Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2002-06-21

              INDEX
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY 2
NEWS BRIEFS 3
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS 4
CLASSIFIEDS 7
McCaleb names
Aurene Martin Acting
Deputy Assistant
Secretary-Indian
Affairs
page 3
Plan for the use,
distribution of Red
Lake Band of
Chippewa Indians
Judgment funds
page 5
Red Lake gaming
operations -What the
hell is going on?
page 4
It's time to step
down and let a real
leader dig you out
of your hole
page 4
Commentary
Elections could herald
new day for the
Minnesota Chippewa
Tribe
page 4
Press/ON takes quest for casino audits to Court of Appeals
by Clara NiiSka
On Thursday, June 20*, Native
American Press/Ojibwe News
publisher Bill Lawrence appealed
Ramsey County District Court
Judge Louise Bjoikman's April
23,2002 ruling that the Indian casino audit data were "trade secrets." Lawrence is "pro se," acting as his own attorney in representing himself and the newspaper.
"Obviously, I don't agree with
Judge Bjorkman's interpretation
of trade secrets," Lawrence said.
"I think she's way off base. It's
preposterous that an audited financial statement could be considered
a trade secret, and I think this
needs to be addressed by a higher
court. If the Legislature would
have wanted audited financial
statements to be considered trade
secrets and exempt from the Data
Practices Act, they would have
spelled it out and listed 'audits'
among the other exemptions
specified in §13.37,1 (b)."
Minnesota Statutes §13.37,
General nonpublic data, defines
"trade secret information" in subdivision 1 (b) as: "government
data, including a formula, pattern,
compilation, program, device,
method, technique or process (1)
that was supplied by the affected
individual or organization, (2) that
is the subject of efforts by the individual or organization that are reasonable under the circumstances
to maintain its secrecy, and (3)
that derives independent economic
value, actual or potential, from not
being generally known to, and not
being readily ascertainable by
proper means by, other persons
who can obtain economic value
from its disclosure or use" [emphasis added]. § 13.37 subd. 1 (b)
also requires that "a party seeking
to limit public disclosure must
demonstrate all aspects ofthe
trade secret information definition
are met" [emphasis added].
Lawrence is an intervenor in the
cases Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe
Indians v. State of Minnesota and
Prairie Island Indian Community
v. Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Attorneys for Mille
Lacs and Prairie Island sued the
state last September, seeking to
prevent the Minnesota Department of Public Safety from releasing casino audits held by the state
pursuant to the State-Tribal gambling compacts. On September
14th, the Attorney General's Office
issued an opinion that audit information is public information. The
tribes filed suit less than a week
later.
It has been slightly more than a
year since Press/ON published excerpts from the 1997 Red Lake casino audits, on June 15,2001. In
February 2001, this newspaper
had requested all of the Red Lake
casino audits under the Minnesota
Data Practices Act. The fiscal
year 1997 Red Lake audit was finally released after Commissioner
of Administration David Fisher's
April 19,2001 ruling in Advisory
Opinion 01-051 that the audits are
public information.
When Press/ON finally obtained the 1997 Red Lake audit, it
was accompanied by a letter stating that it was the only Red Lake
audit held by the State. During
subsequent court proceedings, it
was disclosed that the state holds a
second Red Lake audit, for fiscal
year 1992. This newspaper has
not yet been able to obtain a copy
ofthe second audit.
Under the Compacts negotiated
between Minnesota Indian tribes
and the state, Indian tribal govem-
PRESS/ON to page 3
VOICE       OF      THE       PEOPLE
Forensic audit of Red Lake Gaming Enterprises underway
By Bill Lawrence
On Tuesday, June 18, auditors
from the C.P.A. firm of RSM
McGladrey, Inc., met with Red
Lake tribal officials to begin the
forensic (fraud) audit of Red
Lake Gaming Enterprises. The
audit was authorized by Red
Lake tribal council resolution
No. 83-02, passed on May 14,
2002.
