Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 2007-01-05

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INDEX
NEWS AROUND INDIAN COUNTRY
2
Letter to Senator Inouye to
meet at San Diego Forum
NEWS BRIEFS
3
COMMENTARY/EDITORIALS
4
CLASSIFIEDS
7
page 4
MCT Right to Know:
Storbakken vs. Leech
Lake Band of Ojibwe in
Tribal Court
page 4
Fond du Lac Reservation
Chairman Election Smith
Not Diver
page 4
Made in the USA:
Spoiled Brats
page 4
Immature Teenage
Brain Explains "Why
They Act That Way"
page 4
Leech Lake leadership causes embarrassment for
tribal members
VOICE      OF      THE      PEOPLE
By Bill Lawrence
, State Representative Frank Moe
and newly elected Senator Mary
Olson may have been witness to
an unexpected and unpleasant
episode when they arrived at
Leech Lake Tribal Headquarters
for a meeting 12-20-06.
According to accounts from
several people who saw the
incident, as the two legislators
waited for the scheduled meeting,
Secretary/Treasurer Arthur
"Archie" LaRose went into the
Chairman's office. He left the
door open.
While LaRose was in the office,
Chairman George Googleye, Jr.
could clearly be heard swearing
and calling the Secretary/
Treasurer by obscene names.
Leech Lake Tribal Attorney Mike
Garbow entered the office a short
time later. He was also heard
doing the same—swearing and
addressing LaRose in a derogatory
manner.
LaRose told Press/ON that
when Garbow entered the office,
he threw off his coat and flung
his notebook to the floor in
what appeared to be a challenge.
LaRose felt Garbow was taunting
him to incite a physical response
so he walked out of the office
without accomplishing what he'd
come to do.
LaRose said he assumed
Garbow's hostility stemmed
from a complaint he had filed
with the Minnesota Lawyers
Professional Responsibility Board
alleging unprofessional conduct
by Garbow.
The Department Heads who
were waiting, as well as the State
Legislators, heard it all.
Callers reporting the incident
expressed embarrassment over
the episode, especially since
the outrageous behavior was
displayed in the presence of high
ranking state officials who were
present to discuss tribal land,
water rights, health issues and
other matters important to the
tribe.
Press/ON sent email messages
to Representative Moe and
Senator Olson asking if either
wished to comment about the
incident. There was no reply.
Seven file in       Tribes file class action trust
Hopi chairman
election
By Stan Bindell
For The Independent
KYKOTSMOVI, Ariz.
— Seven candidates have
been certified for the special
election for Hopi chairman.
The primary election is
scheduled for Jan. 24 and the
final two candidates will meet
in the general election Feb.
7.
At least four more candidates
are awaiting certification by
the Hopi Election's Board.
The seven candidates in
the race so far are Valjean
Joshevama Jr., Harry
Nutumya, Elgean Joshevama,
Tommy Canyon, Mary Felter,
Mike Puhuyesva and Dr. Alan
Numkena.
The four waiting approval are
Hernal Dallas, Caleb Johnson,
Wayne Kuwanhyoima and
Harold Joseph Jr. Other
candidates can turn petitions
until 5 p.m. Jan. 9. All
candidates in the race should
be approved by noon Jan. 11.
Names will be drawn at 3 p.m.
Jan. 11 for the order in which
they will be printed on the
ballots. Ballots will be printed
Jan. 12.
Absentee ballots for the Feb.
7 general election must be
requested by Jan. 8. It is too
late to request absentee ballots
for the primary election.
The chairman's office has
been vacant since Ivan Sidney
was ousted from office for
violating the Hopi Tribe's
Code of Conduct. Sidney
was removed from office in
October after admitting to
an alcohol incident off the
reservation. Police said they
found him intoxicated and
unruly in a hotel in Winslow.
Candidates must be enrolled
members ofthe Hopi Tribe, at
least 25 years old and submit
ten signatures in support of
their candidacy. Voters must
be members ofthe Hopi Tribe
and at least 18 years old.
