Copyright © 2002 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

I am dismayed with the Oct.4 news story "Yosemite Official Rejects New Post in Smokies Park; Land Swap, Road Plans Protested," which discusses the Eastern Band of Cherokee's proposed land exchange with the National Park Service. Without giving anyone from the Eastern Band of Cherokee the opportunity to comment, the article portrays in a negative light our efforts to reclaim Cherokee ancestral lands for a school for our children.

The Eastern Cherokee Reservation in western North Carolina is facing an educational crisis. Our elementary school was built almost 40 years ago by the Interior Department and was designed for 480 students. Currently, more than 700 students are housed in a dilapidated building and in temporary trailer units at a busy intersection in downtown Cherokee. The tribe seeks to build a new three-school complex as an educational village where Cherokee language and culture can be taught and preserved for future generations. The mountainous terrain severely limits the available flatlands for the community to build such schools. Additionally, the land the tribe seeks in the exchange, the Ravensford tract, separates the Big Cove community from the rest of the reservation. The tribe seeks the land to preserve the political and territorial integrity of the community.

The proposed exchange would provide a net benefit to the National Park Service and the American public. The Ravensford tract was appraised at $558,400 (before the tribe agreed to reduce its request from 168 acres to 144 acres, which The Post failed to report). The land the Park Service would receive in the exchange, the 218-acre Yellow Face site, was appraised at $590,000. There are no federally listed endangered species on the Ravensford site; the Yellow Face site has two federal endangered species, including an endangered mammal, the Carolina northern flying squirrel. The exchange will add approximately seven acres of wetlands to Park Service protection and prevent the view from the Blue Ridge Parkway from being marred by housing development.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee has been working in good faith with the National Park Service and members of Congress to design an exchange that will mutually benefit the Park Service, the environment, the American public and the Cherokee people.

LEON D. JONES

Principal Chief

Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians

Cherokee, N.C.