Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2005-10-14

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INDEX
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY 2
NEWS BRIEFS 3
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS 4
CLASSIFIEDS 7
Sexual convictions
stand
page 3
Wells Fargo grants
$30,000 to create
scholarship for
Native American
college students
page 3
Minnesota sur Seine
Musical Festival
present Left for Dead
featuring Barney Bush
page 3
Equal Justice
Under Law
page 4
Violence
overwhelms
Native
Communities
page 4
Leech Lake hosts meeting to discuss economic
development summit
Four northern Minnesota bands
of Ojibwe have agreed to support
and participate in an Economic Development summit early in 2006.
Representatives of the Leech
Lake, White Earth, Mille Lacs
and Red Lake bands met in
Walker October 6, 2005 to discuss the idea.
According to a press release by
Lenny Fineday, Executive Director of the Leech Lake Band, the
summit "will bring together tribal
governments, tribally and individual Indian owned businesses,
economic development associations, local governments, local
businesses and others interested
in promoting economic development on Indian Reservations
and neighboring communities in
northern Minnesota. The Summit
will promote positive examples of
economic development in Indian
Country [that go] beyond Indian
Gaming."
Judy Hanks, Project Development Coordinator at Mille Lacs,
said the concept came from an idea
expressed by Melanie Benjamin,
Mille Lacs Chairwoman.
Details of the summit are as yet
unformed. Each band will begin
working on ways to collaborate.
Some areas of potential cooperation include partnering, sharing
educational opportunities, seeking
contracts from major companies
that would normally go out of the
country, forming large volume buy
ing groups for the purchase of gaming, hotel, restaurant, etc. supplies.
Another goal is to promote
entrepreneurship and to teach
business skills to tribal members.
An overriding priority is to create
stable economic conditions on the
various reservations that would
not be subject to changes in tribal
administration.
A planning group will be formed
at each band. Several sources have
been named as potential supporters for the proposed summit.
They include the Joint Economic
Development Commission, Headwaters Regional Developmental
Commission and the Northwest
Minnesota Foundation.
Red Lake Tribal Police hires Public Safety Director
By Bill Lawrence
The Red Lake Tribal Police
have a new chief. William Timothy Savior was hired Tuesday,
October 12, 2005 as the new
Director of Public Safety at the
regular monthly Tribal Council
Meeting. He follows former Pat
Mills as Director of Public Safety.
Mills was unexpectedly fired last
month. He was hired by a 7-2
vote with Billy Greene and Julius
"Toady" Thunder casting the nay
votes.
Savior, a White Earth member,
is a twenty-year veteran and retired from the Minneapolis Police
Department. During his years of
law enforcement he served five
years with a federal/state major
crimes task force. He worked
extensively with native communities in Minneapolis.
He is an experienced officer
and appears to be well respected
in the profession. He worked a
short time at White Earth. He
reports for work at Red Lake on
Monday, October 17.   He will
be taking charge of a disarrayed
department. Reportedly the Red
Lake Police failed a recent Bureau
of Indian Affairs review.
The tribal council also hired
Bobby Whitefeather as the Court
Administrator and Donna Morrison as Public Defender.
In other business, J. Robert
Flores, Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Division of
the Department of Justice (DOJ)
and Laura Ansera, also ofthe DOJ,
appeared before the Council. Ansera spoke briefly, indicating that
she will be a frequent visitor to the
reservation. The two indicated the
DOJ was willing to provide financial and other support for the Red
Lake Band.
Flores, appointed by President
Bush, said he was there to help
the communities overcome the
damaging effects of the March
21 shooting. He spoke ofthe tremendous strength of the people
despite the tragedy. He said they
were there to help, pointing out
three programs that over a three-
year period would produce almost
a quarter million dollars for youth
programs at the reservation.
The three programs are: Mental
Health Initiatives, Tribal Youth,
and Tribal Youth Accountability.
The first two will each produce
$225,000 for tribal services.
The third will bring in $300,000.
These are community based programs initiatives giving youth
'another chance,' mentoring and
information regarding meth on
tribal lands.
Under the Agenda item, Accounting, the council learned that
Gaming continues to be late in its
payments to the tribe. This is primarily due to the fact that through
September 30, 2005; there is a
$218,654 deficit between revenues
and expenditures.
Treasurer Darrell Seki informed
the Council that he has scheduled
a meeting for October 12 with the
Gaming Division to address the
continued shortfall in payments.
Bird Flu, Native Americans: No News is Not Good News
By Jean Pagano
The avian flu, also known as the
Avian Influenza A (H5N1) virus,
has been making the news lately.
