Meeting Summary for 2/14/2010 at the New Town Civic Center


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A Meeting Chairperson was elected which was Elmarie Conklin 

The meeting was once again focused on three issues, Recall/Referendum, Oil and Gas, and a new Constitution. The discussion kept coming back to taking action to Recall certain elected officials. The thinking was if we wait for a new election someone would fool the people again and                 the people would have to wait again for four more years and there would be no recourse by the enrolled members. A question about how many     signatures would be needed to get a Recall. A letter will be sent to           the BIA Superintendant Howard Bemer and the Tribal Chairman Marcus   Levings about the exact number of signatures needed to initiate a         Recall petition.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                










OFFICIAL RECORD AND PROCEEDINGS

OF THE 3rd GENERAL COUNCIL MEETING

OF THE PEOPLE

OF THE MANDAN, HIDATSA AND ARIKARA NATION

JANUARY 17, 2010

NEW TOWN CIVIC CENTER

NEW TOWN, NORTH DAKOTA

 The 3rd General Council Meeting of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation was called to order by Verdell Smith of the Inner Voice Organization at 2:20 p.m. on January 17, 2010.

Mr. Charles Garcia gave the opening prayer.

Tribal elder Ms. Tillie Walker was nominated as Chairwoman of the General Council, and unanimously elected by those present.

Mr. Verdell Smith of the Inner Voice Organization gave an overview of the proposed agenda (attached).

TRIBAL FINANCIAL DOCUMENTS AND COMPLAINT

He also explained that the Organization had sent a letter to Tribal Chairman Marcus Levings at the direction of Tribal members who attended the public meeting held on December 2, 2009.  The letter was sent by Certified Mail on December 7, and requested copies of Tribal financial documents related to expenditures of JTAC funding (the letter also contained a directive that the Council stop spending JTAC monies in a non-approved manner), income and expenditures of Casino and oil and gas monies, as well as documentation of our Tribe’s debt load.  The letter also invited members of the Tribal Business Council to attend the next scheduled General Council Meeting (December 20, 2009).  No reply was received to the letter, nor did any members of the Tribal Council attend the General Council Meeting held on December 20.

Chairwoman Walker shared that she had been informed that our Tribe had just received $6 million in oil and gas income.

Marilyn Hudson asked if Mervyn Packineau is the Treasurer of the Tribal Business Council, and it was confirmed that he is.  She stated that, according to our Tribal Constitution, the Tribal Treasurer has the duty to make financial information about our Tribe available to the membership.  Chairwoman Walker suggested that we send a letter to Treasurer Packineau, and Marilyn said that she would. 

VOTE:  Marilyn Hudson moved, seconded by Tiny Crows Heart, that Marilyn would write and send a letter to Tribal Treasurer Mervyn Packineau, requesting copies of financial documents (going back to the year 2000) related to all JTAC spending, all Casino and oil and gas revenues (income and expenditures) and all documents related to our Tribe’s debt load.  Chairwoman Walker asked for a show of hands; motion carried.

Chairwoman Walker explained that since the Inner Voice Organization had received no reply to the December 7 letter, the suggestion had been made to file a complaint in Tribal Court in an effort to obtain a court order to require the Tribal Council to provide the financial records and documents requested in the December 7 letter.   Discussion was held about the need to file the complaint.  It was brought up that concerns about the Tribe’s finances, the wasteful spending habits of the Tribal Council, and fears about the Tribe’s debt load have been driving public discourse for many years.  Expected income from oil activity on the reservation has not materialized, or if it has, none of the Tribal members know what has been done with any oil monies our Tribe may have received.  Verdell explained that it is these concerns and fears that have people asking questions and wanting answers, and if our Tribal Council or the Bureau of Indian Affairs won’t give us those answers, we will need to pursue all avenues open to us to get them.  The people have a right to know how much money is coming in to our Tribe through JTAC, the Casino and oil activity, and the people also have a right to know how it’s being spent, and to object if they disagree with how their money is spent.  Strong concerns about corruption within our Tribal Council and Tribal programs was expressed by many of those present.

