November 16, 2009
Monday PM

Each time I read the Sealaska Corporation website ,I always hold my breath in thinking maybe, just maybe this time they will have something written about this issue, but each time I've read anything it was about some other facts, about a bill other then the landless issues.When will this issue be important enough for this corporation to take notice of its importance and set forth an honest effort to bring this to a resolve, before it is too late? In all these land bills I read about, NO where is there any mention of the landless bill mentioned, or of the communities thereof.What will it take to make Sealaska Corporation take charge and spearhead a honest-to-goodness effort to pursue and resolve this long awaited landless issue that many of our people have been weeping and begging for? This to be noticed, only for it to be forgotten and swept under the rug once more.

As a Sealaska member, I am ashamed at our lack of effort this has received so far.How much worse can it get when our own corporation will not hear our outcry to have this overdue request resolved and the people's cries for help in this matter noticed? Without the people's' votes isn't this corporation at a loss for power? After all a corporation isn't a corporation without the members. Who would these directors or cabinet members be representing if the people finally reach a point of dismay and begin to think for themselves that maybe the corporation itself isn't interested in resolving this at all?

Giving into the will of the government's woes and cheating us, the 5 communities out of rights to be recognized as native communities. This state has already deemed these communities eligible in previous news stories and yet nothing has been done to bring this to an end.What is really behind this issue, that even the corporation will not stand behind it?

I think that if nothing is done to resolve it then the people themselves of these communities need to seek outside help and find out just why this issue has not yet been spoken of or written in the Sealaska Corporation website or Newsletters.When will Sealaska Corporation take the reigns of this collective effort on behalf of these 5 communities and finally push these landless bills through and bring closure for the people of these 5 communities that have been awaiting so long for. They have been told so many lies and yet nothing has been done - no stories or any collective efforts put forth in this matter - how shameful is this?

Even our own corporation will not even put forth an effort to help bring this to an end and bring relief and acknowledgement to the people's lives that have been affected and let them know that they have always been behind them in their efforts to find an end to this long awaited promise to the people of the 5 unrecognized communities that the government has promised over and over they will bring this to a positive end.

Yet NOTHING has come of it to this day -- 30 some odd years. Isn't this long enough to have found a way to resolve this? Surely the corporation has many intelligent minds put together to find an answer to this issue.

What's even worse then this is that this landless issue has become a big outstanding public joke and many of us that are affected by it have become ashamed to admit we are the ones who are affected by it. How pitiful is this? Have our own people in our own corporation any respect for us any more?

Sincerely,

Vernon M. Grant
At-Large Sealaska Shareholder
Ketchikan AK

Received November 14, 2009 - Published November 16, 2009

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