Good money, good money, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
It is at time now for our community connection. That's brought to you
by Arland more Nie cam Funeral Home, Tall Grass Motors and get Real Ministries.
And right now we have a principal Chief of Cherokee Nation, Chuck houstin
Junior. Merry Christmas there, Merry Christmas time to all of you. Hey,
this is this has been a big month for Cherokee Nation, a lot
of good things going on. I'm going to go a little out of order
here because we had the big story on this about the funding for the cancer
treatment centers plural. That's a big deal. Tell us about that. It's
a big deal. And this is one of those Cherokee Nation efforts that help
everyone in the larger region. So here's what we're up against at the state,
whether you're Native America or not, as we need to improve access to
cancer treatment, no matter who you are, your background, any of that,
we need to improve it. And in the region we've got two really
important institutions that are making those efforts. So the University of Oklahoma is looking
to build a cancer treatment center in the Tulsa metro area. That's big for
the region. They're an institution through its Health Science Center that has a lot
going on in terms of not only cancer care, but cancer research over in
Arkansas, at least based in Arkansas. Mercy Health System, which is really
covering a large part of the United States with its whole health system, is
going to build a cancer treatment center in Fort Smith Whereness Cherygonnation come in.
Both of these institutions need to raise capital to build these facilities. They can't
do it alone. We can't do it alone. We can contribute. We're
going to contribute, though, Tom if we can specifically improve access for our
patients. We contract out a lot of cancer care, as you can imagine.
We'll have our own cancer treatment center, but we contract it out.
Sometimes it means a great deal of travel. Sometimes it needs maybe not working
with these two institutions which are really needing to scale up their capacity because they
may just not have the capacity to do it. So we will. The
counsel the Cherager Nations authorizes authorize me and the Deputy Chief of the CHAG Nation
to negotiate with both these institutions separate deals. We can increase access for Cherokee
patients to get cancer treatment. But here's the thing. When these things are
built, it's a winner for everybody. It's a winner for everybody's health.
Anyone who cares about this issue will know that we're really stepping up together.
So it's a good news. It's good news. Not over yet. We've
got to get tough a process of negotiating, but we really fell optimistic,
Tom, that we're going to help cancer treatment in this region. Well,
thank you for explaining the good news there. That is really something else.
Tell me about this thing I've been hearing called Goodoogie Corps Gadugie Corps really special
to me because I think it's what we need at the cheragre nation and more
important than what I think, it's what I've gotten from our communities over the
years since I've been chief. God Doogie is a Cherokee word, Tom.
Now I've talked to you before. I'm not a Cherokee speaker. I know
this is one I know, and it's really special work. God Doogie needs
working together. That's really a universal concept that I think across humanity we can
get behind. But it's this idea that's rooted in Cherokee culture back to time
immemorial. It's really why we're here. I mean, Cherokee people wouldn't be
here if we didn't have each other's back and look at the world as something
that we share in in terms of problems, opportunities, et cetera. So
God Doogie Corps is comparable to what you might think about when you think of
America Corps or the Civilian Conservation Corps from the New Deal era, where the
government isn't doing command and control out of some bureaucracy to solve problems. What
we're helping empower people at the grassroots to do it. So the concept of
God Doog be core is let's put up to three million dollars a year of
our funds into a program that can get behind volunteer efforts that's going on in
communities. I think just the other day, Tom I was noticing up in
Washington County that a local Cherokee organization and Toys for Tots, that wonderful program
got together and just harnessed all the goodwill in the community up there and got
a lot of toys and got them out to kids on all the time.
But if we can do something at the chairgre nation to get behind that kind
of effort or elsewhere there might be an effort to help kids in some of
our rural areas, rural communities where maybe the education attainment is too low because
of maybe you look at reading schools and you say they're too low. Let's
do a reading camp with people in the community that can do it, who
are Cherokee, get together and do what God do you Core could empower them
as National service participants. Maybe it's a college kid or volunteers, maybe it's
a retiree. The idea is, let's get behind really good efforts at the
local level. Because I really believe this time chair Conation is growing. As
a government, I think we do a lot well. But I've seen governments
and you've seen them to lose their way they get big. You've seen companies
lose their way, they get big. We don't want to get out of
touch at the chair Core nation. We want to sort of get back to
the basics. And that is the idea that it all starts at the community.
If there's community volunteer efforts going on, we don't want to step on
them, but we want to get behind them. Tom So that's the idea.
We're looking forward to seeing that program develop and we should roll some more
details out later in the spring. All right, we're looking forward to that.
By the way, you touched on something that a councilwoman, Doris Paskowski
did up there in Dewey with the Toys for Tots. I hadn't seen anything
that big in a long time. That that was really something else, getting
together with the Marine Corps and doing that. Yeah, she's a great leader,
and there's an example of Cherokee who brought several different entities together and knew
something really good and it was good for everybody, and it's something we all
ought to reflect on from time to time. Now you've got a legal background,
do you not? She that's true? Okay, because the next one
we're going to go into here, I want to ask you about this Criminal
Justice Task Force. Is this something new or is this something existing that's looking
to gain a little bit more more size. This is new and it reflects
I hope that Cherokee Nation is being very thoughtful when it comes to seizing these
opportunities under the McGirt case and everything that has come after that. There's plenty
of headlines and plenty of issues that could reflect tension here or there or political
disagreement. What this task force is focus on is, let's look at where
we are at the Cherokee nation in really three important areas. One is our
sentencing, our approached to sentencing criminal defendants who've been convicted. What's our approach
or we're giving our judges the opportunity to craft sentences that are in everybody's best
interest. And we all have an interest, certainly in punishing criminals. Then
they need to be held accountable. We have an interest certainly in making sure
that they pay the price. We protect victims and give justice to victims through
sentencing, but we also want to be smart about sentencing. We want to
make sure that we understand that if a Cherokee is imprisoned by is it her
own government, that they're not forgotten that if we determine is there a path
to coming back? Is there a path to restoration? We all want that
and so sentencing reform is one part of this task force. We now have
a few years under our belt. Since McGirt, we've filed ten three hundred
nineteen selony or misdemeanor cases. We've got a body of work. We can
look at what we've done. The second thing is re entry program. Tom.
