Chief Brooks Announces $2,435,000 Federal Settlement Received December 21, 2017

Chief Brooks Announces $2,435,000 Federal Settlement Received December 21, 2017
Happy New Year Lenape, Delaware Tribal Members and Friends:
It was a great Christmas surprise to learn from our accounting office that $2.435 million of settlement funds were transferred to our account by the U.S. Treasury Dept. at mid-afternoon on December 21, 2017. These monies were originally to be paid out per capita, but by act of Congress reverted to Delaware Tribe nine years after the original intended tribal member recipients were either unfound or deceased. In 2002 the then-Delaware Tribal Council filed suit to recover these already long-overdue monies. From 2002 to 2015 five prior Tribal Councils tried to settle this out of court, and in December 2016 the current Tribal Council ramped up the settlement effort, which took one year.
My foremost Thanks for this $2,435,000 settlement go to our unfound and deceased tribal members who did not receive their individual per capita, making the settlement possible. Additional thanks are due to our attorney, Tom Peckham, Nordhaus Law Firm, LLP, for his extended work over the years. Thanks are also due to five prior Tribal Councils and of course the current Tribal Council who achieved the settlement in 13 months. And in final thanks I say “MAY THE CREATOR BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE US DEPT OF JUSTICE, THE BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS AND THE US TREASURY FOR PAYING THEIR DECADES-OLD DEBT TO THE DELAWARE TRIBE OF INDIANS.”
And “Now For the Rest of This Story.” How do we spend these monies? As a former Trust Board Chairman (1995-98 and 2012-16) I favor, and hope a majority of the Tribal Council will favor, paying our attorney as we must, then placing half of the remaining money in the long-term investment management of our Trust Board. My reasons here are that this would place a larger amount of money in our hopefully perpetual Trust Board funds to be spent on Community Services, Education Scholarships, Elders, Veterans, Tribal Operations, and Reinvestment at the percentages approved by our adult voting membership. To this end I stand ready to call a special meeting of the Tribal Council and Trust Board in late January or February 2018. The special meeting will be open to all Delaware Tribal Members, Tribal Attorneys and some Tribal Employees.
Tribal Members, Relatives and Friends, 2017 is now a banner and very successful year for our Tribe. I close by simply stating
“GOD BLESSED THE DELAWARE TRIBE OF INDIANS.” ■