July 14, 2015 –
(MAYETTA) Steve Duryea, Tribal Land Planner, announced that as of July 8 the Prairie Band had completed sales of $4,966,327 for 3,161 equivalent acres in undivided interests through the Prairie Band Potawatomi Land Buy-Back Program.
He also reported that due to the Prairie Band exceeding its threshold by $613,501 and the fact that the offer deadline has passed more than 30 days ago; the Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations has closed the offer period and will no longer accept offer packages from the Prairie Band. The Program will continue to process the remaining offer packages that were postmarked by June 8, 2015 they have in their system.
The Buy-Back Program was created as part of the Cobell Settlement by the federal government which provided $1.9 billion to consolidate fractional land interests across Indian Country. The program was voluntary and allowed interested individual owners to receive payment for fractionated land that was consolidated and transferred to tribal governments to stay in trust for uses benefiting the tribes.