The Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1997-11-14

              No room for civil rights in Minneapolis
By Gary Blair
The poster outside the office door
of the Minneapolis Department of
Civil Rights (MDCR) reads: "There
is no room for prejudice in
Minneapolis."
As nice as that pledge sounds, those
words appear to be meaningless for
persons of color who file race-based
discrimination complaints with the
city. With a backlog of over 300
cases, a "Probable Cause" finding
by the (MDCR) is m&re likely to
result in a complainant being made
to feel that the mediation process
that follows is just another form of
discrimination.
On Wednesday, your writer, along
with Minneapolis civil rights
activist and journalist Ron Edwards,
attended a mediation hearing of the
Minneapolis Commission on Civil
Rights (MCCR). We were invited by
Karoline Dehnhard (a white women)
and Larry Pinkney (a black man),
who had received a probable cause
finding dated 9/3/96 against Dean
Enrooth, a northeast Minneapolis
landlord.
Commissioner Robert Fine (attorney) and 15-year MCCR veteran
served as mediator during the futile
one hour session. During such conferences, complainants are allowed
to have an attorney present if they
can employ one, or they may have
an advisor or representative.
Your reporter served as Pinkney's
advisor, which afforded the opportunity to witness firsthand one of the
most secret hearings conducted in
Minneapolis City Hall. Edwards
served as Dehnhard's representative.
The case centered around harassment that the couple had received as
tenants while living at 1223 29th
Ave. NE, in Minneapolis. Both
Dehnhard and Pinkney alleged that
at least two of the tenants in the
apartment building where they lived
had engaged in physical contact,
threatening gestures and loud
speech towards them. "They didn't
want a black man living with a white
women in their building, that's what,
it was all about," Pinkney says.
The couple had called the police on
No room cont'd on 6
BIA's Anderson never read documents before
reversing casino approval
MILWAUKEE (AP) — The federal official who denied a proposal to
locate an Indian casino in Hudson
said he never read important documents related to the case, according
to a newspaper report. One of those
documents was a recommendation
by a regional office to approve the
casino, the Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel reported Saturday.
il didnit read memos or area office
correspondence,! testified Michael
Anderson, the Bureau of Indian
Affairs official in Washington who
decided the issue, ilt was primarily a
policy level discussion with the
staff, who, I assume, had read the
record and was summarizing it for
me.i
Anderson made his statements in a
deposition given to U.S. Senate
investigators looking into whether
the proposed casino venture, called
Four Feathers, was rejected because
of improper political pressure from
the Clinton administration and
approximately  $300,000  in  cam
paign donations.
Officials at the U.S. Department of
Interior, which oversees the Bureau
of Indian Affairs, contend
Andersonfs decision was based
strictly on the merits of the arguments contained in the 14 volumes
of records accumulated over nearly
two years. Anderson didnit read
those documents, according to testimony.
Donations, which went to the
Democratic National Committee
and affiliated groups, came from
tribes with lucrative casinos, such as
the St. Croix Chippewa and the
Oneida, who opposed off-reservation gambling. Interior Secretary
Bruce Babbitt and other Interior
officials have denied any impropriety.
A federal lawsuit by the three
Chippewa bands that sought the
casino argues that contributions to
the Democrats and a iferocious lobbying campaign,! including a pitch
directly to President Clinton, killed
the proposed casino. The Chippewa
bands that proposed the deal wanted
to add slot machines and blackjack
tables to the dog track, but they
needed the Department of tn<
Interiorfs permission to operate
Indian gaming on land that wasnit
part of a reservation. By law, such
decisions are supposed to be apolitical.
Anderson was given authority u>
make the decision on the casino deal'
after Indian Affairs secretary Ada£
Deer removed herself from the
process, citing a conflict of interest.
Anderson, Deeris top deputy, said hv
did not read the lengthy administrative record compiled since the casino application was filed in 1993 by
three northern Wisconsin Chippewa
bands and backed by the owners of
the struggling St. Croix Meadows
Greyhound Park. Andersonis deposition was one of six obtained after
the committee concluded hearings
Oct. 31.
BIA head sees need to boost image of agency
By Philip Brasher
(AP) The new boss of the Bureau
of Indian Affairs says he has to
improve me agency's credibility so
Congress will provide more money
for struggling tribes.
"There's a lot of good will in
Capitol Hill and the public for
Indian Communities," said Kevin
Gover, who was sworn in
Wednesday as the Interior
Department's assistant secretary for
Indian affairs. "There's not a lot of
good will for the Bureau of Indian
Affairs."
The agency, which serves a diverse
group of 553 tribes, has long been
considered one of the most poorly
managed arms of government. It has
a $1.7 billion annual budget and a
work force of 11,000 employees that
includes teachers, social workers,
police officers and firefighters.
