot of things going on.

One of the things that we're tossing club is holding their 22nd annual day on day run at Mohawk Park 5K 10k invite everybody out if they haven't already signed up to run walk funteer last year we had over 320 participants.

So we're looking at there everybody looks at the weather there's a large group of uh uh runners out there that uh plans on this event every year so it's a great time to come out you know and it it uh starts around 7 7 30 and it'll end around 9 9 30 so that'll leave you a little bit time to go do what you need to do for the rest of the weekend uh but come on out for that it's uh one of our larger fundraisers for our our July pow also this weekend or the following weekend uh some of you probably already got tickets to the Dance of the Two Moons that Indian Healthcare Resource Center puts on it's her annual fundraiser fundraiser so if you haven't got tickets this year make plans to go to next year it's her 50th year anniversary this year uh with Carmelita uh and uh as you know uh Carmelita you know she started out the uh uh greater uh the chamber Indian chamber there so you know she's she's been a good big part of the community so uh if you're there come out there uh want to thank uh the people that showed up for the uh food bank of eastern Oklahoma fundraiser that they had the other night I think they hit the goal of uh a million dollars of uh food you know uh it's one in four uh Oklahoma people has uh you know are are struggling for food at this time so if none of you knows there I started out there volunteering now I end up I'm working there full time so I'm as a volunteer coordinator over there so I kind of enjoy that part and I know that uh Joe does a lot with uh food on the move over there too so there's a lot of good things going on you know within our community to to help the uh uh the people that need that so uh we'll appreciate those I've seen that Amanda come out hopefully she bought some or won something on a raffle ticket but I haven't won.

But there's a lot of good things that that go on over there.

I I really enjoy the volunteers that come up there you know as as a commission or if you guys own a company you can volunteer sign up volunteer bring your group bring your friends come out there and volunteer uh over there so um I would just want to uh give a a small shout out to some of our our council members of Cherokee Nation Iowa's and stuff that they do I'm always seeing them showing up at different places and I really appreciate that because you know as you know our my my tribe the Muscogee tribe there's a lot of things going on right now a lot of talk a lot of stuff that's going on you know they've uh uh passed some resolutions that a lot of people are not uh um really in you know in stepping in line with uh so you know I know that I see Joe even inside and outside of his district is showing up in different events you know and just supporting and showing that thing so I just appreciate you know you guys what you guys do um the one last thing I want to do I kind of want to reiterate what Amanda said about a cultural center I want to say is it's it's not really a culture center it's a kind of a community center.

Uh back there in the earlier part of the year crosswind news put out a survey and a lot of people responded to those uh to that survey uh that they wanted to see some place where they wanted to meet uh so you know they were they were looking for a place where they can bring their kids uh uh um and it could be open every day you know um and it's it's not a museum type cultural center it's more of a community center a gathering place you know of course a kitchen is needed people can come and make and take um and somebody has stepped up and offered us uh uh space to discuss these things you know uh because he was really excited about the things that he's seen on that survey so if you took that survey you've got the results and hopefully you looked at those results of the people that responded uh and what they want to see what they want to see in their community um you know museums are great we have Philbrook we have Gil Creese we have all these museums where we can see different things hanging on the wall and stuff but it they're wanting to something to bring just not their the local three tribes that we have that intersects Tulsa we have as as uh Sherry said that we have a bunch of tribes that uh come to school here you know and it's a hodgepodge of different tribes that they want to have in our store we've always heard that uh where where where do the Indians go?

Where do the Indians meet where is everybody do you guys do?

Do you guys have meetings whether it's NAC meetings whether it's uh any type where they can bring their kids to learn and there we we don't have anything you know we have uh Creek Nation has their community centers you know Cherokee Nation community centers but you know outside of that there's nothing so it's kind of exciting that uh um uh the offer of space uh uh is out there you know uh of course there's a lot of things that has to happen to make it go so that we're just in the very early parts of discussing things of what we want to see where we want to locate it backup plans you know grants everything feasibility studies all this stuff that goes into uh securing a space and and and carrying it on for you know years and years and uh it's it's a community base you know and I think this commission can be a big part of it you know they can be a big part of it and uh it's just exciting to do and I know that uh uh few future uh um we can we can close uh different things that's happening right now right now it's so new that we're just trying to find out where we want to go so I know that crosswind news if you go on there they're trying to put together a calendar or they do have a calendar you know of different events that are are happening within uh uh the community you know we always hear on Facebook social media that a day after it happens that oh I wish I'd known that had happened I would have been there.

