By Mary Beth Frank Clark

The Intertribal Transportation Association (ITA) began in 1993 as a non-profit organization for Tribes and/or other partners that focus on Tribal Transportation issues. The vision of ITA is to bring together Tribes to discuss and bring a “collective voice” regarding tribal transportation concerns and issues forward to Congress and/or federal partners. It was acknowledged that some concerns may be controversial between tribes; so in the early stages of developing ITA, it was agreed that ITA recognizes each tribal position and agreed to disagree on particular issues. If an area of discussion cannot be filtered down into an agreed upon recommendation to move forward, then ITA will concede and not move forward.

ITA has been very instrumental in many tribal transportation changes. In its early years, there were approximately 250-300 participants at an annual ITA meeting with approximately 85% of Tribal Nations represented. Throughout the past 27 years, this participation has dwindled due to multiple reasons. The most prominent reason being ITA did not change throughout time and needed to refresh its commitment and delivery model to provide the best information to its membership.

In December 2020 during the Annual Meeting, membership tribes discussed the direction of ITA and when this meeting concluded, there was re-commitment from membership tribes and a work-plan to complete for the year. This work-plan included items such as: Increase Membership, Update Social Media platforms, Strategic Plan, Record Management, and Reauthorization of the Transportation Bill.

The 2020 Executive Board includes: Mary Beth Frank Clark, President marybethf@nezperce.org; Vacant, Vice President; Jonah Begay, Secretary jbegay@navajodot.org; and Sara Yockey, Treasurer sara@kasanna.org. At the next Annual meeting in December, the Vice President and Secretary positions are up for election.

Mary Beth Clark, Testifying at T&I Committee, DC February 2020

A mid-year meeting was set for June and an Annual meeting was set for October; however, both were cancelled due to COVID and travel restrictions of tribal governments. Implementing the ITA Work-Plan has been challenging but ITA continues to move forward by having monthly Conference calls to discuss business. There will be a “virtual” ITA Annual meeting on December 8-10, 2020.

ITA also is a Co-Chair of the Transportation Task Force for the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). This Task-Force serves as a tool for Tribes to be involved with transportation related discussion and concerns that a tribe may feel they should discuss in more detail with their respective legislators.

In summary, the Intertribal Transportation Association can be an asset to Tribes and friends of tribes such as local municipalities, organizations, and/or private firms. The membership form can be located on the ITA website at www.tribaltransportation.org. If you would like more information or have questions/comments, please contact one of the Executive Board members; they would be happy to talk with you.