Gover, a member of Oklahoma's
Pawnee tribe, has been a lawyer and
lobbyist for Indian gambling interests in New Mexico. He said at a
news conference Chat agency moialc
is low. "You get the sense in talking
to management in the bureau that
they've just been holding on for a
long time," he said. "There's no
thought that they have the ability to
make things better and they're just
trying to keep them from getting any
worse." Cover's top priorities are to
deal with mismanagement of Indian
trust funds and the poor condition of
BIA-run school facilities.
He said his first trip will be to
North Dakota next month to inspect
agency schools. The BIA has a $700
million backlog of school repairs
and construction. Gover favors
overhauling the way the agency distributes money to tribes.
BIA officials have acknowledged
wide disparities in funding but have
said it was politically impossible
them  to  redistribute  federal
Tribes with gambling inteu
ural resources and political
tions often receive far more money
per capita than poorer tribes. Cover
said the BIA should keep control of
the $2.5 billion trust funds despite
an audit that said the agency couldn't account for $2.4 billion in
transactions over a 20-year period.
A special trustee has recommended
putting the money under the control
of   a   quasi-governmental   bank.
Cover said he would not oppose a
takeover of BIA's law enforcement
responsibilities    by    the    Justice
Department if it would guarantee
better funding for reservation police,
but he said he was not convinced it
would. The Clinton administration
is looking for ways to curb a sharp
rise in violent crime on reservations.
Attorney testifies in Medure suit against
magazine which alleged mob ties
NEW CASTLE, Pa. (AP) — An
article in U.S. News & World Report
was the "bombshell" that ruined a
businessman's deal to take his company public in the fall of 1993, the
lawyer who arranged the stock sale
testified.
Angelo Medure of Lawrence
County has sued the magazine about
its Aug. 23,1993 article, "Gambling
and the Mob." He was named in the
article but said he does not have
connections to organized crime.
The trial continued Friday in
Lawrence County Court.
The magazine and writer James
Popkin, 36, are defendants. Medure,
68, is president of Gaming World
International, which managed a
Minnesota casino. He had planned
to take the company public in the
fall of 1993.
Dennis O'Connor, a lawyer from
Lincoln, N.H., helped Medure find
an investment banker to underwrite
the initial public offering. "Then I
read the article. It was a bombshell,"
O'Connor testified. "It indicated
that Angelo Medure had ties with
the mob and the mob was involved
with Indian gaming. I was concerned."
O'Connor said shortly afterward,
the investment banker in Rochester,
N.Y., pulled out of the deal. A
replacement was not found for several weeks, and the shares did not
get sold until May 1994.
William A. Babcock, director of the
Silha Center for the Study of Media
Ethics and Law at the University of
Minnesota, testified as an expert
witness on journalistic responsibility. Babcock, who had access to
Popkin's notes, articles and background material, questioned the way
the story was organized in both its
published form and earlier drafts.
He also said Popkin did not
observe "a generally accepted rule
(of journalism) that states there
should be three or more sources for
sensitive material... including material that may harm a person's reputation."
Under cross-examination, Babcock
could not produce a written code of
ethics from any major newspaper or
publication where the "rule of three"
was presented in writing.
Navajos won't regret rejecting casino,
president says
PHOENIX (AP) — By rejecting
casino gambling twice in three
years, Navajo voters have made it
clear they don't want gambling on
their sprawling reservation, Navajo
Nation President Albert Hale said
Wednesday.
Hale said that he did not think the
vote would have much impact on the
national politics of Indian gambling,
a $6 billion per-year industry.
"At the same time, leaders (of
other tribes) will be pointing to the
Navajo Nation and say, vYou know,
the Navajo Nation isn't doing gaming,' and decide economic develop
ment can be done in a different
way," he said.
The Navajos, the nation's largest
Indian tribe, on Tuesday rejected a
measure to open up to five casinos
in Arizona and New Mexico by a
margin of 54 percent to 46 percent.
A similar measure also failed by
almost the same margin in 1994.
Edison Wauneka, a leading opponent of the measure, said the outcome shows sentiment hasn't
changed since the last vote.
"I hope they know now what no
means," Wauneka said.
"The Navajo people call themselves "Dineh' — sthe people,'" he
said. "As "the people' I think we
need to set an example for other
Indian nations that we don't need
gambling."
Proponents argued that casinos
would bring 3,000 jobs and $25 million in revenue to a reservation
spanning portions of Arizona, New
Mexico and Utah whose unemployment rate is 45 percent.
Opponents said gambling would
bring increased social ills to the
reservation and drain the pockets of
impoverished Navajos.
