Monthly Archives: June 2011

They’re Onto You

Cayugas’ leadership dispute

boils over; BIA called in as

Pu
As the money dries up, and the Tribal government searches for new revenue sources, like selling off tribal lands…it’s interesting to see what’s happened to other tribal officials, with sovereignty, who have done far less. The BIA is more involved in tribal affairs armed with federal enforcement ( remember what happened to the Brown woman who headed Narragansett Housing, arrested, indicted). 

Chippewa Cree Tribe to elect new chairman July 5

Related: Chippewa Cree man pleads guilty to tribal theft of $58K

HAVRE – The Chippewa Cree Tribe will hold a special election next month to choose a new chairman after Raymond “Jake” Parker Jr. resigned.

Parker resigned last month a day before pleading guilty to federal theft charges.

Parker was accused of charging nearly $60,000 to a tribal credit card between 2009 and 2010, mostly on unauthorized personal charges.

The Havre Daily News reports that the tribal council on the Rocky Boy’s Indian reservation will hold a special election on July 5.

A statement from the tribe says it is regrettable that Parker is in this situation but his achievements in office will always be recognized.

Parker has agreed to repay the tribe.

Even Tribal Government Isn’t Without Reproach For Long

Snoqualmie Tribe votes to throw out Tribal Council, hold elections

June 22, 2011

By Dan Catchpole

The Snoqualmie Tribe’s division deepened June 18 when a group of members voted to throw out the current Tribal Council and hold new elections.

The move is the latest in an ongoing dispute. But formal opposition to the current government has been growing, and opponents are digging in for a protracted fight to wrest control of the tribe from what they say is an illegitimate government.

Tribal Council members and the tribal administration contend that the opposition is acting illegally and consists of members who have been disenrolled, or kicked out.

But the outcome will have big repercussions. Both sides are fighting for their heritage, and control of millions of dollars in Snoqualmie Casino revenue and federal money.

For the Snoqualmies who gathered at the Great Longhouse in Monroe on June 18, there was no doubt that they crossed the Rubicon when they voted unanimously for a resolution recalling the current Tribal Council and to hold new elections. An election committee headed by Chief Jerry Enick will organize the elections July 16.

“Once you do this, you’re going into the lion’s den. You have to go and look these people in the eye, and you have to stand firm,” said Leon Enick, the chief’s son. “There’s no turning back after this.”

As the tribe’s head chief, Jerry Enick had called the June 18 meeting after the Tribal Council postponed the Snoqualmies’ annual general membership meeting in May when new elections are typically held.

The council postponed the elections earlier that month saying that the tribe’s membership must be vetted by an outside party, a Seattle-based genealogist. However, opponents of the council say that the audit is politically motivated and that the 2004 member rolls are legitimate.

Arguments over who is and who is not a Snoqualmie stalled a general membership meeting called by council members in January in an effort to strip the 77-year-old Enick of his title.

After Enick challenged the postponed election, the Tribal Council passed a resolution warning the hereditary chief that he is acting inappropriately and could face punishment, Councilman Ray Mullen said.

The council will not recognize the June 18 meeting.

“It was an unsanctioned meeting. Period. The council has control in setting meetings,” Mullen said.

For the time being, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs has declined to get involved in the current dispute. But it has stepped in during episodes in the past two years.

If no general meeting is called for several months, the situation would become a concern, Stan Speak, the Pacific Northwest regional director of the bureau, said before the June 18 meeting.

Enick said he expects the push to unseat Mullen and the rest of the council to be difficult.

“They’re fighters,” he said.

Enick should know. In 2008, he sided with several of the current council members in an effort to overthrow a disputed 2007 election that led to a federal civil rights case that overturned the banishment of nine members.

The nine formerly banished members were on hand at the June 18 meeting.

“We’ve been banished, disenrolled and blacklisted from everything, and we’re still fighting,” said Marilee Mai, one of the nine formerly banished members.

The past is the past, she said.

