The Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1994-07-29

              MAIC program director resigns, sites
executive Fairbank's incompetence
By Gary Blair
Two times in five years the Minneapolis American Indian Center
(MAIC) has lost its state funded
Chemical Dependency (CD) Program.
That's two times since Frances
Fairbank's has been the director. And,
its two times too many for the Indian
community.
The first time the center lost its CD
funding it had to do with poor record
keeping and not surprisingly, this time
its the same reason. The difference is
this time the CD program director resigned, compared to the last time
when all program staff were fired.
The following is the resignation letter sent to the center's Board of Directors by former Chemical Dependency Program Director Rudy
Pacheco, dated July 19, 1994:
" Dear Board Members: Please con
sider this letter my resignation as director of the Chemical Dependency
Program of MAIC.
I am resigning due to the following
reasons; 1.) Our program funds have
been suspended until September by
the State of Minnesota, as you already
know. Frances Fairbanks refuses to
discharge Ms. Pat Jackson as I requested.
Enclosed is a memo from Tom
Tuner who works for Hennepin
County who verifies that Pat Jackson
has only worked 10 hours at the most
in six (6) months time in the CD program. As you know, she was employed
as kitchen manager until recently.
Frances Fairbanks continues to snap
at me at every opportunity and sent
me a memo when I tried to get some
accurate information from Hennepin
County on Pat Jackson. Pat Jackson
is receiving therapy from the Indian
Health Board and by state law should
not be counseling others.
2) When I left on sick leave in November I had an excellent rating on
our program by the state. We have lost
our Aftercare Program. Our Aftercare
person resigned after being continuously harassed by Francis Fairbanks.
She did over sixty (60) assessments
since December of 1993 and was responsible for saving our program, oUi-
erwise we would have only been able
to document 6-10 that Pat Jackson had
conducted.
We have no money to hire an Aftercare person so this program is gone.
It is very unfortunate that such a
skilled competent person should be
run off because she is a white person.
"I've never seen such ignorance." I
heard Frances say to three (3) other
staff one day, "I'd like to take that
white witch outside." The staff mem-
Resigns/ cont'd pg 3
Native elder Bea Swanson passes/ pg 1
Rudy Pacheco, resigns from MAIC/ pg 1
Few Chippewa stay in College, audit finds/ pg 1
MIAC minutes for June 2 meeting/ pg 3
Reflections by Wub-e-ke-niew/ pg 5
Voice ofthe Anishinabeg (The People)
1
Gov. Carlson appoints Robert "Punk" Wakanabo to
Minnesota's School Bus Safety Advisory Committee
Fifty Cents
Governor Arne H. Carlson
announced the appointments of
Robert "Punk" Wakanabo, of Cass
Lake, MN, Bobby Myers, Mpls, Jerry
Pagel, New Ulm, Janet Berkseth,
Golden Valley, and Kris Avery, of
Eden Prairie, as appointed members
of Minnesota's School Bus Safety
Advisory Committee.
The School Bus Safety Advisory
Committee is a new board
established by the 1994 legislature.
The Commissioner of Public Safety,
in consultation with the
Commissioner of Education
appoints twelve members, and the
Governor appoints five public
members.
The duties of the committee
include an annual report by January
15 to the Governor and the
Education Committees of the
Legislature, a quarterly review of
all school transportation accidents,
crimes, incidents of serious
misconduct, incidents that result in
serious personal injury or death and
bus driver dismissals for cause; and
a periodic review of school district
comprehensive transportation safety
policies.
Robert "Punk" Wakanabo, is a
professional artist and member of ;
the Leech Lake Band of Chippewa
Indians here in Minnesota, and will
be bringing a keen awareness to the
School Bus Safety Advisory.
Committee, as he has been active in
school bus safety for nearly 10 years
now, stemming from the loss of his
daughter in a school bus accident in
1985.
Founded  in 1988
Ojibwe
News
We Support Equal Opportunity For All People
1
Volume 6   Issue 5
July 29, 1 994
A weekly publication.
Copyright, The Ojibwe News, 1994
Few Chippewa stay in college, audit finds
By Pat Doyle, Staff Writer
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Minnesota Chippewa receiving federal scholarships drop out of college
at an extraordinarily high rate compared with Indians elsewhere in the
nation/ according to a recent government audit.
