"The Saginaw-Chippewa Indian Tribe won a victory last month in an ongoing lawsuit over the boundaries of Indian land in Isabella County. The suit has yet to go to trial, but it’s been in court for years.

Should the tribe win, it would exert tribal sovereignty throughout five townships, and half the city of Mt. Pleasant.

Just what that would mean is still not clear to Mt. Pleasant’s Mayor, Jim Holton. “Well the city has several concerns, obviously, with this. And it’s still a lot of theory. It’s still a lot of ’What if’s.’”

Some of Holton’s big “What if’s” include questions of zoning, law enforcement, and taxation. “Who to tax, how can we tax. Can we collect on tax? It’s obviously vital to our survival as a city, with infrastructure, roads and all those things.”

Saginaw-Chippewa leaders do not want to comment on ongoing litigation. But Matthew Fletcher says – as he understands it – those last two are also some of the tribe’s biggest concerns: taxation and law enforcement. Fletcher runs the Indigenous Law Center at Michigan State University."

Get the Story:
Michigan Tribe Disputes Land Boundaries (Interlochen Public Radio 6/4)

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