The Native American Press (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1992-06-05

              m—
Controversial White Earth tribal leader faces re-election
i
By Susan Stanich
Darrell "Chip" Wadena leaned
back, folded his hands across his
ample stomach and grinned his
renowned dazzling grin.
"There are no 'Robert's Rules,'"
he told a newspaper publisher, an
editor and a reporter. "There are
only 'Chip's Rules.'"
The president of the nation's third
largest tribe runs it his own way, just
as he's done as chairman of his
home White Earth Reservation for
the past 16 years. He faces another
election as chairman June 9 and, if
successful, will remain tribal
president.
The tribal constitution
notwithstanding, Wadena decides
when and where a meeting will be
held, whether a tribal member can
get access to tribal financial
documents, and who at White Earth
will get federal housing.
With almost no oversight, he alone
controls the ballot box and election
board, the White Earth and tribal
newspapers, hundreds of employees,
both governing boards and both
budgets.
A bang of his gavel closes a
meeting, regardless of whether a
motion has been made or the agenda
followed. And no tribal officer
challenges him~not even those who
claim they oppose his highhanded
methods.
Wadena says he has the right to be
a strong leader. He says his critics
hurl unproven allegations of
corruption against him, but they tend
to be political aspirants who are
grousing because they can't win
elections.
Wadena did not return repeated
phone calls last week. In his
eight-page campaign newspaper,
"White Earth Tribal Times," he cited
education, housing, jobs, health care
and private enterprise as his
accomplishments. Although federal
and state funding have increased
four-fold since he began on the
council, there's still not enough
money to serve adequately the
22,000 White Earth members, he
said. He said he's optimistic about
job and economic development
prospects from the band's elegant
new Shooting Star Casino.
State legislators Roger Moe and
Edgar Olson say they respect
Wadena. The two were among five
state legislators who hosted a
$100-a-plate fund-raiser for Wadena
on March 23,1988, in St. Paul.
"Chip's his own man," said Olson,
a four-term DFL representative from
nearby Fosston. "And accountability
is there. You just have that faction
there that is opposed to him no
matter what he does. If he came
back as Jesus Christ, they would
oppose him."
Senate Majority Leader Moe,
DFL-Erskine, said he has been
working with Wadena since 1976.
"He has the best interests of the
people who live on that reservation,"
Moe said. "He's pressed hard for
housing programs, education,
economic development—all those
things he expresses a concern for."
Regarding housing, a 20-unit
construction project at White Earth
has been put on hold by the federal
Housing and Urban Development
office in Chicago because the tribal
council has not been following
regulations in allocating homes, said
Leon Jacobs, director of the Office
of Indian Programs. Wadena's
critics say he distributes new
housing to people he favors,
skipping those who are higher on the
waiting list.
Wadena's critics also say Wadena
is a puppet for outside interests,
trading tribal and individual rights
for his own self-aggrandizement.
Meanwhile, they say, he crushes
freedom of expression, land rights,
decency, integrity, and health and
social service programs.
Educator Erma Vizenor, now a
leader of the broad-based
anti-Wadena faction at White Earth,
gives the following example,
The day after the White Earth
Tribal Council took control of the
reservation's successful Pine Point
School in 1981, Wadena fired the
staff and had the records
confiscated, she said. She was a
teacher at the time.
Several years later, the school was
in debt $120,000 and Vizenor was
hired as school administrator.
Through the efforts of the
community—and despite Wadena's
continuing attempts to sabotage their
efforts, she said—by 1988 the school
had a fund balance of $154,000.
About 15 percent to 20 percent of
the youngsters were in special
education classes, Vizenor said.
But just before the 1988 chairman
election, Wadena called Vizenor and
threatened her because one of her
staff members had entered the race
against him. A few days later she
received a memo from Wadena
dissolving the advisory school
board, she said.
Vizenor was awarded a Bush
Foundation grant and left the school
that fall to complete doctoral studies
at Harvard University. After she
returned to the reservation, she
learned that the school was $270,000
in debt and had 70 percent of its
students in special education classes,
she said.
"This is a society governed by a
dictator," Vizenor said. "Those in
power thrive, and the people go
without,"
Wadena put it another way to the
Grand Forks Herald during a 1989
protest: "To the winner go the spoils.