According to a letter from
Business and Technology Consultant Don Romero of RSM
McGladrey to Red Lake tribal
treasurer Darrell Seki, the scope
of the audit will be to interview ,
key employees to gather information on current practices and
controls over significant purchases, and then review documents relating to these areas:
Scope of the audit
• Construction costs of the hotel and water park at the Thief
River Falls Casino, and the
change orders.
• Construction cost of the expansion at the Warroad Casino.
• Construction cost of the expansion at the Red Lake Casino,
including costs associated with
the proposed "new casino" at
Red Lake.
• Procedures used to select
Stevens Construct Co. as the
general contractor for the construction project.
• Purchase of the Cheney
property, Warroad Super 8 Motel and Lakeview Restaurant
(which was added to the
Corporation's Warroad Casino
operations), including, but not
limited, to the financial operations since December 2000.
• Expenses associated with
"cash cards" issued by the Gaming Operation to gaming staff
and Tribal Council officers.
Cash cards were issued to gaming staff including: human resources director Lorna LaGue,
former treasurer Dan King,
former gaming manager Marv
Hanson, Red Lake gaming enterprises chief financial officer
Veldon Baud, VP of security
and surveillance Bob Thunder,
Individuals sought in murder on
Lower Sioux Agency surrender
Dennis William Pendleton,
Jr., age 20, and Christopher Richard Sander, age 25, were arraigned in Redwood County
District Court Wednesday, June
19, 2002, for the murder of
Frank Irving Parker II of Minneapolis. Arrest warrants for
Pendleton and Sander had been
issued, charging them with
"Aiding and Abetting Murder in
the second degree, committed
for the benefit of a gang," and
"Aiding and Abetting Murder in
the second degree" in connection with the death of Parker on
June 9, 2002. Officers discovered that Sander and Pendleton
were members of the Gangster
Disciples, according to the
criminal complaint, "an ongoing
organization, association, or
group consisting of three or
more persons, that has, as one of
its primary activities, the commission of designated crimes,
has a common name or common
identifying sign or symbol, and
includes members who individually or collectively engage in or
have engaged in a pattern of
Christopher Sander
Dennis Pendleton
criminal activity." Officers also
discovered that Sander and
Pendleton, as gang members,
had had an ongoing dispute with
SURRENDER to page 5
Detroit Appeal of Lac Vieux Desert Band Ruling Rejected by
Supreme Court: Appropriateness of Detroit Gambling
Licenses in Question
By Jean Pagano
The Supreme Court of the
United States on Monday denied
the city of Detroit's petition for
a writ of certiorari concerning
the awarding of gambling contracts by the city of Detroit. The
writ of certiorari is an attempt to
have a lower (i.e. Appellate)
court's ruling on a matter reviewed. In this case. Detroit,
MI, et al v. Lac Vieux Desert
Band, the Band argued that the
method in which Detroit
awarded casinos licenses was
unconstitutional. The Band sued
and Judge Robert Holmes Bell
of the United States District
Court in Grand Rapids. Michigan granted Detroit summary
judgment in the case. The Band
appealed to the United States 6*
Circuit Court of Appeals and the
Appellate Court found that the
city's casino license ordinance,
in its present form, was uncon
stitutional. The Appellate Court
remanded the case back to
Judge Bell to reconsider. The
City of Detroit appealed to the
U.S. Supreme Court, and the
Court denied the petition.
In the mid 1990's. the city of
Detroit, with the help of three
large non-Native casinos, was
able to get the voters to overturn
a gambling ban in the city of
Detroit. As part of the agreement, preferential treatment was
given to one or more of the
three casinos (by law) when it
came time to award licenses.
The casinos. Greektown Casino.
MGM Grand Detroit Casino,
and MotorCity Casino generate
millions of dollars of desperately needed money for the city
of Detroit. The Band, who did
not participate in the process to
obtain a license, claimed that
their rights were infringed upon
and that the licensing process
should be reviewed, redone, and
re-bid.
