Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2006-02-10

              INDEX
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY 2
NEWS BRIEFS 3
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS 4
CLASSIFIEDS 7
MCT: People's
Right to Know
page 5
Leech Lake voting
member comment on
State of Bend address
page 4
When a government... MCT
controls the court system, Injustice
police and ail hiring of jobs,
it becomes...corrupted
page 4 page 4
Petition filed alleging
election tampering by
Leech Lake Reservation
Business Committee
page 4
Five Minnesota Indian bands join
state in monitoring sex offenders
By Bill Lawrence
A decision made last summer
in the Peter Jones case by the
Minnesota Court of Appeals is the
impetus behind the formulation of
a new agreement between several
Minnesota tribes and the State.
The ruling stated that sex offenders living on Indian reservations
could not be required to register
with authorities as to their whereabouts.
After the decision was published,
the state's Attorney General Mike
Hatch brought the matter to the
attention of the tribes, illuminated
what the findings would mean on
the reservations. He worked with
tribal representatives to perfect
the details of an agreement that
would require sex offenders living
on reservations to register. Hatch
and representatives of the White
Earth, Leech Lake, Bois Forte,
Prairie Island and Upper Sioux
signed the agreement this week.
The need for the agreement
grew out of the fact that the state
law requiring sex offenders, murderers and kidnappers to register
their whereabouts is a civil rather
than a criminal statute. Peter
Jones, convicted kidnapper clas
sified as a predatory offender,
filed a suit contending that the
Minnesota law did not apply to
him because he was a member of
the Leech Lake band and hved on
the reservation.
The state has jurisdiction on reservations only in criminal cases.
Therefore, the courts ruled in two
separate cases (state court and
appeals court) that an individual
living on an Indian reservation, a
sovereignty, would not be subject
to the statute.
The new agreement will allow
combined efforts by the state and
tribal pohce to keep track of sex offenders. Under state law, authorities must hold a public meeting for
the purpose of inf orrning the community when a sex offender, who
has a high probability of a repeat
crime, moves into a neighborhood.
This requirement, because of the
agreement, will now be observed
on the five reservations joining in
the agreement.
The Attorney General stated that
Fond du Lac, Mille Lac, and Grand
Portage bands of Chippewa and
the Lower Sioux and Mdewakanton Shakopee Sioux are expected
to sign the agreement within a
short period of time.
Tribes may develop stricter
guidelines than the state is permitted. The Minnesota Bureau
of Criminal Apprehension lists
17,268 registered sex offenders in
Minnesota. Of that number, 657,
or slightly less than 4 percent,
are identified either as American
Indian or Alaskan Natives. The
information does not give information as to the number living on
reservations that would have been
exempt from the registration requirement without the agreement.
Although the Red Lake Band
of Chippewa, because it is subject
only to federal jurisdiction, does
not need to sign the agreement,
joining it would indicate strong
support for the combined efforts
of tribal and state law enforcement
agencies.
The Peter Jones case has been
appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Tribal response to the situation
has been quick and serious. White
Earth Tribal Police chief Bill
Brunelle said, "we did not want.
.. a safe haven ... for sexual offenders."
Kevin Jensvold, chairman of
the Upper Sioux community, said
his tribe has discussed excluding
all convicted sex offenders from
their lands.
Dallas Arcand
Named 2006
World Champion
Hoop Dancer
At Annual Heard
Museum Event
PHOENIX, Ariz." Twenty-seven
year old Dallas Arcand,
Cree, from Alberta, Canada, took
home the 2006 World Champion
Hoop Dancer title on Sunday, February 5, 2006 as he beat out the
best hoop dancers from the United
States and Canada at the
intense world competition at the
Heard Museum in Phoenix, Ariz.
Arcand received 2nd place honors at the 2005 contest and came
back this year to win it all. With an
almost-perfect score of 291 points
out 300, Arcand outshone the other
contestants in precision, timing,
rhythm, showmanship, creative-
ness and speed. He received a cash
reward of $2,500,
which Arcand graciously donated
$500 back to the Heard Museum
to up the ante and prize money at
next year's competition.
Receiving second place honors
was four-time world champion
Derrick Suwaima Davis, Hopi/
Choctaw, third place was awarded
to four-time teen world champion
Tony Duncan, Apache/Hidatsa/Ari-
kara/Mandan.
9,000 spectators attended the
two-day event, which drew 66
dancers competing in 5 divisions
Senior, Adult, Teen, Youth and Tiny
Tot. The event, considered the most
competitive hoop dance contest in
the world, was generously sponsored by Casino Arizona.
