The Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1995-02-17

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Hennepin County sidesteps Indian detox law
By Gary Blair
When the New Visions Chemical
Dependency Treatment Program for
Native Americans discontinued services last November there wasn't any
outcry from the community's so-called
"leadership." It's not surprising,
though, as they were also silent when
the abuse of Native Americans at the
old Hennepin County Detox Center
was exposed two years ago and other
community members demanded justice. And now that there isn't any
culturally sensitive chemical dependency treatment for Native Americans in Hennepin County, it's apparent these people still aren't concerned.
This week the PRESS learned from
Cindy Tunure and Vern LaPlant of
the state chemical health division that
Hennepin County has gotten around
the state law that calls for an Indian
detox center. "When the American
Indian chemical health task force proposed the changes in chemical health
senices, it appears this is how it was
done," Tunure said.
LaPlant told the PRESS that he was
on that task force but couldn't get any
place with his concerns. "I am just as
disappointed," he said. Both say there
isn't any time-frame as to when the
chemical health task force proposal
will be implemented or who will fund
the senices.
However, 1800 Chicago Avenue is
open once again and the Indian community can be assured merry-go-
round style treatment which occurred
there before will be in full swing,
hopefully this time without anymore
client abuse. The Salvation Army is
providing the detoxification senices
through a contract with the county. It
appears the state won't give the county
another detoxification facility license.
Anyway, that's what a state official
has been telling the PRESS for the
past two years.
Just before the old county detox
center was closed over two years ago,
it was dubbed the "chamber of horrors." Former clients reported that
they had been beaten, raped and mutilated at the old facility.
Two years ago State Rep Karen
Clark authored the "Indian detox center" bill that is now a state law. The
law was designed to mandate an Indian detox center in Hennepin County.
The law was passed in response to the
allegations of clients that was believed
to have occurred at that facility.
When the development of that proposed facility fell through a year ago,
county officials then turned to another
group of people, mostly Native Americans. Sharon Day became the co-chair
for the Chemical Health Task Force;
County Commissioner Peter
McLaughlin senes as the other co-
chair; Don Bibeau, Iris Heavy Runner,
Vern LaPlant, Margaret Peak-
Ravmond, John Selstad, JoAnn Stately,
Mark Willenbring, MD; andEd Godfrey
made up the other task force members.
Godfrey recently told the PRESS that
he was invited to be a member of the
task force. "I now feel like I was used,"
he said. "My input wasn't heard."
Godfrey senes as the assistant director
of the Juels Fairbanks Chemical Dependency Treatment Program in St.
Paul and is well known in the Indian
chemical dependency field.
County Commissioner Peter
McLaughlin could not be reached for
comment.
A Man Who Answers to No One
Federal officials are taking aim on Chip Wadena, who has
Indian Reservation as his own private fiefdom for the past
leges that millions of dollars in gov-
[The following is reprinted with permission from the Twin Cities Reader
and the author.]
By A. CABELL BRUCE m
Lowell Bellanger thrusts his hands
into his coat pockets and tucks his
head into his chest to avoid the strong,
cold wind blowing down Main Street
in Mahnomen. With a boxer's gait, he
angles across the road and walks into
the White Earth Resenation Tribal
Council offices in the resenation town
30 miles due north of Detroit Lakes.
Bellanger wants answers from the
band's chairman, Darrell "Chip"
Wadena, a man who answers to no
one. Bellanger, who is a member of
the White Earth band of Ojibwa, al-
ernment funding and casino revenue
have gone unaccounted for during
Wadena's tenure, which began in
1977. Over the years, Bellanger has
watched in disgust as Wadena repeatedly has refused to explain to the
tribe's 20,000-plus members how he
was spending their money.
Today, Bellanger, who was a Bureau of Indian Affairs mechanic for 31
years, plays out another recurring
theme as he walks into the chairman' s
office in search of answers. As he
enters the one-story office building, a
receptionist slows him down. "May I
help you?" she asks cheerfully. "I'm
here to see Chip Wadena," Bellanger
demands. "Oh, I'm afraid he's busy
right now," she replies without missing a beat.