While no one in the Western hemisphere has caught or died from the
virus, small numbers of individuals in Asia have contracted the
virus and havesubsequently died.
According to recent reports, the
United States has about 4.3 million doses of influenza vaccine
stockpiled, but in a nation of 300
million people, it seems that relatively little is being done to protect
the citizens of the United States.
Most specifically, there seems to
be little or no policy in place to
help vaccinate and protect Native
Americans from the potential
scourge of a flu epidemic.
Anti-viral agents are the best defense against flu strains. However,
vaccinations against particular
strains of flu, cannot be developed
until the strain becomes dangerous
to humans. The current bird flu,
H5N1, is resistant to amantadine
and rimantadine, two anti-viral
medications that are commonly
used against influenza. Two other
anti-viral medications, oseltamavir
and zanamavir, may be effective
against H5N1, although research
is continuing.
Some foreign countries have
been very proactive in trying to
anticipate the issues around a flu
outbreak. France has ordered 200
million protective masks to safeguard its citizens and has ordered
its stocks of anti-viral agents to
be increased. Additionally, the
French government stated it will
obtain sufficient numbers of
vaccinations to protect its entire
population (58 million).
Stewart Simonson, Assistant
Secretary for Pubhc Health Emergency Preparedness, testified in
July that he had sufficient funds to
purchase anti-viral medications and
influenza vaccines. The next day,
he asked Congress for an additional
$ 150 miUion to purchase more antiviral medicationss and flu vaccines.
At the end of September, Congress
appropriated an additional $4 billion dollars for this effort.
A search of the Indian Health
Service website, www.ihs.com.
reveals no current information
for NatiVe Americans concerning
the bird flu. Telephone calls to
the Indian Health Service today,
targeting the Office of Public Affairs, raised more questions than
provided answers as a lack of
policy is apparent in dealing with
the avian flu.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is currently working
with the Department of Defense
FLU to page 3
Indians going nationwide with hotline for troubled youth
By Chuck Haga
Star Tribune
RED LAKE, MINN. - As they
did when important news had to be
shared a century and more ago, runners will leave the Red Lake Indian
Reservation on Monday to spread
the word: The new Native Youth
Crisis Hotline is going national.
The six-day rim will pass
through Indian communities in
Minnesota and northern South
Dakota before ending on Oct. 23 at
Fort Yates, N.D., on the Standing
Rock Indian Reservation, where
a local crisis hot line was started
recently.
The Native Youth Crisis Hotline was set up in August through
Women of Nations, a St. Paul-
based organization, with support
from dozens of tribal, local, state
and national groups including the
National Congress of American
Indians.
It was started in response to
what organizers call an epidemic
of suicide among American Indian
youth as well as chronic problems
with drugs, alcohol and depression. Young Indians commit suicide at a rate more than three times
the national average, according to
Pat Shephard, a Hennepin County
social worker who proposed the
hot line.
"Since its beginning in August,
we've had calls from all over
the United States and Canada,"
Shephard said. "We were intending it to be local, but it was an
overnight national response. Every tribe from the east to the west
was calling."
Organizers hope to raise just over
$1 million to launch the national
hot line, which Shephard said also
will provide trained online counselors and serve as a model for local and regional hot lines around
the country and in Canada.
"The more options our young
people have, the better," said
Shephard, who is a member of
the Ojibwe and Prairie Band Potawatomi in Wisconsin.
An earlier run, the Honor the
Youth Spiritual Run from Minneapolis to Red Lake, promoted
the state hot line in August. This
month's run will start at Red Lake
and pass through the White Earth
Reservation, western Minnesota
and northern South Dakota before
HOTLINE to page 5
Grand Forks City Council keeps talking about casino
Associated Press
GRAND FORKS, N.D. - City
Council members are not ready to
vote a proposed American Indian
casino up or down, but they indicate they want to continue discussion.
The Turtle Mountain Band of
Chippewa is proposing the casino
south of Grand Forks. Tribal officials said they wanted a resolution
from the City Council to continue
working on the project.
"The resolution ... is to continue the discussion," Grand Forks
City Council President Hal Ger-
shman said at Monday's meeting.
"It's not a 'yes' or 'no' vote."
The resolution encourages the
tribe "to continue exploration of
what has to be done to develop
an Indian gaming casino." It says
the city will determine later if the
casino actually would be a good
thing.
The balance on the council
after Monday's meeting appeared
to be four in favor of the casino
_ Gershman, Doug Christensen,
Gerald Hamerlik and Curt Kreun
_ two doubtful _ Bob Brooks and
Dorette Kerian _ and one against
_ Eliot Glassheim.
