June 10, 2021 at 1:12 p.m.
County-Reservation involved in good working relationship
On Tuesday, Tribal Council Chairman Archie LaRose presented two Leech Lake Reservation flags to county board Chairman Jim Demgen to fly at the board's meeting rooms in the courthouse in Walker and land department building in Backus.
"This is to show we're in good working relationships," LaRose said during his presentation. He also gave each commissioner a pinch of tobacco, which he said they should place by a tree.
"We're also proud to have this fine relationship," Demgen said, calling it "a historic day."
The cooperative effort began 10 years ago with a law enforcement agreement Leech Lake signed with Cass and the other three counties overlapping the reservation (Beltrami, Hubbard and Itasca) to provide mutual aid.
Cass commissioners approved a resolution within the last year to permit Leech Lake also to include all county roads in the reservation on its road system. The result has been that Leech Lake received significant additional road funding this year, $1.6 million of which they dedicated to enable Cass County to pave County State Aid Highway 8 ahead of schedule without having to use state aid funds.[[In-content Ad]]Leech Lake also paid for improvements on County Roads 157 (Boy River housing area), 172 (Roy River Road) and 145 (in Wilkinson Township) this year.
County Engineer David Enblom presented the tribal council with a list of additional county roads the two governments might use to jointly lobby for additional federal Indian road funds.
Art Chase, tribal public works director, said the reservation would like to help out if officials can get enough federal funding. He said they have 21 tribal roads on their future needs list.
The commissioners indicated they expect to pass a resolution of support at the Sept. 21 board meeting for Leech Lake's 2011 road funding application.
The council and board also agreed to try to lobby jointly for federal and state funding to move double-lane Highway 371 rebuilding to an earlier date, not only from Nisswa to Pine River, but also to Walker.
The county board approved a memorandum of agreement Tuesday to jointly fund the wellness court when state funding runs out next year. The tribal council indicated they will consider approval at their meeting Thursday.
District Court Judge David Harrington and Tribal Court Judge Korey Wahwassuck expressed their support for the agreement. Wellness court is a highly successful concentrated counseling program to help repeat drunk-driving offenders overcome their alcohol addiction.
Judge Wahwassuck said cooperation with the county probation department has helped her court and the district court to better serve clients in the diversion and restorative justice programs.
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