VOTE:  Verdell Smith moved, and Doreen Lyons seconded, to file an official complaint in Ft. Berthold Tribal Court to obtain a court order to require that the Tribal Council provide the Inner Voice Organization with the documents requested in the December 7, 2009 letter.  Chairwoman Walker asked for a show of hands; motion carried.

DOREEN LYONS

Doreen Lyons gave a short presentation regarding a conversation she had with staff of Senator Dorgan and Senator Conrad, wherein she informed them of some of the problems and concerns that Tribal members have with our Tribal Council and the way they are handling the Tribe’s finances and oil activity.  She reported that the Senators’ staff had encouraged our people to push for a recall, and that if the federal government became convinced that we, as a Tribe, could not handle our own finances, they could intervene only by placing our Tribe in receivership.  Ms. Lyons made available for review a copy of the letter and meeting report she’d written to the offices of Senators Conrad and Dorgan.

SIGNATURES FOR A RECALL PETITION

A lengthy discussion was then held regarding the necessary number of signatures for a successful recall petition.  No one has been able to get a definitive answer to the number of signatures necessary to request a recall election through the Secretary of Interior; when presented with this question by Verdell, BIA Superintendent Howard Bemer told him to ask the Tribal Business Council.  Needless to say, there is very little faith that anyone on the Tribal Council is going to give us the correct answer. 

It is unclear whether we will need 30% of all eligible Tribal voters, or 30% of those eligible voters who voted in the Tribe’s last referendum election (which would have been the election held to decide if the Tribe would adopt changes in our enrollment requirements).  And although our Tribe’s Constitution does give the right of the people to vote on a proposed action by the Tribal Business Council through a ‘petition form of redress,’ the Constitution does not give the Tribal Council a deadline to act on any petition they may receive. 

Unable to get a straight answer from our Trustee, the BIA, and unable to trust that anyone would be given a straight answer from the Tribal Council, and due to some ambiguity in the Tribe’s Constitution, other options were discussed.  One individual present suggested that we make a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request, but Jerry Nagle responded that over a year ago, he had requested this and other information from the Bureau of Indian Affairs through such a request, and he reported that he is still getting the run around on that request and has not received the information he requested. 

Jerry went on to give a report of meetings he’d attended, and discussions he’d had, with various individuals and entities in his efforts to obtain factual information about the IMDAs the Tribe had signed, and what he knew about the deal the Tribe had made with Black Rock Resources.  He provided copies of letters and statements he’d presented to the Tribal Business Council, detailing his concerns and taking issue with the way the Tribal Council is spending our money and how they have not developed our oil resources wisely or even efficiently.  Jerry also credited the Inner Voice Organization for their work in these issues as well.

REVISED DRAFT TRIBAL CONSTITUTION

Ed Hall then gave a talk about the need to approve a new Constitution for our Tribe.  He said that if this had been approved before the 2006 election, we would not be dealing with any of the problems we are dealing with now.  He explained what would happen if our Tribe did go into receivership, and that the federal government has no need to protect us or to see that our current problems are corrected.  He stated that our sovereignty, and therefore the true power and self-determination, belongs to the People of our Tribe, and not to the Tribal Council, who are only our representatives and who are supposed to do what the People want, not what they want.  He said that we will need to fix these problems ourselves, and that we have the ability to do so, and with the needed revisions in our Constitution, we could make things so that we would never again have the levels of corruption and malfeasance that we do now, as the revised draft has checks and balances in place to address those problems. 

He spoke of our elders and ancestors and how much they had gone through and survived, and how things used to be prior to the dam, when we all got along and looked out for and cared for one another.  He provided a history of the Tribe’s current Constitution, and how it was foisted on us by the federal government so it could do business with us and that it was not written in our best interests in mind, but the interests of the government.  He also talked about the 1851 Ft. Laramie Treaty, and how the federal government continued to take our land after that Treaty was signed through forced fee patents, the Allotment Act and the Homestead Act, and how our Reservation was reduced to the size it is today.  He spoke about how our best farmlands were taken from us through the Homestead Act and given to homesteaders, and how we Indians were told to ‘go raise horses,’ and how when the farmers who surrounded us didn’t like our horses getting into their fields, our Tribal members were forced to round up and sell our horses.