Though the resolution does
not show full support, tribal
chairman Ken Davis said after
Monday's meeting that he felt it
was enough.
"I feel as long as the City
Council isn't strongly opposing
us, we can move... and continue
to pursue this project," he said.
The council expected to take a
formal vote on the resolution next
Monday.
A key part ofthe resolution calls
for more information about what
benefits the casino could provide
Grand Forks.
"I think this is the best we can
do," Christensen said. "It would
be incredibly irresponsible of us
to embrace something we know
nothing about."
He said he could not support,
for example, an earlier proposal to
turn 80 acres of land south of the
city into tribal trust land, meaning
it is essentially outside city jurisdiction. He also worried about the
casino's impact on the city-owned
Alerus Center and the Canad Inns
project and he wants to know the
legal impact of having trust land
nearby, he said.
Glassheim said it is time to "put
a stake in the heart of this proposition." He said Grand Forks does
not need " 1,000 slot machines
open 24/7."
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Volume 18 Issue 17
October 14, 2005
Fighting discrimination in state law
By Jeanne Schram
Buddie Greene is crying
foul at a system she believes
targets her race. At least, that
is how she and her father, Dale
Greene Jr., both Anishinabe,
view her situation.
Buddie, 19, was born in
Duluth. She is a U.S. citizen
and a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe (MCT,
which includes the tribes of
Bois Forte, Fond du Lac, Grand
Portage, Leech Lake, Mille Lacs
and White Earth). She fives outside a reservation - actually in
Malmo with her parents, but inside
the service area of the MCT.
A single mother with one child,
Buddie was receiving benefits
and food stamps after leaving
her job at Grand Casino Mille
Lacs. When she went to Aitkin
County Health and Human Ser
vices to use Minnesota Family
Investment Program (MFIP) job
services, she was told she must
uses MFIP services provided by
the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.
She refused to do that and she
was sanctioned with a 30 percent reduction in MFIP benefits.
"I was told I could only ride in
the back of the bus," said Buddie. "By virtue of her race," said
LAW to page 4
Teen charged, but tribal leader insists he is innocent
By Ruben Rosario
Pioneer Press
RED LAKE, Minn. - Tribal
chairman Floyd "Buck" Jourdain wants his son heard, even
if the words pass through the
filter of an anguished father
certain of his boy's innocence.
In an extensive interview this
week, Jourdain acknowledged
for the first time that his son,
Louis, learned that Jeffrey
Weise was talking about his
desire to do something terrible.
But Jourdain said Louis, the
only person facing charges related
to last March's shooting spree at
Red Lake Senior High School,
tried to head off a possible tragedy.
"My son, out of all ofthe people
that knew that this boy was talking this way — all of them — my
son was the only one to confront
this boy and to tell him, 'The way
that you are thinking is not right,'
" Jourdain said.
Jourdain had never spoken this
much to an outsider about the personal and communal aftermath of
the second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, the one that
left 10 people dead and his now
17-year-old son in custody and accused of helping to plan the deadly
assault
Jourdain pulled out a piece of
paper at the end of a nearly three-
hour conversation Monday and
laid it across the top of the picnic
table. The 41 -year-old chairman of
the Red Lake band of Chippewa
looked down at his handwritten
notes. He wanted to make sure
TEEN to page 5
Chippewa Cree repaying $4 million in misused funds
Associated Press
ROCKY BOY - The Chippewa Cree Indian Tribe misused as much as $4 million in
federal money and is repaying
the debt to its tribal programs,
a U.S. Department of Interior
official says.
The funding from the federal
Office of Self-Governance and
Self-Determination was meant
for natural resources, law enforcement, roads, housing arid
other programs.
But the tribe used it to compensate for delayed state and
federal grants, tribal officials
said.
The Office of Self-Governance
funds programs that tribes have
taken over from the Bureau of
Indian Affairs. Director Bill Sinclair said tribes are allowed to use
the money for other programs but
must pay it back in the same fiscal
year.
The office discovered the
problem in 2002, when an audit
revealed Chippewa Cree officials
had misused $4 million in self-
governance funds.
"It was being caught year by
year," Sinclair said. "The Office
of Self-Governance was waiting
for the tribe to correct it. Finally,
we said, 'You now must pay this
amount back.'"
Richard Sangrey, tribal chief of
staff, said the tribe used some self-
governance money to cover late
grants and could not pay it back
on time because of delays caused
by disagreements in Congress and
other problems.
The Chippewa Cree have agreed
to make five annual payments of
$800,000, which will be added to
the tribe's self-governance funds.
"We wanted the simation cor-
FUNDS to page 5