Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2006-01-06

              INDEX
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY 2
NEWS BRIEFS 3
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS 4
CLASSIFIEDS 7
Minnesota
Chippewa Tribe
Right to Know
page 5
Michigan tribe among
those linked to Abramoff
page 3
Vote on casino
expansion required
page 4
Tribal leaders not
professional to Leech
Lake member
page 4
Abramoff
| investigation
offers local
parallels
page 4
Shake-up at Red Lake Police Department
By Bill Lawrence
Press/ON has received a copy
of a Department of Public Safety Law Enforcement Services
Memorandum, dated 12/23/05,
addressed to Law Enforcement
Staff/Detention Staff from Tim
Savior, Public Safety Director
(PDS). The memo announced
an "Employee Reorganization,"
effective immediately, involving
several individuals who have
been "reassigned on a temporary
basis pending an internal administrative investigation." The individuals and their new positions
are as follows:
Dana Lyons, Jr., Acting Captain
of Police
Patrick Graves, Internal Affairs
Investigator
Tyson Nelson, Acting Sgt. of
Conservation
William Branchaud, Acting
Sgt. of Police
Dewayne Dow, Administration/Patrol
Wanda L. Lyons, Administrative Assistant/LEC
Dana Lyons, Sr., Acting Detention Administrator
The memo further asks for "full
cooperation and assistance with
this change."
An informed source intimated
that this 'reorganization' was instigated and/or was approved by
Chairman Floyd "Buck" Jourdain.
It raises concern in the community
about undue influence at the police department, coming as it does
after former Criminal Investigator
Clifford Martell and former Public
Safety Director Patrick Mills were
summarily terminated. Neither
individual was given an opportunity for a hearing or an appeal.
Press/ON has heard that long
time RLPD Officer Dow resigned
as a result of the reassignment
ordered by the PSD.
Some community members
have expressed a concern that
the Red Lake Police Department
(RDPD) has not rejoined the local
area task force on drug traffic and
violent crimes.
Other tribal members feel that
Chairman Jourdain has, inappropriately, taken control of the
RLPD. When a tribal council
member questioned the PSD
about the 'reorganization,' he
was told by Savior that the PSD
was answerable only to Buck
Jourdain.
These actions fuel the attitudes
of many on the reservation that
Chairman Jourdain is 'soft on
crime.'
The status of the RLPD will be
reviewed at an executive session
of the RL Tribal Council on the
January 10.
MCT Election Rules Uncertain
On December 21, 2005, the
Tribal Executive Committee of
the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
held met to amend the Election
Ordinance for the 2006 for the six
MCT Reservation Business Committee elections. Several amendments to Election Ordinance #9
were proposed. However, after
various discussions Wally Storbakken plainly stated that "this
was a Secretarial Election with
specific language that the people
voted for and wording cannot be
changed."
Several TEC members echoed
the vote of the people was for
specific language and that it was
too late for the TEC to vote for
different wording after the fact..
The new language in Election
Ordinance #10 includes a new
section entitled "Ineligibility by
Reason of Criminal Conviction."
The language of the amendment
which the people voted for is "no
member shall be eligible or be
able to hold office if he or she has
ever been convicted of a felony of
any kind or if he or she her ever
been convicted of as lesser crime
if that crime involved theft, misappropriation or embezzlement of
money, funds, assets or property
belonging to an Indian tribe or
tribal organization." (Election Ord.
#10, Ch. 1, Sect. 3(D)).
In the definitions section both
tribe and tribal organization have
obvious meanings. However,
"Theft means taking of another's
personal property with the intent
of depriving the true owner of
it." "Misappropriation means the
application or conversion of another's personal property dishonestly
to one's own use." "Embezzlement means the fraudulent taking
of personal property with which
one has been entrusted." This
language can be interpreted many
ways. There was not a definition
for the term another's, which
when coupled with personal
property starts to sound like any
crimes of theft involving a tribal
member. How will these terms
be applied to candidates and the
RBC members?
