Resources

Watch a recording of a presentation to the Native Partnership Council on March 30, 2022 by landscape architect David Malda of GGN.

David is responding to guidance from the Native Partnership Council – a group of Indigenous leaders who meet to guide the public conversation and set guiding principles for The Falls Initiative. He shares early sketches exploring how our relationship to the River and the Falls might evolve.

The Native Partnership Council is composed of members from bands of Dakota Lakota and Ojibwe nations, who bring both cultural and political leadership and perspective. All four Mni Sota Dakota Tribal leaders were invited to participate in the Council or to name a representative. Additional Council members were identified from the following categories: History Keepers, Spiritual Leadership, Artists, Environmental, Youth/Young Adult and Exiled Dakota Descendants. Members of the Council include:

• Shelley Buck, Vice-President, Prairie Island Indian Community
• Margo Gavle Prescott, Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community
• Jewell Arcoren, Dakota Lakota, enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate
• Janice Bad Moccasin, member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe
• Juanita Espinosa, enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Nation, Turtle Mountain and LCO Descendant
• Thorne LaPointe, Sicangu Lakota
• Wakinyan LaPointe, Sicangu Lakota
• Maggie Lorenz, Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe, descendant of Spirit Lake Dakota Nation
• Mona Smith, Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota

Meetings of the Native Partnership Council are facilitated by Carrie Day Aspinwall (Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, Minneapolis Urban Band Member).