James Parker Shield

From the The Great Falls Tribune

Six candidates for the Little Shell Tribal Council will run as a team, assisting with each other’s campaigns, according to one of the candidates.

The candidates are former Vice Chairman James Parker Shield, Darrell Rummel, Louella Fredricksen and Caroline Fleury, all of Great Falls, along with Leona Kinenberger of Dodson and Gerald Gray of Billings. Rummel, Fredrickson and Fleury are former council members.

Little Shell tribal elections will take place in November, with all seven spots on the council up for grabs. Parker Shield said he did not know who else was running in the election.

Phone messages left for Chairman John Sinclair weren’t immediately returned Saturday night.

Although they will run a slate campaign team, voters are not obligated to vote for all of them, as they will each be listed separately on the ballot, Parker Shield said.

James Parker Shield has announced that he will run for Tribal Council in this years Little Shell Tribal Council Elections to be held November 2008.  He has filed in accordance with the tribe Constitution and Tribal Council election ordinances and will be requesting a list of all tribal members so he can bring his message to ALL Little Shell Tribal members. 

James has created a website that will allow him to communicate to the Online Little Shell Community at large.  http://www.JamesParkerShield.com will allow you to see his accomplishments to help forward the people of the Little Shell and the steps we will need to take to full Federal Recognition with the United States Government and beyond once we are our own self-governed and sovereign tribe.

Members of the Native American Local Government Commission — pointing out that a few thousand Cascade County Indians were not recorded in the 2000 census — told U.S. Census Bureau officials Tuesday they could reduce the undercounting by hiring better counters in 2010, including more Native Americans.

An accurate population estimate is important to Native Americans and non-Native Americans alike because federal funding for state and tribal services often is linked to population size.

The Native American commission, which advises the city of Great Falls and Cascade County, met for an hour and a half with Mark Hellfritz, a regional census manager, and Wayne Chattin, a tribal partnership specialist, at the Courthouse Annex.

Hellfritz and Chattin, who have been in Montana for more than a week meeting with Montana’s eight tribes, are with the Census Bureau in Denver, a regional office that oversees 10 states, including Montana.

They are scheduled to conclude their Montana meetings today on the Flathead Indian Reservation.

Hire more Native Americans as enumerators, said commission Chairman James Parker Shield, a member of the Little Shell Tribe.

“That’s a key,” he said.

The Census Bureau needs to do a better job of hiring counters who know the nuances of the various tribes in the states, said Sandra Boham, director of Indian Education for Great Falls Public Schools. One source of educated census workers would be students attending college in Great Falls, she said.

The knowledge of the counters, she pointed out, will determine “whether they get accurate information or whether they get a door in their face.”

In 2000, the Native American undercount was around 2 percent nationally, Chattin said. It was 12 percent in 1990.

Historically, population undercounts have been more pronounced on reservations, Chattin said. He blamed mistrust of the government as part of the problem.

“We want to do better,” he told the commission members.

“We want to help you do better,” Shield said.

In 2000, Cascade County, at the urging of Native American leaders, unsuccessfully challenged the Census Bureau estimate of 4,000, saying it was more like 7,000.

“We found problems both with misidentification of individuals and missing individuals,” Cascade County Commissioner Peggy Beltrone said.

This time around, the county is being proactive, she said.

Commission members also asked for a better count of urban Native Americans.

The goal of the government-to-government discussions is to raise awareness about the upcoming census and to improve the accuracy, Hellfritz said.

“One of the questions we ask is, ‘What do you want to be called?’” Hellfritz said.

Not being specific enough about the tribe in which they are officially enrolled is a big factor in undercounting Native Americans, officials said.

For example, a resident of Montana’s Fort Belknap Reservation, home of the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes, might answer “Assiniboine,” and they might not be counted because there are Assiniboine tribes in other states.

Census officials asked the Montana tribal leaders in helping to “capture” those uncounted individuals. One way they can do that is by informing their members which specific tribal name they should give.

