Lac du Flambeau tribal council votes to leave roads open

The tribal council for the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Chippewa Indians let a Jan. 16 deadline expire without barricading four roads  at the center of a dispute with the town of Lac du Flambeau that has gone on for nearly two years.

The roads, Annie Sunn Lane, Center Sugarbush Lane, East Ross Allen Lake Lane and Elsie Lake Lane, have expired easements of tribal land.

The four roads were first barricaded on Jan. 31, 2023. 

Nearly two years and several court cases later, most of them still pending, the impasse between the two sides remains. 

Tribal council president John Johnson, Sr., sent a letter to Lac du Flambeau town chairman Matt Gaulke in October of 2024, letting Gaulke know the town had until Jan. 16, 2025, to make current monthly permit payments the town had been paying to keep the roads open. 

The monthly payments were part of an agreement reached by the town and the tribal council in March, 2023 that resulted in the removal of the barricades. 

Not long after that, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against the town and the tribal council also made it known it was seeking nearly $10 million to resolve the issue.

During an August 2024 town board meeting, Gaulke announced that the town could no longer afford to make the monthly payments. 

On Sept. 26, 2024, Judge William Conley issued a preliminary injunction with an opinion and order in response to a motion that had been made by DOJ lawyers in the case; his order essentially prohibited the United States government or any agencies associated with the government from closing the four roads in Lac du Flambeau until the lawsuit the DOJ has against the town of Lac du Flambeau is decided.

While not telling the Lac du Flambeau band’s tribal council that it couldn’t barricade the four roads, Conley directed the United States government “to provide a copy of this order and the separate injunction order to the Tribe, as well as encourage the Tribe to eliminate any barriers or other restrictions impending Road access, and refrain from imposing any additional restrictions, on the Homeowners’ access to the Roads during the pendency of this litigation.”

As the Jan. 16 deadline approached and with materials for barricading the roads in place and ready to be put back up by tribal road department crews, the town board, after meeting in closed session on Monday, Jan. 13, directed its legal counsel to file in federal court an amended preliminary injunction jointly with landowners directly involved in the DOJ case against the town.

Conley ruled on that filing on Jan. 15. 

“It is ordered that the United States is not only preliminarily enjoined from using any means to restrict access to the four Roads at issue in this case during the pendency of this litigation, but shall take immediate action to prevent an effort by anyone to restrict access to these four Roads during the pendency of this lawsuit,” Conley stated in his Jan. 15 ruling. 

As he did in his original preliminary injunction on Sept. 26, Conley stopped short of directly prohibiting the tribe from barricading the roads again; instead, he ordered that the DOJ was to provide a copy of his amended injunction to the tribe “as well as encourage the Tribe to remove any barriers or other restrictions it has currently placed near those Roads, and refrain from imposing any additional restrictions, on the Town’s or Homeowner’ access to the Roads during the pendency of this litigation.”

Tribal response

The same day that Conley made his ruling on the amended preliminary injunction, the tribal council held a meeting, according to a press release issued the afternoon of Jan. 15.

During the meeting, the panel voted “that no physical road barricade will be implemented on January 16, 2025.”

“The Tribe remains committed to finding solutions with the Lac du Flambeau Town Board, despite their reluctance to meet with the tribe, to address this ongoing dispute over the unauthorized use of Annie Sun Lane, Center Sugarbush Lane, East Ross Allen Lake Lane, Elsie Lake Lane (the “Four Roads”). 

“I am disappointed in the Lac du Flambeau Town Board after they continuously run to the Federal Courts when we could have worked out a reasonable solution back in December,” Johnson said in the press release, adding the town has “refused to meet” with tribal officials to discuss what he referred to as the town’s “continued default” of the 2023 tribal resolution that established the permit fee policy.

There was a time during 2023 and into 2024 that Gaulke said during town board meetings as well as to The Lakeland Times he’d received no response from the tribe when he’d sought a meeting with the tribal council; the two governing bodies did meet initially to get to the agreement that resulted in the barricades being lifted in the spring of 2023. 

In an early January letter to the tribal council, Gaulke said the town board had been advised by legal counsel not to meet with the tribal council because of the ongoing litigation.

Johnson further stated in the press release the tribal council’s priority is “the well-being and safety of everyone in our community.”

“(The) Tribal Council’s decision was rooted in upholding the dignity of our Tribal Members, and upholding our rights as a sovereign nation to protect our treaty-defined homeland,” Johnson said. 

On Friday, Gaulke told the Times he had no further comment on the matter “at this time.”

Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].