For more information,
contact the Hopi Elections
Office. P.O. Box 553,
Kykotsmovi, Az., 86039; or
telephone 928-734-2507; or by
fax at 928-734-1257; or email
at kshupla@hopi.nsn.us.
accounting lawsuit
Indianz.com
The Native American Rights
Fund filed a major class action
lawsuit against the federal
government last week, seeking an
accounting of billions of dollars in
tribal trust funds.
With the suit, the nonprofit law
firm seeks to represent over 250
tribal governments whose money
has never been accounted. Eleven
tribes signed on as plaintiffs in the
case, the first of its kind.
"This lawsuit is a reflection
of a huge historical problem
with the federal government's
mismanagement of tribal trust
accounts," said Rebecca Miles,
the chairwoman ofthe Nez Perce
Tribe of Idaho, the lead plaintiff.
"We have tried to work with the
agencies and we have tried to
work with Congress. Our hope
now is with the courts."
Filed on December 28 in federal
district court in Washington,
D.C, the suit joins dozens of
similar cases filed by individual
tribes. It also joins the Cobell
lawsuit that represents over
500,000 individual tribal members
whose funds remain unaccounted
despite the obligations of the
Interior Department to do so.
John Gonzales, the chairman
of NARF's board of directors,
said tribes had to take action
to beat a critical deadline. The
statute of limitations to file trust
accounting lawsuits expired on
December 31, after the 109th
Congress refused to extend it
amid opposition from the Bush
administration.
"The real battle will be over
what more the court or Congress
will do to protect the rights of
tribes and hold the government
accountable for its duties as the
trustee for tribal trust funds,"
said Gonzales, a former president
of the National Congress of
American Indians.
Gonzales, who also has served
as governor of San Ildefonso
Pueblo in New Mexico, said tribes
are challenging the government's
failure to conduct an accounting
of tribal funds dating back to the
late 1800s. Although the Bureau
of Indian Affairs paid the former
accounting firm Arthur Anderson
to look ate tribal accounts, the
reconciliation project only looked
attheyears 1973 through
1992.
"We are confident that the court
will agree that the Arthur Andersen
reconciliation reports are not full
and complete accountings," said
Gonzales.
John Echohawk, the executive
director of NARF, said the Arthur
Anderson project marked another
breach ofthe federal government's
basic trust responsibilities. In
legal filings, the Department
of Justice has argued that the
reconciliation reports are an
accounting even though the
Government Accountability Office,
has said such an accounting is
"impossible" due to inaccurate,
missing or destroyed records.
"The bottom line is that despite
the agency reports and twenty
years of Congressional mandates,
no adequate accountings have
resulted to date," said Echohawk,
a member of the Pawnee Tribe
of Oklahoma, citing attempts by
the GAO, Interior Department's
Office of the Inspector General
and Congress to shed light on the
issue.
Despite the failure to complete
the accountings, the Department
of Justice has repeatedly sounded
alarms about massive tribal trust
fund litigation. In testimony
to Congress, Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales has begged
appropriators for money in order
to defend the government and
"limit" its liabilities.
"The United States' potential
exposure in these cases is more
than $200 billion," Gonzales has
said.
Tribes and individual Indians
have been filing breach of
lawsuits for decades, recovering
some money here and there.
The Mississippi Band of Choctaw
Indians commissioned a study
that showed only about a dozen
cases resulted in awards of more
$1 million.
It wasn't until Elouise Cobell, a
member of the Blackfeet Nation
of Montana, came into the picture
that the legal landscape exploded.
In December 1999, she won a
precedent-setting ruling that
required the government to
conduct an accounting of all
funds. NARF serves as co-counsel
on the case.
At least 50 tribes have followed
on Cobell's footsteps with lawsuits
LAWSUIT to page 6
Crime-fighting funding delayed,
audit finds
By Lara Jakes Jordan
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Lax oversight
of federal law enforcement grants
tied up hundreds of millions
of dollars for eight years and
potentially shortchanged state and
local crime-fighting programs, a
Justice Department audit found
Wednesday.
. The report by Inspector General
Glenn A. Fine found that leftover
money from thousands of expired
grants between October 1997
and December 2005 sat unused
because officials failed to keep
close track of the programs once
they ended.
If the offices had dealt with
expired grants in a timely fashion,
"hundreds of millions of dbllars
in questioned costs could have
been used to provide the DOJ
with additional resources to fund
other programs or returned to
the federal government's general
fund," the audit concluded.
