Displaying items tagged: Bay Mills Indian Community

People in the News: A roundup of new hires, promotions and awards in West Michigan.

A little more than a year after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered Enbridge to shut down the Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac, the state retreated on its key lawsuit seeking to close the twin pipelines.

WASHINGTON — Former Bay Mills Indian Community Chairperson Bryan Newland told a Senate committee how his firsthand experience growing up on a reservation in Michigan’s eastern Upper Peninsula would shape his perspective if confirmed to lead the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Biden administration on Thursday nominated former Bay Mills Indian Community Chairperson Bryan Newland to the top leadership position for the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. 

DOWAGIAC — Seven Generations Group, a professional services portfolio of companies, is rebranding and has also managed to grow its portfolio with the formation of Blue Star Integrative Studio, a full-service architecture firm based in Tulsa, Okla., and the spin off of Kalamazoo-based Steelhead Engineering Co. 

Since the Bay Mills Indian Community announced plans in August to launch a vertically integrated cannabis business, accusations about the state’s unwillingness to work with the tribe and the state’s own relative silence highlight what tribal experts say is a complicated web of state regulation and tribal sovereignty.

BRIMLEY — The Bay Mills Indian Community views the marijuana industry as a key way for the tribe to diversify its economy, which has been devastated by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

LANSING — Four Michigan tribes have been granted permission to participate in a regulatory case involving plans to tunnel the Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac, giving three of them an opportunity to formally assert their treaty rights this way for the first time.

More than four months into the COVID-19 pandemic, Michigan’s 12 federally recognized tribes have fared better from a health care perspective than many other Native American tribes nationally.

An oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac would not only be an environmental disaster, but also it would threaten the economic livelihoods of tribes who fish the area while devastating a vital cultural site.

A settlement fund created from a landmark 2010 class action lawsuit is providing tens of millions of dollars to help tribes bolster agricultural companies, including access to critical lending needed to jumpstart operations.

NEW BUFFALO — Sports betting is now live at the three Four Winds Casinos in Southwest Michigan.

Here is the MiBiz growth report for July 5, 2020.

MANISTEE — The Little River Casino Resort has partnered with a Chicago-based online gaming operator to run a sportsbook inside the Northern Michigan casino. 

KALAMAZOO — Even as construction and development projects came to a halt for several weeks as states and the nation reacted to the spread of COVID-19, Seven Generations Architecture & Engineering LLC has remained busy. 

Michigan’s 12 federally recognized Native American tribes have been awarded $4.5 million in block grants for affordable housing activities to protect the health and safety of their tribal citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

BRIMLEY — A division of the Bay Mills Indian Community, based in the eastern Upper Peninsula, has signed an agreement to acquire Four Season’s Market Inc., a grocery store in Brimley, Mich.