Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1999-05-21

              "News Tidbits",
P9- 3
"Smoke Signals
of Upcoming
Events", pg. 5
"Ask Your
Grampa" column
makes renewed
appearance, pg. 5
White Earth police
captain's
background adds
to constitutional
rights concerns
$200,000 missing
from Pine Point
School
Newspapers
disagree on
journalism
standards, pg. 4
Wadena can't pay
restitution
$200,000 missing from Pine Point
School
Voice ofthe People
By Gary Blair
According to two school board
members at Pine Point School in
Ponsford, MN, there is over
$200,000 of education funds
missing from the school, and White
Earth officials don't want the
embezzler[s] prosecuted. The
overall budget at the school is $ 1.5
million for 60 students the
administration claims are enrolled.
"We wanted to fire [Kenneth]
Litsau, but theytold us that they're
making him pay the money back,"
Robert "Bobbie Jack" Larson told
Press/ON on Wednesday. Litsau
is the school's superintendent,
apparently caught stealing the
money. "Both [Secretary
Treasurer] Erma Vizenor and
[Chairman] John Buckanaga told
us that. And anyway the whole
community here knows about the
missing money," Larson alleges.
"They want Litsau to pay back
the money, but so far there hasn' t
been any money coming back to
the school," Maynard Swan,
anotherschoolboardmember, also
confirmed this week.
In October of last year, your
writer was asked by Chairman
Buckanaga to leave a Pine Point
School Board meeting where those
missing funds were to be discussed.
The meeting was being held at the
reservation's administration
building in White Earth, MN.
Buckanga said before conferring
with Litsau outside the meeting
room that day, "I don't want
Pine Point/to Pg. 8
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Wadena can't pay restitution
Founded in 1988      Volume 11  Issue 32
May 21,1999
A weekly publication.       Copyright, Native American Press, 1999
1
By Jamie Marks
Staff Writer/Becker County
Record
(The following was reprinted with
permission from 5/12/99 edition
of Becker County Record)
Court records said former White
Earth tribal chairman Darrell
"Chip" Wadena must pay
restitution to the tribe in full
"immediately."
That was Nov. 21, 1996.
He still hasn't paid a dime.
Nor has former tribal secretary-
treasurer Jerry Rawley Jr.
And there may be little the tribe
can do about it.
Wadena, Rawley and former
tribal council member Rick Clark
were convicted on federal
corruption charges in 1996.
According to figures supplied
bytheU.S. DistrictClerkofCourts
Office in Minneapolis:
•Wadena was ordered to repay
$585,287 to the tribe and a $750
special assessment to the U.S.
District Court. AsofTuesday,he
had paid $200 to the court and
nothing to the tribe.
•Rawley has paid half of his
special assessment, still owing
$111,524 to the tribe.
•Only Clark has paid all ofhis
special assessment and aportion
ofhis restitution—$ 10,477.75 of
the total $147,499 he owes the
tribe.
Wadena/to pg. 3
Babbitt slams critics of Bureau of Indian
Affairs
By Philip Brasher
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt,
defending his department's
handling of$3 billion in Indian trust
funds, accused his critics ofbeing
racially motivated.
Some have called for removing
the accounts from the Interior
Department's Bureau oflndian
Affairs, whose workforce is 90
percent Indian, and turning them
over to abank or private institution.
"Iprofoundly disagree with that
condescending approach,"
Babbitt said in a taped address to
BIA employees. "It amounts to a
deep condescension to the fact
that anyinstitution which isprimarily
managed by Indians is incompetent
of managing in themodern world."
The government is being sued
by Indian account holders for its
longmismanagementofthe funds.
In February, the federal judge
who's handling the lawsuit held
Babbitt, outgoing Treasury
Secretary Robert Rubin and
another official in contempt for
theirdelay in turning over records
related to the plaintiffs' accounts.
The plaintiffs and two ofthe
lawyers representing them are
Indians, as is Babbitt's most
prominent critic on the issue in
Congress, Sen. Ben Nighthorse
Campbell, R-Colo. Babbitt's
comments brought expressions of
Babbitt/to pg. 3
Lacy Gotchie of Ball Club
models her new letter jacket
at the Bug O Nay Ge Shig
School's Athletic Banquet,
May 13. Gotchie received
the Volleyball "Miss Hustle"
award. For a complete list
of award recipients, see
article in "News Tidbits" on
pg. 3 of this issue.
White Earth police captain's background
adds to constitutional rights concerns
Tribal leaders get rare meeting with
Clinton top advisers
about a whole lot of things, the
ByPhilipBrasher
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In
an unusual White House session,
President Clinton and more than a
half dozen key administration
officials met Wednesday with
Indian leaders from Montana and
the Dakotas to hear appeals for
help with pressing social needs.
The meeting in the White
House's Roosevelt Room lasted
for more than two hours, and
Clinton attended for about 20
minutes, the tribal leaders said.
"We had an opportunity to talk
main things being housing,
education and health care," said
Charles Murphy, chairman ofthe
Standing Rock Sioux.
Administration officials were
receptive to the tribes' request for
significant increases in federal aid,
he said. "It probably won't show
up until next year's budget,"
Murphy said.
Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt, Housing Secretary
Andrew Cuomo and Education
Secretary Richard Riley attended
the meeting along with C1 inton' s
chief of staff, John Podesta; the
director  of the  Office  of
Management and Budget, Jack
Lew; and heads ofthe Bureau of
Indian Affairs and the Indian Health
Service.
During the session, Babbitt
indicated that there would be an
increase in funding for school
construction, tribal leaders said.
OMB is currently weighing an
Interior proposal to replace or
repair 170 federal Indian schools
at acostofmorethan$l.2 billion.
It is virtually unheard of for a
small group of tribal leaders to get
an audience with that many top-
level government officials, much
Leaders/to pg. 3
By Jeff Armstrong
Revelations that White Earth
Reservation police captain Rusty
Pavey has a career disciplinary
history includingunconstitutional
searches, lying to a grand j ury and
condoning acts of questionable
legality by undercover agents under his supervision are likely to
add to the controversy surrounding the fledgling force. Minnesota
Chippewa Tribe members have
maintained for more than a decade
that reservation and tribal officials
have no authority to implement a
legal system in the absence ofa
constitutional amendment granting
it.
In perhaps the most notable incident reported in the Dallas
Morning News, Pavey, then head
ofthe University Park Police Special Operations Unit, failed to re
port the rape and robbery of a
woman in the presence of undercover officer Tomas Echartea in
June of 1989. The woman, allegedly a prostitute, was raped in
south Dallas by three drug suspects who also took her cash.
Although he later reported the
incident to Pavey, Echartea failed
to intervene at the time so as not to
reveal his identity. Pavey did not
notify police chiefRobert Dixon,
nor did he seek any further criminal investigation. Dallas investigators quoted anonymously in the
Morning News questioned why
the officers would disregard amore
serious crime in order to continue
adrug investigation. "What are we
talking about here, dime-a-dozen
crack dealers? Getting them is not
worth someone's life or safety."
Nearly a year later, in June of
1990, Pavey was relieved as head
of Special Operations and sus
pended with pay. On June 28,
1990 he was indefinitely suspended and his dismissal was recommended for vio lating "city administrative orders, police department general orders and standard
operating procedures," according
to a statement by chiefDixon. The
charges alleged that he gave false
testimony to a grand jury regarding two drug raids he conducted in
amonth. AlthoughPavey was later
reinstated on appeal with a demotion, it was neither the first nor last
time he would be disciplined by
the department.
Pavey was promoted to lieutenant in 1984, three years after joining the University Park Police as a
patrol officer. In 1995, he was
issued a written reprimand for
showing up late for work. In June
1988, he received an oral repri-
White Earth/to Pg. 6
Federal bankruptcy court rules against
Crow tribe's sales tax
Navajo court rules it has jurisdiction
over Indians from all tribes
The Associated Press
BILLINGS (AP) - Montana's
federal bankruptcyjudgehas ruled
the Crow Tribe's 4 percent resort
sales tax cannot be imposed on
non-Indians operating on private
land within the reservation.
The ruling by Judge John L.
Peterson in Butte is binding only in
bankruptcy cases in Montana, but
attorneys arguingthe same issue in
federal District Court can cite it in
support of their arguments.
A case testing the Crow sales
tax, achallenge from the owners of
theCusterBattlefieldTradingPost,
who have refused to pay the tax, is
pendingbeforeChiefDistrictJudge
Jack Shanstrom in Billings.
The bankruptcy judge's ruling
on Monday came as no surprise,
John Fredericks III, attorney for
the tribe, said Thursday. "We're
going to appeal, of course, it's so
full of factual and legal errors," he
said. "It's like we didn't even
present any evidence."
Hardin attorney Jim Torske,
who opposed the tribe's attempt
to be listed as a creditor in the
bankruptcy case of a Fort Smith
businesswoman, called Peterson's
ruling a "scholarly analysis ofthe
issue."
He said it was one more step
toward the ultimate resolution of
the taxation question. Tribal
taxation of non-Indians living and
doing business on reservations has
become a hot legal topic as tribes
seek new ways to finance their
Bankruptcy/to pg. 6
By Michelle Rushlo
Associated Press
PHOENIX (AP)- In a case
that could test the legitimacy of
tribal courts nationwide, the
Navajo Supreme Court ruled it
has criminal jurisdiction over all
Indians on the reservation
regardless of whether they are
Navajo.
The case has drawn national
attention forthe legal questions it
raises about tribal sovereignty and
because it involves Russell Means,
the former leader ofthe American
Indian Movement who led a 1973
uprising at Wounded Knee, S.D.
"Every tribe is going to take a
careful look at this," said Robert
Williams, professor of law and
American Indian studies at the
University of Arizona. "The stakes
are very big."
Means was charged in a Navajo
court in December 1997 with
beating his father-in-law. Means,
an Oglala Sioux, said he should
not be prosecuted by another tribe
and challenged the 1991 federal
lawpassed authorizingtribal courts
to try Indians from other tribes.
In a 3-0 ruling Tuesday, the
Navajo Supreme Court cited a
1977 U.S. Supreme Court
decision that defined "Indian" as a
political rather than a racial
category. The court also pointed
out that Means married aNavajo
woman, lived on the reservation
and conducted business there --
all evidence, it said, that he should
be subject to the Navajo judicial
system. Means contended that the
1991 law is discriminatory because
it says non-Indian defendants are
not subject to tribal courts, but