Katlin Roberts was making coronavirus contingency plans before most people in the United States had even really heard of COVID-19. By February, she’d grown concerned enough to walk into her principal’s office and ask what would happen if the disease spread to Cherokee. They’d take precautions, she was told, but certainly wouldn’t send students home. 

A Jackson County man who pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $95,000 from an enterprise of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians will spend 18 months in prison and pay nearly $200,000 in restitution, according to a sentence U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger handed down Feb. 18. 

Following an 80-minute closed session discussion, Tribal Council voted 9-3 last week to override Principal Chief Richard Sneed’s veto of an ordinance the body passed Jan. 14 changing how contracts for Legislative Branch functions are executed. 

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is moving toward construction of an indoor baseball and softball facility following a Feb. 4 vote from Tribal Council. 

The sky shone an unbroken blue and afternoon sunshine cast sparkles on the lazy Pigeon River as a group of volunteers gathered in the mud-caked parking lot of Rivers Edge Park in Clyde Jan. 29. 

“This is a marathon, not a sprint,” said Adam Griffith, director of the Revitalization of Traditional Cherokee Artisan Resources Program at the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, holding a piece of dried river cane in his hand. 

More than three years after the cold February day when 26 FBI agents descended on the Qualla Housing Authority building in Cherokee, the U.S. Department of Justice informed the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians that its investigation yielded “no prosecutable cases,” and that the tribe can have the seized files back.

A $250 million deal between the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Caesars Entertainment will go forward after Tribal Council voted Jan. 14 to deny a protest challenging the deal’s legality. 

A trio of resolutions seeking to put three alcohol-related referendum questions before Cherokee voters this year was withdrawn in Tribal Council Jan. 14 but will likely reappear on the agenda this spring. 

Two years after tribal members voted down a similar referendum, the Tribal Alcohol Beverage Control Commission is seeking to place a trio of questions aimed at legalizing off-casino alcohol sales on an upcoming ballot.

A group of 14 tribal members that includes two sitting Tribal Council members and a former principal chief has entered a resolution aiming to reverse a Dec. 17 vote to purchase the gaming operation at Caesars Southern Indiana Casino for $250 million.