Hoop dancing incorporates speed
and agility as dancers maneuver
their bodies through one to more
than 50 hoops.
Dancers also integrate creative
designs and difficult manipulations
of the hoops to present a unique
variation of the dance.
In the Senior Division, Terry Go-
edel, Yakama/Tulalip, from Rancho
Cucamonga, Calif., reclaimed his
2005 title; second place honors
went New Mexico resident Tommy
Draper, Navajo, and Flagstaff,
Ariz., resident Jones Bennally,
Navajo, claimed third.
Teen Division, NakotahLaRance,
of Flagstaff, Ariz., claimed his third
teen champion title and is also
a two-youth champion. Charles
Denny, Chippewa/Cree, from Fort
Duchesne, Utah, took second place,
and Kevin Duncan, Apache/Hi-
datsa/Arikara/Mandan, of Mesa,
Ariz., rounded out the top three.
There were a record number
of Youth competitors 29 dancers
total. First place went to first-time
competitor, Waskwane Stonefish,
Odawa/Chippewa, from Michigan.
Reclaiming the second place title
was Jace Peanutt Roberts, Choc-
taw/Nakota of Okla. Mike Goedell,
Yakama/Tulalip, from Rancho
Cucamonga, Calif., placed third..
The judges included: George
Bear, Cree, from Winnipeg, Canada, Randy Medicine Bear, Rosebud
Sioux, from Loveland, Colo.,;
Andy Grant, Eastern Band Cherokee, from Cherokee, N.C; Michael
Roberts, Choctaw/Chickasaw, from
Ada, Okla., and Mike Salabiye,
Navajo, from Window, Rock Anz.:
and Jackie Bird, Sioux/Mandan/Hi-
datsa, from Bushnel, S.D.
The Oklahoma Outlaws hosted
the Southern Drum from Oklahoma
and California. The 17th Annual
World Championship Hoop Dance
Contest is set February 3-4,2007.
Alvin John Wind trial to open
February 14
After two postponements Alvin
John Wind, Assistant Pohce Chief
at Leech Lake, will stand trial on
two felony charges of criminal
sexual conduct in the 4th and 5th
degrees. The trial is set to begin
February 14 at 9:00 a.m. at the
Cass County Court House before
Judge John Smith.
Wind, known in the community
by his second name, John, was
charged in a complaint dated
4/21/05 of engaging "in sexual
contact with another person and
us[ing] force or coercion to accomplish the sexual contact. The
complaint, signed by Cass Lake
Prosecuting Attorney Earl Maus,
continues, "The defendant [Alvin
John Wind] . . . did engage in
non-consensual sexual contact."
If there is conviction, the first
count carries a maximum penalty
of ten years in prison and up to a
$20,000 fine or both. The second
count carries, upon conviction, a
one-year term and a fine of up to
$3,000 or both.
Wind was placed on indefinite
administrative leave last year after the charges against him were
made public. Tribal officials have
not taken steps to stop him from
reporting to work at the Leech
Lake Police Department in defiance of the leave order.
Quaderer pleads guilty to Bailey
murder
VOICE      OF      THE      PEOPLE
By Bill Lawrence
Before Beltrami County District Judge Paul Benshoof, Richard Allen Quaderer, 20, of Cass
Lake, pled guilty to the murder of
Scott Lyle Bailey, 25, and wounding Scott Wayne Vaughn, 25. The
murder is a second-degree felony
and the assault is a first-degree
felony charge.
The shootings occurred in the
early morning of Wednesday,
October 12, 2005, in the parking
lot of a Bemidji south end convenience store and gas station.
By late afternoon of that day,
Quaderer was apprehended by
Beltrami County Sheriff's deputies and the Minnesota Bureau of
Criminal Apprehension agents at
the Palace Casino in Cass Lake.
Sentencing will be February 21
at 2 p.m. Quaderer, if convicted, could receive up to 40 years
in prison for the crimes.
Graduation Numbers Released for
Minnesota High Schools: Trend
Suggests Higher Native Rates
By Jean Pagano
Graduation Numbers were recently released by the Minnesota
Department of Education. While
Native students continue to graduate in larger numbers than previous
years, the overall percentage of
Native students that do advance
are still lower than their white and
Asian counterparts.
