RE: Response to “Open bidding best,” Nov. 6, Phoenix editorial: I welcome the Phoenix’s interest in Cherokee Nation’s Indian preference law for contracting and employment, known as TERO.

However, after reading the Phoenix’ recent editorial on the subject, I wonder whether the Phoenix fully appreciates the values underlying TERO.

The Phoenix, in opposing a TERO-related measure that would limit sub-contracting on one particular construction job to TERO certified (i.e., majority Indian-owned) contractors, suggests that Indian preference is at odds with “fair and open competition,” and is detrimental to Cherokee Nation.

Carried to its logical conclusion, this would mean that Cherokee Nation should dismantle TERO all together in favor of contracting without regard to whether the contractor is Indian owned.

Certainly, if open competition was the only interest at stake here, few could disagree with the Phoenix. It is not.

Paying the lowest dollar for construction work is, in my view, subordinate to our interest in seizing the opportunity created by the boom in construction across Cherokee Nation in order to empower a generation of Cherokee entrepreneurs and workers to earn a decent living, and in turn empower generations to come.

Indian preference in contracting is an investment in our people that is of immeasurable value.

As to the Phoenix’ suggestion that such a preference is a slight to Oklahoma and non-Indians who spend money in Cherokee casinos, I suggest that the Phoenix take stock of the millions of dollars Cherokee Nation invests annually in the larger community and its status as perhaps the most powerful engine for economic development in northeast Oklahoma.

TERO, on the books for decades, has done nothing to deny the state and its citizens the fruit of Cherokee Nation’s “bounty.”

The particular measure that troubled the Phoenix concerned a single job site, but reflects a growing sense on the council that we are not doing enough to give qualified Indian contractors a chance to perform construction work. Efforts to reform TERO are under way.

As the Phoenix covers this issue going forward, I hope that it will take a more expansive view of the values on which TERO is based.

Chuck Hoskin, Jr., member of the Council of the Cherokee Nation, Dist. 9,

Vinita