An Idaho State University study authored by Dr. Neil Tocher recommends that the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in particular and Native American tribes in general adopt success factors to enhance mutually beneficial economic collaboration with non-tribal entities. The study was commissioned by the Power County Development Authority.
In his study, Tocher, an ISU business professor, concluded tribes must take three critical steps to operate profitable and sustainable economies, stressing the need to keep politics out of business decisions. To do so, Tocher recommends that a governance system be created for Indian-owned enterprises distinguishing business managers from political forces and monitoring the performance of the managers. That would entail setting up a semi-autonomous business development company run by professional managers who would report to a board of directors and be free from tribal council oversight.
Tocher also advocates that a dispute resolution system be created insulated from political interference with tribal councils not allowed to intervene in disputes between tribal and non-tribal entities.
Also, competent, reliable bureaucracies need to be created to provide basic services such as fire and police protection, tax collection, and fish and game management, he states.
Other key success factors include presence of valuable natural resource deposits on reservation land, proximity to large cities, willingness of tribal authorities to work on government projects, technical knowhow of tribal members and tribal sovereignty.
In his report, Tocher said: “The overlap of the tribal council and business council may interfere with the development of new businesses on the reservation due to political pressures.”
As previously reported, the Shoshone-Bannock Tribal Court of Appeals recently announced that FMC Corp. must continue to pay the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes $1.5 million annually for waste stored at the site where FMC operated an elemental phosphorus plant west of Pocatello, Idaho, in Power County from 1947 to 2001. FMC officials say they intend to contest that ruling in the U.S. federal court system.
Shoshone-Bannock Tribal Chairman Nathan Small, says Tocher’s study is erroneously based on the premise that the tribes have not made strides in recent years and are the main obstacle to blocking economic development – when the opposite is true. Undermining tribal sovereignty perpetuates reservation poverty, he says.
“The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes are currently an economic powerhouse in Southeast Idaho. In a time of high unemployment and global financial crisis, we are currently hiring – for dozens of good paying jobs. We have made steady and substantial economic progress over the last four decades,” Small wrote in an opinion piece on the Idaho State Journal’s opinion page. “We have a new justice center, a new hotel and event center that will be open soon, and a casino that is packed nightly. We are employing more tribal members – and Southeast Idaho community members – than ever.”
Development of the FMC site and the Pocatello Regional Airport, which also sits on the reservation, have been recommended as economic opportunities for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes.
Noting that Tocher’s study was financed by Power County, Small said the county would prefer to work with a professional manager rather than the tribal council and blame the tribes for hindering development near the airport.
“By dismissing the tribal council as the problem blocking economic development, Power County can make the case that any economic development by the airport won’t work. This is nonsense. Power County will do better for its own citizens by working with the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. There’s far more we can do together than by being