http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/x1973325554

Indian agreement aims to aid poorer tribes

Feb 12, 2008 @ 03:15 AM

By ERICA JACOBSON
Norwich Bulletin

An agreement signed Monday by the Mashantucket Pequots could bring such
tribal business products as shellfish, black Angus beef and buffalo meat to
the tribe’s Connecticut reservation while helping the purchasing power of
other, poorer American Indian tribes.

“We look to leverage the buying power throughout Indian country,” said
Richard Sebastian, a Mashantucket tribal council member. “It’s pulling
together what our needs are collectively and being able to drive the cost
to procure those needs down.

“If other tribes have resources that we could purchase from them, we’d like
very much for that to happen as well.”

The agreement, signed Monday morning in Washington, formalizes a
cooperative economic relationship between the Mashantuckets and the
Seminole Tribe of Florida. That tribe also is an economic powerhouse with
six reservations across the state and casino gambling. It also bought Hard
Rock International almost a year ago.

Carl Artman, an assistant secretary of Indian Affairs with the U.S.
Department of the Interior, said the partnership should build tribal
economic growth.

“It is a platform that helps resource-rich, cash-poor tribes by linking
them to those with purchasing power, yet lacking the materials or goods to
supply their economic needs,” he said in a statement released late last
week. “Forging those links between supply and demand is necessary for
building strong tribal economies, and that is good both for Indian country
and all Americans.”

Sebastian said many of the details of the agreement still need to be worked
out. But Kathy Hughes, vice-chairwoman of the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin,
said her tribe was one of several named as potential benefactors of the
agreement and already has grown many of its own various business ventures.
Farmers of buffalo and black Angus, the Oneida also have a hotel, casino
and bingo as well as a recycled paper products company, Nature’s Way.

She said she expects to see progress related to the agreement in a matter
of months.
“Tribes do move slowly, however,” Hughes said. “We’re so cautious sometimes
to the detriment to being able to move quickly with anything. We spend a
lot of time with due diligence.”

Reach Erica Jacobson at 425-4241 or ejacobs@...