Seventy-eight percent of 1,008
Minnesota freshmen who received
money recently from the federal
Higher Education Scholarship Program failed to progress to their sophomore years, the U.S. inspector general has reported.
"That's appalling," said Frank
Annette, superintendent ofthe U.S.
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) office
in Bemidji. He said the figures surprised him.
Nationwide, about 47 percent of In
dian students in the program drop out
in their first year.
The BIA, which administers the
program, says it doesn't know vyhy
Minnesota Chippewa appear to be
doing so much worse than Indians
elsewhere.
One possibility the agency has considered is that the high number of
casino jobs in Minnesota offer an
alternative to college for some students.
An official for the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, however, says good casino jobs usually require a college
degree, providing an incentive for
students to stay in school.
The dropout figures appear in an
audit examining the nationwide performance ofthe scholarship program
for the Department of the Interior.
The audit said $3.7 million may have
been misspent by the BIA or tribes on
administrative costs instead of scholarships, for needy Indian students.
The audit also said the BIA, an agency
within the Department of the Interior, needs to do a better job measuring and improving the progress of
students under the scholarship pr^V
gram.
However, the BIA, responding to a
draft of the report, said improving
students' performance is mostly beyond its power.
"The objective is not to improve the
education level of the participating
students, but to offer them the opportunity to continue their education at
the postsecondary level," BIA Commissioner Ada Deer said of the program.
Photo by Gary Blair
Beatrice Swanson, Native activist exercising (r) tribal spearing rights on Mille Lacs Lake, May, 1993.
Minneapolis elder Bea Swanson passes
College/ cont'd pg 3
DeeWayne Rognstad, Beltrami County Deputy
files candidacy for Beltrami County Sheriff
By Gary Blair
Highly respected Minneapolis elder
Beatrice "Bea" Swanson passed away
this week. She left us on July 25,
1994, after fighting a courageous
batde with cancer. Bea, as she was
called, was from the White Earth reservation and had been staying with
her daughter Caryn "Carrie" LaQuier
in south Minneapolis at the time of
her death.
Swanson, a 65 years old Anishin
was involved actively in the spear
fishing issue both in Minnesota and
Wisconsin. She was at boat landings
surrounded by racists and calmly
prayed while sitting in a spear fishing boat to protect others from being
shot at and having their boats
swamped. She was a trainer in the
Witness for Non-Violence Training
that protesters and witnesses participated in before they went to the reservation protests. She never worked
alone, but always in collaboration
with local and state activists—with
Bemidji, MN - DeeWayne
Rognstad, Beltrami County Deputy
sheriff, has filed his candidacy for
the position of Beltrami County
Sheriff. Deputy Sheriff Rognstad
will face the incumbent, sheriff
Dwight Stewart and Greenbush
Police Chief R. M. "Mike Siems, in
the September 13, 1994, primary.
Rognstad, is an enrolled member
ofthe White Earth Reservation. He
was raised in the Bemidji area,
graduating from LaPort High School
in 1975 and attending Bemidji State
University where he majored in
Criminal Justice and Political
Science. Rognstad is also a graduate
from the Federal Law Enforcement
Center and the Indian Law
Academy.
Deputy Sheriff Rognstad's law
enforcement experience includes six
years in federal law enforcement,
Rognstad/ cont'd pg 3
abe grandmother, was the director of HONOR in Wisconsin and the Twin
Cities Spear Fishing Coalition in
Minnesota.
Bea initiated a grandmother's
circle, support for Native grandmothers who were raising their grandchildren. She worked hard to reinforce
grandparents as the teachers of small
Native children in the old tradition
that was lost by white intervention.
Reparation of Native bones from
museums had been another of her
Native American Ministries and Na
tive Children's Lodge. Previous to
being director of Native American
Ministries she was the site director
ofthe Loaves and Fishes program at
Holy Rosary Church, providing free
meals to community members in
Minneapolis.
For more than 20 years Bea was involved in many important issues effecting her Native Americans. She
causes. Bea had been invited to various ceremonies around the county to
pray over returned bones and artifacts. She was part of the Hearse
Project Ministry, the Hubert
Humphrey Institute Native American
Women's Leadership Program, Take
Back the Night, Wilder Forest Racism Forums, Gulf War Peace Place,
White Earth Elders Justice Project,
and in planning for a national land
issues conference that would help
draw support for the project to recover
traditional White Earth land.
