Native American Press / Ojibwe News (Bemidji, Minnesota), 1999-09-03

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Commentary
In pursuit of Anna
MaeAqaush's
killers
Pg.5
Commentary
Mille Lacs Band
should reflect on
Anderson's intent
to run again
Pg-4
Fond du Lac
woman alleges
misconduct by
state, tribal
officers
Pg.l
Leech Lake Band
votes "Yes" to
Northern Lights
expansion
Pg. 1
Witnesses to
child molestation
in Minneapolis
parksought
Pg-3
Larry Aitken fired
as Leech Lake
Tribal College
President
t
pgl
Leech Lake Band members vote "Yes"
to Northern Lights expansion
Leech Lake Band of Chippewa members narrowly approved
by a 485-408 margin to spend $30 million expanding the
Northern Lights Casino in Walker. There was a low voter
turnout, with only 14.7 percent ofthe tribe's eligible voters
showing at the polls.
"The People have spoken," commented Chairman Eli Hunt.
"By their vote, we (Tribal Council) have been directed to
proceed with this project, which is what we will do."
The next step will be the submission of an RFP for
engineering and architectural services. A firm will be selected
to develop architectural drawings and to develop a
construction schedule. Tentative plans are to break ground on
the project in the spring of 2000.
The proposed 60,000 square-feet facility will include a casino
double the size ofthe existing casino, a 100 bed hotel, a 50 unit
RV park, a day-care operation for patrons, a restaurant and
convention center. The proposed facility when complete will
create an additional 200 jobs. This figure does not include the
number ofpeople that will be employed in the construction of
the new facility.
Leech Lake fires college president
Referendum Results
Leech Lake Casino Proposal
Yes
No
Ball Club
49
37
Inger
Squaw Lake
District 1 Totals
35
20
104
24
0
61
Bena
11
22
Sugar Point
Smokey Point
District 2 Totals
30
9
50
.15
12
49
Cass Lake
96
126
Mission
30
62
Oak Point
9
8
Pennington
Onigum
District 3 Totals
2
58
195
8
26
230
Mpls/St. Paul
Absentee
32
104
48
20
TotalVotes
485
408
Larry Aitken
BYGARYBLAIR
StqffWriter
The Leech Lake tribal council
fired Leech Lake Tribal College
president Larry Aitken this week.
Aitken, who has served as the
college's president since the college
was founded in 1990, will be replaced
by Interim President John Morrow,
the school's former Dean of
Students.
A press release issued by the
Tribal Council says the reasons for
the release were "philosophical .
differences" and the fact that the
college has yet to receive college
accreditation, which has led to
problems concerning transferability
of credits and funding for students.
But there may be more to the story
of Aitken's release.
This newspaper had been aware
that Aitken was under a reservation
internal investigation. Leech Lake
Larry Aitken
sources say that federal Pell Grants
that weren't being picked-up by
students who had once enrolled at
the college were being cashed by
college administrative staff. In
addition, property belonging to the
college was showing up at local
pawn shops!
Rumors about the pawned college
property and student Pell'Grant
checks being cashed illegally first
surfaced in 1996. Allegedly, former
Leech Lake Secretary/Treasurer Dan
Brown's girlfriend had been hocking
the college's property. Brown's
girlfriend's daughter, who worked i n
the college's office, had been making
false student ID cards that were used
to cash Pell Grant checks. Brown was
convicted in 1996 of conspiracy in
relation to the Harold "Skip" Finn
insurance scam.
Later reports indicated that Cass
Lake Bank officials raised questions
with the Leech Lake Tribal Council
about the cashed Pell Grant checks.
but nothing was done.
Fond du Lac woman alleges misconduct
by state, tribal officers
BY JEFF ARMSTRONG
StoffWriter
i   In what may serve as a test of state
jurisdiction over tribal police officers
whom the state licenses, a Fond du
Lac woman who says she was abused
August 21 by state and tribal officers
on the reservation is filing a complaint
with the Minnesota Department of
Human Rights.
Fond du Lac police operate
pursuant to a state statute authorizing
a law enforcement agreement between
Carlton County and the Reservation
Business Committee which requires
tribal officers to obtain certification
from the Minnesota Peace Officers
Standards and Training board and
obliges the reservation to waive
immunity from suit.
Rose Strand, age 22, claims she was
maced without cause by Fond du Lac
officerRoger(Buddha) Smith while
the woman was handcuffed in the
back of a Carlton County squad car.