The real question is if "no
member shall be . .. able to hold
office if he or she has ever been
convicted . . ." why doesn't the
TEC identify and remove current
RBC members who can no longer
be holding office, first? Then hold
all the elections at one time. There
are several answers. One answer
is because the Secretarial Election for the amendments has been
challenged by tribal members as
violating Article XII of the MCT
Constitution and Part 81.7 of the
BIA election rules.
Part of Article XII clearly states
that "No amendment shall be
effective until approved by the
Secretary of the Interior." Gene
Virden, Superintendent Mn Agency, Bemidji informed the TEC at
the December meeting that appeal
decision would not be out until
January 6,2006. As of press time,
no decision has been received.
The Election Ordinance favors
MCT to page 5
Medicare Prescription Drug Plan:
Help is Available for Qualified Native Americans
VOICE      OF      THE      PEOPLE
By Jean Pagano
A new Medicare Prescription
Drug program begins January 1st,
2006. The Social Security Administration, along with the Centers for
Medicaid and Medicare Services,
has come up with a way to provide
assistance with prescription drug
costs for Native Americans and
Alaskan Natives.
Form SSA-1020, the Application for Help with Medicare
Prescription Drug Plan Costs, is
available from the Social Security
Administration (SS A) to determine
if individuals are available for additional assistance. The SSA will
review the application and compare
it to information provided by other
Federal agencies when evaluating
applicants who apply for assistance
rather than requiring supporting
documentation from the applicant.
In order to qualify, individuals will have to meet income and
resource limits. These limits are
as follows: annual income must be
below $14,355 if you are single,
or $19,245 if you are married and
living with your spouse. Individuals may still qualify, even if their
income levels fall above these
limits, if they meet certain special
criteria, such as: supporting other
family members living with you,
have earnings from work, and live
in Alaska or Hawaii.
There are many income items
that SSA will not count towards
the annual income limits. These
exceptions include the following:
a) food stamp assistance, b) home
energy assistance, c) medical case
assistance, d) housing assistance,
e) disaster assistance, f) earned
income tax credit payments, g) victim's compensation payments, h)
scholarship and education grants, i)
funds held in trust by the Secretary
of the Interior for an Indian Tribe
and then distributed per capita to
members of a Tribe, j) certain distributions received by an Alaskan
Native from an Alaskan Native
Regional and Village Corporation,
k) up to $2000 per year received
by a Native which is derived from
individual interests in trusts or
restricted lands, and 1) payments
to members of specific Tribes as
provided by federal legislation. A
complete hst of all exemptions is
available from the SSA.
Resource limits also apply to
those who seek assistance with
prescription drug costs. In general,
an individual's resources must be
valued below $10,000 for a single
person and $20,000 for married
individuals that are living with their
spouse. The resource limits can be
raised by an additional $1,500 per
person if some ofthe money will be
used for burial expenses. Resources
are defined as items, goods, or
assets owned. Some examples of
resources are: a) real estate, other
than your primary home, b) bank
accounts, including checking,
savings, and certification of deposit accounts, c) stocks, d) bonds,
including U.S. Savings Bonds, e)
mutual funds, f) Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), or g) cash.
HELP to page 3
'Our own rules, our own ways' define Red Lake
By Chuck Haga
Star Tribune
RED LAKE, MINN. - A man in
a federal agency truck zipped
through Red Lake, and Floyd
(Buck) Jourdain broke off a conversation to give chase. "Your first
stop is my office," the tribal chairman told the federal man politely
but firmly, when he caught him.
"You have to let us know you're
here." When journalists and other
outsiders stormed onto the remote
northern Minnesota reservation on
March 21, after Jeffrey Weise's
bloody stroll through the high
school, Jourdain met the visitors
with a welcome that was part
warning. "This is Indian land," he
said. "It is, in our opinion, some
of the last Indian land on Earth.
We have our own rules, our own
ways of doing things." It is land
never ceded or surrendered by the
Red Lake Ojibwe, never carved
into privately-owned allotments
that could be lost, sold or stolen.
The Ojibwe claim it by right of
conquest, and they rely on a sometimes flimsy shield ~ tribal sovereignty — to protect traditional
ways, values and rights. They rely
on it now to guide their recovery
from March 21. "Sovereignty is
the foundation of everything
here," Jourdain said. "Without
that, we have no existence." To
outsiders, the sovereignty of the
Red Lake Nation can seem as thin
as a wild rice shoot in spring. U.