The long-running feud has been painful for some of the tribe’s elders.

“It’s heart-sickening for me to watch the tribe fuss and argue,” tribal elder Barbara Beauchamp said.

At age 83, Beauchamp lived through the tribe’s decadeslong fight to regain federal recognition.

Like members on both sides of the dispute, she said she hopes the tribe can be reunited one day.

“I know it will with God’s help,” she said.

Mullen said he prays daily that the tribe members will be able to get along again.

In the meantime, the fight for control of the tribal government continues, but opponents say they finally feel like they are getting somewhere.

“We’ve been dragging at the bottom for so long, but now we can see that there is a bright light up there,” Enick said. “We can’t quit. What’s in it if we quit?”

 

 

 

Food For Thought..Just When They Think They Have the Final Say!

Snoqualmie Tribe chief calls for membership to throw out Tribal Council

June 13, 2011

By Dan Catchpole

Snoqualmie Tribe Chief Jerry Enick is calling on the tribe’s members to throw out most of their elected officials. The longtime chief has called for a meeting of the general membership Saturday, June 18 in Monroe.

The Tribal Council has done nothing wrong, and Enick is acting beyond his authority, says Tribal Administrator Matt Mattson.

The catalyst came when the Tribal Council voted in early May to postpone the tribe’s annual general elections until July, after an audit of the tribal membership is finished.

For several years, the Snoqualmie Tribe has been plagued by completing claims of who is and is not a member. At stake is control of the tribe’s casino proceeds. In an effort to quell the ongoing fights over membership, the Tribal Council voted in January to hire an outside genealogist to audit the member rolls using records from the tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

But the council cannot simply postpone the election, Enick says.

As the tribe’s head chief, it is his responsibility to act.

“I oversee what’s going on in my tribe. If I see something that’s going wrong, I attempt to take care of it,” he says.

Without an election, the Snoqualmies have no functioning government, because most council members’ terms expired on June 1, according to Enick. The lack of a legitimate government could threaten the tribe’s financing agreements for Snoqualmie Casino.

That concern is overblown, Mattson says.

The tribe hasn’t broken any parts of the loan agreements it has with the bondholders, who provided $330 million to start the casino, he says.

The ongoing political fights don’t hurt the tribal government’s ability to provide services to its members and Snoqualmie Valley residents, according to Mattson.

The tribe runs two medical clinics in the Valley. Together they handle more than 5,000 patient visits a year. It also runs a food clinic in Carnation, among myriad other social and cultural services it provides

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Going to the Dogs

It is another interesting strategy that no one seems to understand because clearly the State of Massachusetts and its leaders would have no interest in wasting a commercial gaming license in Raynham.  So why would the Mashpee Wampanoag even pretend to have an interest in a run down swamp bordered facility that is unworthy of any consideration?    Raynham is no where near the Resort Casino that the State wants or that we originally intended to build.  Once again, the Tribe is the laughing stock.

 

 

Don’t let them sell off our future!

In case you missed it, here is the announcement from the Mittark about Sunday’s meeting.  Please note that the vote is scheduled “IMMEDIATELY PRIOR TO” the regular meeting, so be there well before the time, NOT WAMP TIME!  And be sure to vote “NO!”  Don’t give the Council the power to sell off our land!

“On Sunday, May 15, 2011
immediately prior to the
regularly scheduled Tribal
meeting, a meeting of the
Mashpee Wampanoag Indian
Tribal Council, Inc. (MWITC)
will be held. At this meeting
members of the MWITC (which
are all Tribal members) will be
informed of certain proposed
changes to the MWITC Bylaws.
These proposed changes will then
be voted upon at a June meeting.
For more information on the
proposed changes to the Bylaws
please visit the Tribe’s website at
www.mashpeewampanoagtribe.”

If you went to the website to see what this is all about, you would see nothing.  Why do we have to wait until the meeting to learn what they want to do?

Tell them NO! NO! NO!