Strand says she was picked up on a
relatively minorbench warrant but
later charged with assaulting an
officer, obstructing legal process with
force and disorderly conduct.
Released several days later on
$4,700 bail, the Anishinabe woman
alleges the charges against her are
aimed at providing cover for gross
misconduct by state and tribal law
enforcement, including
unconstitutionally searching her
home, falsifying police reports, and
denying Strand aid after improperly
macing her. An acquaintance of
Smith's since childhood, Strand said
Smith maced her at close range in the
presence of several county deputies
and civilian witnesses.
"I was looking right at Buddha's
face. He was maybe two feet away
from me when he sprayed mace into
my eye," said Strand. "It burned my
whole face. I was literally begging
him, crying for him to wipe my face,
just once. He said, "If you're gqing to
be disorderly, you can just let it
burn.'"
Strand said she was transported to
the Carlton County jail after an
agonizing 30-45 minutes in the back of
the squad car. Once in custody,
Strand says she was again denied any
measures to alleviate her pain.
"They were kind of torturing me," said
Strand. "When I got to the holding cell,
I kept my face in the water for about three
FOND DU LAC to pg. 8
California governor, tribes hit snags in
effort to keep casinos
Tribal and government negotiators refused to discuss details
By BRENDAN RR.EY
Associated Press Writer
SACRAMENTO (AP) - Though
Gov. Gray Davis offered to double
the number of Indian-run slot
machines as part of an agreement to
keep open tribal casinos, Indian
leaders on Tuesday objected to
sharing profits with other tribes and
accepting unions.
Closed-door negotiations
continued with tribal leaders
presenting a counterproposal. Tribal
and government negotiators refused
to discuss details.
Negotiations began after the state
Supreme Court last week struck
down a voter-approved initiative that
sought to expand legalized gambling
at tribal casinos.
The tribes have until early October
to reach an agreement with Davis to
avoid having thousands of video
slot machines shut down by federal
authorities.
William Norris, the governor's
special counsel for Indian gambling
and a former federal judge, presented
Davis' plan to about 300 people
representing some 80 of California's
107 tribes.
Davis offered to more than double
the number of slot machines, as long
as the tribes agree to share 25
percent of their gross profits with
other tribes, as well as allow union
activity in the gambling halls.
The labor activity provision, while
not specific, suggests that casino
employees would have to be given
collective bargaining rights. Some
tribal representatives consider this
an unwarranted intrusion into Indian
casino management.
The   state's  top  court   ruled
CALIFORNIA to pg. 8
Judge orders temporary casino to close
PETOSKEY, Mich. (AP) - A tribal
casino was on the verge of closing
temporarily Tuesday after a federal
judge said it had opened illegally
nearly seven weeks ago.
U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes
Bell ruled Monday that the Little
Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa
Indians should not have opened
Victories Casino until the property's
legal status was resolved.
Indian gambling establishments
can be located only on reservations
or land placed in federal trust on
behalf of a tribe. The U.S.
Department of Interior has taken
steps to put the Victories Casino site
in trust, but the process hasn't been
completed.
The tribe opened the casino July
16 in a former bowling alley near
Petoskey after resolving a dispute
with the state over the same issue.
But two rival tribes sued in federal
court, leading to Bell's ruling.
The Little Traverse Bay Bands was
appealing to the U.S. Sixth Circuit
Court of Appeals in Cincinnati,
casino manager Jim Rider said
Tuesday. Barring emergency relief
from the court, the casino was to
close at midnight, he said.
If that happens, it should be
running again within a month, Rider
said. Still, a shutdown "would
obviously be a tremendous
disruption to the operations and our
ability to move forward," he said.
CASINO to pg. 4
Voice of the People
web page: www.press-on.net
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Native
American
We Support Equal Opportunity For All People
Founded in 1988
Volume 11 Issue 47
September 3,
A weekly publication.       Copyright, Native American Press, 1999
Officers of the Minnesota Minority Media Coalition met last week to
discuss their combined efforts in seeking advertisements and their role in Census 2000. The MN Minority Media
Coalition has eight members: Asian American Press, Asian Pages, Insight News, La Prensa de Minnesota,
Latino Midwest News, Native American Press/Ojibwe News, Spokesman/Recorder, and WRNB radio.
