Cherokee passes COVID-adapted budget

In a narrow vote Sept. 3, the Cherokee Tribal Council approved a Fiscal Year 2021 budget that reflects the economic uncertainty caused by COVID-19. 

Tribe to develop themed destination on Sevier County land

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has announced its intention to develop a 200-acre mixed-use development envisioned as an “experiential destination” on property it purchased last year along Interstate 40 in Sevier County, Tennessee.

Cherokee seeks to amend election ordinances

The Cherokee Tribal Council is likely to vote this week on proposed changes to several sections of the tribe’s election ordinance. 

For the Cherokee, disenfranchisement was locally controlled

In 1930, a young man named Henry Owl traveled to the Ravensford election precinct in Swain County to register to vote. 

Owl was a U.S. Army Veteran, and a college graduate. He held a master’s degree, in fact, having finished the UNC Chapel Hill graduate program in history the previous year. At Lenoir College, where he began his undergraduate studies in 1925, he was elected “Most Popular Boy” and competed as a star athlete in football and baseball, earning posthumous induction to the Lenoir-Rhyne Sports Hall of Fame in 2012. 

Cherokee will delay budget hearings, adopt baseline budget

In a resolution passed last month, Tribal Council decided that it will not hold budget hearings this year but will instead delay them until January 2021, after the first quarter of the new fiscal year has passed. The decision comes in response to decreased revenues and increased uncertainty caused by the Coronavirus Pandemic. 

Tribe engages firm to pursue expanded casino holdings

As states throughout the Southeast consider allowing or expanding commercial gaming in their jurisdictions, Tribal Council has voted to enter into a contract with investment bank Innovation Capital that will allow the company to serve as the tribe’s exclusive financial advisor as it seeks to diversify its holdings in the gaming industry. 

Ground breaks on Catawba casino

Four months after the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians filed suit against the U.S. Department of the Interior’s decision to allow the Catawba Indian Nation to move forward with plans for a casino in Kings Mountain, the DOI has officially taken the land into trust and the Catawba have broken ground on the site. However, the EBCI is still fighting the decision, on July 6 submitting a new, amended complaint in the case. 

Cherokee cultural corridor plan receives award

Knoxville, Tennessee-based Johnson Architecture, along with project partner IBI Placemaking, recently earned an award in North Carolina for the Cherokee Cultural Corridor Master Plan.

Customer service should be a powerful connection

By Gerri Wolfe Grady • Special to SMN | Customer service is an important commodity for any business and particularly to those locations reliant on tourism. This is an area that isn’t necessarily taught or trained with new employees, often because of time constraints or because the business owner hasn’t given it any thought. This essay was developed to provide a different view of customer service and how it was conveyed for 20 years by my father, Jerry Wolfe, greeter at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian.

Cherokee has second COVID-related death; Macon experiences nursing home ‘outbreak’

As of June 30, North Carolina had 64,670 confirmed cases of COVID-19. The death toll is now over 1,300 and 908 people are currently hospitalized. 

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