Justice Department spokesman
Brian Roehrkasse disputed the
bulk of the audit's findings and
said that Congress last year took
back $125 million in unused
money from expired grants. He
said Fine's office mistakenly
interpreted regulations that
govern the grant programs that,
if followed, would deprive state,
local and tribal authorities of
funding.
At issue is the way three Justice
Department offices manage
grants for state, local and tribal
law enforcement agencies. Fine's
office has repeatedly raised what
it termed serious concerns with
the department's oversight ofthe
grants for community policing,
prosecuting crimes against
women, and others awarded by
the Office of Justice Programs.
The audit looked at nearly
61,000 grants, worth $25 billion,
that expired during the eight-year
period. Among its findings:
Only 13 percent of the
grants were officially closed _
meaning that any administrative,
compliance, legal, and audit
issues were resolved - within
required timeframes after the
programs expired. More than
8,000 grants had yet to be closed
two years after their expiration
date.
The departmentgave 129 grants,
worth $106 million, to authorities
that ultimately did not comply
with program requirements,
including reporting back how the
money was being used.
The government improperly
AUDIT to page 6
Members of
Congress - who
they are
By The Associated Press
Some facts about members of
the new 110th Congress taking
office Thursday:
The average age in the 110th
Congress is 57. The average age
of House members is 55.9; the
average age of senators 61.7.
The average age of freshman
members of the House is 49.3
and the average age of freshman
members of the Senate is 54.2
There are 90 women in the
110th Congress, 74 in the House,
including three delegates, and 16
in the Senate.
There are 10 women in the
freshman class of the House and
two women in the freshman class
of the Senate.
There are 42 black members
of the House. Of these, three are
freshmen and two are delegates.
There is one black senator.
There are 27 Hispanic members
of the House, including one
delegate. Of these, one is a
freshman. The Senate has three
Hispanic members.
There are seven Asian members
ofthe House, including one black
member of Filipino descent. One
of these is a freshman. There are
CONGRESS to page 6
web page: www.press-on.net
Native
American
Press
We Support Equal Opportunity For All People
A weekly publication.  Copyright, Native American Press, 2006
Founded in 1988
Volume 19 Issue 20
January 5, 2007
Petroglypfis can be seen on a sandstone wall, Dec. 22,2006, on land that borders the Twenty Mile Land Co. north of Gillette,
Wyo. Nomadic American Indians carved life-size figures into the face of the cliff more than 300 years ago. (AP Photo/Gillette
News-Record, Nathan Payne)
Campbell County petroglyphs keep their secrets
By Brantley Hargrove
The (Gillette) News-Record
GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) - The
groggy and bleary-eyed pilgrims
piled out of six trucks and SUVs
at the end of their trek before
daylight Thursday morning.
John Daly, John and Mavis
Greer, Bill Fitch, Nello and
Rollo Williams and 10 others
had arrived at a high sandstone
promontory on the Wasatch
Formation in northern Campbell
County. There, nomadic
American Indians carved life-
size figures into the face of the
cliff more than 300 years ago.
Nello Williams and Daly had
a theory that a shard of light
filtering through a stack of
boulders in front ofthe cliff face
during sunrise on the winter
solstice may be there by design.
They saw it once before, years
ago, on a cloudless morning
during the winter solstice, the
shortest day of the year.
The group filed toward the
site Thursday with a sense of
urgency. The site (which is
kept private to protect it) is on
state land abutting the Twenty
Mile Land Co. and is accessible
only through the ranch. The
low scoria hills to the east are
black on the horizon as the first
palings of the sun began to seep
into the eastern sky.
Daly scrabbled up the hillside
along with the group as they
picked their way around a ruinous
slope of sandstone boulders
fallen from the ponderosa pine-
crowned cliff above and over
smooth slabs of slate.
Then, at the base of the cliff
was a set of what looked in
the dim pre-dawn light like
unremarkable etchings.
But within minutes, the light
splashed over the promontory
and warmed the cold and gritty
sandstone to a buff, rose-hued
glow.
The shard of light that Daly
and Nello Williams had once
seen never came. The low bank
of clouds in the east, settled
just on the horizon, blocked
whatever light may have filtered
through crevices in the stack of
boulders.
