John Crawford
President

While financially it was good year for SNA, it was somewhat frustrating from a land point of view.  We had hoped to report to the shareholders at the end of 2007 that we had received our 12(b) land entitlement of 65,909 acres after all of these years.  But unfortunately, the land battle still goes on more than 30 years after we should have received our land entitlement.  It is my number one priority, as President of SNA, to see us finally receive our full and complete land entitlement.  We are still dealing with some 12(a) land issues, which are left over from our original land selections and amount to less than 6,000 acres besides the 65,909 acres from 12(b).  After political and legal setbacks, the Bureau of Land Management has decided that we shall pick from Appendix “A” lands (not so good) instead of from Appendix “C” lands (quite good).  SNA and the other CIRI Village Corporations have exhausted all legal remedies to get the “good” land.  The BLM has conveyed to CIRI all of the land for the CIRI Village Corporations to finish their 12(a) and 12(b) land entitlements.  The catch is that the CIRI Village Corporations must now agree on a method to choose their lands. 

There have been many CIRI Village Corporation meetings during 2007 to work on the resolutions and agreements necessary to choose our lands cooperatively, in order to have CIRI issue the deeds.  This however, is a very complicated procedure and the roots of the problems go all the way back to the original land distributions of the Village Corporations.  I am proud to tell the SNA shareholders that the other Village Corporations have relied on SNA to be the guiding light and lead the way to develop a path towards agreement of the land distribution. Fred H. Elvsaas and I worked on the first land distribution  thirty-two years ago, and our knowledge of that procedure is really helping the CIRI Village Corporations find a way to agree on the distribution method. 

 

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