Hale opposed gambling because
federal law requires tribes to negoti-
Navajos cont'd on 3
No room for civil rights in Mpls
BIA head sees need to boost image of agency
Tensions rise over tribal lands in Shakopee
Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School 1st Qtr. Awards, pg. 3
New diversity rules harm all students, pg. 4
Voice ofthe People
1
E-mail: pressan@bji.net
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Ojibwe
News
We Support Equal Opportunity For All People
Founded in 1988
Volume 10   Issue 5
November 14, 1997
1
A weekly publication.
Copyright, The Ojibwe New*, 1BB7
f
' tr^ji
Transitions" by St Paul artist Jim Denomie, on display in the "Indian Humor" exhibit at the Weisman Art
Museum in Mpls. through January 4,1998. (Photo by Warren Bniland, Weisman Art Museum)
Woman finds proclamation honoring WWI
Leech Lake vets
By Brad Swenson
Managing Editor
Bemidji Daily Pioneer
The nation sets aside today as
Veterans Day, a day which originally commemorated the end of World
War I, as a dayto honor the soldiers
of every war in which Americans
have fought in its 221-year history.
This Nov. 11 marks no exception
and, in fact, is even a little more precious to a Cass Lake woman who
recently discovered that someone
else honored the veterans of World
War I - those who served in the
"Great War to End All Wars" from
the Leech Lake Reservation.
That someone was President
Calvin Coolidge, who on
Independence Day in 1924 issued a
proclamation honoring veterans
from the Leech Lake Band of
Chippewa for "their unswerving
loyalty and patriotism" in the 1917-
18 war.
Lucille Wakanabo of Cass Lake
found the 15-inch by 19-inch yellowed parchment by accident - after
it had unknowingly hung on her living room wall for at least 12 years.
The parchment, in a frame, had
served as a .backdrop for family pictures of her grand-daughter, Brenna
Leigh, which had been put over the
parchment by her husband, Robert
Wakanabo, she said. Both are now
dead - the granddaughter in a school
bus accident in 1985 and husband in
1991 - and she thought it time to put
the family pictures elsewhere.
"Robert put up the pictures 12 or
13 years ago," Wakanabo said. "Last
month, it finally bothered me and I
thought to put the pictures in individual frames. I turned it over and,
my goodness ... that document!"
It has the look of a fancy scroll,
embellished with a large bald eagle,
wings out-stretched, at the top and
"The United States of America" in
large, wavy type at the very top. At
the bottom is the impression of the
"Great Seal of the United States"
and Coolidge's signature.
"It's in great shape - it really surprised me," Wakanabo said. "There
is not a single fold in it."
Dated July 4,1924, the proclamation states:
Vets cont'd on 3
Indian leader Dakota gets 2-1/2 years in
prison for taking bribes
MARQUETTE, Mich. (AP) —
Fred Dakota, who in 1983 opened
one of the nation's first Indian casinos in a two-car garage, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison
Wednesday for taking kickbacks
from a slot machine dealer.
U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes
Bell also fined Dakota $30,000. The
former chairman of the Keweenaw
Bay Indian Community resigned in
July after a jury convicted him of
accepting bribes and evading taxes.
He was ordered to begin serving
time immediately.
"He should have gone away for
longer, considering what he has
done to this tribe," said Georgianna
Emery, a former tribal council-
woman. She is a member of Fight
for Justice, a dissident group that
has clashed with Dakota and other
tribal leaders in recent years.
The tribal council praised Dakota's
30 years of service and questioned
why the federal government investigated him so aggressively while filing no charges against dissidents
who seized the former tribal head-
Dakota cont'd on 6
Tensions rise over tribe's land in Shakopee
By Mike Kaszuba
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Ever since the Shakopee
Mdewakanton Dakota Community
the owners of Mystic Lake Casino,
quietly bought 593 acres on the edge
of Shakopee in 1994, the city has
been uneasy over what the tribe
intended to do with the land.
Now that the tribe outlined its
newest plan - including a possible
shopping center - Gov. Arne Carlson
has joined an effort to block the
acreage from being placed in trust
with the U.S. Bureau of Indian
Affairs. Such a move by the tribe
would exempt it from paying prop
erty taxes - it paid $16,266 on the
parcel in 1996 - adhering to local
zoning laws.
The tribe's newest proposal, set
in motion two months ago when it
filed for the land-trust designation,
is unleashing plenty of emotion in
Scott County  and particularly  in
Shakopee cont'd on 6
EXTRA!  EXTRA!  EXTRA!
Press/ON received a call at press time from an anonymous source informing us that the Inspector
General's Office of the U.S. Department of Interior hand-carried a subpoena to Leech Lake Chairman
Eli Hunt demanding all financial records of the general business account and gaming account from
June 1995 to present. The Inspector General now has records for these accounts going all the way
back to June 1990. Press/ON will carry more information on this in coming weeks.