Brandon Ecoffey
A Note from the editor’s desk
By Brandon Ecoffey
LCT Editor For as long as I can remember mass economic development on the Pine Ridge Reservation has been idle. Today, I am just over 30 years old and the most significant economic development that has taken place here is in the private sector as entrepreneurs like my father, who started a Subway in Pine Ridge, Sam O’Rourke, who also runs a Subway in Martin and the founder of Badlands Enterprises, and the ever consistent Bat and Patti Pourier, have done well filling the needs of the reservation’s population. In recent years and months individual districts are now taking their economic futures in to their own hands by branching out in to fields that are highly political but at the same time likely to be very profitable. Recent undertakings by the Wounded Knee district board to look in to Zeolite mining and legalizing marijuana, although highly controversial, have started a much needed conversation on thinking outside of the box when it comes to seizing a community’s economic destiny.
The Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation serves as the lead agency for the Promise Zone initiative on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Photo from Twitter
Thunder Valley CDC has taken it upon itself to create a community that is environmentally sustainable and economically viable without the help of tribal government. What is being created there is beautiful and potentially a blue print for others to follow but it is still but a drop in the bucket. One thing that is for certain is that my generation and the young people growing up now are tired of living in poverty, joblessness, and struggle. Social media has become a sounding board for fed up youth who want to see opportunities come there way but in actuality almost every attempt at economic development (no matter if you agreed with it or not) has been stamped out by those who have challenged the ethics of these endeavors. I still cannot understand how a referendum vote could be held across the reservation on the legalization of alcohol and then the results be simply ignored by tribal government. Even if you are against the alcohol and the initiative to legalize the sale and possession of it, the move by the tribe established a dangerous precedent. So the question that arises is: What do we do now? Those who are opposed to natural resource extraction have many valid points and have no problem voicing them but if not Zeolite mining, what alternative do they have in mind? Those who protested the legalization vote on alcohol also have solid points, but are there suggestions as to how we can fund treatment centers for those who are addicted or pay for much needed highway safety officers? So many of tribal council have taken a stand against legalizing marijuana on the reservation despite knowing full well that within the next five to ten years it will be legal in all fifty states and it may be decades until we can capitalize economically on our status as nation-states in this manor. Wouldn’t it feel good to stick it to the state at least once? While many continue to think of innovative and profitable ideas to create jobs on the reservation and others continue to shut them down our children are being forced to live life in ways that they were never intended to. They will continue to live this way until a real economy is built. Brandon Ecoffey is the editor of Lakota Country Times and an award winning journalist who was born and raised on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Find the award-winning Lakota Country Times on the Internet, Facebook and Twitter.
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