Nearly 1,700 General Tribal Council (GTC) members convened a special meeting on September 24 at the Radisson Hotel & Conference Center. The agenda was adopted as presented at 7:20 p.m., with one motion by GTC member Glen Schmoll to limit speakers to three minutes per topic and to end the meeting at 10:00 p.m. Schmoll’s motion carried by show of hands.
Agenda items for the meeting included a practice Mentimeter survey utilizing an online participatory survey app for all GTC members in attendance. Also on the agenda were 13 Oneida Nation area program presentations that explained their roles within the nation. Each presentation was approximately nine minutes in length. These presentations were followed up by another Mentimeter survey. The purpose of the Mentimeter survey was to allow the Oneida Business Committee (OBC) to gauge where the priorities of the GTC are with regards to area programs offered to the tribe. This new survey will collaborate with the Quality of Life surveys that were completed by Oneida Nation citizens earlier in 2018.
The Mentimeter survey results showed the leading GTC concern to be health care which came in at 24 percent. The Oneida Nation’s education and literacy programs came in second with 15 percent of the votes. The protection and preservation of Oneida culture and language as well as housing came in third at 14 percent.
“I want to thank you all for participating in this,” Oneida Nation Treasurer Trish King said. “With this guidance we’ll be able to set our priorities and align our strategies with these priorities. The budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 is almost complete and then this process will help us gear our three year strategies going into FYs 2020 and 2021.”
One person was escorted from the meeting for disrupting the proceedings.
Two items on the agenda, “Adopt a Proposed GTC Resolution Regarding Transparent and Participatory Budget Strategy as well as Capital Improvement Process for Information,” were not addressed due to the 10:00 p.m. time limit set by GTC for the meeting. The meeting adjourned at 9:57 p.m.
