Archive | February, 2016

STATE’S RESPONSE TO OUR MOTION TO DISMISS

13 Feb

Well, this Graymont case gets curiouser and curiouser.  In its Response, the State has essentially chosen to ignore the facts in our Motion to Dismiss, simply repeating the falsehoods that directly led to our filing of that Motion.  You can read the Response at the link, below, but, they seem to be stuck on a very old mantra
—we don’t have standing;
—the “Graymont deal” has been reduced to about 2,000 acres (a statement that the LTA exposes as simply untrue);
—and this old canard: “the public” still has access to any land we sell (with major exceptions, of course).  

Our response is, has been, and always will be that we are Anishnaabeg People with 1836 Article XIII Treaty Rights and “the State is prohibited from regulating or otherwise interfering with the exercise of such rights [that are our] usual privileges of occupancy” throughout the 1836 Ceded Territory.  (Quote from the 2007 Inland Consent Decree).

These “reserved rights” are not available to “the public.”  In fact, the Land Transfer Agreement between the Sate and Graymont, LLC, states that if we are exercising our Treaty Rights as American Indians on “Graymont lands,” we will be looked at as “trespassers.”

55-Response-to-Motion