The losers suck eggs."
Wadena's critics have produced
documents through the years that
they say prove his corruption. But,
they say, federal and state officials
are loathe to close in on their puppet.
The documents include:
* Resolutions from 1988 and 1989,
when the White Earth council
awarded Wadena two of seven state
Indian Business Loans, "on a
one-time basis only," for his
convenience store. A councilor who
objected to the first loan said he
wasn't told of the meeting at which
the second was awarded. The second
resolution awarded Wadena
$30,000, more than twice as much as
the highest other recipients.
* A check Wadena made out to a
tribal member last year, who
explained the $150 was payment for
voting for Wadena's son for tribal
council.
* An employee contract with
White Earth Executive Director
James Foster, who "will be under the
sole direction and control of the
Chairman, acting as Chief
Administrator of the Tribal Council,
and will report directly to the
Chairman and the Employee will
take his direction directly from the
Chairman and no others." Foster
Re-eleCt/ See page 4
Free
By and For the Native American Community
The
Native
Ameri
We support Equal Opportunity For All People
Founded in 1991
Volume 2 issueJf
Press
A Weekly Publication
June 5, 1992
Copyright, The Native American Press, 1992
Indian
journalist
honored
The Minnesota Lawyers
International,.Human Rights
Committee honored an American
Indian journalist at their awards
ceremony on Monday night.
Laura Waterman Wittstock,
President of MIGIZJ
Communications, was one of three
recipients ofthe 1992 Human Rights
Awards.
MIGIZI Communications is a
Minnesota nonprofit corporation
serving American Indians and the
general public. It produces radio and
TV news programs and conducts
journalism and broadcasting classes
for Indians.
Wittstock, a Seneca, used to be the
editor of a monthly report on
legislation affecting American
Indians and executive director of the
American Indian Press Association.
She has worked abroad with
indigenous people and with the
International American Treaty
Council, and has written children's
fiction and on topics including
women, alcoholism and education.
The second award recipient was
Fernando Solanas, an Argentine
director whose films have included
human rights themes.
The third recipient was
Pedro Ruquoy, director of Radio
Enriquillo, a Catholic-rurt station in
the Dominican Republic that has
broadcast daily Creole-language
news to Haiti since the 1991 coup
ousting President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide.
Sol Sanderson, speaker at the Canadian First Nations Gaming conference in Bemidji in mid-May, greets Marv Hanson of Grand Casino, Inc.
Minnesota Chippewa Tribal Reservation Election Candidates 1992
The Leech Lake Reservation, with
about 7,000 members, is the second
largest band of the Minnesota
Chippea Tribe. Grand Portage, with
about 850 members, is the smallest.
At both reservations, the state of
the bands' casinos are pressing
election issues.
Leech Lake owns the Palace in
Cass Lake and Northern Lights in
Walker, and is building a $20
million addition in Walker.
The Grand Portage Casino is in the
band's hotel near the Canadian
border. Members and candidates
say they want more input into casino
development and management
decisions, and more information
about the enterprise's financial
status.
LEECH LAKE RESERVATION
Candidates for chairman:
Dan Brown
Four-year incumbent chairman
Brown did not return telephone
calls.
James Cloud, Jr.
Cloud did not return phone calls.
Josie Lee, 59
Never, in the nearly 60 years that
Leech Lake has been under the
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
constitution, has a woman run for
chair ofthe reservation.
This year, Josie Lee has changed
that record. And she has big plans,
should shebecome the first Leech
Lake chairwoman in next week's
elections.
The lifelong registered nurse
intends to promote health: healthy
politics, healthy emotions, healthy
communities, healthy business,
healthy families.
"Our people have been oppressed
and depressed so many years, they
feel it is a way of life," she said. "If
we could get peopje feeling good—it
would be a miracle."
The first step, Lee said, is to get
rid of the fear that seems to be
gripping the reservation. All the
economic effort seems to be in the
casinos, and the casinos—offering
the only jobs on the reservation—are
controlled by an increasingly
arrogant council, she said.
"You're not allowed to talk about
anything that happens on the
reservation," she said. "Our peole
are relieved of their duties if they're
a few minutes late, if they talk
back."
"I've seen non-Indian business
people come in, go in the back
room, and then they leave. And I'm
wondering: Just who is running our
casino complex?"
