Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2002-09-06

              INDEX
What's really
Outlining Recommendations
Hunt should save us
Is the Strib trying
Commentary
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY
2
happening with the
for Management Changes at
all a lot of trouble
to smear McGaa?
Get out and vote
NEWS BRIEFS
a
accounts at Leech
the Corporate Commission
and resign
for Ed McGaa in
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS
4
Lake?
Tuesday's
CLASSIFIEDS
7
primary
page 4
page 5
page 4
page 4
page 4
Leech Lake committee certifies 512 signatures on
Hunt recall petition
RBC sets recall hearing for Friday, Sept. 13"'
The committee overseeing the
possible recall of Leech Lake
chairman Eli Hunt concluded their
validation of signatures, and presented the petition to Hunt last
week. Ofthe 577 signatures submitted on the recall petitions, the
committee rejected 65 signatures
for various "defects," and certified
512 signatures as valid. This is 85
signatures more than the 427 required for a recall election at Leech
Lake under the provisions of the
MCT constitution.
According to Leech Lake tribal
member Wally Storbakken, it is anticipated that the Leech Lake RBC
will hold a special meeting on
Thursday, September 5% and set a
date to conduct the election to recall Leech Lake tribal chairman Eli
Hunt. The RBC will be holding a.
hearing to evaluate the charges
made against Hunt in the recall petition, said Storbakken. The hearing is scheduled for Friday, September 1T at 1:00 p.m. at the
Leech Lake Palace bingo hall.
The grassroots movement to recall Hunt is based on charges that
the chairman did not fulfill his duties as outlined in the MCT constitution, specifically:
■ Charge No. 1: violation of Revised Constitution and Bylaws of
the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe Article X, Section 2(a), Malfeasance
in the Handling of tribal affairs.
• Charge No. 2: violation of Revised Constitution and Bylaws of
the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Article X, Section 2(b) Dereliction or
neglect of duty.
• Charge No. 3: violation of Revised Constitution and Bylaws of
the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe Ar
ticle Xr Section 2(e) Refusal to
comply with any provisions of
the Constitution and Bylaws of
the Tribe.
At a press conference on August
23ri, Hunt acknowledged that he
'respects' the recall process, but reportedly said that in "looking over
the names" on the petition, "I saw
names of people I considered to be
friends ... I won't ask them why
they signed; I respect their opinion." Hunt was presented with the
petition at a special meeting held
on Thursday, August 22nd at the
Mission community center.
After a hearing in which the
charges against Hunt are presented,
the RBC may vote to remove Hunt
from office, or to order a recall
election.
Who's really neglecting Native children in Minnesota?
By Jeff Armstrong   ■
In a report to the state legislature
this year, the Minnesota Department of Human Services identified
an "urgent crisis in Minnesota's
child welfare system."
"Racial disparities in
Minnesota's child welfare system
are found in the entire process,
from initial reporting to acceptance
of cases to discharge of children
from the system," the DHS Study
of Outcomes for African American
Children in Minnesota's Child Protection System concluded.
Although the state study recommended a number of measures to
further examine
and reform a system which produces a vastly disproportionate out-
of-home placement rate of African
American youths, it continued to
neglect the only population in the
state with an even more alarming
rate of child removal.
According to its 2002 legislative
report, Native children accounted
for 10.3% of children in Minnesota
removed from their homes in the
year 2000. With Native youths
making up just 1.6% of the under-
18 population in the state, that constitutes a removal rate 6.44 times
greater than one would expect in a
racially equitable society. In real
numbers, the 1,903 Native children
in placement over the course ofthe
year amounts to more than 9% of
the entire racial group.
By camparison, the plight of African American chidren which has
attracted a significant amount of
legislative and media attention centers on a placement rate whose
388% disparity is just over half that
of Natives. The 3,573 black children in foster care placement accounted for about 1/17 of that
population, again slightly more
than half the removal rate of Native
youths. ■
It is not that the statistics have
eluded the notice of the state legislature. Last year, a staff member for
senate judiciary committee chairman John Marty pledged that the
senator would hold a hearing to
specifically address the Native
child placement discrepancies to
complement one held earlier on Af
rican American families. He antici-
' pated that the hearing would be
held some time in January or February, but, in fairness, the Marty
staffer did not say which year.
In response to an earlier article
on the subject in this paper (longtime readers will justifiably accuse
me of redundancy), Minneapolis
Rep. Neva Walker wrote a letter to
the editor of Press/ON seeking to
allay concerns that "readers will
jump to the wrong conclusions."
