Minnesota Landowner Sues Grand Portage Band over Jurisdiction Story-Date: 10:46 a.m. PST Sunday , September 14, 1997 Minnesota Landowner Sues Grand Portage Band over Jurisdiction BY JASON SKOG, DULUTH NEWS-TRIBUNE, MINN. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News Sep. 15--A man whose property is within the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa reservation is suing the band, saying it doesn't have power to regulate his land. In a complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Duluth, Carroll ``Keck'' Melby also seeks to prevent the band from fining him $200 a day for building a storage shed tribal officials claim is too close to Lake Superior's shore. Melby operates the Voyageurs Marina in Grand Portage Bay -- a bay also occupied by a marina owned and operated by the band. According to the complaint, the land in question is owned by the Herbert Iven Melby Trust. Melby, along with his sister, Kathleen Melby, are beneficiaries of that trust. Melby's land is, quite simply, a privately owned island in a sea of Indian reservation land in far Northeastern Minnesota. The reservation itself might be considered an ``open'' reservation because it has a national monument, state highway and county roads, and a casino and hotel where non-Indians may come and go as they please. A ``closed'' reservation, by contrast, typically is more self-sufficient with its own roads and more stringent use restrictions. The crux of Melby's complaint is whether the tribal government has authority to create and enforce laws regulating land owned by non-Indians. ``We think they don't,'' Melby's attorney, Randy Thompson, said by telephone from his office in Minneapolis Friday. And, he said, the U.S. Supreme Court agrees. ``The Supreme Court said (tribal governments) cannot zone lands within open reservations,'' Thompson said. Vanya Hogen-Kind, attorney for the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa, said she hasn't yet reviewed the Melby complaint with tribal leaders. But she did say Thompson and his interpretation of the Supreme Court's ruling are wrong. ``The band's position is that because the Melbys reside on the band's land, they fall under its jurisdiction, including its land use ordinance,'' Hogen-Kind said. She also said the Supreme Court's decision was based on independently owned land on open reservations. ``It is the band's opinion that they are far closer to a closed reservation than an open reservation,'' Hogen-Kind said. The cause of the controversy is a metal storage shed Melby built last summer roughly 85 to 90 feet from the shoreline. According to court papers, Cook County officials granted Melby a permit for the building on Aug. 30, 1995. That permit allowed construction of permanent structures no closer than 50 feet from shore. On Nov. 8, 1995, the Grand Portage Band adopted a Land Use Ordinance calling for all structures to be built at least 100 feet from shore. Melby had one year to use his permit from Cook County and hadn't yet started construction on the storage building. He ignored the band's request for him to get a permit from their government and the band sued him on Aug. 18 of this year. To Thompson, there is more to the dispute than zoning differences. The two parties operate marinas out of the same bay. Voyageurs Marina is home to a variety of charter fishing boats, ferries to Isle Royale and private boaters who use the marina to launch their craft. Thompson said the band wants a piece of that market. ``They are trying to regulate their competition via their own laws,'' he said. Hogen-Kind said she hadn't heard that complaint from Melby before and couldn't respond to the allegation. A court hearing on the complaint has not been set. ----- Visit TribUniverse, the World Wide Web site of the Duluth News-Tribune, at http://www.duluthnews.com/ ----- (c) 1997, Duluth News-Tribune, Minn. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News. ------------------------------------------------------------