He talked about the long process of drafting the new Constitution, how it was the elders of our Tribe who did this on their own time without pay, and how former Chairman Tex Hall stepped in and appointed a Committee, who then took the revised draft Constitution around to all the segments to answer any questions and to explain how the changes would work.  Mr. Hall then offered to send to anyone present who requested one, a CD (and the Inner Voice will post it on their website as well) containing a copy of the revised draft Constitution with short tutorials on each proposed change explaining what the proposed change would do and why it was thought necessary.  Many hands went up to request this information and a sign-up sheet was sent around to get the addresses of those who wanted a copy.

A discussion was then held about calling for a referendum election in order for the People to approve a new Constitution, and the same questions were raised about the exact number of signatures that would be needed to successfully petition for a referendum election. 

VOTE:  Ed Hall moved, and Jerry Nagle seconded, to write to BIA Superintendent Howard Bemer and the Tribal Business Council to get them to tell us exactly how many signatures of eligible Tribal voters would be needed to successfully call for a referendum election to approve a new Tribal Constitution.  Chairwoman Walker asked for a show of hands, and the motion was carried with no opposing votes.  The Inner Voice Organization will write and send this letter.

OIL FIELD PROBLEMS AND  CONCERNS

Hank Bolman then gave us some words on his experiences as a contractor in the oil field.  He said that our Tribe was doing nothing to ensure that Tribal members got a shot at oil field contract work, and that all of the high-paying oil field jobs were going to non-Tribal members.  He said that these non-Tribal people and companies said they would hire Tribal members, but the reality is that they will only hire them to work on the end of a shovel, and all the good, high-paying jobs go to non-Tribal members, or members of other Tribes even.

He wondered about the campaign promises that were made to the People by those who are now sitting on the Council, and how none of those campaign promises have been kept.  He also said that it is not a difficult thing to figure out, the difference between right and wrong, and that it is easy to see that right is right, and wrong is wrong.  He recalled his grandfather telling him a long time ago that the Tribal Council did not vote on their own, that they came back to their communities and talked to people about how they should vote on a particular matter, but that this is not being done today.

He expressed concerns about the number of barrels of oil that were being taken from our Reservation, and the number of barrels that are reported – he felt that they were not the same.  He said that out of 20-some tickets recording the number of barrels of oil, only 15 tickets are turned in.  He felt that all Council members, when elected, should have to sign a contract describing what they can and cannot do, and if they break that contract, then they’re out.

He expressed his concerns about the quality of work and the quality of protections for our environment out in the oil field as well, saying that there is no one doing anything about spills that occur, or the shoddy work that is being done.  There is nothing in place to deal with an oil field disaster like a pumping unit blowing up, and people living in the vicinity will have to wait for someone to come from Tioga or Dickinson to deal with it.  It is a tragedy waiting to happen.  He also expressed many concerns about how in the leasing activity, the oil companies were pushing each other out of the way to get mineral owners’ signatures, and how now we cannot get any actual wells drilled on our land.  He compared the number of wells that have been drilled on non-Indian land to our own, and felt strongly that our leadership should not have let this happen, but instead should have formed our own Tribal company to drill our own wells.

TRIBAL MEMBERS’ CONCERNS

Chairwoman Walker then asked if there were any other questions and concerns, and invited people to share them.

Tribal members Kathryn Young Bear and Charles Garcia expressed their anger and concerns with how our oil activity is being run by our elected leadership, and their concerns about how our relationships with one another have deteriorated, what with gossip and trouble-making being the order of the day now rather than care, concern and love for one another.  Charles said that he would be willing to walk to Washington, DC, to carry our concerns there if he thought it would do some good, and Kathryn commended him for that and said he inspired her.

A young gentleman named Kenny rose and expressed his concerns, most of which the recording secretary could not hear because the heater kicked in just then and he was drowned out.  The recording secretary expresses her apologies for this.

Tiny Crows Heart expressed his thanks for all the support of the People who had been attending meetings and his gratitude that there are so many Tribal members who want to correct long-standing problems.

All action items were reviewed and assignments made, and the meeting was adjourned by Chairwoman Walker at 4:45 p.m.