S. law applies on the reservation,
felony crimes are prosecuted in
federal courts and federal money
fuels most reservation services.
But while it is surrounded by the
state of Minnesota, Red Lake is
apart. Break a rule, offend a tribal
leader, and tribal police may es-
NOTICE OF PUBLIC MEETING
ON THE FUTURE USE OF THE RED
LAKES BY THE RED LAKE BAND
WHEN: Wednesday/January 18, at 6 p.m.
WHERE: Red Lake Humanities Center; Red Lake, MN.
Following a presentation on status of the lakes by
the Red Lake Department of Natural Resources, the
meeting will be open to band members for questions
and comments.
cort you to the border. It is against
the law, as it is anywhere in Minnesota, to steal, exceed speed
limits or punch someone in the
face — but at Red Lake those are
violations of Red Lake law. The
band ceded 3.2 million acres to the
United States in 1889, but Chief
May-dway-gwa-no-rind (He Who
Is Spoken To) drew the line there.
The old chief is revered today, his
words on display at the Tribal
Council chambers. "I wish to lay
out a reservation here," he said,
"where we can remain... forever."
He preserved 407,730 acres of
pine and aspen forest, plus 229,300
acres of surface water on Upper
and Lower Red Lake. Hundreds
of smaller lakes dot the reservation. Most of its more than 5,000
people live in the small towns of
Red Lake, Redby, Ponemah and
Little Rock. Visitors focus on
crime, poverty and other problems, Jourdain said, and overlook
the great strides Red Lake has
made from the tarpaper shacks and
abject poverty of a generation ago.
"Our lifestyle here may seem
simple," he said, "but people are
content with their surroundings
and having control over their
lives." U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger sees Red Lake's unique
status as "both help and hindrance"
in moving on. His office investigates major crimes on the reservation, including the March 21
shootings in which 16-year-old
Weise killed nine people, then
RED LAKE to page 3
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American
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We Support Equal Opportunity For All People
A weekly publication.  Copyright, Native American Press, 2005
Founded in 1988
Volume 18 Issue 28
January 6, 2006
The Tribal Executive Committee of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe met December 21, 2005, to
amend the Election Ordinance for the upcoming 2006 MCT Reservation Business Committee
elections. Gene Virden (not pictured), BIA Area Superintendant, MN Agency - Bemidji, told the
TEC that he did not expect a response from the Secretary of Interior regarding the November 22,
2005 Secretarial Election challenges until January 6, 2006.
After a decade, band's 'food
store' is stocked once more
By Chuck Haga
Star Tribune
RED LAKE, MINN. - Herb
Mountain stood smiling in the
boat's stern as it came off a
placid Red Lake in late October. The 20-footer rode lower
than it had when it went out
because it carried the weight
of three or four more men
- in fish. It was like before,
his grin said; good, like before. Few examples illustrate
the problems and potential
of the unique "closed" status
of the Red Lake Indian Reservation better than the big
lake itself. Actually two large
bodies of water connected by
a narrow channel, they often
are described as the band's
"food store," a cherished hedge
against dependency, tribal and
individual. The band's claim to
the resource has been rigorously protected — and disastrously
exploited. The shallow basins
of Upper and Lower Red Lake
form a natural walleye fishery.
Like Mille Lacs, they are well
aerated top to bottom by wind and
wave action, and for decades the
tribal fishery ranked with logging
as an economic mainstay for the
Red Lake Ojibwe. But in 1997,
after years of poorly regulated
commercial fishing, the fish were
nearly gone. Each year, the band's
Department of Natural Resources
counted fish in weekly survey
nets. In 1987, the four test nets
yielded 1,277 walleyes. In 1997,
the count was 12, and the band and
state agreed to a 10-year fishing
moratorium. When the test nets
were brought in again in 2005, the
fish count was 1,230. "The lake is
back," said Pat Brown, a biologist
hired to lead the restoration effort.
