American Indian Advisory Council delivers recommendations for action to Met Council

“We are very weary of land acknowledgments...We are interested in commitments – actions – things that actually do something…not empty words.” 

-Dr. Kate Beane, Flandreau Santee Sioux and Muscogee Creek 

The Metropolitan Council’s American Indian Advisory Council, a group of Indigenous culture carriers and systems changers in the seven-county metro region, delivered its recommendations for action to Met Council members in September.  

The recommendations cover organization-wide changes related to Tribal relations and specific policies and actions in the areas of parks and trails, water, environmental justice, transportation, and housing. The Advisory Council met monthly for eight months during which they learned about and discussed the Met Council’s authority, responsibilities, and areas of influence, and then developed the recommendations.  

Presenting the recommendations for the 11-member Advisory Council were Dr. Kate Beane and Franky Jackson. Dr. Beane is Flandreau Santee Sioux and Muscogee Creek, and Executive Director of the Minnesota Museum of Art. Jackson is the Tribal Historic Compliance Officer with the Prairie Island Indian Community.  

“In order to be advisory, we have to come in on a level playing field,” Dr. Beane said. “We have to be partners. [There are] lots of opportunities for us to work together in really great ways. [These recommendations] are intended to spur work that will take time to implement and should be reflected on and updated regularly. They should be living agreements.” 

The Met Council recruited the Advisory Council to assist in creating a land acknowledgment, but by mutual agreement the work quickly evolved into advising the Met Council as it drafted Imagine 2050, the next regional development guide. That, in turn, led to the series of Land, Water, and People Commitments the Advisory Council delivered in September.  

First recommendation: Strengthen the Met Council’s Tribal relations policy 

Central to the recommendations is one that the Met Council adopt an overarching Tribal relations policy that includes a recognition of history and impact. It calls for the Met Council to lead publicly in recognizing the genocide and displacement that American Indian communities survived and continue to endure. 

“We are in an era of necessary truth-telling about past actions, disparities, a region established on stolen land, to identify the damage of colonization,” said Robert Lilligren, currently the only American Indian member of the Met Council. “We need to reconcile the difficult fact that the life we enjoy today is based on really shameful acts of stealing land, forced assimilation, genocide, and forced removal from this land. 

“We can’t go back, we can’t change the past, but we can make the commitment to go forward in a better way,” he said. “And this American Indian Advisory Council is an example of how we, the Met Council, are attempting to go forward as a regional government.” 

As part of this recognition of history and impact, the Advisory Council is drafting a Land, Water, and Peoples Acknowledgment Statement for the Met Council to include in Imagine 2050. They will present the statement to the Met Council on October 16. 

Other elements of the recommended Tribal Relations policy include: 

• A commitment to staffing and resources to adequately partner with Tribes and American Indian communities. 

• A commitment to educating Met Council staff, local governments, and regional leaders about American Indian sovereignty, treaty history, how best to work with Tribes, and other crucial topics.   

• A current Tribal Consultation and American Indian Community Engagement policy. 

The organizational recommendations go well beyond this outline and include such things as increasing American Indian staff representation across all Met Council divisions; creating a reparative action fund to finance mitigation measures for known and acknowledged past harms; updating its real estate policy for the disposition of Met Council-owned land to prioritize partnership with and the needs of Tribal nations and American Indian communities; and more. 

Policy commitments to increase the well-being of American Indian communities 

The Advisory Council also presented 25 recommendations for policy commitments to support the well-being of American Indian communities in several key areas where the Met Council has either planning or operational responsibilities. A sampling of these recommendations includes: 

• The Met Council will develop a cultural landscape designation and related policies grounded in Tribal sovereignty and recognition of Dakota homelands and sacred sites in the regional parks and trails system. 

• The Met Council will advocate for a new political imagination of how water policy and standards are created and implemented that integrates a framework based on water as a relative. 

• In preparation for the opening of the Wakan Tipi Center in summer 2025, the Met Council will proactively work alongside Wakan Tipi Awanyankapi to prioritize innovative solutions to minimize the operational impact of the nearby wastewater receiving station and relocate it. 

• The Met Council will continue using public art and explore using American Indian languages to build a sense of place at new or remodeled transit stations. 

• The Met Council will update its Administrative Plan in preparation for opening the Housing Choice Voucher waiting list in 2025 to set aside a percentage of waiting list placements for households that identify as American Indian. 

• The Met Council will identify ways to increase investment in American Indian organizations and projects by reducing barriers to accessing grants and funding with a priority for American Indian organizations providing supportive services for residents or developing deeply affordable housing.  

Next steps for the Met Council 

The Advisory Council recommendations will be brought to each of the appropriate Met Council committees for discussion and decisions. Because accountability is a core Met Council value, after Imagine 2050 is adopted early in 2025, a slate of tools and measures will be developed to track success on the adopted policies and commitments. In addition, the Met Council will develop a work plan for continuing to work with the Advisory Council on an ongoing basis. 

Watch a video of the meeting where the recommendations were presented.