Forty-three Indian tribal leaders and officials of the Department of the Interior (DOI) and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) will meet November 19-21 in San Diego, California, to discuss the reorganization of the BIA.
The eighth meeting of the Joint Tribal/BIA/DOI Advisory Task Force for the Reorganization of the BIA will meet from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. each day at the Hyatt Islandia, 1441 Quivira Road. The Task Force will hear testimony from Indian tribal leaders and Indian organizations from California on their ideas as to how the BIA should be reorganized to better serve Indian tribes and individuals. The meeting is open to the general public.
Established for a two-year period last January by Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan, the Task Force is comprised of 36 Indian tribal leaders, two DOI officials and five BIA personnel. A status report on their reorganization efforts was submitted to Secretary Lujan and the U.S. Congress last April. The San Diego meeting will be the fourth since that report was submitted. The Task Force last met in Anchorage, Alaska, October 15-17.
Eddie F. Brown, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in Interior, is co-chair of the Task Force for the federal representatives, and Wendell Chino, President of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, is co-chair as the tribal leaders representative.
The names of Task Force members are enclosed as well as a briefing paper that summarizes the Task Force's action to date.