"Armstrong was right," wrote
Walker, "when he said the Senate's
December 4 hearing on these
disparaties focused on the African
American community, but that
doesn't mean the alarming rate at  .
which Native American kids are
placed in foster care is being ignored. In fact, the Senate has promised to hold another hearing focusing on the problem in the next
couple months."
Walker's letter was printed in the
Dec. 21,2001 issue of this newspaper, more than eight months ago.
A little ash residue on Greens' McGaa?
[Editor's note: McGaa's response
on page 4]
by Rob Hotakainen and Mark
Brunswick, Minneapolis Star Tribune, September 3,2002
Washington, D.C. — In 1986, Ed
McGaa wrote a letter to the state of
"South Dakota, pitching a business
project that called for extracting
gold and other metals from sewage
ash produced in the Twin Cities.
"I am proud that I can now be instrumental in aiding an industrial development into my home state,"
wrote McGaa, who had moved to
Minnesota but still owned land on
the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
in southwestern South Dakota
The project quickly went bust,
however, leaving the sludge sitting
in South Dakota warehouses until it
^was buried — an episode the Wall
Streetjournal called "an environmental debacle."
McGaa is now the Green Party's
endorsed candidate for Minnesota's
U.S. Senate seat, and some environmentalists are citing the sludge
project as they question McGaa's
Green credentials.     |
"How the Greens got messed up
with him I'll never know," said Deb
Rogers, of Rapid City, S.D., former
executive director of a citizen group
that fought the project. "If 10 years
ago someone had predicted this to
me, I would have laughed them out
ofthe room. It is just unbelievable to
me. I mean, you can't even imagine
a person who is less compatible with
their philosophy.''
In an interview at his home in
Edina, McGaa said he had no regrets about being involved in the
project and that he thought it was
environmentally sound because the
land was not near a water table or
flood plain.
photo: Clara NiiSka
Green Party endorsed candidate for U.S. Senate Ed McGaa explains his
positions at a candidates' forum at Concordia College on August 29.   •
"When I go in the Spirit World,
I'll ask, 'Great Spirit, was that good
or bad?' I think the Great Spirit will
say, 'That's not a bad idea.'... I
deep down believe that it was a
good idea," said McGaa.
McGaa points to books he has
written, including "Native Wisdom:
Perceptions ofthe Natural Way"
and "Mother Earth Spirituality: Native American Paths to Healing Ourselves and Our World," as'examples
of his environmental activism and
his connectedness to the Earth.
In the mid-1980s, McGaa was
president of a company called
Cinagro, an affiliate of Consolidated
Management Corp., which got a $7
million contract from the Metropolitan Waste Control Commission
(MWCC) to haul incinerated sludge
to South Dakota.
The incinerated sludge was a
gray, powderlike substance that col
lected at the bottom of incinerators
that burn the solid waste, or sludge,
from the sewer system. The sludge
was mostly human waste. It was not
classified as hazardous but Minnesota laws prevented the commission
from disposing it in landfills. Environmentalists, though, had raised
concerns about high levels of cadmium and lead as well as other metals.
McGaa said he was looking for
opportunities for 6,000 acres of land
that he and his sister owned on the
reservation. He said he became
aware ofthe sludge as an employee
ofthe Metropolitan Airports Commission when the ash was used to
keep dust and dirt down at regional'
airports. After learning that the
Waste Commission was trying to get
rid of its sludge, McGaa said he approached tribal leaders, who ex-
MCGAA to page 2
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Volume 15 Issue 14
September 6,2002
photo: Clara NiiSka
Leech Lake rep Luke Wilson looks on while MCT lab director John Persell, who has been researching
environmental contamination from the old St. Regis wood pressure treating plant at Cass Lake, points
out data in his confidential report to Richard DuBey, attorney with Seattle law firm Short, Cressman &
Burgess, at a September 3rd session of the Leech Lake RBC held at Mystic Lake.
Leech Lake
RBC meets
'with attorneys,
researchers at
Mystic Lake to
discuss Cass
Lake
superfund site
by Clara NiiSka
Members of the Leech Lake
tribal council held a two-day
meeting with researchers and
tribal attorneys at the Mystic
Lake casino hotel in Prior
Lake on September 3rd and 4*
to consider strategies for dealing with toxins at the
Superfund site in Cass Lake,
RBCs superfund site map
formerly owned by a plant for
pressure-treating wood operated
by St. Regis Paper Company between 1957 and 1985. Additional contamination may have
come from the wastewater and
sludge disposed of at the Cass
Lake city dump between. 1957
and 1975.