While the Courts denial of the
petition may seem a moral victory for the Band, the real issues
are still to be dealt with at the
District Court level. The Casinos and the city of Detroit claim
that the ruling doesn't really
mean much and could be decided at a later date. The Band
feels that its claims concerning
the constitutionality ofthe licensing process are hereby validated, and hope that one or
more of the licenses will be re-
bid. The fact of the matter remains that Judge Bell may order
that one or more of the licenses
be re-bid or may do nothing at
all. In any event, the matter will
most likely remain in the court
for years.
Until Detroit had the voters
APPEAL to page 5
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lyees
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Ojibwe News
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Founded in 1988
Volume 15 Issue 4
June 21,2002
and VP of marketing John
Loukas.
Baird told the auditors that not
all of the individuals listed had
filed the required monthly expense reports to justify their
cash card withdrawals. When
the auditors asked to review the
construction documents, Baird
told the auditors that investment
company Miller Schroeder had
the most complete set of documents, and that RSM
McGladrey would have to contact Miller Schroeder to get the
documents. Miller Schroeder
has gone bankrupt, and certain
parts of that investment company have been acquired by
Marshall Financial, located in
Minneapolis.
Years reviewed
The fiscal years to be reviewed arc:
• FY 2002 including October
1 through December 31, 2001
•All of FY 2001
• The last six months of FY
2000.
AUDIT to page 2
Gary Wipf, Red
Lake Enrollee,
Diocese, Bishop
Named in Sexual
Abuse Lawsuit:
Church Allegedly
Allowed Wipf to
Coach Children
By Jean Pagano
Gary Wipf, Red Lake enrollee,
St. Mary's Mission Church and
School, the Crookston Diocese and
Bishop Victor H. Balke were collectively named in two complaints
concerning the alleged sexual
abuse of minors by Wipf while
working as a janitor and coach at
the St. Mary's Mission Church and
School (the School).
Gary Wipf was indicted last
month on child pornography
charges after authorities seized numerous tapes at Wipf's residence
after the issuance of a tribal search
warrant. One ofthe tapes report-
WIFP to page 5
Photo credit Clara NiiSka
Bobby Whitefeather (dressed in black) and MUID chair Tony LookingElk (in plaid shirt) visit with community
members on the ball field to the east of the Minneapolis American Indian Center on Friday, June 14th.
Whitefeather, the incumbent Red Lake tribal council chairman, faces former chairman Gerald "Butch" Brun
in the Red Lake runoff elections on July 17th, and both candidates are actively courting the urban "absentee"
voters in the Twin Cities.
An interview with Bobby Whitefeather
by Clara NiiSka
The invitation came by email,
''come visit" with Bobby
White^.the,- at the Phillips
Community Gathering at the
Minneapolis American Indian
Center on Friday, June 14*.
The event was something like a
neighborhood fair - cotton
candy, hot dogs, games and pohtical booths - and there was a
pretty good turnout.
Whitefeather was standing
toward the end ofthe grassy
field on the east side of the Indian Center, visiting, and this
writer asked for an interview.
Whitefeather asked if his words
would be "twisted." This writer
showed him her tape recorder
and responded, "I have never
misquoted you, Mr.
Whitefeather."
With the tape recorder running,
the interview began by asking
Whitefeather, "Maybe you could
begin by telling the voters
they should vote for you."
Whitefeather: Why they should
vote for me?
Press/ON: Yeah.
Whitefeather: Well, I think it's,
ah, for me, it's obvious that, ah,
we've been able to get a lot of
things, ah, started in Red Lake
over the last eight years. If you
take a snapshot of what was there
eight years ago, and the amount of
work that's been done over the last
eight years by a lot of people, it's
remarkable, and when I visit with
other tribes and tribal leaders, they
look at us to see how we do
things, and get the job done, and
they recognize that it's many ingredients to the combination that
make it successful, and strong
leadership is one of them, that,
you know, you've gotta get out
there and identify with tlie people,
and make sure they know that you
care about them, and everything
associated with them. So, there's,
there's still tremendous amount of
need yet, and ah, if we ever get to
where everybody's gonna be
comfortable, I would like to see
that, but there are so many, many
unmet needs that's out there yet,
that it's gonna take a lot more effort by many people over time.
