Monthly Archives: October 2011

Minnie Ah Hah reports: “Cedric is tourin’ “

Mashpee Wampanoag Private Investigator digs deep into the scandal of the Tribe

This is my report to my uncle Herrin’, please pass it on to Nellie and Norman. My hope is that Curtis Hendricks will give me some  nice venison steaks this season.

 

Cedric(Tobey ) Cromwell recently spent about $10,000 running all around trying to get land into trust and juts partying .

He attended  Senate Indian Affairs Committee meeting on LIT, made speech.  Waste of time.  No bill in the House.  Republicans refuse companion bill for LIT. That means nothing happens.   Cedric keeps talking to people who hate us and wasting money.

Cedric goes to Mohegan gaming conference.  Jay Lo just happens to be there. Party down on the tribal AMEX

Another DC meeting on LIT people video tape him for laughs.  Not funny. He’s not Mashpee. He makes no sense they say.

He’s working on LIT 21/2 years too late. Marie is sending threatening emails.

Noni is gonna tell all about………..stuff.

Carol Lopez keeps shopping at Christ the King food pantry like she’s destitute. Taking  food from the people who need it.

Every day is a Bayer aspirin extra strength day for Cedric.  They’re one step away from …..we’ll talk about it in my next report

If ” you’re not Mashpee”…you’ll never be.

Who’s “Mashpee” and who’s not. has become very clear lately because the  ones  who ain’t keep saying they are.  That’s not done. At the Sunday meeting Cedric (Tobey) Cromwell said ” I’m as much Mashpee as anyone.”  Right …growing up in Dorchester, and getting on the rolls in 2006.  Plus you lied on your campaign material saying you ” grew up in the tribal community.” Then he had his mother say she lived in Mashpee with her grandmother until she was a grown woman.  Strangely enough,  no one in Connie’s age group remembers her being in school with them in Mashpee or playing together whipping through  Edmonds Dream.   That’s because  she was adopted out when she was 5 and  never came back. Another point.  No ” Mashpee” would  even try to make their elder parent get on the stage and lie.

Of course if you’re not Mashpee then, you do all kinds of strange things. Strange things like allowing the Vice Chair, Aaron Tobey, who’s disappeared,  to set up phoney Elders Council ( with a Tobey majority) to usurp the real Elders made  up of  people 55 or a little older….wearing bomber jackets, to identify themselves.. No real “Mashpee” came to the phoney Elder Council meetings. So now they have three members who sit in back of the real Elders meeting silent. Claiming to learn.  Too late. No one respects them no matter how much food they truck into the meetings.  Maybe they can get their cousins to return the Elders van or the $10,000 that disappeared.

Maybe they can get the bank statements that the Elders have been asking for and the audio tapes they have asked for  for years.  The Elders became the voice of the tribe when no one would stand up.  Certain people just kept ordering people around but would not fight for the tribe. And the Tobey’s were allowed to kept over reaching in a world they have never had any respect for nor did they ever play a role….until now.

And the  Mashpee agree that they have all but destroyed the tribe….on every level.  Only two departments run correctly…Indian Health Services and Game and Fish.

Then Noni went off late last week.

It was a meltdown in the Council offices of grand proportions, but it had been brewing  for months.  One of the last 2 full time “Mashpee” left in the office, Noni brought reality to  Shelly Tobey.  As she told the co worker off she screamed”you’re not Mashpee”  and she went  further about Shelly’s lineage…that she has no Indian blood. Course it got pretty bad with all the truth spewing everywhere…And Noni proceeded to tell all about who was” Mashpee” and who was not in that office. It took a minute.  She was only saying what “Mashpee” has been saying.

There are no secrets among the Mashpee…that is of course if you are Mashpee. If you’re not.. you’re the last to know.  They know everything about you, your parents and grandparents. If they get tired of your foolishness they have a knack for bringing you back to the flume.

So Noni was fired, and the temp running the housing office ( another Lumbee they say…) he resigned Friday. He knows when it’s time to go. Reportedly both the Lumbee and the so called Tribal Administrator a guy making long cash named Leon, hit the door ahead of the women.

Once again…every Mashpee knows what to do to prevent this kind of thing…what family member or elder to call.  But there was not a Mashpee there to help.

 

 

Notes from Minnie Ah Hah

 

Minnie Ah Ha , Mashpee Wampanoag private investigator

Minnie Ah Hah calls herself  a private investigator.  But she’s  really just very observant and quiet, telling only her Uncle Herrin’,  last of the Mingos, of her discoveries and he usually discusses them with his friend Roe. Her dead mother is Herrin’s sister. Leigh Potter says the only thing he knows is that she’s Mashpee because she has all the features and the characteristics….. and her father is most certainly one of the 1001.  Course the Elders say   she’s just plain nosey.  So, everyone accepts  her as  a Mashpee.

While quiet and unassuming, no family wants to claim her.  The Mills say she’s a Peters, the Peters say shes a Oakley, the Oakleys say she’s a Hendricks, the Hendricks say she’s a Hanes, the Hanes say she’s a Pells, the Pells say she’s a Pocknett, and the Pocknetts say she’s a Hicks…and so it goes.

