Due to decreased casino profits related to the pandemic, December per capita payments to members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians will be only about two-thirds the size of last year’s distribution — but that number is better than expected.

Two years into construction of a $250 million expansion at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort, the Tribal Casino Gaming Enterprise approached Tribal Council Oct. 26 requesting permission to borrow an additional $50 million for the project — and council members were not pleased. 

With the economic powerhouse that is Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort surfacing as one of the pandemic era’s most-impacted local businesses, it stands to reason that the future of Cherokee’s business community would be among the region’s most uncertain. 

Many tribal offices are closed or operating at reduced levels this week following what Principal Chief Richard Sneed called an “exponential increase” in COVID-19 cases among tribal members. 

During its Sept. 3 meeting, Tribal Council voted unanimously to approve a slate of changes to its election ordinance ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline enshrined in Cherokee law. 

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is asking the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs to give it a new agency superintendent following a unanimous vote from Tribal Council Sept. 3. 

In a narrow vote Sept. 3, the Cherokee Tribal Council approved a Fiscal Year 2021 budget that reflects the economic uncertainty caused by COVID-19. 

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has announced its intention to develop a 200-acre mixed-use development envisioned as an “experiential destination” on property it purchased last year along Interstate 40 in Sevier County, Tennessee.

The Cherokee Tribal Council is likely to vote this week on proposed changes to several sections of the tribe’s election ordinance. 

In 1930, a young man named Henry Owl traveled to the Ravensford election precinct in Swain County to register to vote. 

Owl was a U.S. Army Veteran, and a college graduate. He held a master’s degree, in fact, having finished the UNC Chapel Hill graduate program in history the previous year. At Lenoir College, where he began his undergraduate studies in 1925, he was elected “Most Popular Boy” and competed as a star athlete in football and baseball, earning posthumous induction to the Lenoir-Rhyne Sports Hall of Fame in 2012.