Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2006-05-05

              INDEX
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY 2
NEWS BRIEFS 3
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS 4
CLASSIFIEDS 7
MAPP Housing
Tribal Election
Forum at Mille Lacs
page 6
Leech Elder Excluded
from Casino
page 5
Leech Lake lawsuit filed in What were they
tribal court shows corruption,      thinking?
decit; LLRBC endangers tribal
sovereignty
page 4 page 4
Question of ownership
of Red Lake addressed
in 1936, other
observations
page 4
Mille Lacs proves financial success
By Diane White
Bemidji, MN —Under the
Free dom of Information Act,
Press/ON requested from the
United States Department of the
Interior (DOI) the most recent
audited financial statements from
all Minnesota Indian tribes. The
Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe's
most recent submitted financial
statements are for the time period
October 1, 2002 to September
30, 2003. The Mille Lacs Tribal
Council is responsible for the
management of the Band's finances.
HLB Tautges Redpath, Ltd.
(Certified Public Accountants
and Consultants) completed the
audit on the Band's governmental activities, the business-type
activities, each major fund, and
the aggregate remaining fund
information. The financial statements do not include the Corporate Commission (gaming) or die
Woodlands National Bank, which
are legally separate entities.
The primary governmental
activities include all funds, organizations, institutions, agencies,
departments, and offices of the
Band. They also include the Circle
of Health Foundation, and the
Mille Lacs Bancorporation. As
such, the auditors indicate the financial statements do not purport
to and do not present fairly the
financial position of the Band's
primary government. On the financial statements presented, in
the auditor's opinion, do present
fairly, in all material respects the
respective financial position of the
governmental activities, the business-type activities, each major
fund, and the aggregate remaining
fund information.
The Band instituted the Governmental Accounting Standards
Board Statement #34, which
requires the Tribal Council to
provide a summary of the Band's
financial position called the Management's Discussion and Analysis. This is important to the reader
in that it gives greater insight to
how the Band receives and spends
its money.
HLB Tautges Redpath also
provided a report on the Band's
internal control. They did not
provide an opinion, but they did
limited testing procedures on the
Band's compliance with certain
laws, regulations, contracts, and
grants.
The Band adopts a biennium, appropriated budget for its general
and special revenue funds. The
budgets must be approved by a
Band Assembly. If through the
budget process, the budget fails to
pass an appropriation bill before
the start of the Band's fiscal year
or if the budget is vetoed by the
Chief Executive, all operations of
the Band shall cease at midnight
on the last day of the fiscal year,
unless the Band Assembly adopts
a continuing resolution. In this
fiscal year, the Band set a budget
in which actual revenues received
exceeded what they did budget
in all areas except for federal and
state granted programs where the
actual revenues received were
MILLE LACS to page 6
VOICE      OF      THE      PEOPLE
Walleye fishing set to resume on Red Lake
By Dave Kolpack
Associated Press
RED LAKE, Minn. - It has
been nearly nine years since the
Red Lake Band of Chippewa decided to pull its gill nets from its
namesake waters, putting many
commercial fishermen out of work
and taking food off tables.
As the band prepares a return to
fishing on May 6, its members are
vowing to never again allow their
self-proclaimed "food store" or
"storehouse" to run dry. Thanks
to a walleye restoration program
started by the tribe's Department
of Natural Resources, the lake will
open to anglers two years ahead of
schedule.
"There was a tremendous economic sacrifice by the tribe, as well
as a significant cultural sacrifice
that people outside the reservation
probably don't understand," said
Bobby Whitefeather, a former
tribal chairman who held the first
meetings about saving the lake. "T
must say, I have to commend the
membership in their refrain from
exploiting that body of water we
all hold so sacred."
Whitefeather was one of several
Red Lake Tribal members who
gathered at the tribe's headquarters
recendy to talk about the fishing
revival. They spoke about the big
lake with reverence. It's a spiritual
connection that spans generations,
said Bill May, a member of the
tribe's fishery board.
"This is a positive note for
the Red Lake nation," May said.
"We're talking about a way of
life. My father and several other
people's fathers lived off the resources of this nation."
Commercial fishermen took
nearly T milhon pounds of walleye a year from Red Lake in the
late 1980s. Those numbers were
similar to the annual harvest on
Mile Lacs, considered one of the
premier walleye lakes in the state.
Quotas have since been put into
effect on Mille Lacs.
The Red Lake Band has yet to
decide if it will allow commercial
fishing. In the meantime, the tribal
council has approved interim regulations for 2006, allowing a daily
bag limit of 10 walleyes. Fish over
18 inches must be released, except
for one whopper (over 28 inches)
per day.
Anglers must catch fish with a
hook and line.
"The short and tlie long of it is,
if the tribe and die resource managers feel it's ready, they should
fish," said Robert Shimek, a tribal
member and spokesman for the Indigenous Environmental Network,
a national group based in nearby
Bemidji. "It's going to be done
very cautiously, very slowly."
The band controls all 164,990
acres of Lower Red Lake and
71,549 acres of 119,274-acre Upper Red Lake. Only band members
are allowed to take fish from tribal
waters.