One thing for sure.  No one says she’s a Tobey. Maybe that’s a blessing for the Tobey’s that they can’t lay claim to Minnie Ah Hah.  But then again it could be a curse to some of them who are not Tobeas, the real ones.

Minnie Ah Hah is the conscience of the Mashpee Wampanaog,  so the Elders say.  That’s  why she’s a nuisance. She knows too much and she tells it to her uncle.  He talks it over with his pal Roe.

Some say she runs it by Maushop on occassion.

Minnie Ah Hah made Herrin’ and Roe pull over by the flume on 130 and handed them her notes:

Paula was crying in the rafters at the Sunday meeting.  She shamed her father.

Cheryl is wearing a wig, but it won’t disguise her trashy behavior that demoralizes the tribe.

Cedric stands behind  Mark  as he babbles and tribal members shake their heads. Outsiders exploiting the tribe.

The New Bedford office is empty.  Bobby sits there each day and no one comes in. Gas, salary rent for Bobby to sit in an empty office.

Lou lied about the number of members over  in NB.  There’s less than 100.  He  said 400 – 500.

Strangers trying to coverup the millions missing.  One in charge or tribal things  the other over housing.

My  October  10 report

Your niece,

Minnie Ah Hah

They’re not Mashpee…No kidding

Herrin’: “The Sunday meeting was pretty stinky.”

Roe: “That’s what I heard. Paula Peters sat in the nose bleed section of the auditorium.

Herrin’: “Tryin’ to hide.

Roe: ” She can’t hide, neither can Mark Harding. Even though he talked more nonsense to tribal members.”

Herrin’: ” Well the few members that showed up got ’em told.  They  said Cedric and crew are not Mashpee, and that’s the problem.”

Roe: ” They also said if it weren’t for Reel Wamps they wouldn’t know what was going on with the tribal government.”

Herrin’: ” That’s pretty sad.”

Roe: ” We have gone backwards.”

Herrin’: ” We’re underground ”

 

Roe: “Buried alive.”

 

Herrin’:

Politics trumps the tribe

Clearly incompetence is the only consistent  element in the governing mechanism of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.  The Chairman Cedric (Tobey) Cromwell,  has so many domestic problems  he’s abandoned even appearing like he cares about the future of the tribe and the survival of the grants that assist our people. Because, it’s obvious that the casino mirage is just that…a mirage.

And the people and certain  Council members who were part of  the Marshall Administration,  are blaming and  now badmouthing  Glenn Marshall for what has happened to the tribe under this administration. They  are the same ones who remained totally silent and passive over the last  two and a half  years as these outsiders took over and destroyed everything we cherished. Casino or not…The “Marshall Bashers”  never stood up for the tribe. And still are trying to justify their failure to act and blame it on Marshall.

On to the current nightmare. The chairman’s cousin, the Vice Chairman Aaron Tobey, who says he’s not running for Chairman now.  Just Vice Chairman.  That’s a good one.  But he has Rhonda and another family to support. He  is actually in charge of  tribal government administration. Therefor he is just as responsible for the decrepit state of tribal affairs  as Cedric and Harding.

Look at the latest.

  • Ramona Peters has apparently spent close to$150,000 in repatriation  grants established by Patricia Oakley.  She needs “help”  according to Leon, the new tribal administrator.  Apparently the quarterly reports have not been done for years.  Nothing to report, but  sources say,the money has been spent.  The remains? Where are they? The last report made about ancient remains was made by Oakley in March 2009. Obviously Cedric, Aaron and Mark care nothing about remains or heritage.
  • Wanda Lord, the so called grant writer consultant, and close friend of the chairman, who does not bring in grants but makes a huge, huge fee, lost 2 more grants recently for the tribe that has no income.  Thus her nick name is  “OFA”   O for Nothing .
  • Council member Winnie Graham is answering phones on the education grant for $30 an hour.  Three tribal members could be generating income for there families for that hourly rate.  And she reportedly does not even have a GED.
  • Stephanie Tobey who was calling for an investigation of the missing $50 k on the Juvenile Justice Grant would actually have put herself in jeopardy,  because she’s not authorized to be working under that grant.  Anyway…she didn’t say anything when they hired her illegally…and she received a  strong official tribal letter from her cousin telling her to shut up. She’s supposed to be let go at the end of the month any way.  They get so comfortable.
  • Laura asks questions that are never answered.

  • Council member Laura Tobey Miranda, Stephanie’s sister,  did her investigation of  all those credit card expenditures that were out of line…she has yet to officially tell the tribal members what she found. Maybe she’s stockpiling information for the DA.  They so love emergency meetings, petitions and such….and they always ask questions and never get answers.  It makes them feel really smart.  But it makes them look stupid.  Least that’s what everyone snickers about. ” Help me out Trish,” that’s what Laura said about the credit card disclosures. She wanted someone else to verify the bad business.  Of course Trish remained silent and as spineless as ever.