According to reports by researchers John Persell, MCT lab
director, and Shirley Nordrum,
SUPERFUND to page 7
Robin Renee
English pleads
guilty to Red
Lake stabbing
Minneapolis, MN - Twenty
year old Robin Renee English
from the Red Lake Indian reservation pleaded guilty today
in United States District Court
to assault with a dangerous
weapon.
English entered her plea before Judge David Doty in Minneapolis. During her guilty
plea hearing, English admitted
that she stabbed another member of the Red Lake band on
February 10, 2002.
On February 10,' 2002 at approximately 7:13 a.m., the Red
Lake Police Department received a 911 call from the victim who told police that he had
been stabbed. The victim had
been stabbed approximately
RENEE to page 7
Authorities target
violence in Indian
reservations
By Margaret Zack, Star Tribune
Gun violence, drugs and gangs
on five Minnesota Indian reservations are the targets of Project
Safe Neighborhoods, a joint state
and federal program.
U.S. Attorney Tom
Heffelfinger said Thursday that
people who live on Indian reservations are victims of violent
crime 2 1/2 times more often than
the general population.
Since December, five homicides have been reported on
northern Minnesota's Red Lake
VIOLENCE to page 5
Youth group participates in Wild Rice reseeding on Red Lake
By Sean Fahrlander
On the weekend of August 10th,
Bimadiziiwin, a youth group comprised of kids from several reservations in Minnesota and the Twin Cities took part in a project to help restore Wild Rice on the Red Lake
Reservation. The Red Lake Wild
Rice Restoration Project is a collaborative effort between Independent
School District 196 Indian Education
Program and the Indigenous Peoples
Task Force and is funded through an
EPA Environmental Justice Grant
and the McKnight Foundation.
Elements of the project had been
designed around the premise that
community involvement is integral
to sustaining traditions and the in-
Y0UTH to page 3
Runners hope to bring awareness
to racism in Bemidji
By Audrey Thayer
A stormy, rainy Saturday, August
31s' brought out a number of runners
to support the Race Against Racism
supported by the Anishinabe Peace
and Justice Coalition.
The run organized by Frank
Dickerson and Robert Shmik was to
bring awareness to the serious issues
of racial discrimination and racial
profiling in the Bemidji Area.
Buck Jourdain of Red Lake coordinated handling the logistics ofthe
run from Paul Bunyan and Babe in
Bemidji to the Leech Lake Powwow grounds.
Runners came from the three reservations encircling Bemidji. In
support and commitment to the is
sue of racism in Northern Minnesota were County Commissioner
candidate for Beltrami Comity, District 1 Audrey M.Thayer, and Ed
McGaa who is hoping for a seat in
the U.S. Senate.
The weather cleared and the runners ran the 15 miles to the powwow grounds. With the sun shining
the 22 runners arrived in the dance
arbor to circle four times with a
honor song. Frank Dickerson and
Ed McGaa presented comments on
the importance of becoming'actively
involved in our communities to stop
racism and to exercise the right to
vote for city, county and state elections.
Scientists can study ancient bones
By William McCall
Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. — More
than six years after the discovery of
one ofthe oldest skeletons ever
found in North America, a federal
judge has overturned a government
decision to give the bones to Indian
tribes for reburial and ruled that
scientists can keep them for more
study.
U.S. Magistrate John Jelderks
waded through 20,000 pages of
documents before concluding that
"nothing I have found in a careful
examination ofthe administrative
record" would support the government.
The judge also harshly criticized
former Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt and the Army Corps of Engineers for the way they handled
the case.
The federal government "failed
to consider all the relevant factors,
had acted before it had all of the
evidence, had failed to fully consider legal questions, had assumed
facts that proved to be erroneous,
had failed to articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action, had
followed a 'flawed' procedure, and
had prematurely decided the issue,"
Jelderks wrote.
"Allowing study is fully consistent with applicable statutes and
regulations, which are clearly intended to make archaeological information available to the public
through scientific research," the
judge said.
Dana Perino, spokeswoman for
the Justice Department in Washington, D.C, said government attorneys would have to review the ruling before they could comment.
The scientists said they were extremely happy with the ruling but
emphasized it was a legal battle
against a government agency's interpretation of the law, not tribal
tradition.
"I'm sure Native Americans see
it differently, but this suit was
against the government, not the Indian tribes," said anthropologist Ri-
STUDY to page 5