“Promotion, advertising, is really important,” Hellfritz said.

A statewide census office will open in Billings Oct. 1, Hellfritz said. The first job will be identifying all of the houses in the state.

Offices will open in Great Falls and Missoula in October 2009.

Reach Tribune Staff Writer Karl Puckett at 791-1471, 800-438-6600 or kpuckett@greatfallstribune.com.

Webmaster Note: James Parker Shield was appointed the Chair for the Census 2010 for Cascade County in Montana.

From the The Great Falls Tribune

 James Parker Shield, a member of the Little Shell Chippewa tribe, is coordinating efforts with the monthly publication, Great Falls River’s Edge Journal, for his latest business venue, Native Montana. “Native Montana will provide people with information about happenings in Indian Country, along with in-depth articles about businesses and culture and successful Indian entrepreneur stories,” Shield said.

Shield turned to Great Falls River’s Edge Journal publisher Gordon McManus and his staff members for advice. That discussion turned into a partnership.

The first issue of River’s Edge Journal/Native Montana will publish in May and will be distributed statewide.

“One cover is the River’s Edge Journal, then half way through the magazine, you flip it over and the other cover is Native Montana,” Shield said.

Articles in May’s issue of Native Montana include one about the Montana Indian Business Alliance and a contribution from the Montana Historical Society.

Webmaster Note: Native Montana Magazine website is now online!

By PETER JOHNSON
Great Falls Tribune Staff Writer

Indians from around Montana gathered in a meeting room at the C.M. Russell Museum on Monday to brainstorm ideas for the 2009 Legislature.

At the end of six hours of discussion, the group’s suggestions included more workforce training grants for good reservation businesses; elimination of certain taxes levied against tribal governments, and renewing funding to help reservation schools improve.

State Sen. Carol Juneau and Rep. Shannon Augare, the two Browning Democrats who suggested the “policy roundtable,” said it was the first time individual Montana Indians had met so early to brainstorm legislative ideas.

Juneau said that tribal leaders will probably get together later to discuss budget issues and that Gov. Brian Schweitzer will meet later this spring with Indians to discuss legislative ideas.

She said it makes sense for Indians from across Montana to start coming up with ideas now, noting that Schweitzer already is asking state department heads to start planning for the session.

“I’m delighted at how it went,” Augare said. “We had a cross section representing individuals from all seven tribal communities, plus urban Indians.”

James Parker Shield of Great Falls, a member of the landless Little Shell Chippewa tribe, called it “a great idea” to bring representatives of reservation tribes together with urban Indian groups to discuss shared concerns.

Blaine County Commissioner Dolores Plumage agreed at the end of the day that the session was worthwhile, but said it might have tried to condense too much discussion of complex subjects in to too little time.

“We hit on a lot of topics, but maybe too quickly,” she said. “We need the luxury of time to discuss maybe one or two topics. That way we can get to know each other and understand our areas’ different views.”

Augare said this was the first such meeting, and improvements can be made next time.

“This represented a beginning conversation of what could be the 2009 legislative agenda from Indian Country,” he stressed.

Group members divided into four groups, roughly paralleling the jurisdiction of legislative committees, and brainstormed goals for each area. They switched to different committees in the afternoon, and did the same thing.

The group reports will be printed up and those “reflection documents,” as Augare called them, will be sent to participants and potential Indian allies, including Schweitzer, he said.

Juneau and Augare said the state’s 10 Native American legislators will probably try again to pass a law that would prevent local and state taxation of tribally owned fee land. Similar property owned by city, county, school districts and churches is not taxed, they said.

While the Montana Water Reserve Rights Compact Council is close to wrapping up most water compact negotiations between the state and Indian tribes, group participants said the council might need to be extended beyond its July 2009 expiration date.

It’s easier and less expensive to negotiate through a council than to litigate through court action, Juneau said.