By ROBERT JUMPER
Community members were confused. The tribe (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians) announced that a pedestrian bridge was being installed in the area that many call the downtown business “horseshoe” in Cherokee, N.C. The bridge, proposed to cross the Oconaluftee River beside some quasi-functional water features, became an object of speculation. Since there was no sidewalk, greenway, or public building on the “other side” of the river, people were left wondering why a bridge to nowhere was being constructed.
In February 2022, then-Cherokee One Feather reporter Jonah Lossiah wrote an article titled, “The Bridge over the River, Why?”, using a play on words from a 1950s novel and movie titled “The Bridge over the River Kwai”. Unlike the bridge in the Academy Award-winning movie, the bridge over the Oconaluftee River didn’t seem to have a purpose. After all, you build bridges to facilitate getting to a destination, right?
As we found out in Jonah’s report, there was indeed a purpose for our bridge as well. It had very little to do with facilitating access to “the other side”, at least not for pedestrian foot traffic. The objective, we learned, was to address a worn-out and undersized sewage line that crossed the river under a log suspension bridge. The higher capacity pipeline and bridge will serve the community into the future. It is apparently common for city planners to use bridges to conceal infrastructure like water and sewer lines. Mounted to this high, 45-ton metal bridge, the sewer line is out of the floodway and less likely to be damaged.
Thanks to Jonah and the leadership at EBCI (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians) Water and Sewer, a very puzzling situation was easily explained to the community. While the bridge is fast becoming an attraction enjoyed by visitors to the business horseshoe area, not many were made aware of the real benefit to the community, the repair, and the safeguarding of an essential tribal service. Sometimes, it is not about the bridge.
We, as a tribe, and as a government, are not the best at explaining ourselves. It has been suggested that, since knowledge is power, many of us don’t want to give up the power we have or think we have. It isn’t just us; many municipalities have a difficult time coordinating the release of information. For them, some of it is a broken or non-existent public information/communications office.
To the tribal government’s credit, the Office of the Ugvwiyuhi (Principal Chief) is making strides toward a more organized public information system, and the Dinilawigi (Tribal Council) has its own public relations person. But with an operational scope of 100 programs and maybe as many partnerships, organizational entities, and cooperative agreements, the effect of public information release efforts isn’t near its full potential. Add to that the need, real or perceived, to keep information releases on a “need to know” basis, and a public records law that tightly regulates what is in the public domain (considerably more restrictive than similar government systems). It is no wonder that information flows to the community and the public is sometimes slow to no-go.
Confidentiality is a needed tool of our tribe to protect tribal members and employees from having their personal information in public view and to protect the tribe from liability. It is also necessary to secure, as best as possible, the economic health of our community. The media and the community must ask how much protection is too much protection.
As tribal members, we share ownership of every asset of our tribe. I have heard officials say that we should be grateful for various services that we enjoy, and indeed we should. But I sometimes wonder if those officials remember that, along with them, we own those services. When someone tries to convince you that you are receiving a particular tribal service, say a home, for example, because of the goodness of government, do they realize that that service exists because of the assets that you and every tribal member own fund for that service? Call us shareholders or stakeholders or whatever you want, but the truth of it is that every one of the 16,000 plus members of our tribe has a vested interest in the decisions that are being made on our behalf in partnerships with companies and governments.
Ugvwiyuhi Hicks has triggered what may be a significant step forward in the ability of the masses to get critical information that has previously either been suppressed or hidden altogether. His push to initiate tribal portals to allow tribal member access to information can be a step in the right direction. These portals, used for the right purpose of educating both the citizenry of critical information and educating the government on the will of the people, will move our tribe forward in ways yet to be envisioned. Our Ugvwiyuhi, Taline Ugvwiyu (Vice Chief), and Dinilawigi should be applauded for at least making that effort.
The more we know, the less speculation and assumption will take place. Speculation breeds fear and fear fuels bad decisions. The Office of Information Technology has a big job ahead because each of the 16,000 plus members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians must have easy and equal access to these portals. From the youngster to the elder, to the computer literate to the novice, every man, woman, and child who is a tribal member should have equal opportunity. At the same time, information that must be safeguarded from others must be clearly spelled out. It will not do to tell all our tribal members that everything uploaded to the tribal portals is for “their eyes only” unless they may be educated on the legitimacy of that need. Public relations pieces need to be distributed with details on the progress, where access points will be, and step-by-step guides to access and use. And all done in a way that will be understandable to the most and the least learned.
The bridge over the river was a harmless misstep in communication that was readily corrected with a little follow-up to grab and distribute information. We reacted to tribal comments about the confusion over the bridge and were able to inform the public about a very good thing that a tribal program was and is doing for our people. The upgrade of that sewer line at the bridge has led to the water and sewer overhaul occurring from downtown Cherokee to Big Cove. These installations will help our community into the future as the tribe eyes continued business and residential growth.
I have long advocated for a public information officer network within the tribe to parse information to the public and media. The government may have come up with a viable supplement and stop-gap measure with the new tribal portals. The more information we as a community are afforded, the more we can support the efforts of our public servants. The more information we all have will allow us to be less reactive and more proactive in all of our dealings, doing less following and more leading.
