Tim Leeds Havre Daily News tleeds@havredailynews.com
Gov. Brian Schweitzer said during a me e t i n g a t Ro c k y Boy ’ s I n d i a n Reservation Tuesday that the work the state, federal and tribal governments are doing to strengthen relations and cooperation will send a message to the rest of the country. “Just as the snow has melted (in the Rocky Mountains) and refreshed the water of the country for thousands of years, what we do today will spread throughout the country,” Schweitzer said. “ These relations we are building today in Montana are the textbook for the rest of the country for relations between Indian Country and the rest of the United States.” The governor was at Rocky Boy on the second day of a two-day conference dealing with two separate initiatives: the start of a program to increase Rocky Boy’s dealing with child support enforcement and the start of a methamphetamine use prevention and treatment program. Schweitzer signed two intergovernmental agreements Tuesday morning, one giving Rocky Boy the authority to determine Medicaid eligibility on the reservation, and another dealing with child foster care. The governor credited Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation with taking the initiative on increasing cooperation between the governments. “I can simply sign the agreements that were your ideas,” he said. “ Today I proudly sign these documents as I say to the rest of the world, Just watch us, just watch us change the world.’” In an unnannounced action, Schweitzer and Rocky Boy Vice Chai r Kel l y Eagleman and Dr. Eric Broderick, deputy administrator of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Heal th Services Administration, also agreed to form a trilateral working group to assist the implementation of the culture-based anti-meth program. “You know, things happen fast,” said Jonathan Windy Boy, who spearheaded the Ojibwa Ne-iyah-w Initiative. Windy Boy, a council member at Rocky Boy and a state representative, said the working group will help to iron out the details of the initiative, which will use cultural approaches to preventing meth use and treating people who use the drug. The other key program discussed at the conference was Rocky Boy’s joining a federal program to establish a local child support enforcement service. The program, in the second year of its development, will create relationships with the state and federal government and other tribes to set up its own program. Traci King, a council member at the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, said dealing with the state government in the past has been one of the toughest, hardest things to do. Staff members seem to set roadblocks, he said. “We can’t back down from those barriers, we have to stand up for what we Believe in,” King said. King credited Windy Boy with breaking down many of those barriers while working as a state representative. Windy Boy said the process of increasing cooperation has grown since Schweitzer took of f ice. The governor has signed more than 300 agreements with tribes in his three years in office, Windy Boy said. “We’re trying to move forward,” he said. “That was the key, diplomacy, and I think that will be the way to move forward.”