Press/ON: What to you are the
most pressing needs?
Whitefeather: The what?
Press/ON: What to you are the
mdst pressing needs?
WHITEFEATHER to page 7
Rice Lakers protest election
by Joel Patenaude, Mille Lacs
Messenger Staff Writer
As members of the Mille Lacs
Band of Ojibwe turned out to vote
in their general election Tuesday,
June 11,20-some supporters of a
disqualified candidate protested in
front of a District II polling place,
south of McGregor.
Amidst hand-made signs reading "Mille Lacs: Let East Lake
Go" and 'honk for freedom"
stood David Niib Aubid with a
sign that said simply "no" in the
Ojibwe language.
"They denied my civil rights to
run in this election," said Aubid,
49, a self-declared Rice Lake
Band member and former commissioner of administration for the
Mille Lacs Band.
Aubid tried and failed to stop
the election through tribal court after he couldn't get a hearing to dispute his disqualification.
"I gave them every possible
chance to put me on the ballot, but
they consistently refused," he said.
"So it's with great reluctance I'll be
getting an attorney to carry this forward in federal court."
More than one sign brandished at
the protest camp urged write-in
votes for Aubid. Mille Lacs Band
officials declined to say how many
votes he received, Minnesota
Chippewa Tribe election law does
not recognize write-in votes for candidates.
Aubid said he and his supporters
hope to invalidate the election "as a
violation of our civil rights."
Aubid said his disqualification
from running for Mille Lacs Band
District II representative is only the
latest example ofthe Vineland-
based Mille Lacs Band denying
Rice Lake Band members control
over their local affairs." All we're
asking for is economic and social
parity and community control - and
we're asking that our candidate be
allowed to run," said Mushkooub,
ELECTION to page 6
Yucca Mountain becoming issue in
Minnesota Senate race
By Frederic J. Frommer
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Minnesota
has a stake in next month's Senate
vote on storing nuclear waste in
Nevada's Yucca Mountain — and
so do Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-
Minn.. and his GOP challenger,
Norm Coleman.
Because Xcel Energy will run
out of storage space in five years
at its Prairie Island nuclear facility,
the company is lobbying intensively for the Yucca site. But Minnesota environmentalists w orry
that transporting the waste will endanger communities along the
route.
"It's a huge issue for the company," said John O'Donnell, a
Washington lobbyist for Xcel.
"We've always thought of ourselves as sort of the point of the
sword to open Yucca Mountain."
because ofthe Prairie Island storage issue.
Both Weilstone and the stale's
other senator. Democrat Mark
Dayton, are undecided. But the
spotlight is more on Wellstone because he faces a tough re-election
campaign this year.
The House has already voted to
override Nevada Gov. Kenny
Guinn's April veto ofthe presidential selection of Yucca Mountain.
Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn..
joined the state's three Republicans
in voting for the override:
YUCCA to page 5
National Indian
conference
focusing on
economic
development
By Blake Nicholson
Associated Press
BISMARCK, N.D. —American
Indian tribes must move beyond reliance on government programs but
they need federal help to do it, a
national Indian leader says.
Delegates to the National Congress of American Indians midyear
conference say the goal could be
difficult to reach in tough economic
times.
"Economic development is essential to tribal .seff-determination
and self-governance," said association President Tex Hall, chairman
of the Three Affiliated Tribes in
North Dakota.
"We need to move from our
grant-dependent mentality" and toward self-sustaining economies on
reservations, he told the hundreds
of tribal leaders who gathered at
the conference Monday. But federal help also is needed, he said.
The association, based in Washington, DC, is the largest tribal
government organization in the
country, representing more than
250 tribes. The focus of the midyear conference, which runs
through Wednesday, is a strategy
for development on reservations
that the association can present to
Congress and the Bush administration.
It also is a warm-up for a national conference on tribal economic development Sept. 16-19 in
Phoenix.
Unemployment on reservations
typically runs at about 50 percent.
One ofthe the association's main
CONFERENCE to page 6