2024 State of the Band Full Feature

2024 State of the Band, Tuesday, January 9, 2024 at Grand Casino Mille Lacs Convention Center. At 40th State of the Band Address Chief Benjamin Reflects on Progress, Passes Along Lessons Learned to Next Generation of Leaders “You do not choose leadership. Leadership chooses you.” MILLE LACS RESERVATION – In her 2024 State of the Band address, Mille Lacs Band Chief Executive Melanie Benjamin reflected on 2023 as a year of important victories for the Band, highlighting passage of a new law in Minnesota that removes the requirement that tribal police departments must have a cooperative law enforcement agreement with the local county in order to exercise concurrent jurisdiction to protect and serve. In 2016, Mille Lacs County revoked its cooperative law enforcement agreement with the Mille Lacs Band, claiming that by its action, the Band’s 23 post-certified police officers no longer had authority to enforce Minnesota law. “Most of us remember that dark period,” Benjamin said. “Mille Lacs County tried to strip our police officers of their state licenses, and threatened our officers with arrest if they did their job – even on our trust lands. The county issued a threat. They said they would only renew our law enforcement agreement on the condition that we agreed to act as if our Reservation boundary no longer existed. Never — not in a million years — would we ever agree to that.” The result of the County’s unilateral withdrawal from the law enforcement agreement was a period of lawlessness and increased crime, including an influx of drugs from off-Reservation gangs who took advantage of the opportunity. And in the wake of those drugs came a spike of overdoses. “Never again will Mille Lacs County, or any county, be able to hold the safety of our people hostage. That period is over – forever.” Benjamin also reflected on the Band’s lawsuit against Mille Lacs County that grew out of the county’s interference with public safety on the Reservation. In March of 2022, Senior U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson ruled in favor of the Band; her opinion said “over the course of more than 160 years, Congress has never clearly expressed an intention to disestablish or diminish the Mille Lacs Reservation. The Court therefore affirms what the Band has maintained for the better part of two centuries—the Mille Lacs Reservation's boundaries remain as they were under Article 2 of the Treaty of 1855." Mille Lacs County has appealed that decision. “The County spent over $10 million on this case, paying 11 outside attorneys, and now the County is spending even more money appealing this case. The United States, the State of Minnesota and the Native American Rights Fund – which is representing the National Congress of American Indians, Leech Lake, Bois Forte and Grand Portage – have all filed legal briefs siding with the Band. Mille Lacs County stands alone.” Benjamin also addressed the county’s decision to appeal the decision from a financial perspective. “As the leader of a government, I know if we were spending $10 million or more on something, our Band members would want something to show for it. To our non-Native friends and neighbors, I would like you to think about this: Have your lives changed since we won our case in 2022? Has the Band taxed you or zoned your property, or forced you into our Band court system? No. I know we haven’t, because we don’t want to, and we can’t. Mille Lacs County officials have nothing to show for spending all this money except that all of our property taxes in this county keep going up. The Band is the biggest taxpayer in the county, so Band members are paying for both sides of this case. And we will keep doing this as long as we must, because these are our homelands, and we are not going anywhere. We will always be Non-Removable!”