While Minnesota traditionally
ranks among the highest for graduation rates among the 50 states,
its Native students, as a whole,
struggle to meet "Adequate Yearly
Progress" (AYP) goals set by the
government. In 2003, the state's
graduation rate for all students was
87.8%. In 2004, the rate increased
to 89%. Statistics are gathered for
Native, Asian, Hispanic, African-
American, and white students,
but the AYP designation is given
to the overall group of students
composed of all racial classifications.
In 2003, while the overall rate
for high school students was
87.8%, different racial groups
had varying graduation rates.
Native students' graduation rate
was 58.71 %, below the 80% AYP
standard for the entire body of
12th grade students. Other groups
that fell behind the 80% goal in
2003 included Hispanics at 51%
and African-American students-
at 61.45%. Asian/Pacific students
scored above the 80% mark in
2003 with a graduation rate of
83.74%, while whites scored the
highest with 91.85%.
The Department of Education
published graduation rate goals
for the various ethnic/racial groups
in 2004, always using the AYP
80% mark as the highest goal for
any given group. The goal for
the group of all students in 2004
was 80%, and that was exceeded
with an overall rate of 88.96%.
Asian/Pacific and white students
were also assigned goals of 80%,
and in both cases, exceeded these
goals, with Asian/Pacific students
graduating 86.45% of their class
as well as a 92.80% rate among
white students. The goals for Native Americans, Hispanics, and
African-American students were
set to l/10th of 1 percent over the
previous year's actual graduation
rate. The Native-American goal of
58.81% was exceeded by achieving a 64.32% graduation percentage. Similarly, Hispanic and
African-American students also
bettered their goals of 51.10% and
61.55% with results of 54.78%
and 63.72%, respectively.
While the graduation rates for
2005 are not yet available from
the Department of Education, the
raw numbers are. Overall, 58,411
students graduated from Minnesota high schools in 2005. The
statistics include graduations at
any time during the school year. Of
these 58,411 students, 29,048 were
male and 29,363 were female. For
Natives, 826 students graduated in
2005, comprised of 415 males and
411 females.
Communities with significant
Native school populations include
MinneapoUs, which graduated 38
Native students. Bemidji produced
26 Native graduating students as
did Greenway. Cloquet's school
graduated 21 Native students, as
did Cass Lake; Deer River had
22 graduates as did Mahnomen.
Waubun schools had 23 graduating
Native seniors and Duluth had 33.
Red Lake schools produced the
greatest number of Native graduates with 95 students.
As a point of comparison, Minnesota schools produced the following number of graduates, by
ethnicity/racial category: Native
826, Asian/Pacific 1,824, Hispanic
1,307, African-American 2,669,
and white 50,785.
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Volume 18 Issue 38 3* February 10, 2006
Kyle Swimmer, 12, performs the Eagle Dance with the Laguna Pueblo Eagle Dancers in the
Capitol's rotunda in Santa Fe, N.M., on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2006. Tuesday was American Indian Day
at the 2006 Legislative Session. (AP Photo/Jeff Geissler)
BIA takes a hit
as Bush releases
latest budget
Indianz.Com.
The Bush administration
announced a major cut to the
Bureau of Indian Affairs on
Monday, the second year in a
row that the agency's budget
has been reduced by the White
House.
The fiscal year 2007 budget
request for the BIA is $2.33 billion, a cut of $65 million from
current levels. This represents
a 2.8 percent reduction in the
agency's total budget authority.
Programs that took big hits
include construction, human
services, education, natural
resource management and economic development. Others
were outright eliminated, such
as the Johnson O'Malley duca-
tion program.
Meanwhile, the budget for
the Office of Special Trustee
grew by $21.7 million to a total
of $244.5 million, representing a 9.7 percent increase. Of
this amount, the administration
requested $59.5 million for
the Indian Land Consolidation
Program, an increase of $25.4
million.
At a press conference in
Washington, D.C, Interior Secretary Gale Norton said the budget would enable the department
to meet its responsibilities to 1.4
million American Indians and
Alaska Natives. She emphasized
the $536.7 million being sought
to continue the administration's
trust reform efforts.
"From 1996 through 2006, the
department will have invested
$3.4 billion in the management,
reform and improvement of
Indian trust programs," Norton
said.
The focus on trust has come
at the expense of other Indian
programs. Tribal leaders, supported by key members of Congress, have repeatedly blasted
the administration for this approach, with renewed criticism
coming after associate deputy
secretary Jim Cason late last
month announced a $3 milhon
cut to the BIA in order to pay for
"unplanned" expenses related to
the Cobell v. Norton trust fund
lawsuit.