The debate now is whether to
resume commercial fishing. "The
tribal government sent a survey to
all members, and we've had pubhc
meetings to talk about it," Brown
said. The results were mixed, "but
fishing the lake out again, we're
not going to let that happen."
STORE to page 2
Historians
revisit Zebulon
Pike's expedition
to Minnesota
By Tim Post
Minnesota Pubhc Radio
COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. (AP) -
As a boy, Doug Birk was fascinated
by Zebulon Pike. Growing up on a
family resort near Brainerd, Birk
found it easy to get wrapped up in
Pike's adventurous tales.
"He went headfirst in everything
he did. He went headfirst into his
expedition. He put everything he
had into it. I think he came away
with a lot of good things. There
are dozens of stories one could tell
about him," Birk said.
Birk remembers reading of
grueling snowshoe hikes that left
Pike's moccasins filled with blood.
He was riveted by tales of tense
meetings with trappers, or close
calls with animals in the Minnesota
wilderness.
That boyhood fascination turned
into a career for Birk, who is now
ZEBULON to page 5
Former Sen.
Campbell won't
run for governor
By Steven K. Paulson
Associated Press
DENVER - Saying he's tired
of political bickering and the
demands of public office, former GOP Sen. Ben Nighthorse
Campbell announced Tuesday
he will not run for governor.
"I've kind of lost interest in
pubhc office. I just decided I
, lost my taste for it," Campbell
said in an interview with The
Associated Press.
Campbell, who during his
years in the Senate was the
highest ranking American Indian in government, declined
to endorse either of the two
GOVERNOR to page 3
Young attorney pushes to be
American Indian voice at Capitol
By Martiga Lohn
Associated Press
WALKER, Minn. - As coordinator of the national Native Vote
2004 campaign, Irene Folstrom
thought she would spend Election
Day driving voters to the polls on
the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota.
Instead, the young lawyer got an
urgent call: A partisan was trying
to intimidate voters in Ponemah,
about 65 miles away on the Red
Lake Indian Reservation. By the
time Folstrom had raced to the
scene, police had removed the
man, but the incident stuck with
her.
"It made me realize how motivated some people are to disenfranchise American Indians at
the polls," Folstrom said. "That's
when I really started thinking I
wanted to run for office."
Now Folstrom, a Democrat and
a Leech Lake Ojibwe, is doing just
that with a bid for the state Senate that would make her the first
American Indian woman elected
to the Minnesota Legislature.
There's one American Indian in
Congress _ U.S. Rep. Tom Cole,
a Chickasaw from Oklahoma _
and none among the nation's governors. Nationwide, 48 American
Indians are serving in 12 state legislatures, up from 36 a couple of
years ago. Oklahoma has the most,
10, followed by eight in Montana,
seven in Alaska and five in New
VOICE to page 3
Lobbyist Abramoff pleads guilty, promises to help
in probe of congressional corruption
By David Espo
AP Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Once Jack Abramoff jetted off
to golf outings with powerful
members of Congress. Now
the disgraced lobbyist shuttles
from courtroom to courtroom,
confessing his crimes.
"I plead guilty, your honor,"
Abramoff said Tuesday in flat,
unemotional tones, accepting
a plea bargain that said he had
provided lavish trips, golf outings, meals and more to pubhc
officials "in exchange for a
series of official acts."
In one instance, he reported making payments totaling $50,000 to
the wife of a congressional aide to
help block legislation for a client.
The aide worked for former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, according
to officials who spoke on condition
of anonymity.
Public corruption aside,
Abramoff admitted defrauding
four Indian tribes and other chents,
taking millions in kickbacks from
a one-time business partner, misusing a charity he had established
and failing to pay income taxes on
millions of ill-gotten gains.
Abramoff s next court appearance was expected Wednesday in
Miami, where he faces charges
stemming from the 2000 purchase
of a fleet of gambling boats.
At the Justice Department, officials said they intend to make use
of the trove of e-mails and other
material in Abramoff s possession
as part of a probe that is beheved
to be focusing on as many as 20
members of Congress and aides.
"This investigation continues...
GUILTY to page 6
'