She said fear has produced a
low-key election, in which people
are afraid to have signs in their yards
or bumper stickers on their cars.
But the casinos can't be the only
focus of a government, she said.
The council must advocate for
children and young mothers; must
take an active role in advocating for
Indians in the state court system;
must bring housing up to par; and
return the Chief
Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School to the
hands of the parents. The Council
must make sure trash is collected, a
diversified business climate is
encouraged and transportation is
provided.
"There's a lot of work," she said.
"We could afford to get a bus, pick
up people ready to work, drop them
off. The kids have nothing, and
neither do the youth. We could have
a playground in each community, a
drop-in center, and hire youths for
each playground. Poor as we were
down in Minneapolis, we bought a
house for $1 and used that for our
Indian neighborhood club."
Lee said she would want to
employ physical and mental health
workers to work in communities and
to find young people who will take
the places of medicine men as they
pass on.
The people, not the elected
officials, should run the council, she
said. "You have to work with the
people, include them in the things
you do.  I intend to get the people
from the different community
cDuncils involved. What do you
want? How do you want to change
this reservation? Where shall we
start?"
"If I could get in there for four
pars, there would be so much
caange. That's just what I would
cb."
Raymond "Skip" Lyons, 45
Skip Lyons doesn't want his home
reservation to experience what
happened to a tribe in California.
There, a California tribal member
told him organized crime took the
reservation over on the tails of
casino gambling. Although tribal
nembers and the FBI eventually got
tae mess sorted out, it was a
struggle.
"It's just a matter of time before
they have their hired thugs in office
here," said Lyons, a carpenter,
retired journeyman air traffic
controller, and student at Bemidji
State University and University of
Minnesota-Duluth, studying math,
business, and Indian studies.
"It's started already. The
Reservation Tribal Council doesn't
have a whole lot of control right
now."
Lyons, admittedly no "smooth
politician," said he doesn't approve
of discussing internal tribal
problems in the mainstream press
and consented to an interview with
reluctance.
He said casino records—and all
reservation recordsd, for that
matter—should be open and available
to the membership. And much of
the council's decision-making is
done behind closed doors, he said.
"I don't really agree with what's
going on in tribal government," he
said. "There really aren't any other
jobs except for gambling. They
don't try to establish other
businesses. I'd like to see new
business start-ups, diversification."
Rather than build the $40 million
casino in Walker, the council could
put people to work building housing
or buying resorts on the reservation
and offering employment in them,
he said.
These casinos have supposedly
made an economic boom on the
-reservation, but the people are still
in recession," he said.
AI "Tig" Pemberton
Former secretary-treasurer
Tig Pemberton's experience as
secretary-treasurer for 14 years at
Leech Lake taught him how the
reservation's financial system
works.
As chairman, he'll make sure that
members get complete, regular
disclosures of all band
finances—especially the two casinos,
he said.
"I'm not totally convinced that
anyone has actually shown us
anything with these two we have
here on Leech," he said.     I
The two years he's been out of
office have given him a time of
reflection, Pemberton said.
Openness in government—seeking
input into all areas of government
from the membership—will be the
hallmark of his administration, he
said.
High-stakes gambling began at
Leech Lake during Pemberton's
tenure, but like everywhere in the
state, gaming growth has
mushroomed during the. past two
years. The development has
produced some "inconsistencies" in
wage and salary scales which are
now a major problem, he said.
Pemberton said he would level off
top administrative salaries, including
reservation councilors', and
establish a minimum wage of $7 for
all Leech Lake employees.
Pemberton said he favors
"absolutely total independence, if at
all possible," from the Minnesota
Chippewa Tribe. "It's time we look
at primaries and things that can fit
the reservation as a whole. I think it
MCT    92/page3
Critics plan to disrupt tribal elections
By Susan Stanich
The scheduled Minnesota
Chippewa Tribe elections might not
happen on the largest of the tribe's
six reservations, if critics of the
tribal president have their way.
Law-abiding members of the
White Earth Reservation, at their
wits' end after years of running into
bureaucratic brick walls in their
efforts to legally force Chairman
Darrell "Chip" Wadena into
accountability, say they will shut
down the June 9 election process on
their northwestern Minnesota land.