Pictured are, standing (left to right): La Prensa publisher and Coalition treasurer Mario Duarte, Asian
American Press publisher Nghi Huynh, Latino Midwest publisher Adolfo Cardona; sitting (left to right): Insight
News publisher and Coalition secretary Kris Wells, Census 2000 community partnership specialist Irene
Gomez-Bethke, Press/ON publisher and Coalition president Bill Lawrence.
Census officials pledge to accurately
count American Indians
DAVID PETERSON
Minneapolis Star Tribune
ONAMIA. MINN.—Top
officials ofthe U.S. Census Bureau
arrived in central Minnesota on Aug.
30, pledging that they are prepared
to do things they've never done
before to adequately count the
region' s American Indian
population.
On the eve of a two-day
conference that is expected to bring
representatives of 17 tribal
governments from four states
together with census officials, Henry
Palacios, the bureau's regional
director, confessed that the
estimated 12-percent Indian
undercount in the 1990 census is
evidence of a "very pervasive
problem" that will never be totally
erased but can be attacked.
Palacios told a news conference
that the bureau is planning remedies
ranging from the extensive hiring of
people on reservations to do the
count themselves, to creation of a
census logo for use in Indian areas
that includes Indian motifs.
Brenda Boyd, census liaison for
the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe;
whose convention center is the site
ofthe event, reacted with caution.
"I'll have to wait and see," she
said. "We will try to work with them
as best we can. Certainly there is
more contact from them than there
has been in the past."
The 1990 census showed that
Minnesota had 49,909 Indians, a 43
percent increase from 1980.
This week's conference is the last
of 10 that have been held with tribal
governments around the country,
said Sydnee Chattin-Reynolds, a
member ofthe Blackfeet Nation and
the head ofthe Census Bureau's
American Indian and Alaskan Native
Tribal Program.
The undercount of Indians last
time out is believed to have been
about 15 times worse, at just over 12
percent, than that ofthe white
population, which has been put at
about 0.8 percent.
There are many reasons for that,
Palacios said, some the fault ofthe
bureau itself and others having to do
with the nature ofthe populations
being counted.
He said the bureau has had a
tendency to send outsiders into
reservations with which they are not
familiar, where they may not feel
comfortable and where they are "not
well-accepted." They have been
"tainted," he said, by their
association with the federal
government.
At the same time, he said, some
people being counted have a
CENSUS to pg. 3
Critics accuse feds of being too slow to
intervene during tribal disputes
By MATT KELLEY
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Former
leaders of Michigan's Saginaw
Chippewa tribe are accused by
federal officials of being a rogue
government that attempted to jail
opponents for "sedition" and clung
to power after losing four elections.
The Bureau oflndian Affairs took
the rare step this month of removing
the entire Saginaw Chippewa
leadership and giving control ofthe
tribal government - and its lucrative
casino - to the candidates who got
the most votes in the most recent
tribal election.
High-stakes political crises like the
one occurring with the Saginaw
Chippewas are all too common in
Indian country - affecting about a
dozen ofthe 558 tribes at any one
time, according to the head ofthe
BIA.
In North Dakota, Three Affiliated
Tribes officials on the Fort Berthold
Indian Reservation were locked in a
power struggle after last November's
general election.
Trouble arose after two tribal
business council members objected
when newly elected tribal chairman
Tex Hall voted twice to break a tie
vote on the appointment of another
representative to the business
council. But the officials were able to
work out their differences after
months of turmoil.
In other cases, the clashes often
include allegations of improper use
of federal funds or casino proceeds,
and one or more factions usually
urge the federal government to step
in and sort things out.
But the BIA has removed tribal
officials only one other time in the
past two years, intervening last year
to uphold recalls ofthe chairman and
four council members of California's
Table Mountain Rancheria.
Federal officials say those two
examples are the extreme exceptions
to a non-interference policy, one that
critics say allows rogue tribal leaders
to hurt tribal finances and political
institutions.
"When it comes to the violation of
people's rights, I don't think it
should be a hands-off situation. We
should be protected," said Velasquez
Sneezy Sr., vice chairman of
Arizona's San Carlos Apache Tribe.
Sneezy's tribe weathered a similar
crisis in 1997 and 1998 without BIA
intervention.
Kevin Gover, the head of the BIA,
said the agency's philosophy is to
let tribal elections or other internal
political procedures take care ofthe
problems.
"We would much prefer not to get
involved in these disputes at all,"
Gover said. "Only when there's no
prospects to work tilings out in the
community will we take action."
The BIA's power to intervene in
tribal politics and its reluctance to use
DISPUTES to pg. 8