"Yeah, bullshit," says Bellanger,
ruled the White Earth
two decades
walki ng past the receptionist and down
the hall toward Wadena's office.
Bellanger has relentlessly dogged the
chairman for years. Wadena's rule of
the resenation recalls the most brazen of the old-time political bosses.
He's an autocrat who, according to
resenation sources, punishes his enemies, and rewards his friends with
jobs, patronage and cold, hard cash.
Bellanger and others have alleged that
Wadena is a common thief with an
uncommon degree of control over the
800,000-acre White Earth Indian resenation and the roughly 2,500 band
members who live there. Wadena's
opponents hope federal indictments
will end his reign of opportunism
soon.
Though the U.S. attorney for Min-
Wadena cont'd on pg 3
Tribal members seek to revive nuke dump proposal
By Eduardo Montes
(AP) _ Anti-nuclear protester
Rufina Marie Laws appeared
bewildered and dismayed as she
prepared to renew a battle she thought
she had already won.
Mescalero Apache members on Jan.
31 voted down tribal leaders' efforts
to create a nuclear waste repository
on the reservation. But Laws'
celebration of that victory was cut
short just a few days later as some
tribal members on the south-central
Nevv Mexico resenation began a drive
to revive the proposal.
"I was like, 'Oh no, here we go
again,'" Laws said Friday.
The deal became an issue again this
week as tribal member Fred
Kaydahzinne began leading a petition
drive to convince the Tribal Council
to renew negotiations on the proposed
spent fuel storage facility.
Tribal members last month voted
490-362 to kill a tentative agreement
that council had reached with 33
utilities nationwide to create a
temporary storage site for at least
20,000 metric tons of nuclear reactor
fuel rods.
All Kaydahzinne needs to do to
bring the matter before the council
again is collect the signatures of 496
tribal voters, which represents 30
percent ofthe tribe's registered voters.
Kaydahzinne said that shouldn't
be difficult since many have
reconsidered their decisions after
learning more about the proposal's
purported economic benefits.
"We can create jobs," Kaydahzinne
said in a telephone inteniew. "We
can ensure economic stability."
Tribal leaders had used similar-
arguments in trying to sell the facility.
They said direct and indirect benefits
could have reached $250 million and
that an estimated 150 direct jobs and
300 spinoff jobs would have been
created.
Tribal members didn't have enough
time to consider that before the vote,
however, and want another chance,
said Kaydahzinne.
Officials from Minnesota-based
Northern States Power Co., which
Hennepin County sidesteps Indian detox law
A Man Who Answers to No One
Protecting reservation lands, WELRP
Tribal members seek to revive nuke dump proposal
Interior Sec. urges united front on BIA Reorganiz.
Voice of the Anishinabeg (The People)
)
The
Fifty Cents
Ojibwe
News
We Support  Equal  Opportunity  Fur All  People
Founded  in 1988        Volume 6   Issue 34        February 1 7, 1 995
1
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A weekly publication.
Copyright, The Ojibwe Mews,  199S
m     i
initiated the project, have said they're
watching the petition effort cautiously,
but can't guarantee the Mescalero
deal would be revived if the
referendum passed.
"I think that if the tribe were to
collect a sufficient number of
signatures and have another
referendum vote, we'd be interested
in sitting down and discussing the
results and see how we can move from
that point," Scott Northard, Northern
State's manager on the project, said
Friday. -
Mescalero Vice President Frederick
Peso didn't immediately return
telephone calls seeking comment on
the petition drive. Tribal leaders had
said after last month's election they
would abide by the referendum's
outcome.
Laws said she is suspicious of
attempts to revive the project, saying
she believes the petition drive has
been engineered by the tribal council,
particularly Chino.
Kaydahzinne said neither the
council nor the utilities are involved
in his petition drive.
