Author: Paul Graif

There does not appear to be intelligent life on Kahnawake. A second Kahnawake has been discovered. The sister community is approximately 140 million miles away.  A crater on the planet Mars is now named Kahnawake. The International Astronomical Union confirms to K1037 News that crater: “16276” on the Red Planet was given the name Kahnawake on March 25^th of this year.

The planting of 74 trees at the site of the new Kahnawà:ke Cultural Arts Center site is taking place today with students from Kahnawà:ke Survival School. An Arborist is on hand to help and teach the students the proper way to transplant the trees and care for them afterward. Trina C. Diabo is part of the Building’s Project Team and is on site today helping to transplant the trees. This is in response to the apparent clear cutting at the site this spring. “There was a lot of shock and I think a lot of us felt it,” Diabo said. “Right now we’re looking at this positively. We see the collaboration between the school, the students and the future project. Many collaborations, we’re hopeful. At the end of the day when the construction is complete and the landscaping complete, it’s going to be beautiful,. full of trees, so, I think we are all hopefully excited.”

Don’t look directly at the sun or the eclipse today. That is the advice from Dr. Allan Spector, the optometrist who holds clinics twice a week at the Old Malone Medical Center in Kahnawake.

“My advice is stay home. Watch it on television. Don’t go outside even though there’s eclipse glasses. Many of your children, if they are going to look at the eclipse, will inadvertently look at the sun and that’s where there could be solar retinal damage. So, you have to be very, very careful out there on this day,” Spector told K1037 News. “It’s a very momentous day, yes, and very exciting for many people around on the East Coast, but I would be very cautionary. I would be very careful not to look directly at the sun. Stay indoors. that’s my advice to my patients.”

As for the certified eclipse glasses, Dr. Spector says those aren’t a guarantee against eye damage.

“The certified glasses, they say, are good, but you never really know,” Spector said. “To me it’s not worth the risk. It’s not something that we’ve all been exposed to as Doctors. But, it’s the unknown that I’m scared of for my patients and for the public.”

The Waste Management Department has a slightly altered schedule during the long holiday weekend. There will be no cardboard drop off Friday and Monday. As well, recycling and compost will be suspended on Friday and the Transfer Depot will be closed. The Transfer Depot will open on Saturday for regular hours, and then again Monday from 9am to 2 pm. Recycling will resume Monday. Garbage pick-up is not affected.

The 14 day feedback period concerning the 14 people or groups who applied for a Cannabis license in Kahnawake, is coming up on Tuesday, April 2^nd.

During the feedback period, Kanien’kehá:ka of Kahnawà:ke or Approved Kahnawà:ke Residents may
make written submissions to the Cannabis Control Board (KCCB) raising any questions or concerns about the eligible
applications/applicants.
Written submissions can be emailed to the KCCB: Cannabis.board@mck.ca.

“We’re asking for feedback from the community members. There’s a listing of all the applicants and we just wanted to make the community aware that all of the individuals are not being issued a permit. It’s the pre-eligibility requirement. They’ve been accepted but it’s just pre-eligibility,” Chair of the KCCB Tara Jacobs told K1037 News.

After that the KCCB will conduct its due diligence on the applicants. Then, three licences for the remaining applicants will be awarded through some sort of live lottery. Jacobs says that even though there is no firm deadline, the licenses will likely be awarded within the next year.

The Kateri Memorial Hospital is re-opening its X-Ray services next month on a limited basis. A Medical Imaging Technologist will be on hand for appointments on: Thursday, April 4th from 8am to 12 noon. The service will operate again the next day from 8am until 1pm, with other dates to be announced as they are confirmed. You can consult the KMHC website: at www.kmhc.ca for details.

The Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke (MCK) says that, effective immediately, it has terminated its Royalty Agreement with Magic Palace for Electronic Gaming Devices (EGDs). The Royalty Agreement was required as a condition to ensure there was a community benefit. The loss of the EGD royalties will cost Kahnawake upwards of $5 million dollars in lost revenue according to Ohén:ton Í:iente ne Ratitsénhaienhs Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer:

“We kind of knew, in terms of our location, that it’s successful and the fact that we had 2 of them operating and looking at the potential of in the future potentially other permits, we had given direction for the KGC to explore the potential of others. Of course, it went beyond what we had expected in terms of projections in the early stages.”

Following a review of publicly available Court records that revealed that Magic Palace and the adjoining Mirela’s Restaurant were allegedly being used to commit money laundering and other crimes. The KGC commissioned an independent U.S. consulting group with a specialization in gaming audits and investigations to conduct an investigation. Ratitsénhaienhs Cody Diabo:

“KGC will have all the information; it does have to do with anti-money-laundering, regulations, like beefing up what is already there. It would be, how do we enhance those to make sure that nothing gets past at this moment. With any developing industries, or whatnot, you put in what you feel at the time, obviously as time goes on, you maybe notice where there’s lacking in certain things, so how we improve those going forward as a credible jurisdiction as well. Those are things that as we go forward, the community is going to be updated on, like anything through the CDRMP, regulations are posted, sometimes there’s feedback warranted or needed or input that’s needed, so, all that stuff, as we progress through this situation, is definitely going to be communicated to the community.”

The results of the investigation revealed that there was an undisclosed beneficial owner of Magic Palace, who is a non-Kahnawa’kehró:non, who exercised significant degrees of control over the establishment and received the majority of the benefits. This breached the terms of the Royalty Agreement that was entered into by Magic Palace and the MCK. The KGC has since suspended the Operator’s License for Magic Palace as a result of the findings in the investigation. K1037 News has sent requests to Gaming Commission Chair Frank Phillips for an interview and has agreed to come on air during the Tetawathartha, “Party-Line” talk show, this coming Thursday.