Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2005-08-05

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INDEX
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY 2
NEWS BRIEFS 3
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS 4
CLASSIFIEDS 7
Minnesota Chippewa
Tribe Secretarial
Election
page 5
Red Lake Walleye
Recovery
page 4
Leech Lake's
Indigenous Games
group to meet
page 4
White Earth continues
to seek, enroll
members
page 4
Leech Lake
Chairman
Goggleye speaks
with forked tongue
page 4
Red Lake tribal administrator fires CI Martell
By Bill Lawrence
Clifford Martell has been terminated as a criminal investigator for
the Red Lake Pubhc Safety Commission. A letter to Martell from
LeaPerkins, Executive Administrator of the Red Lake Band notified
him on July 29 that the termination
was effective July 25.
The letter stated "By misusing
your authority to execute a non-tribal order without following procedure and misrepresenting yourself
as an agent of a non-tribal agency
you have grossly disregarded your
duty as outlined in the Public Safety
The termination
resulted... even
though the warrant was
not delivered...
Code of Ethics."
An individual who had heard
MarteH's version of the story
told Press/ON that Martell, and
a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent went, in a federal government vehicle, to a Red
Lake residence to serve a Felony
Warrant for Abduction. A female
tribal police officer also went, to
the residence in her own vehicle.
Our source told Press/ON the
subject of the warrant was a child
who was not a Red Lake member,
and that Donald R. Cook as Lay
Counselor, was representing the
woman also named on the warrant
No exchange took place between Martell and the proposed
recipient of the warrant because
the woman was not at home. The
warrant was not served.
Martell, in attempting to serve
the warrant, acted underthe as-
There is a question
over the authority used
to terminate Martell
from the Public Safety
Commission.
sumption because an FBI agent
had carried the warrant to the
reservation, that it was a federal
warrant. It was discovered later
that it was a state warrant.
The termination resulted from
this incident even though the
warrant was not delivered and no
further action occurred.
Mr. Martell is a Red Lake
Reservation member of the Area
Dnig Task Force and was involved
MARTELL to page 4
Update: Leech Lake Chairman Goggleye's reduction
in felony status
WALKER, MN-Leech Lake
Chairman George Goggleye, Jr.
was released from probation on
July 21, 1997. According to the
Cass County Court Administration, Goggleye's court file lacked
the proper discharge paperwork
normally filed by the felon's probation officer immediately following the discharge from probation.
Goggleye's probation officer Diane Johnson neglected to file the
proper paperwork to release him
from probation in July 1997.
To clear up the matter, Sue Op-
sahl, probation officer, requested
die court on June 30, 2005 to release Goggleye from probation and
reduce the 5th degree felony charge
to a misdemeanor. Her request was
signed off by Victor Moen, District
Director, Minnesota Department
of Corrections. The Press/ON
contacted the Cass County Court
Administrator's office and Judge
Harrington's office to find out who
requested the change in status, but
Harrington's secretary said, "No
comment" and Court Administration did not know.
On July 1, 2005, Judge Harrington signed the order enacting
the change. Harrington's order
states, "Haas presided, reviewed,
and terminated die file on April
21, 1997. Due to an oversight, an
order was not entered discharging
Goggleye from probation, restoring
Goggleye's civil rights and deeming the offense a misdemeanor." It
is extremely unusual for a judge to
sign an order on one days notice.
Technically since Goggleye was
sentenced under a Stay of Execution and it had not been revoked,
upon termination of the case, the
felony automatically resorts to a
misdemeanor.
During the probationary period,
Goggleye served 150 hours of
community service in lieu of a
total fine of $750 ($650 fine and
$100 surcharge). The community
service hours were signed off by
Don Robinson who confinned
Goggleye worked for the Elderly
Nutrition Program to work off the
court ordered requirement.
During the probationary period, Johnson violated Goggleye
for three reasons: 1) Failure to
complete anger management (to
which Goggleye plead guilty); 2)
Uncooperative with court order
agreement; mid 3) failure to maintain contact.
Goggleye has a history of harassment and domestic abuse charges
in Itasca County from 10/29/1993
to 12/28/1999. The victim filed a
claim for $871.59 against Goggleye to repair or replace a mattress,
broken window and door, clothes
that were cut up, broken knick
knacks/pictures, and to repair a car
window. Of that amount, $146.59
was the amount Leech Lake Housing billed the victim for, because
they were required to repair the
broken door and window.
Red Lake: Youth council looks to motivate students
By Dave Kolpack
Associated Press
. RED LAKE, Minn. - Watching basketball players celebrate
3-point shots and cliildren squeal
their way down a water slide, the
leaders of a new youth council
here pronounced their first event
a success.
"The smiles. I like to see die
smiles," said Vernelle Lussier,
18, an organizer of the Red Lake
Nation Youth Council. "I think
we're going to get a lot of good
things out of this."
The festival is called "REZil-
iency," which Lussier said is a
tribute to the history of the tribe
and its ability to bounce back from
adversity.
The council's organizers have
been quick to point out that planning for their group began last
year, before a troubled teenager
killed nine people on the reservation, including seven people at the
high school.