Robert Shimek, organizer for the W.E. Land Recovery Project, and sons, Johnson and James Shimek.
Protecting reservation lands
Work at the White Earth Land Recovery Project (WELRP)
By Winona LaDuke
Bob Shimek is the main organizer
for the White Earth Land Recovery
Project. A big guy, with a sheepish
grin, he's mostly known as the mayor
of Mahkonce, a small 3 house town on
the intersection of State Highway 200
and Mahnomen County 4, with a wild
rice processing mill. Bob owns the
mill and processes probably 20,000
pounds of wild rice a year - for tribal
members and the White Earth Tribe's
Manitok operation.
Now is the season we eat rice, not
manoominike (make it), however, and
he's got a different work plan. Directing the environmental program at the
WELRP, he's trying to keep maple,
white pine, bassvvood, oak and even
popple vertical and rooted, not stacked
on a logging truck and headed for
Potlatch mills off resenation.
"The cuttings getting alot worse,"
he laments, and says under his breath.
At a recent hearing at Becker County
Forest Advisory Committee, the busiest clearcutting county on the resenation, he was not so understated.
"We are a forest people. County,
state, federal policies are clearcutting
our culture. Our people live for these
woods, yet no one is considering us.
No one is considering the medicine
plants, the basket materials, the essence of what is to be Anishinabeg.
What right to you have to destroy this?
White Earth is familiar with
clearcutting. Most of it has been, as
have other resenations in the region.
Originally, a full two thirds of the
resenation was covered with timber.
In 1889, Minnesota ranked second in
the country in logging, with the northwest portion of the state leading in
production. In 1889-90, 11 million
board feet of timber was taken from
the resenation. The next year, 15
million board feet was cut, followed
by 18 million in the 1891-2 season. In
1897, 50 permits had been issued for
70 million board feet. By 1898, an
excess of 76 million board feet was cut
annually. Only now are the forests
recovering, and now they are under
assault again.
As I sit at my kitchen table, on a
dirt road, off a county road, I can
hear logging trucks barreling by.
They are cutting as quickly as they
can. Becker County presently cuts
at the rate of 40 acres per day during
"hanesting season" and rarely re-
Land cont'd on pg 5
Chairwomen Says She'll refuse COUrt Order |nterior Secretary urges united front on BIA Reorganization
BELCOURT, N.D. (AP) _ The
chainvoman of the Turtle Mountain
Band of Chippevva says she'll go to
jail rather than obey an order from the
chief tribal judge to appear in court.
Twila Martin Kekahbah has been
ordered to appear in tribal court Tuesday to explain why she paid herself
and four new council members for
consultation senices before they took
office on Jan. 3.
"I've let it be known I won't enter
the court," Kekahbah said. "There's
no reason for the chief executive officer of the tribe to enter tribal court
based on a frivolous case.
"Othenvise, I'll be entering that
court every day," said. "I'll go to jail
first. I won't put the tribe's sovereignty in any type of position in which
it can be diminishing."
Kekahbah said the nevv council
members started their work right after the Nov. 8 election, and she believes they desene to be paid for
November through Januan. She said
they should have been seated soon
after they were elected, rather than
waiting until Januan.
Ray Parisien Sr., a former council
member who came in second to
Kekahbah in the vote for tribal chairman, brought the complaint against
her, saying she didn't have proper
authorization to pay the consultation
fees.
Parisien said Kekahbah approved
$29,090, or $5,818 each for herself
and four nevv council members.
Kekahbah said the controversy is a
diversion from the bigger issue of
changes in tribal government, including open meetings and a pending
investigation of the previous
administration's handing of finances.
"Some people don't like it,"
Kekahbah said.
Dorene Bruce, the superintendent
ofthe Bureau of Indian Affairs' Turtle
Mountain Agency, said the court order has nothing to do with the separation of powers.
"It was an individual who filed in
tribal court," she said. "That's his
contention, and he gets his day in
court."
