A federal appeals panel is expected to announce a decision Friday in a tribal leadership dispute that has complicated efforts to relocate a badly eroded village in western Alaska.
The Interior Board of Indian Appeals stepped in to review a 2013 ruling by the Bureau of Indian Affairs that said the sitting tribal council no longer represented the Yup'ik Eskimo community of Newtok for bureau funding purposes. The old council appealed the decision, which gave local power to a new group claiming it was the rightfully elected council.
The community of about 380 is one of Alaska's most eroded coastal villages and the only one that has begun a physical move to higher ground 9 miles away. The power dispute has stalled millions of dollars in government funds for Newtok's relocation effort.
Government officials have estimated the flood-prone village, 480 miles west of Anchorage, has until the end of the decade before erosion causes severe damage.
The dispute doesn't mean the village is giving up on the relocation effort. Alaska officials said state funds also are halted, but only while the new council figures out the best way to use the funds they have remaining to complete an evacuation center at the new site.
In its ruling, the BIA said required elections were purportedly not held for more than seven years, so the old council had been operated on expired terms. The old council denies the allegations.
The new council members were first elected in October 2012. The following month, members of the old council held another election.
The resulting dispute reached a boiling point the following year when the new council got more votes during a community meeting attended by both sides.
That victory carried significant weight in the BIA's rare intervention. The agency's decision applied to such purposes is bureau funding.
The state ultimately also recognized the new council.