Norm DesRosiers, a Bush administration holdover, will leave the National Indian Gaming Commission on January 31, a prominent tribal gaming regulator said today. DesRosiers, who is non-Indian, joined the agency in January 2007. He was a tribal gaming commissioner for the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians of California. DesRosiers' departure leaves the NIGC with just two members. George Skibine, a member of the Osage Nation of Oklahoma who is a career bureaucrat at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, is serving as acting chair of the agency. President Barack Obama appointed Steffani Cochran, a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, to serve on the NIGC. The comment period on her position closed late last year and she was due to start work in 2010. Obama has yet to nominate a chairman for the NIGC. The announcement about DesRosiers was made today by Michael Lombardi, a gaming commissioner for the Augustine Band of Cahuilla Indians of California, during the Western Indian Gaming Conference in Palm Springs.