The tribe isn't solely at fault
WALLEYE to page 7
Conference opening Tuesday
focuses on Natives, HIV
By Mary Pemberton
Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - HIV/
AIDS is a silent killer moving
through Native communities
around the world, says Rick
Haverkate.
"It is not being talked about
until it is too late," said Haverkate, an American Indian who
hopes to change that with a
conference on HIV/AIDS among
Natives in the United States and
Canada. More than 800 people
are expected to attend the conference in Anchorage from Tuesday
through Saturday.
The conference aims to provide Native people with information on HIV/AIDS research,
while establishing networks to
tackle the problem that organizers say disproportionately affects
about 2.6 million Native people
in the United States.
Nearly 80 presenters will give
lectures and workshops, with
more intimate talking circles
available for people with specific
common interests.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Indians
and Alaska Natives were diagnosed at rate of 11.1 per every
100,000 people in 2004, com
pared to 76.3 among blacks and
29.5 among Hispanics. Whites
were 9 per 100,000.
But for Indians and Alaska
Natives, the disease often affects
very small communities. And
the number of Indians with HIV
is underreported, said Michael
Covone, program manager for
the HIV prevention program with
the Alaska Native Tribal Health
Consortium, a presenter at the
conference.
"A lot of American Indians
have been classified as Hispanic,"
he said." We are missing a whole
bunch of people."
That means that the problem
has not received the attention it
deserves when it comes to federal
funding for prevention and treatment, Covone said.
""Communities that are most
affected receive the most funds,"
Covone said. "Alaska Native
and American Indians have not
been a focus for prevention. ...
Nothing has been done to meet
the needs of that community in
particular."
Many times Alaska Natives
don't find out they are HIV-
positive until they have AIDS,
CONFERENCE to page 3
American
Indian denied
his civil rights
By William Perry Pendley
On June 13,1999, Thomas Lee
Morris, aged 16, was driving his
family's vehicle, widi his parent's
permission, near their home in
Ronan, Montana, on the Flathead
Reservation, when he was stopped
by a Ronan City Police Department officer, allegedly for speeding. The officer asked if he were a
tribal member; Morris informed
him that he was a member of the
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe of
Leech Lake Reservation hke his
father.
Although Morris, his father, and
mother, who is a non-Indian, have
lived in Ronan for many years
where his father runs an upholstery
business and his modier works
at several jobs, including caring
for five children and four minor
grandchildren, all of whom are
tribal Indians, none of them are
members of the tribes of the Flathead Reservation. In fact, though
all members of Morris's family
except his mother are American
Indians, they do not qualify as
members in the Salish or Kootenai
Tribes because they have no Salish
or Kootenai ancestors. Thus, they
RIGHTS to page 7
Tip leads to arrest of escaped sex offender
By Greg Aamott
Associated Press
ST. PETER, Minn. - A tip
prompted by a.segment on
""America's Most Wanted" on
Saturday night led to the arrest
of escaped sex offender Michael
Dale Benson about 7:30 a.m.
Tuesday in Kansas City, Mo.,
authorities said.
""This tip was absolutely crucial
for catching him when we did,"
said Michael Tabman, special
agent in charge of the Minneapolis
FBI office.
Authorities said Benson, 42,
and three odiers escaped from
the St. Peter Regional Treatment
Center on April 15 after sawing
through a metal bar on a security window. The three other men
were quickly arrested, but Benson
evaded capture until Tuesday.
A tipster who called police Sunday mentioned several specific
details about Benson, including
a tattoo on Benson's right hand
and hearing Benson talking about
being an American Indian from
Mnnesota. Further, the tipster
also heard Benson using an alias _
Mchael Blue _ that investigators
had publicized.
FBI agents in Kansas City
following up on the information
found the green 1997 Ford Crown
Victoria stolen in St. Peter the day
Benson escaped. It still had Minnesota license plates on it. Agents
waited until Benson got into the
car, then arrested him without
incident.
St. Peter Police Chief Matt
Peters also credited the arrest on
""an intrepid group of investigators working on this."
He added: ""It's just been damn
good police work."
When Benson was arrested,
he was with another man who
investigators believe he had met
over the weekend in a Kansas City
bar. Tabman said authorities don't
think the other man knew Benson
was a fugitive, and let him go.
News reports about Benson's
escape prompted reports of sightings in Cass Lake and Canada.
Tabman said those were probably
untrue. Investigators now believe
Benson drove direcdy to Kansas
City.
He said it was ""a litde surprising" Benson was apparendy able
to drive across several states in the
stolen car without being caught.
""I say it's surprising. These things
happen."
Benson pleaded guilty in 1989
to first-degree criminal sexual conduct in a rape in Douglas County,
authorities said. He served prison
time before being civilly committed to die sex offender program in
St. Peter in 1993.
He has been classified as a
Level 3 offender, a category for
those deemed most likely to reoffend.
His escape has prompted calls
from legislators and Gov. Tim
Pawlenty to make the security
hospital more secure.
Benson's father, Dale Luverne
Blue, 59, has been arrested and
charged widi smugghng cutting
tools into die treatment center and
placing cash in an account for his
son.
