Rocky Boy votes 3-2 to support 4 for 2

The Chippewa Cree Business Committee on Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation voted 3-2 Thursday to sign a letter urging Montana Department of Transportation Director Mike Tooley to meet with the U.S. Highway 2 Association, a local group which has been a longtime advocate of expanding Highway 2 into a four-lane route.

Business Committee members Teddy Russette III and Calvin Jilot voted against sending the letter. Fellow committee members Harlan Baker and Jody LaMere were not present.

Russette later said he voted against the letter because such an expansion, if it were to happen, would require the reservation to compete for those same dollars to repair their roads.   

Highway 2 Association President and former Republican state Rep. Bob Sivertsen told the Business Committee that his organization wants to meet with Tooley to talk about possibly revising or repealing a 12-year-old environmental impact statement.

Sivertsen said Harlem Mayor William Taylor has signed the letter, and that he has presented the letter to the mayors of Chinook and Havre, the Blaine and Hill County commissioners and the Fort Belknap Indian Community Council.  

Sivertsen said when it was conducted in 2004 the EIS only supported an improved two lane Highway 2 between Fort Belknap and Havre and constrains the state from ever being able to design a four-lane highway to accommodate increased traffic and commercial activity.

“I think it’s a discussion we need to have because if we are constrained by an inadequate transportation system, then we will never have the economic development in this area that others are experiencing,” Sivertsen said.  

“We want to move our communities forward so that we can compete,” he said. “This is what it is all about.”

Before the vote, Jilot asked why the reservation should participate in economic development on Highway 2 when the Chippewa Cree Tribe owns no property on the highway.

Committee member Beau Mitchell elaborated on that question..

“To be blunt, we are not really well-received in Havre, a lot of times. So I think what Councilman Jilot is trying to say is, why would we support economic development in a community that does not receive us well?” Mitchell asked.  

Sivertsen said that through his work in the legislature and other efforts, he has attempted to bridge the gap that exists between Rocky Boy and Havre. He said there was much work left to do but both the reservation and outside communities can benefit.

“If we take the attitude that it is them against us then we will never share in the prosperity of North America,” he said.