Arts & Heritage Commission to draft shorter land acknowledgment, bring proposal to city council

The Arts & Heritage Commission voted to draft a short land acknowledgment and to present the proposal to the Blue Lake City Council before adopting it for commission meetings and events. Commissioners said they preferred a condensed version that would be brief enough to recite during meetings but still honor the Wiyot and other local tribes.

At the meeting, a Dell'Arte example was read aloud in full to ground the discussion. A committee member read: "We begin to acknowledge that Del Arte is part of is guest on the unceded and ancestral homelands of the Wiyap people..." and commissioners discussed shortening that text to a few meaningful sentences that can be repeated at the start of meetings. Members agreed to collect several two-sentence options and to present a recommendation to city council.

The commission asked volunteers to attend the next city council meeting to seek the council's input on whether the council would like to take on the land-acknowledgment adoption or have the commission move forward. Commissioners said they would report back at the Commission's December meeting on council feedback and next steps.