Tribe out for more river land

Monument also in Quapaw plans

The Quapaw Tribe will build a monument to the Quapaws and black slaves buried on the tribe's land in eastern Pulaski County, and tribal officials will attempt to buy more land near the Little Rock industrial port to use for the tribe's own economic development, tribal Chairman John Berrey told the port's board Wednesday afternoon.

The announcements come a month after the Little Rock Port Authority board voted to stop pursuing a memorandum of understanding with the tribe over how the port would handle tribal artifacts that might be discovered in the port's attempt to expand using $10 million in city sales tax revenue. It also attempted to limit which land uses would be considered compatible with the industry currently in the area.

Berrey reiterated the tribe's desire to have a good relationship with Arkansas and the Port Authority, and tribal officials' insistence that they have no interest in building a casino on the 160 acres they already own in Pulaski County near the port. Then Berrey announced the tribe planned to capitalize on additional landholdings in the area.

"We're in constant motion trying to find ways to provide economic development not only for the Quapaw Tribe but also for the people of Arkansas," Berrey said.

He said he's already spoken with landowners in the area about selling land to the tribe and with international companies about doing business in Arkansas. Business would not include casinos, Berrey said.

The monument might be a statue, Berrey said. It wouldn't be a museum but a place where people could see the monument, which would likely be fenced in, and perhaps picnic next to it.

The announcements were news to the Port Authority.

"He surprised me a bit when he said he would buy more land," Port Authority Executive Director Bryan Day said after the meeting.

The Port Authority has $10 million in sales tax revenue to spend on acquiring new land, which it intends to do south of the Little Rock Port that lines the southern bank of the Arkansas River east of Little Rock.

Day said he would call Berrey in the coming days to talk to him about continuing to work together.

If the tribe develops industrial businesses on land near the port, the port benefits, Day said. If not, he said there are still thousands of acres from which to choose.

"The land goes forever that way," Day said, pointing south.

The land neighboring the port and south of the port is farmland owned by a handful of families, Day said. The port has discussed future land acquisition with some of them, with the intention of doing environmental and archaeological surveys on the land as a part of an initial offering before finalizing a purchase.

"We're going to do right if we find something culturally significant, if we find a human remain, be it Quapaw or something else," Day said.

Berrey said the tribe's reversal of position on whether it would buy any more land in the area had nothing to do with the memorandum of understanding falling through. He said the tribe's interest in the land stems from the belief that more tribal artifacts might be found on it.

The drafted memorandum of understanding, now on hold, was discussed by the tribe, its representatives, Day and Port Authority board Chairman Chris Mathews last summer and fall. The agreement was modeled after one the tribe entered into with Big River Steel in Mississippi County over land the tribe considered significant to its history.

In October and early November, Mathews emailed the board about the memorandum of understanding, asking for input. He remarked on a few occasions that the memorandum was ready to go and that he wanted to have a signing ceremony with tribal officials at the Port in November, according to records obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

"We need Headline .... 'Quapaw Tribe and L.R. Port Authority establish precedent setting cooperation by signing MOU for Compatible Land Use and Preservation.' Need to avoid 'Port cuts legs out from under the principle Parties to the Application for Trust'," Mathews wrote in an email forwarded to Day on Oct. 15.

In November, Mathews and Day began to receive feedback from outside groups, including the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce and the Metro Little Rock Alliance business group, which questioned the need for a memorandum of understanding and advised against it, according to email records.

Mathews said this month that the outside input was "stakeholder" input the Port Authority needed to get before moving forward. He said he didn't remember if he approached the Little Rock Chamber of Commerce first or if the chamber approached him after seeing media coverage about the memorandum of understanding.

Email records show Chamber CEO Jay Chesshir emailed Mathews on Nov. 16 -- a day after the Democrat-Gazette reported that the port and the tribe were working together -- asking about the status of the agreement.

Mathews told the Port Authority board in January that the memorandum of understanding was becoming a distraction. The board voted 4-2, with Mathews abstaining, to not negotiate any memoranda of understanding with any entity that has a pending application before a government board.

Mathews was not at Wednesday's board meeting.

The Quapaw Tribe applied to place its 160 acres of land in Pulaski County into federal trust in December 2013. Placing land into trust would give the title of the land to the federal government and would remove the land from local jurisdiction and taxes. It is currently subject to the jurisdiction of Pulaski County.

Tribal officials have described placing land into trust as a fairly common process for tribes to prevent alienation, which is the ability of a property or property rights to be sold or transferred.

The county, Little Rock and the state -- all of which were asked by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs to comment -- all wrote letters in opposition to the tribe's application.

Suspicion in the community that the tribe intends to build a casino has been rampant but repeatedly denied by Berrey. The tribe can build a casino on the property only by pursuing a separate federal application that would again consider input from the surrounding area.

"We want to be good neighbors to the Port Authority," Berrey said at the end of his speech. "All we ask is that you work with us."

Metro on 02/18/2016

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