UKB Council June regular meeting Recap
By Staff Reports
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — The U.S. Department of the Interior has permanently withdrawn a 2025 Solicitor’s opinion that recognized reservation and gaming rights for the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma (UKB), a reversal Chief Jeff Wacoche told the Tribal Council at its regular monthly meeting June 6 does not erase the band’s treaty-based rights.
According to a withdrawal memorandum designated M-37089 and signed May 22, 2026, by Solicitor William L. Doffermyre, the department withdrew Solicitor’s Opinion M-37084 in its entirety. The withdrawal runs one page. The opinion it reversed runs 56 pages.
M-37084, issued Jan. 17, 2025, by former Solicitor Robert Anderson, had concluded that the Cherokee Nation reservation is also the band’s reservation for federal land-into-trust purposes, that UKB holds exclusive jurisdiction over lands taken into trust for it on that reservation, and that those lands are eligible for gaming under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
In his address to the council, Wacoche called the withdrawal a political act rather than legal reasoning. He said its rationale amounts to a single sentence: that the conclusions in M-37084 do not represent the best interpretation of applicable laws, treaties and federal and Supreme Court case law. Wacoche put the citation count in the withdrawn opinion at more than 400.
Wacoche told the council the withdrawal was the Solicitor’s last public action before he left Interior.
The opinion did not create the band’s rights and its withdrawal does not erase them, Wacoche said. He accused the Cherokee Nation of using its size and influence to pressure tribal governments, non-tribal governments and the federal government, and said the reversal harms UKB Members who live within the shared reservation.
Wacoche said the band has a gaming trust-land application pending before the Department of the Interior and that the record supporting M-37084 was to be the basis for that decision, subject to final review by the federal courts. Trust land approved for gaming would fund tribal jobs and the services the band provides its Members.
The withdrawal memorandum directs all relevant Interior bureaus and offices to treat the reversal of M-37084 as binding and authoritative.
Council actions
Coming out of executive session, the council approved four measures, each on a motion that carried. By the executive-session roll, absent were Goingsnake representative Willie Christie, Tahlequah representative Sammy Allen, Second Chief Amos Ketcher and Treasurer Sonja Gourd. The Canadian seat is vacant.
The council directed the UKB Corporate Board to advance funding for the 2026 Summer Youth Program and to transfer program funds to the UKB Museum upon receipt. It approved a Corporate Board resolution to resubmit a grant application for the Garrett Lee Smith Tribal Suicide Prevention Program. It authorized a UKB subsidiary to apply for, and if awarded accept, the Indian Health Service Small Ambulatory Program Grant. And it approved submitting an application for the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
In announcements, the council said a UKB Free Dump Day is set for June 13 at the Tahlequah City Solid Waste Center, with a tribal card required to dump, and that a Horseshoe recycling collection for plastic, aluminum and cardboard is set for June 27, with the time and location to be determined.
Member access at the Council table
Earlier in the meeting, Sequoyah district representative Donald Adair read complaints from Members at the table. The complaints described UKB officers and directors who do not return phone calls and raised questions about the Secretary’s travel, including who approves it, what it costs and what it has produced for the tribe.
Wacoche, who presides over Council meetings, ended Adair’s report and moved the meeting forward. “We get your point,” Wacoche said.
“Do you have any more complaints to read?” He then said, “Okay, thank you, sir. And with that, we’re gonna move on.” Wacoche directed Members to the UKB Facebook page, a Council text thread and email summaries from the Attorney General for travel information. “You just gotta read your emails, sir,” he said. He did not provide travel costs or approval details at the meeting.
Secretary Caleb Grimmett-Smith did not address the concerns at the meeting.
Under the band’s By-Laws, Article I, Section 1, the Chief presides over Council meetings. Under Article V, Section 1 of the Constitution, the Council is the supreme governing body of the band, made up of nine members elected from the nine districts of the Old Cherokee Nation and four officers elected at large.
The questions Adair raised about the travel were not answered at the meeting.
