Work will begin on establishing a shelter for Cherokee’s homeless following passage of a resolution Principal Chief Patrick Lambert introduced this month.

Since launching the U.S. Motto Action Committee, Rick Lanier has gotten his pitch to government leaders pretty well dialed in. After the group won a lawsuit in 2005 challenging Davidson County’s display of the national motto on its county building, Lanier’s helped convince 67 North Carolina counties and municipalities to display the words “In God We Trust” on their buildings.

The new management at Sequoyah National Golf Club in Cherokee had hoped to start turning a profit within a year of taking the helm in the fall of 2014 — and while the course is still operating at a loss, the light at the end of the tunnel is drawing near, manager Kenny Cashwell said.

Tony Lossiah was a good man, a quiet guy with a caring heart. He loved his family and worked hard on the job, say the friends and family still mourning his loss in the tightknit Cherokee community. 

Last week wasn’t the first time since the new tribal leadership took office that the issue of separation of powers has cropped up. During the December budget hearings, things got heated in council chambers when Chief Justice Bill Boyum came to discuss the budget for Tribal Court.

When the Cherokee Tribal Council voted to create the Office of Legislative Support last week, it was doing more than ramping up tribal staffing.

Defendants in a lawsuit stemming from raises and backpay the Cherokee Tribal Council voted itself in October 2014 are hoping to convince a judge to dismiss the case against them.

Just like Haywood County’s watershed, fed by springs that all have their start inside county borders, Cherokee mythology surrounding places in Haywood is all about beginnings.

“All of the Cherokee myths and legends here in Haywood County are about origins,” Barbara Duncan, education director of the Museum of the Cherokee Indian, told the crowd gathered at Haywood Waterways Association’s end-of-year banquet last week. “This is a fascinating parallel to me with the geography.”

Drug addiction is perhaps the biggest crisis on the Qualla Boundary, and it’s time that tribal government got serious about punishing traffickers, members of Cherokee Tribal Council agreed last week.

Just over a month after voting unanimously to study the pros and cons of legalizing marijuana on the Qualla Boundary, the Cherokee Tribal Council held a vote whose outcome was nearly a mirror image of the first. Last week, council voted 11-1 to uphold Principal Chief Patrick Lambert’s veto of the study, with Councilmember Travis Smith, of Birdtown, the sole nay vote.