The criminal complaint in diat
case alleged diat Blue had been
helping plan the escape for several
months.
web page: www.press-on.net
American
We Support Equal Opportunity For All People
A weekly publication.   Copyright, Native American Press, 2006
Founded in 1988
Volume 18 Issue 45
May 5, 2006
CaWarren Wirta addressed the Tribal Executive Committee ofthe Minnesota Chippewa
Tribe at its Quarterly meeting May 2, 2006 at Black Bear Casino on Fond du Lac Reservation. Wirta spoke about how blood quantums only leads to the termination of the
Indian people and prevents many Indians from becoming enrolled because they do not
know their family due to adoptions or their tribe is not federallly recognized so they have
the wrong type of blood quantum.
Deep inside
Kansas cave,
counting up
what Indians
are
By John Heilpren
Associated Press
LENEXA, Kan. - Seventy
feet beneath the prairie, the
government is filling limestone caverns _ protected
by guards and a bomb-sniffing dog _ widi truckloads of
American Indian financial and
cultural records.
What is ground zero for an
accounting that will take seven
years and cost $335 million
owes its existence to a bitter
class-action lawsuit brought
■ against die Interior Department a decade ago. Still, it's
only a short version of the historical accounting diat Indians
demanded but no longer want
_ because they don't think it
can be done properly.
The Indians say the government mismanaged a trust in
dieir names for 120 years and
now owes them tens of bUlions
of dollars.
The dispute dates to 1887,
when Congress made die Interior Department trustee for
145 million acres of Indian
lands. Indians were supposed
to benefit but the government
gave most of the land to white
setders.
Today, Interior manages 10
million acres of trust land for
individual Indians and 46 milhon acres for tribes. In 1996,
the Indians sued to reconcile
their liistoricai accounts. They,
and Congress, demanded an
audit. The Indians may be
owed a century's worth of
grazing rents, oil and gas royalties and timber sales from die
land, plus interest.
Both the Indians and the
Interior Department agree $ 13
billion was collected between
1909 and 2001.
The Indians had claimed the
unpaid interest could be more
than $150 billion, but they've
CAVE to page 2
Gamblers Warned About Justice
On Reservation
By Chris Halsne
KIRO 7 Eyewitness News
The Thurston County Sheriff
says he can no longer guarantee
your personal safety the next time
you travel to one of this state's
hottest Indian casinos.
The Red Wind Casino sits between Tacoma and Olympia and
is run by the Nisqually Indian
Tribe. They boast nearly 1.5 million gambling visitors a year.
The law enforcement warning
comes on the heels of an exclusive KIRO Team 7 Investigation
into that tribe's police department.
The NisquaUy reservation is a
sovereign nation. The tribe has
its own government and police
force, but the administration of
justice is a bit different. For instance, if a member is convicted
of dealing drags, rape or murder,
the maximum diey'll serve is one
year in jail.
Washington state courts also
have jurisdiction over those
crimes, but sometimes what happens on die reservation, stays on
die reservation.
Gregory Horn just might be the
luckiest drug peddler alive.
"We had pot inside die spare tires;
all chained together," he said.
In November, he was caught
by the Nisqually Indian Nation
Tribal Police on dieir land with
a huge illegal stash.
Former Nisqually Police Officer Barry Hagmann saw the
evidence.
"I can tell you there were a lot
of drags diat came out of that van,
four to five pounds of marijuana,
two to three pounds of meth.
That's just what they found,"
Hagmann said.
Horn says he just knew he was
headed to prison.
"When they found that, I went
totally cold sweats, sweating big
JUSTICE to page 3
Sandia Pueblo approves
minimum wage
Associated Press
SANDIA PUEBLO, N.M. (AP)
_ Sandia Pueblo has approved a
minimum wage that will require
that the approximately 2,000
people who work for the pueblo
and its enterprises be paid at least
$8 an hour.
""This is a first for a tribal-
owned enterprise and positions
the Pueblo of Sandia as an industry leader in the local area," said
Trulyn Bemis, human resources
director for die pueblo just nordi
of Albuquerque.
The state and federal minimum
wage stands at $5.15 an hour.
The new Sandia Pueblo minimum wage guarantees that no
pueblo employee is paid less dian
$8 an hour, including base salary and dps. The wage scale for
people who do not earn tips starts
at $8.18 an hour.
The minimum wage was approved April 19 by the Sandia
Pueblo Tribal Coimcil and announced by die pueblo Tuesday.
It covers employees of the pueblo
and its administration as well as
enterprises such as Sandia Resort
& Casino, Bien Mur Gift Shop
and Travel Center and Sandia
Lakes.
""This action speaks to the concern of council members that all
employees be paid a fair wage,"
Bemis said.
Sandia Pueblo also said it had
expanded and increased its salary
ranges to give workers more opportunities for financial growth.
Raises also went to employees
who have been in their jobs for a
year or more.
The increase will be retroactive
to March 22, said the pueblo's
public relations director, Amber Flores Jordan. Employees
received the retroactive pay last
Friday, and will be paid at the new
rate beginning with this week's
paychecks.
The pueblo is expanding its
benefits plan, but details have not
WAGE to page 3