Whenever Native Americans, peace
and justice groups and other activists wanted someone with wisdom
and truthfulness, they summoned
Bea. She never bragged about all the
individual honors she had received.
Bea had often taken on projects and
fights that she knew couldn't be won,
but she fought on as if they could be.
This resolve is evident also in her per-
Swanson/ cont'd pg 3
Wisconsin official joins call for more federal
regulation
Minority journalists congregate for historic
meeting in Atlanta
ATLANTA (AP) _ Black, Asian,
Hispanic and American Indian
journalists, once barely visible in
an industry dominated by white men,
are joining forces this week at a
conference called Unity '94.
Almost 6,000 members ofthe four
distinct professional groups will
meet together for the first time since
they were founded in the 1970s and
'80s. Also attending in observer
capacity will be members of the
National Lesbian and Gay
Journalists Association, which was
formed in 1990, after planning for
Unity was under way.
. "The portrayals of these
communities have been very
similar," said Paul DeMain,
president of the Native American
Journalists Association and of
Unity's board of directors.
"Someone else, mainly white
males of European descent, has been
portraying us for us. We don't want
to control that portrayal, but we do
want to contribute."
The conference starts Tuesday
with a town hall meeting moderated
by talk show host Geraldo Rivera.
Groups in Atlanta, Denver,
Minneapolis, San Francisco and
i
Washington, D.C, will be linked by
satellite to discuss coverage of
women, racial minorities and
homosexuals. The conference ends
Saturday.
Each of the groups, which also
include the Asian-American
Journalists Association, the
National Association of Black
Journalists and the National
Association of Hispanic Journalists,
will hold its annual convention at
the Atlanta meeting.
Scheduled seminars cover such
Meeting/ cont'd pg 5
WASHINGTON (AP) _ Regulators
warned Monday of "chaos
developing" in the Indian gambling
industry because of lax oversight and
the absence of federal standards for
tribal casinos.
"The remedy should be as swift as
possible," said Tony Hope, outgoing
chairman of the National Indian
Gaming Commission.
Hope urged the Senate Indian
Affairs Committee to approve
legislation that would expand the
commission and allow it to set
minimum standards that tribal casinos
would have to meet. The standards
would cover game rules, money
handling and other aspects of casino
operation.
Wisconsin Attorney General James
Doyle told the committee the
government should retain a
requirement that a state's governor
consent before land is newly
designated as reservation property for
casino development.
Doyle, speaking for the National
Association of Attorneys General, said
the topic is hot in Wisconsin because
of recent suggestions that financially
struggling dog tracks work with tribes
to offer casino gambling.
Wisconsin "has made a conscious
choice to limit the expansion of
gaming," Doyle said, and removingthe
requirement for a governor's consent
"opens a door to wholesale gaming."
Several members of Wisconsin tribes
also were in attendance.
"The federal government should not
be given new powers to regulate Indian
tribes unless this is shown to be
absolutely necessary," said Gaiashkibos,
president of the National Congress of
American Indians and chairman ofthe
Lac Courte Oreilles Chippewa band in
Wisconsin.
Under current law, the National
Indian Gaming Commission has little
authority beyond reviewing and
enforcing contracts for managing
casinos.
Regulation of Indian gambling is
inconsistent and fragmented, said
Janet McKeag, a member of the
commission. "It's not predictable
nationwide," she said.
"We don't have the resources to be
able to regulate the existing Indian
gaming operations," Hope told the
senators. There is a "certain amount
of chaos developing," he said.
Later, he told reporters that the
biggest problem w as in illegal casinos
springing up in California and New
Mexico, not the legal operations in
other states.
The commission has 17 field
employees to monitor more than 200
Indian gambling operations.
Indian gambling operations are
regulated by states or tribes under
negotiated agreements. Regulations
vary widely from state to state.
"Many states are ill-equipped" to
regulate Indian casinos, said Gerald
Torres, counsel to Attorney General
Janet Reno.
Hope said tribes should not be
allowed to continue to regulate their
own casinos. "This is the foxes
running the hen coop," he said.
State officials generally like the
idea of federal standards.
Indian leaders say they don't mind
the idea of federal standards but they
oppose the expansion of the Indian
Gaming Commission proposed in
legislation drafted by the Senate
committee.