Kekahbah was sened with a court
order at a tribal council meeting
Wednesday. Tribal Judge Richard
Frederick said the order is for
Kekahbah to show why she should
not be held in contempt for continuing to sign checks for consultation
fees after Jan. 25, when she was ordered to stop.
By Judy Gibbs
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Interior
Secretary Bruce Babbitt is fueling hope
that Indian tribes could benefit from the
savings achieved when the Bureau of
Indian Affairs is reorganized.
But reorganize the BIA must, Babbitt
warned.
Like other federal agencies, the BIA
is under orders from the Clinton
administration to downsize. BIA
officials have until Feb. 28 to
recommend a streamlining plan to
Babbitt, and he urged all tribes to come
to agreement.
"I recognize right now there's a fair
amount of confusion in Indian country
because ofthe way this proposal has
come up," Babbitt said at a meeting
Friday with tribal leaders sened by
the Anadarko and Muskogee area
offices ofthe BIA.
"But the one thing we need to
remember is that somehow we've got
to come to closure on this issue quickly.
Because if we don't get an approach
and plan put together, it's going to be
done to us ratherthan with us," Babbitt
said.
"I think it's just essential that we all
be together," he said. "AH I want to do
is make sure we're all reading from
the same script before the U.S.
Congress."
The tribal leaders presented Babbitt
with a position paper approved last
month that calls for any BIA
reorganization to put Oklahoma in a
south-central district that also would
include Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana,
Missouri and Texas.
The regional office should be in
Oklahoma, the tribal position paper
says.
Oklahoma now has two ofthe BIA's
12 area offices, one in Anadarko and
one in Muskogee. But Assistant
Secretary7 for Indian Affairs Ada Deer,
who accompanied Babbitt, said it is
unlikely Oklahoma would retain two
after reorganization.
"That has not been finalized yet,
but I would doubt it," Ms. Deer said.
United cont'd on pg 3
Santee Sioux tribal leaders sued over casino profits
Indian tribe coalition proposes alternative to bison policy
CASPER_ A coalition of 35 Indian
tribes wants to quarantine bison that
stray from Yellowstone National Park
so scientists can check to see if they
are infected with brucellosis.
Brucellosis is a bacteriological
disease that infects cattle, elk and
bison and can cause abortion of calves.
Infected bison would be killed after
the tribes gave appropriate ceremonies
and the meat would be given to the
Indians. The plan is a revision of an
earlier Indian plan, but changes in
federal policy would need to be made
if this most recent idea is to work,
officials say.
Nearly 300 bison have been shot
since September of 1994 and the
InterTribal Bison Cooperative hopes
they can make their alternative plan
viable this time. The estimated
number of bison in the park is about
4,200.
Animals that are found to be free of
diseases would be turned over to tribes
for their own herds.
The tribal plan was met with some
cautious initial support from state
Bison cont'd on pg 3
FLANDREAU, S.D. (AP) _ Santee
Sioux tribal leaders face a lawsuit
from tribal members and others over
distribution of profits from the Royal
River Casino.
In a lawsuit filed in Sioux Falls
federal court, seven tribal members
and four others waiting to be enrolled
accuse tribal leaders of unfairly
dividing profits from the casino at
Flandreau.
The lawsuit claims a large share of
casino wealth is going to a select few
within the tribe's power structure and
not equally to all members.
Since April 1991, Santee Sioux
officials have paid monthly dividends
totaling more than $800,000 to tribal
members living within Moody
County, the lawsuit states.
About one-fourth of the tribe's
membership lives outside the county.
Tribal members living outside
Moody County sued the tribe in 1991
because profits from the casino were
going only to tribal members who
lived in the county.
That lawsuit was settled two years
ago. Under the agreement, enrolled
tribal members who had not received
payments were to be paid $2,000,
minus $550 for lawyer fees and costs,
plus 25 percent of all future payments.
The new lawsuit asks that the
distribution of future revenue be
adjusted to compensate those who
haven'tbeenreceivingpayments since
April 1991.