The Muscogee Nation and ODOT are at odds over the decision to create uniform tribal boundary signs on roadways across the state.

These signs will be brown and white, omit the word “reservation,” and use the names of the affected tribal nations as listed in the Federal Register.

Where tribal headquarters are located, signs can employ two languages if requested: English and the Indigenous language of the specific tribal nation. No boundaries will feature “leaving” signs.

Jason Salsman, the Muscogee Nation's communications director, likened ODOT’s interaction about the boundary sign to a recent controversy over PlatePay.

Some tribal nations have declined to give vehicle tag information to law enforcement due to a change in how license plate policies are enforced on Indigenous residents. This amounted to some revenue loss for the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority.

Like with PlatePay, Salsman said tribes’ viewpoints weren’t considered, noting neither the Principal Chief’s Office nor the Tax Commissioner’s Office received an invitation to discuss the signs.

“This is another failure… to hear tribal interests and choose state policy over tribal self-governance,” he said.

Why did ODOT make a change?

According to ODOT, policy discussions began back in 2021.

Rhoda Fair, ODOT’s Director of Tribal Coordination, was tasked with drafting the policy. She said ODOT Director Tim Gatz had noticed inconsistent tribal boundary signs around the state. So, he wanted to look at a new policy.

“It's not something that people think about the color of road signs or their design at all,” Fair said. “But it's critically important to people as they're traveling on our infrastructure that we have consistency and what signs look like.”

Fair, who is not an enrolled member of a federally recognized tribe, said her team shared the policy draft with affected tribal nations to obtain input on the standardized signs. Those nations include those identified by the US Census’ tribal statistical areas of Oklahoma as having a land base.

She said the policy draft had been presented to the Tribal Advisory Board. That board has nine members who work for tribal nations. None are appointed by tribes but rather by state government leaders.

Recently, Osage News reported ODOT “largely dismissed or overlooked” the Osage Nation’s input about the new boundary signs. One Osage citizen saw the standardized sign as “another fight against sovereignty,” while another said it “wasn’t a big deal.”

When asked about the process of receiving feedback from tribal nations, Fair said ODOT senior staff, leadership and the traffic engineering group came together to review the comments they received after sharing the policy draft and considered whether they could accommodate the tribes’ requests.

Fair described an example of how ODOT responded to tribes’ concerns about the brown and white colors, which Salsman said could symbolize tribes as archaic historical relics—a notion he said could not be further from the truth.

“We went with brown and white signs because the manual says that brown and white signs are the most appropriate for areas of cultural interest, which is the only thing that sort of fit tribal boundaries,” Fair said. “So we're working with a system that wasn't really built for making tribal boundary signs and trying to find which category is most appropriate.”

She referred to the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, published by the Federal Highway Administration.

As for excluding the word “reservation,” Fair said this choice had nothing to do with the Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the Muscogee Creek reservation — an exclusionary word choice Salsman disagrees with.

“You call each thing by its right name,” he said. “Any sign that would welcome our guests and visitors into our boundaries, you bet it's going to say that this is the Muskogee reservation. We're proud of it.”

According to ODOT, some signs have already been replaced with brown and white signs, and there is no set timeline for the installation process. The signs will be at no charge to the participating tribes.

Fair said the Muscogee Nation is the only tribal nation to opt out of the new signage.