But uh trying to follow them, help out.

Hopefully they'll put another survey together, put the results of the survey out to see where you know what our community wants and needs.

So it's just kind of exciting, so appreciate it.

Did I say something about that?

Uh were you familiar with the Tulsa Indian youth council?

Yes, we that that's that's where I grew up in Shakota.

There wasn't very many uh natives at that time.

Yeah, everybody's in the skoggy there.

But uh anyway, I got a job up here and uh how I stumbled up on it.

I can't remember, but uh since I was a teacher, I was a tutor there, and it was on six and truce.

We had all kinds of Indian families, children that needed just to see brown people basically, uh, because at that time the Golden Gloves thing was really good.

So they had a boxing arena and we had several that went on to big championships and everything.

We had uh the education tutoring, you know, and it was that place was busy.

They afforded to get somebody donated two buses that pick up children, and then on the upper level there was a kitchen, and you know, we provided food and snacks for whoever couldn't eat the young people and uh some of you Osage people that might remember Myrtle Jones, I don't know.

Her daughter was the Miss American Indian princess at that time, but you know, she would teach things, she taught me how to make meat pies.

But anyway, I really envisioned something like that.

It it'd be great.

That discussion we have uh just like you, Pat.

We uh have people that grew up in Tulsa Indian Youth Council, American Indian Theater, all those ones that used to be around when we were younger, you know, but now we don't have no more.

That's been the topic of the discussion in our meetings and stuff, Pat.

I'm glad you brought that up.

You know, we'll invite you to bring your uh you know background on there and what it was like because that's what we want to see, something like that.

And we you know, we have museums, we have places we can visit and stuff, and it's more of a uh economic uh uh windfall for the city of Tulsa, but we want something for our citizens for our for our people together.

Just like Pat says, you know, we want to see other brown people, you know.

And it was it it was, it was a lot of fun back then, you know.

Uh Joe knows James Quick Tillis, you know, uh Rick Wild, my cousin fought him.

He came there, he got beat up in the first 15 seconds.

Um it was a big thing.

It made Tulsa news and everything like that.

Uh so he lasted less than one round, but it it was still you know pretty funny uh to see that he came to town and he was pretty famous, but there was a lot of different things softball, basketball, boxing, just different things that happened within the city uh in our community.

So uh hopefully you know I know it'll it'll work, you know, but uh to get everybody involved in it would be is a good thing.

So I think there was even an alternative school that came out of that because we were located and I was one of the remedial reading teachers at that time, but we bust in different children from different schools that come, and we had a half uh most of the day was the academics, and we it was very individualized and we had cultural there, but you know, we had a lot of input with the TPS at that time was a long time ago.

But that was before we had an education in that department, but it's a good thing to look at.

Yeah, no, no, if everybody knows Lillian Williams, she was a big part of that too, you know.

Uh so there's a there's a lot of uh people that are still around that remember those times like that, and they will they wanna they want to see that happen again.

Um so I was a TLA kid too.

Yeah, back in the 1900s, yeah.

All right, thank you.

Yes, great, great information.

Great great announcement.

Any any more announcements for public comments?

Yes.

Um I haven't heard it yet, but uh today I got to attend the Osage Nation groundbreaking for their new clinic in SkyTook.

Um I know it's not Tulsa County, but it's right there on the line, so a lot of people are in this area were probably using that, so it's gonna be beautiful.

So, cool.

I don't want to give the anticipated day because we all know um how building projects go, but it the ground has broken, so well, since Commissioner Bible talked a little bit of boxing and sports, we have a Cherokee in Kiowa playing for the San Antonio Spurs and the Western Conference Finals, Indy Waters.

So probably everyone here is cheering for the thunder.

And his in the name is he's the third.

So Lindy Rogers, so his inner name is Pao for the number three.

So there's a little information about that.

Definitely, definitely.

All right.

If we don't have any more announcements for public comments, I'll move for adjournment.

Do we have a second?

I'll second.

All right, all in favor.

Aye.

Alright, have a special day weekend.

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