UPPER SIOUX COMMUNITY -- The Upper Sioux Community near Granite Falls is one big step closer to realizing its goal of offering medical clinic services on the reservation, as well as consolidating administrative and other services in a single community building.
The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community has awarded a $1 million grant to the Upper Sioux Community to help achieve the goal, according to a news release issued Tuesday by the Upper Sioux Community.
The funding will be used to construct a new building to consolidate tribal operations and staff that are now located in six different facilities. The grant monies will be combined with an Indian Community Development Block Grant from the United States Housing and Urban Development Department for the project, to include a medical clinic.
Four of the existing buildings now holding the operations are "inefficient, deteriorating and causing health concerns,'' Chairman Kevin Jensvold of the Upper Sioux Community wrote in a letter to the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Business Council. "The high cost of maintaining these inefficient buildings would only have increased due to the continued deterioration of these outdated buildings. It is time that we have one central building to house all administrative staff that is energy-saving and cost-effective."