But dial attack has brought much
more attention to the group.
"I find it discouraging because
we're trying to do these good
things and it all goes back to
March," said Tim Sumner, the
council's adviser. "It kind of defeats the purpose."
He added: "We're trying to develop leaders. We've talked about
that for a long time."
Hundreds of people turned out
Tuesday for the opening of the
three-day festival, which was
heavy on basketball games, performers and motivational speakers.
"It's about creating a sense of
community," said junior-to-be Jim
King, who was cheering on basketball players. "I think everybody
is hyped to go back to school."
The first evening's featured
performer, hoop dancer and singer
Jackie Bird, entertained the crowd
with colorful cosmmes and intricate dance routines.
Her performance was about
healing, Bird said before taking
the stage.
"It's all positive vibrations," she
COUNCIL to page 4
"It would take a
M.I.R.A.C.L.E.
to change Cass
Lake"
By Diane White
CASS LAKE, MN-The
M.I.R.A.C.L.E. group has been in
existence in Cass Lake for 10 years
now. Originally they started as a
group of about 75 businessmen and
women, resident community members , and government agencies that
got together to start improving dieir
City in a number of ways. Although
progress is slow, progress is coming, and the change for Cass Lake
will benefit everyone.
Ten years ago, the City of Cass
Lake was in need of a good cleaning. Most everyone agreed. There
were odier needs too, and widi
the help of the City Planner, Bob
Fitzgerald, community members
from both sides of the "tracks"
and "Highway 2", business and
resort owners, the Leech Lake
Reservation, and the Pike Bay
Township, begin to work together
to clean up the city. The turn out
was magnificent and the success
was measured by the amount of
trash hauled away.
Besides the look of the city, the
citizens were feeling unsafe everywhere—in the Main Street and in
the residential areas. Nearly every
day it was something-a stolen car,
a beating, a mugging, an overdose
of a teen, robberies, burglaries,
destruction to property, vandalism, and so on. The impetus for the
start of the M.I.R.A.C.L.E. group
could have been any number of
things. Some members reported
a local resort owner's wife was
murdered, others felt die corrupt
police force, and still others cited
the ever present and growing drug
trade. For everyone who cared
about Cass Lake, every bad thing
MIRACLE to page 6
Cass County out of home
placements overbudget
By Diane White
WALKER—On Tuesday, August 2, the Cass County Board
of Commissioners met in regular
session at the Commissioner's
Board Room in Walker. Dorothy
Opheim, Director of the Health &
Human Services and Reno Wells,
Director of Juvenile Probation
reported on die total out-of-home
placement costs for the months
January through June this year.
Opheim reported they are currendy 2% over-budget and during
the six-month time period they
have spent $1310,708 on foster
placements.
The county does receive odier
funding to help defray the large
placement costs. They are reim
bursed by Medical Assistance
(MA), 4E, and recoveries from
parents or insurance. However,
those reimbursements have been
slow and the county has actually spent $ 1,190,099 of the funds
budgeted for the foster placements
during die six-mondi period.
Opheim and Wells took an informal survey of how many children
were in placement on any given
day and they found that on June
25,2005, there were 113 children
in some type of placement setting. They counted 71 chddren in
foster care, which ranges in cost
from $17.98 to $66.57 per day
depending upon various factors,
BUDGET to page 6
Cass County to take steps to reduce
methamphetimine abuse while jail
population grows
By Diane White
WALKER, MN-The Cass
County Board of Commissioners
met in regular session on August
2,2005 where they learned about
serious social issues affecting die
County. They heard about the
rising incidence of methamphetamine users in the county and
the need for a new jail facility.
One commissioner commented
that the blood alcohol level being lowered from .10 to .08 will
probably increase the number of
DWI arrests also.
According to Dorothy Opheim,
Director, Health & Human Services, 45 interviews were completed as a part of the County
study on mediamphetimine. The
interviewed the Sheriff, the Paul
Bunyan Drag Task Force, the
jail nurse, probation, chemical
dependency counselors, a pharmacist, etc. The task force members
included the following department
heads: Sheriff, Health & Human
Services, Probation, County Attorney, Environmental Services
and Administrator Bob Yochum.
Their interviews found that
chemical dependency assessors
have reported contact with meth
users on a daily basis. The Sheriff's office reported, 26 arrests and
3 meth labs found during the first
four months of 2005. Younger
people and higher socioeconomic
groups are increasing their usage
of meth.
Within the state, in January 2001
there were 139 methamphetimine
offenders in the correctional facilities. In July 2004, there were 1,012
ABUSE to page 5
VOICE      OF      THE      PEOPLE
web page: www.press-on.net
We Support Equal Opportunity For All People
A weekly publication.   Copyright, Native American Press, 2005
Founded in 1988
Volume 18 Issue 7
August 5, 2005
AP Photo/BiHings Gazette.
Larry Mayer
Tony Two Bears, of Cannonball, N.D., uses burning sweet grass to bless participants in the Native
American Youth Leadership Conference in Billings, Mont., Aug. 2, 2005. American Indian youths are
meeting to learn how to help prevent suicide among their peers. The suicide rate among 15- to 24'
year-old American Indians is three times higher than the national average.