"There was a perfect arrow
over here," Nello Williams
said, pointing to the right of
the easternmost figure. "And
it was just as bright as bright
could be."
The figures were half-footed
in the shadow of the boulders.
But as the sun began its arc, the
shadow sank and the figures were
revealed. The slant of sunlight
threw shadow into the incisions,
most likely carved with a rock
shard, or a chert, as the Greers,
a pair of archaeologists, call it.
The westernmost figure
carried a small shield with
three triangular shapes running
horizontally across it. The
absence of horses suggests the
carvings predate the arrival of
SECRETS to page 3
Cherokee chief
delays election
to March 3
Associated Press
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. - A vote
on whether descendants of freed
Cherokee Nation slaves can be
members ofthe tribe now will be
held March 3.
The date is the third set for the
special election. After receiving
a signature petition, Cherokee
Principal Chief Chad Smith had
set the election for Oct. 6, but a
freedmen descendent, Vicki Baker
of Chelsea, sued, contending the
petition contained numerous
instances of fraud.
Last week, in a split decision,
the Cherokee Supreme Court
ruled that the petition was valid
and said Smith acted within his
authority to call for a special
election. The court also said
enough registered Cherokee
voters had signed the petition.
Smith then set the election for
Feb. 10.
Smith said Thursday that
delaying the election until March
will allow the tribe's election
commission more time to
prepare.
Voters will decide on whether
to amend the tribal constitution
to make Indian blood a
requirement for citizenship.
The tribal Supreme Court ruled
in March that freedmen did
qualify for citizenship, noting
that "the Cherokee citizenry has
the ultimate authority to define
tribal membership."
CHIEFtopage6
Beltrami County's anti-smoking
law getting tougher
Associated Press
BEMIDJI, Minn. - For the
past two years, Beltrami County
has had some of northwestern
Minnesota's toughest anti-
smoking laws. Starting New Year's
Day, they'll get even tougher.
Since Jan. 1, 2005, Beltrami
County has prohibited smoking
in bars and restaurants except
between 8 p.m. and 3 a.m.
But as of Monday, the only
bars and restaurants in Beltrami
County where customers can
light up must have designated,
enclosed smoking rooms with
special ventilation.
"This will be one ofthe healthier
. counties in the state for people to
visit," said Jim Heltzer, an ardent
smoke-free proponent on the
Beltrami County Commission.
The change comes just ahead
of a legislative session that may
approve a statewide ban on
smoking in bars and restaurants.
With Democrats set to take
control ofthe House, supporters
of a statewide ban say their time
has come, and Republican Gov.
Tim Pawlenty has said he'd sign
such a ban into law.
Tourism is a major industry
in Beltrami County, and starting
Monday, smoking won't be legal
in the guest rooms of its motel
and hotels either, or in rented
or leased cabins at resorts, or in
college dormitory rooms. Many
motels and hotels in the county
already have made the switch,
citing savings in cleaning costs
as one benefit.
Beltrami County's ordinance
doesn't apply to establishments
on the Red Lake and Leech Lake
Indian Reservations.
Former smoker Warren Larson,
president ofthe Beltrami Tobacco
Education Awareness Movement,
known as the B-TEAM, said
residents are getting into the
smoke-free habit _ and liking it.
Larson said he hears from people
who return from visits to other
counties that don't have smoke-
free policies. "They're the ones who
come back and say, "Wow, we didn't
realize how wonderful it was here,'"
Larson said.
While many restaurants and
lodgings have embraced the
changes, it's harder to find bar
owners or customers who are as
enthusiastic.
"It's decreased my business
about 38 percent already," said
Frank Chrz, owner of Turtle Creek
Saloon in Turtle Creek, north of
Bemidji. "I don't think that is out
of the ordinary from what other
bars are experiencing."
Many of the county's bar
owners and managers say their
weekday afternoon and early
evening business, particularly
happy hours, were hit hardest
after the initial version of the
ordinance was adopted in 2004.
Charitable gambling revenue
from pulltab games has also
suffered, some say.
"Our gambling's been cut
down to about 50 percent of
what it used to be," said Rick
LAW to page 6