"The fact that the Cobell
litigation remains unsettled
impedes our progress with the
federal government on nearly
all other issues," Joe Garcia, the
new president of the National
Congress of Americans, said
last week in his State of Indian
Nations address.
At yesterday's rollout, BIA officials said they worked closely
with the Tribal Budget Advisory
Committee to develop the budget. They said this relationship
BIA to page 3
Leech Lake Candidates Allege
Election Tampering by Tribal
Council Member-Candidates
An Emergency Petition for
TRO was filed yesterday in
Leech Lake Tribal Court by at
least three Candidates for the
Leech Lake Reservation's 2006
Elections alleging that Chairman
Goggleye and three other elected
members of election tampering
and other voting and civil rights
violations. Leech Lake is one of
six reservations of the Minnesota
Chippewa Tribe (MCT), which
recently amended its Constitution
in a BIA Secretarial Election held
just before Thanksgiving 2005.
One of the new amendments
states that "no member of the
Tribe shall be eligible to hold office, either as a Committeeman
or Officer if he or she has ever
been convicted of a felony of
any kind ..." Some Leech Lake
Tribal Council members voted to
charge candidates an additional
$50.00 for their own criminal
background checks, however the
MCT Election Ordinance only
has fees of "Five Dollars ($5.00)
for Officers (Chairperson, Secretary/Treasurer) and Two Dollars
and Fifty Cents ($2.50) for Committeeperson."
One Candidate-Plaintiff, Ralph
Schaaf joined in the filing of
the lawsuit for injunctive relief
(TRO) because "I can not afford to pay an additional and
unexpected $50.00 fee being
charged by the Defendants as I
am indigent and need the $50.00
to buy food, gasoline and/or other
winter essentials." Schaaf has
been a Committeeman candidate
in the last three election cycles
and went on to add "I believe
the $50.00 Leech Lake fee violates my constitutional right as a
tribal member to be subject to and
protected by a uniform election
ordinance."
In a January 25th letter Leech
Lake Chairman George Goggleye told MCT President that the
Tribal Council (co-Defendants)
were "merely exercising their
MCT Constitution governmental authority." Adding that "he
wanted to assure the TEC that Ordinance #10 is being adhered too
[sic] and that our Band's election
process is proceeding smoothly."
The letter closed saying that
the "Tribal Council is requiring
all candidates for office to pay
$50.00 in addition to the normal
candidate fee in order to cover the
costs of the required background
check for all candidates."
Another Candidate-Plaintiff,
Wally Storbakken who filed for
Secretary-Treasurer told the court
in his affidavit "I believe the
MCT 2006 Elections on Leech
Lake should be suspended to reopen the candidates' filing period
for indigent tribal members who
wish to file, but have been financially excluded by incumbents
LEECH LAKE to page 3
Panel mulls regulating Indian
contributions
By JODI RAVE, Missoulian
U.S. Senate leaders searched
for answers Wednesday during a
committee hearing about ways to
make politically active tribes more
accountable for their campaign
contributions.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. and
chairman ofthe Senate Committee
on Indian Affairs, led six panelists
through a discussion on federal
election laws and tribal campaign
contributions in the wake of a
recent lobbying debacle in the
nation's capital.
"We're in the midst of a far-
reaching influence-buying scandal
that was in large part triggered by
lobbyist Jack Abramoff and some
of his Indian tribal clients," Larry
Noble, executive director of the
Center for Responsive Politics,
told the committee. "This has resulted in intense interest of tribes
and how they are regulated under
the election laws."
McCain and the panelists agreed
transparency was a key to tribal
political spending. But views
on how to achieve that ranged
from leaving the Federal Election
Campaign Act alone to making
tribes operate as political action
committees.
Ron Allen, treasurer of the
National Congress of American
Indians, said it was unnecessary
to scrutinize tribes.
"The illegal actions of Jack
Abramoff are really the issue ...
that has turned into a different
agenda for us," Allen said. "This
is a lobbying scandal. It's not a
tribal scandal. We've done nothing
wrong. We've complied with the
laws."
Tribes have given nearly $30
million to federal candidates, political parties and political action
committees since 1989, according
to the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Federal Election Campaign
Act currently allows tribes unlimited contribution spending. Tribes
also aren't required to report their
contributions to the Federal Election Commission.
"These combine to make tribes
fertile ground for raising campaign
cash for political parties and can-
PANEL to page 3