Montana conference focuses on Indian youth, suicide
Associated Press
BILLINGS, Mont. - American Indian young people are
meeting here this week to
leani how to help prevent
suicide among dieir peers.
'It's definitely an epidemic
in our communities," said
Rosebud Madinger, a 19-year-
old member of the Sioux and
Northern Cheyenne tribes.
"Everyone here lias been connected in some way to suicide.
It's very much a part of us."
Madinger helped organize the
conference with her father, Ernie
Bighorn, who has hosted youth
leadership conferences for American Indian kids for more than a
decade. The preventative health
initiative is part of the 13di annual
Native American Youth Leadership
Conference.
The suicide rate among 15- to
24-year-old American Indians is
three times higher than the national
average.
Bighorn, of Fort Peck, said
American Indian communities
have begun paying more attention to their young people, in part
as a result of a shooting rampage
at a high school on the Red Lake
Indian Reservation in Minnesota.
"I diink the Indian people are
waking up and saying we need to
solve our own problems," Bighorn
YOUTH to page 4
Tribes, state
working on
plan to track
sex offenders
By Martiga Lohn
Associated Press
ST. PAUL - Indian leaders said
Monday diey're working on a
plan to prevent sex offenders
who live on reservations from
taking advantage of a recent
court niling to avoid registering
widi state authorities.
Some tribes are considering
banishing predatory offenders
from reservations, while odier
options include tribal registration requirements or a new
compact with the state. Because
tribes are sovereign nations,
each reservation woidd have to
adopt an individual plan.
"Our community is not going to be a safe haven for sex
offenders," said Doreen Hagen,
president of the Prairie Island
Indian Community, who spoke
at a Capitol news conference
widi five other tribal leaders.
"We don't want diat happening here on Prairie Island."
The Minnesota Court of
Appeals ruled last week that
Indian offenders who live on
their home reservations can't
be punished under state law if
diey refuse to tell state authorities dieir addresses.
That means an undetennined
number of sex offenders and
odier violent criminals could
disappear from the state's radar
screen, unless the state and
tribes work out an alternative.
Leech Lake Tribal Chairman George Goggleye said
letting predatory offenders live
unmonitored on reservations
would open up the community
to harm.
"The gates of hell _ that's
what I relate this to. And it's
upsetting to me that we have
to subject any of our people to
this type of activity," Goggleye
said.
PLAN to page 4
Court dismisses lawsuit against
same-sex marriage
Associated Press
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. -Atribal
court has dismissed a lawsuit that
held up a lesbian couple's effort to
have dieir marriage recognized by
die Cherokee Nation.
In a ruling filed Wednesday,
the tribe's Judicial Appeals Tribunal said diat Todd Hembree,
the tribe member and attorney
whose lawsuit blocked the filing
of a marriage certificate issued by
the tribe to Dawn McKinley and
Kadiy Reynolds, had no standing
to sue and suffered no hann by the
women's attempt to be recognized
as a married couple.
The women haven't decided
whether they will try to refile
the certificate in order to have
dieir union officially certified by
die Cherokee Nation. Because
of tribal sovereignty, Cherokee
Nation marriage certificates are
recognized just like Oklahoma
marriage licenses.
"We're excited, we're happy,"
Kathy Reynolds said Wednesday.
"We're determining what our next
step is going to be."
The Owasso couple, who are
LAWSUIT to page 5
Federal legislation returns land to
western Arizona tribe
Associated Press
PHOENIX-A western Arizona
Indian tribe is regaining a nearly
25-square-mile parcel of land that
was taken away from its reservation 90 years ago amid tribal disputes with miners and catdemen.
President Bush signed a bill into
law this week which removes control of the land from the Bureau of
Land Management.
Tribal Attorney General Eric
Shepard said one of the Colorado
River Indian Tribes' goals is to develop the property to best benefit
the 3,600 tribal members. There
are no specific plans for it right
now, he said.
"This has been completely
about righting die historic wrong,"
Shepard said. "There has not been
a lot of long-term planning. This
has not been about long-tenn development."
The disputed lands _ about 175
miles west of Phoenix near the
California-Arizona line _ were
part of the southern area of the
reservation in 1876 by order of
President Ulysses S. Grant, according to the bill.
But President Woodrow Wilson ordered that section removed
in 1915 after assertions there had
LAND to page 6
Gap in offender registration law
comes from court ruling
The Associated Press
THE LOOPHOLE: A. court
ruled that American Indian
predatory offenders who hve on
their home reservation can't be
punished under state law for failing to tell state authorities where
they hve.
THE RADAR: State authorities and Indian leaders don't want
to let released rapists, murderers
and odier offenders drop off their
radar screen, even as the state has
"beefed up efforts to track violent
criminals.
HIE PLAN: Tribal leaders are
working widi Attorney General
Mike Hatch to come up with a plan
to keep tabs on the whereabouts
of predatory offenders who move
onto reservations.