We've had a re entry program for some time, but here's and it's
related to the first concept. When someone leaves incarceration, they leave detention,
and they come back into society. Their success or failure all is in all
of our interest, and I think we want them to be successful people.
We want them to be personally responsible for their own actions and recovery if there's
a recovery involved, and no matter how that takes shape, recovering from their
past misdeeds. But we also know that if they fail, there's a high
chance of recidivism, there's a high chance that we'll have to pay in some
way to care for them. We want them to go if their able body,
to be employed, get housing, all that sort of thing. So
program has helped many of those people, but now we have a much larger
body of people that are coming out of a system and we have to,
I think look at scaling up that re entry program that we've had for close
to a decade. Now. Finally, Tom, the third piece, and
this is a challenging piece that is going to be with Cherokee Nation leaders for
the time going forward, but long beyond my time in office, and that
is detention facilities. Right now, Tom, people should get an understanding of
this. We don't operate a prison directly. We don't operate a jail directly.
We have I think sixteen contracts with different facilities. Almost all of those
are counties, so fourteen counties. We have agreements with local jails, and
then we have a prison contract and we have a juvenile contract. That is
what we have to do in the near term, Tom, in order to
meet our obligation to prosecute people and send them behind bars. But that's what
a government has to do. Long term, though, Tom, we have
to evaluate do we need to operate our own prison, our own jails.
Do we need cooperated with other governments, perhaps other tribes. So I'm wanting
our task force to look at that issue. Three really important issues among many
when it comes to criminal justice. But I just want the people to know
whether they're cherokey or not. But the chir Coy nation takes this serious.
We were thoughtful about it and we've got some really great experts on this task
force. Now let's see if we can't lighten this up a little bit.
We had a very special thing happened earlier this month it was a doll made
in the likeness of Wilma Mankiller notes any doll, it was a Barbie doll,
it was a Barbiedell Tom, and it was something that caught a lot
of public attention. And overall, this is such a wonderful thing. Wilma
Mankiller as someone who as time goes by, she starts to inspire more and
more people. And what I really love about Wima Mankiller's legacy in herself is
that she's impacting in a positive way people, whether they're Cherokee or not.
People who read her story find it so compelling. A young woman who went
out and fought for social justice in the Civil rights era, a young woman
who raised as a single mom two wonderful daughters, one of whom has passed
away together is still with this wonderful lady named Felicia Elijah her the only living
daughter. But Wilma raises these girls, comes back home to Cherokee Nation,
becomes a community organizer. That idea of God Doogie Tom that you and I
were talking about at the top of our discussion, she embraced that and really
inspired a lot of people all before she became Chief Tom. She becomes chief,
and she becomes a pioneer in terms of being the first woman chief,
very progressive chief. She got so much done. She's passed away, of
course, and has left the legacy. But for Mattel to say, this
is an iconic woman that the world needs to know about, that kids need
to know about, and I think that's something special. There was a little
bit of a rough patch in terms of the rollout. We weren't involved at
Chery Nation in terms of the design or we weren't consulted. There's a whole
separate legal reasons for that. There's an a state that's involved in the man
Killer doll. Mattel is a private company. But I think overall it was
something worthy of celebration. We had a great celebration Tom December the fifth,
and it was really like a memorial to Wilma Mankiller. But it was very
powerful, and I'm very proud of the fact that more people know about Wilma
Mankiller around the globe now than they did before. Well, a lot of
folks were saying that Wilma didn't have that big ego, and I heard her
relatives speaking on our own airways saying, you know that it's nice the doll's
nice. Man. I think she probably would have shied away from it a
little bit just because of her personally interesting idea. And I think that's true
from people who knew her and knew of her, that she would not have
put herself out there. But I did hear a couple of really I think
very insightful and thought comments from people that were very close to her. What
they said was, we think that she would look at this as on the
balance, if it helps inspire a young person or helps with progress in Indian
country, that she would lend herself to something like this, even though it
wouldn't be top of her mind. Mean, she never wanted to put herself
out there at a celebrity, but my impression is that she appreciated the fact
that her celebrity, her notoriety could be used for good. And if this
does something good, if some little girl out there is inspired that she can
be a leader of a nation or do something else, great. I think
woman say, hey, you know, I'm not the person to put my
face on a on a Barbie doll, but maybe it was. Maybe it
was for the greater good. So who knows that that's that's something we'll never
know, but I do know that will my man kill was great. She's
also appeared on Money, hasn't she. She yeh, she's on the quarter,
and a couple of years ago the mint issue to coord her. And
to this day I keep some orders around and if I see a Cherokee kid,
particularly a little girl, I tell him about Wilma's story and I say,
look, I may not end up on a Chucky Cheese token, but
this lady's on a quarter and she's somebody worth an emulator. Oh man,
I tell you, it is always great spending time with you. Chief Chuck
Hoskin Jr. By Principal Chief of Cherokee Nation. Merry Christmas. Hope you
got great plans for the family, and I hope you get to spend a
lot of time together. You too, my friend, talk to you later,
Okay, very well,