Navigating Tribal Partnerships: Insights from Tulsa's Director of Tribal Policy Amanda Swope

The City of Tulsa is working to improve its relationship with the Cherokee, Osage, and Muscogee nations.

Amanda Swope spoke with News On 6's Sam Carrico about her new role as the City's Director of Tribal Policy and Partnerships.

How have you been adjusting to the new role?

"It's been really great," said Swope, former representative for Oklahoma House District 71. "It's a lot of reconnecting with people that my time kind of took me away from whenever I was in the legislature, so getting reconnected with some of the organizations and boards, commissions, things like that, that I wasn't able to necessarily attend or participate in whenever I was filling my role at the tribe and up at the Capitol."

How did the role get created?

"I think that speaks to Mayor Nichols' leadership," she said. "I think, like I said, it was taking kind of a gauge of what he was hearing out there from citizens as he was campaigning and I think that a lot of people would tell you that they felt like there was a need for this kind of position and to start moving forward in this dialogue.  

Has the response from the tribes been positive so far?

"I would definitely say so," she said. "And that's just something that I would say is being echoed from even the tribal leadership that we've been working with. You know, I think that they've all been very happy to hear that Mayor Nichols has been supportive of working with tribes and trying to find a way to co-govern with them. You know, I think that there's been a lot of different levels of leadership where that's not the case in their experience. And so I think this is kind of a new, fresh start."

What are your priorities coming into this role?

"Well, I think that this probably goes without saying, even with the previous administration, that for the Muscogee [Nation], there's a lot of conversation about a TIF district out in the south area of the city, and the conversation about the low water dam out there," she said. "And then, I think, more generally, focused on some of all of the tribes, there's a real desire, I think, to have kind of a Native American Center, or an Indigenous center somewhere in the city that can be kind of, maybe an inter-tribal space and a place for citizens and things like that to access. With the Cherokees, I know that there's they're doing some work with partner Tulsa as well. [...] And I believe that they're also looking to see what they can do as far as expanding health services as well in the area. So just kind of trying to navigate all those conversations." 

How has your previous experience informed your approach to this position?

"I worked for the Muscogee Nation for six years," she said. "I still did that, even while I was in the legislature. It's taught me pretty much everything that I know about working in Indian Country. I had worked in their self-governance office early in my career when I started working there, which is really kind of looking at the federal policy and legislation's impact on the tribe. And then I moved to the role as their juvenile justice director, and the tribe's first kind of stand-alone in that program." She continues, "And so it really kind of gives you this full picture of what they're dealing with from that side of things, too, and where their obstacles have been. And, you know, there's sometimes, I think this narrative or this message that they're not able to accomplish something, or that something's not taking place. And maybe we at the city weren't aware that there's other obstacles that they're dealing with from the state side and resources that they're not able to access as well as a nation. So, it's not an unwillingness or a lack of desire to offer that. It's maybe sometimes just an obstacle that they're trying to navigate."