Congratulations PERM 2023 Summer Legal Fund Raffle Winners!

I always enjoy talking with the winners I called about their good news. Only wish PERM could have a prize for every one of our supporters. There’s no question PERM has a very supportive membership.

Thanks to everyone who entered the raffle. We really count on your support and you came through. It’s the only way PERM can continue making your voice heard and stand up for all Minnesotans in these difficult times.

WE appreciate your continued support!

Doug,
Douglas Meyenburg,
President, PERM

(Follow the efforts you are supporting by returning to this website, perm.org. Also, follow us on Facebook — facebook.com/perm.org. Please “Like” and “Share” when you visit to really help us get the word out.)

List of Winners

#1 David O.*           Isle                        Browning BLR Lightweight Lever Action Rifle

#2 Ron […]

PERM is sharing this pre-release version the Mille Equal Rights Foundation analysis of the Mille Lacs reservation boundary ruling. It follows the PERM/MERF joint filing of an amicus brief for an appeal of the ruling.

MERF’s report below describes the run-up to the Court’s ruling and it’s impact on the civil rights of non-tribal citizens in the Mille Lacs County area. This case is also important as the Court’s final decision will set a precedent that could be used in similar cases across MN and the entire U.S.

PERM supports giving the report as much distribution as possible. Your donation will help awareness and support for a ruling that supports the civil rights of all citizens Please consider your support for the cause. DONATE to MERF HERE

— Mille Lacs […]

Allowing harvest of smaller fish offers more opportunity to keep a walleye

The minimum length of walleye Mille Lacs Lake anglers can keep drops from 21 to 20 inches beginning Tuesday, Aug. 1.

Mille Lacs’ one-fish limit will remain in place, but the change allows anglers to keep one walleye between 20-23 inches or one longer than 28. The previous limit was one walleye 21-23 inches or one longer than 28.

“With the catch rates we’ve had this spring and early summer, we can expand opportunity a bit for the rest of the open water season without harm to the long-term sustainability of the lake’s walleye population,” said Brian Nerbonne, central region fisheries manager for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

The recent lower catch rate of Mille Lacs walleye is less a reflection […]

There is a lot more to the story than what is reported below. Reasons for transferring this gem of Minnesota’s outdoor heritage are window dressing for the DNR bureaucracy’s dodging its responsibility to represent and serve ALL Minnesotans. See Rob Drieslein’s intro below.

UPPER SIOUX LAND
Outdoor Insights

By Rob Drieslein Outdoor News Minnesota July 14, 2023
https://npaper-wehaa.com/outdoornews#2023/07/s1

The public policy low point for this scribe in 2023 has been the ongoing transfer of the Upper Sioux Agency State Park to the Upper Sioux Community. By the time state residents became aware of this deal a few months ago, the matter already looked like a foregone conclusion. The few opportunities for public discourse or comment have been causal lip service, then the Walz administration and DFL Legislature slammed through a plan to simply turn over […]

Tribes being used to expand Federal jurisdiction over states

PERM and Mille Lacs Equal Rights Foundation have jointly filed an Amicus Brief on the Mille Lacs reservation boundary ruling. The Brief supports Mille Lacs County’s appeal of the Eighth Circuit court’s ruling that the entire long-disestablished 61,000-acre reservation still exists.

PERM early on committed to a well-argued Brief, counting on our members’ support. Now, thanks to your generous response, you have ensured that commitment.

The Amicus Brief is outstanding! Never before has the basis for “tribal sovereignty” been explored going back over 160 years.

From the beginning of the United States, the Federal government had to manage non-state territories and relations with Indian tribes throughout the country. In the run up to the Civil War and after, the issue of slavery divided the country. […]

Explanation reveals who the DNR really serves

A story in Mixed Bag, DNR announces temporary, seasonal fishing closures, Outdoor News Minnesota, May 3, 2023 (below). The report exposes the DNR’s failure to serve all citizens of Minnesota.

The DNR tries to finesse an obvious contradiction in their report on what waters get closed to protect spawning fish or doesn’t get closed. They make a reference to “where…fish are concentrated in one location.” But their explanation doesn’t hold up.

When it comes to “concentration,” the tribes only gillnet where they know walleye spawning beds are located—and walleye are concentrated. At the same time, nothing concentrates spawning walleye more than miles of high-tech monofilament gillnets.

Principles of conservation only apply to non-tribal anglers—but not for the tribes. This is yet another example of the DNR’s flimsy […]

A recent New York Times article reported on a tribal blockade of roads in Wisconsin, Amid land dispute deadlock, tribe blocks streets. (They are not “streets.”) It gives non-tribal MN residents in the newly expanded ML reservation a real-time example of what private property landowners face if they are located within a reservation. The currently deadlocked dispute involves four backroads used by about 65 homeowners, many only seasonally.

Developers of land for private landowners around lakes within the reservation acquired right of way easements decades ago. The easements expired about 10 years ago. The tribe’s dispute is with the Town of Lac du Flambeau. The town’s territory overlaps with the tribe’s and whose workers have maintained those roads. The dispute includes the two title companies that insure the properties involved.

Tribal leaders […]

A court ruling announced January 12th, in a press release from Mille Lacs County Administrator Dillon Hayes, restores the Mille Lacs Band’s ownership of the long dis-established 1855 Mille Lacs Reservation. This includes civil and criminal authority over all persons in that territory.

As PERM has often pointed out, such jurisdiction covers all natural resources. That puts anything related to hunting, fishing, and gathering, entirely beyond the reach of the MN DNR. That includes any “co-management” or “negotiations.”

These and other points in the press release are facts of law. Tribal protestations minimizing the threats or fallout from the ruling would be only opinions.

Read more from the press release below.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 12, 2023

The County is disappointed by the Court’s ruling as it allows tribal police to investigate the activities of non-Indians […]