Governing Documents Review Committee Report 6-2-11

Mr. George Martin, Birdtown CommunityMs. Louise Reed, Snowbird CommunityMr. Matthew Tooni, Painttown CommunityMs. Mary Wachacha, Yellowhill CommunityMs. Amy Walker, 3200 Acre TractAt its first meeting, Committee members devised a workable schedule for the tenweekly sessions. The sessions were conducted Thursday evenings from 5 p.m. to 7p.m. Eight of the sessions were conducted at the Qualla Public Library. The ninthsession, held on April 7, 2011, was conducted at the Senior Citizens’ Center inSnowbird and the final session, held April 21 at the Senior Citizen’s Center inCherokee Countys ensured inclusion of those communities in the project’sactivities.Each of ten (10) project sessions was videotaped by Jeremy Brown andNathaniel Wade of the EBCI Information Technology (IT) department, andbroadcast, with at least one repeatairing per week, over the tribal televisionchannel, Channel 28. The entire serieswas played back-to-back, on April 23,2011.The EBCI Tribal Operations Program(TOP), Office of the Attorney Generaland individual members of the EasternBand Community contributed materialsfor Committee research and review.Over fifty(50) documents were collectedthrough the course of the project andwill be made available to the publicthrough the Qualla Public Library,Snowbird Library and Murphy PublicLibrary.Key documents will be presented toCherokee Central Schools, Swain andJackson County Schools, WesternCarolina University’s Cherokee Centerand Hunter Library and the Museum ofthe Cherokee Indian.The Committee would like to take thisopportunity to extend their gratitude to thefollowing:To Tribal Council for trusting its citizens toexamine the governing documents and theirhistory by authorizing this important work.To the Community Clubs for theirrecommendations of community members tothe Committee.To Cherokee Preservation Foundation, WCUProfessor Robert Conely and the QuallaLibrary for their gracious contributions.To the Community Member Contributors fortheir encouragement, support and interest inthis work.To Jeremy Brown, Nathaniel Wade and the ITDepartment, and, Bruce Welch and theTransit Program for their technical support ofthe groups work.To Sarah Sneed for guiding the committee inits research, analysis and process, and toCarolyn West’s assistance in the research ofthe project. This report to Council, includingthe compilation of certain documentsexamined, i.e., the documents received fromthe NC State Legislative Library, wasdeveloped in collaboration with theCommittee and written by Sarah Sneed.Governing Documents Review Committee5And finally, to the viewing public for theirinterest in and feedback to the Committee.