They say they want an end to what
they regard as profound corruption
on their reservation and in the
six-reservation tribe as well, where
Wadena is president. They say the
issue is particularly crucial now,
because Wadena has entered into
agreements with casino invesotrs
who seem to be rapidly taking
control of White Earth's destiny.
Wadena did not return telephone
calls last week.
The plan, said Erma Vizenor of
Camp Justice, a coalition of White
Earth members, is to stop voting in
one of the reservation's three
districts. Then the Bureau of Indian
Affairs won't be able to certify the
election and continue its habit of
referring complaining tribal
members back to their "duly elected
officials."
Vizenor said protesters will go to
the district's four polling places,
block the entrances and ask people
not to vote. She said the group
intends to remain non-violent, but
"we want to interfere. If we have to
put up blockades, we will. But
we're not going to forcefully stop
people from voting."
Editor's note: Minnesota Chippewa
Tribal elections are June 9. The
36,000-member tribe, third largest
in the country, will choose tribal
leaders lor four-year terms on each
ofthe tribe's six reservation. The
leader of each reservation also
serves on the six-reservation Tribal
Executiw Committee.
The critics say they have
exhausted all other avenues:
— The election process fails them.
When Wadena won the 1984
chairman's race by a narrow margin,
a specially appointed election
judge—Richard Tanner, head of the
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe's
Education Division and Wadena's
subordinate—would not order a new
election.
But when a Wadena critic won the
race for White Earth
secretary-treasurer in 1986 and 1990
by larger margins, the same judge
ordered new elections on the basis of
a close vote.
A White Earth employee later
swore she helped forge ballots in the
1990 re-election so the Wadena
supporter, incumbent Jerry Rawley,
would win. According to a sworn
affidavit and a copy of a check,
Wadena paid a voter with tribal
funds to vote for his son for
councilor in a later election.
— Wadena ignores them. When
they set up a protest camp outside
tribal offices, he and the council
simply moved to Mahnomen, 20
miles away, where they spend their
time in the Shooting Star Casino and
reportedly are moving tribal offices.
He ignored a recent constituent
petition to hold a meeting. He
ignored them when he locked them
into a casino contract with unknown
investors, just as he ignored them
vhen he relinquished their lands a
few years earlier.
—The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
ignores them. As president of the
tribe, Wadena controls the staff.
And Tribal Executive Committee
members say they can't interfere
*ith the internal politics of a
member reservation.
—The federal government ignores
them. Election-rigging is an internal
reservation matter, say the U.S.
attorney and congressional leaders.
Only if they can prove an official
has stolen tribal or federal money
can the federal government step in,
they say. The critics say they have
given federal investigators solid
evidence of misuse of funds, but the
information goes nowhere.
—The state government ignores
them. At White Earth, like on most
reservations in Minnesota and
Wisconsin, the state has criminal
jurisdiction. State and county
officials say they can get involved in
White Earth affairs only if there's
proof of criminal activity.
Wadena called Becker and
Mahnomen counties last year to
remove protesters who were
peacefully assembling at their tribal
buildings. County deputies,
responding to what they understood
to be a criminal trespass matter,
arrested 82 people.
When former federal Judge Miles
Lord, attorney for the accused, asked
Wadena to surrender reservation
records, Wadena claimed
sovereignty and refused to give them
up. After several court hearings in
Becker County , the judge acquitted
the defendants of the charges.
Now Becker County Sheriff
Clarence Paurus says he's been
taught a lesson, and will not
interfere, should protesters block the
election process. The planned
election shutdown will be in Becker
County.
After the Becker County ruling,
Wadena moved the White Earth
Election Board from Becker County
to Mahnomen County, where no
such ruling has been made to date.
Also after the Becker County
ruling, Becker County
commissioners sponsored a meeting
in March in Detroit Lakes, to look at
issues of jurisdiction, elections and
other White Earth-related issues that
affect the whole area. They asked
Gov. Arne Carlson, commissioners
from nearby counties. Attorney
General Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey
HI, Sens. Paul Wellstone and David
Durenberger, congressional
representatives, the White Earth
Tribal Council, Camp Justice, state
legislators, Bureau of Indian Affairs
officials.  Clergy  and  Laity
DiSmpt/See
page 4