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News from Indian Country Page 7 Spilyay Tywoo April 1, 2004 Flathead Tribe , ARLEE, Mont. (AP) - Sug gestions ranged from creation iof an amusement park to an outright ban on alcohol as doz ens of Flathead Indian Reser vation residents gathered to .brainstorm ways of preventing more children from dying of lalcohol-related deaths. The meeting was prompted ,by the February deaths of sixth graders F'rankie Nicolai III and Justin Renoist. The two 11 -year-old friends died in a snowy field after drink ing large quantities of vodka. , Three months earlicr.Justin's ; 14-year-old brother Tyler was , drunk when he died of smoke inhalation in a burning trailer. Enrollments disputed as profits soar TEMECULA, Calif. (AP) -Hundreds of American Indians are fighting for their place on tribal rolls at a time when mem bership can mean instant wealth for those who belong to casino owning tribes. Nearly one-fifth of the 61 tribes that have gambling com pacts with California are frac tured by membership disputes. Many of those who have been kicked out of tribes in California say the motive is greed - an attempt by tribal leaders to reduce membership so they can keep more casino profits for themselves and other favored members. "The perception is the tribes are not acting like Indians. They're are acting like sheikdoms and cutting out anyone they don't like," said Patrick Romero Guillory, a tribal attorney rep resenting members who. were removed from the rolls of the Santa Rosa Rancheria in Fresno and himself an Opelousa Indian from Louisiana. Tribes in other states, includ ing Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma and Minnesota, also have struggled with enrollment dis putes. The common factor is distribution of money. In Minnesota, for example, the Shakopee. Mdewakanton Dakota are fighting over prof its from their Mystic Lake ca sino, which generates payments to individual tribal members of up to $1 million a year. In Oklahoma, the member ship status of black Seminole : Indians is at issue. The Seminole tribe won a $56 million judgment I to be divided among members for lands it lost in Florida nearly 1 200 years ago. But roughly three-quarters of the disputes identified by The Associated Press involve Cali- i fornia tribes, the legacy of what experts said were divisive and rnall Hands to Hold Love Fact: Children from age two to seventeen start fires millions of dollars in property. Fact: Children under the age of three cause a majority of these fires and lose their lives in the process. This does not have to happen. Parents need to teach their children about the dangers of fire and create a fire-safe home. Install Smoke AMERIND offers Home and Fire Safety Training to Children in Indian Country. Contact AMERIND'S Loss Prevention Team for more information: www.amerind-corp.org 800-352-3496 AMERIND: A Consortium of Tribes Protecting "We have to do something more than just talk," said Louise Stasso, who organized the meet ing that drew about 75 people to the Arlee senior Center. "We have to take action." LeRoy Obennick of Hot Springs said alcohol took three of his children. 1 le said he would like to see the substance banned on the reservation, even if it renders worthless his beer license for which he's been offered $50,000. "I don't need $50,000," Obennick said. "I need to sec my grandchildren and my great grandchildren grow up alcohol-free." inconsistent federal policies that disproportionately affected tribes in the Golden State. At least 1,160 people in 14 California tribes are fighting over tribal status, according to an Associated Press review of court documents and interviews with tribal leaders, attorneys and former tribal members. Gambling has made the stakes for membership higher than ever. California has more gambling tribes than any other state, and the industry brings in an estimated $5 billion a year. Casino wealth has trans formed tribes that, in many cases, were impoverished just a decade ago. Members of many casino owning tribes receive checks for tens of thousands of dollars annually. The membership disputes fall into two categories. In some cases, families have been kicked out of tribes by other members who challenged their eligibility. In other cases, people say they were wrongfully excluded from tribal rolls years ago and are being refused when they seek to return. In at least one case, involv ing the Cold Springs Rancheria near Fresno, the tribe doesn't have a casino. But ejected mem bers say they lost about $9,000 per person in annual payments made by California's gambling tribes to those without casinos. The enrollment disputes present a particularly sticky situ ation in California because the state's tribes don't have their own courts, a holdover from a federal policy that targeted Cali fornia. As sovereign nations, tribes reserve the right to determine their membership, leaving little outside legal recourse for those who feel they've been wronged. John Gomez Jr. and about Detectors ... Plan an seeks solution Other hard-line suggestions included a system to track pur chases of alcohol so they could be traced when liquor winds up in underage hands. SuSan Dowdall of Poison drew applause when she spoke of intervening more to get chil dren out of dysfunctional homes. "If kids are in a home where drinking is going to happen, we need to go get them and bring them to a safer place," she said. "We need to let our families know we love them. We need to let our kids know we love them." The meeting also turned to ways to keep youths busy, such 130 members of his extended family are plaintiffs in one of the few disputes in court. I lis attorneys are experiment ing with a little-used state law that allows tribal members to sue each other as individuals in state court. The family, which was ejected March 17, makes up about 13 percent of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians in Tcmecula, where members re ceive annual casino revenue payments of up to $120,000 each. Gomez Jr. doesn't live on the reservation. At a recent family meeting at his spacious house in an upscale Temecula cul-de-sac, Jaguars and high-end SUVs filled the driveway. The tribe's enrollment com mittee says Gomez's grand mother moved off the reserva tion and cut her ties with the tribe in the 1920s. But Gomez said his grand mother, Manuela Miranda, was forced to leave when she was married off at age 13 but never forgot her Pechanga heritage. Tribal Chairman Mark Macarro and Councilman Russell "Butch" Murphy both declined comment. In an earlier printed state ment, however, Macarro said Gomez's claims were "wholly without merit" and that the tribe had the right to determine its own membership under tribal sovereignty. "This is an issue to them of money, and for us it's not about money. This is who we are, this is what we've known," said John Gomez Sr., Gomez's father and one of the plaintiffs in his son's lawsuit. "How do you not become Pechanga? How do I tell my grandson that he used to be an Indian and he's not anymore?" ... Notplro -f' - Escape Route Tribes and Their Families as mentoring sessions or pro grams to help the elderly. A com munity center might help, but Delbert Dcpuis said it would have to be more than a building and would need the constant presence of caring adults. Not all the ideas were grown up. Older members of the audi ence spent a few minutes listen ing to, and sometimes smiling at, a list of ideas compiled by Arlee schoolchildren. The list included an amuse ment park, a swimming pool, concerts, a stricter curfew, a running track, a game room, an ice skating rink and drug and alcohol education. A hearing in state court is scheduled for April 19 to chal lenge the family's ejection. The same law is being used by 76 family members who were kicked out in January by the Redding Rancheria, a tribe of about 200 in California's northern Central Valley between Sacramento and the Oregon border. Members receive about $3,000 per year in casino rev enue, according to those ejected. The tribe rejected arguments that DNA tests showed more than a 99 percent probability the family was descended from one of the rancheria's original 16 members. The DNA was exam ined by an expert hired by the tribe, and both sides were pre sented to tribal members for a vote. Family members exhumed the bodies of two ancestors to obtain the DNA. Dock fees to manage COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) - Despite opposition from a landowners' group, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe will continue charging dock fees on Lake Coeur d'Alene to help pay for the tribe' lake management plan, Tribal Chairman Ernie Stensgar said. "We are pursuing the vision of our ancestors: To protect and preserve the natural re sources in our area," Stensgar said in one of his strongest state ments to date about challenges to the tribe's authority to levy fees for docks and encroach ments onto the southern third of the lake. "It's time for all residents, Lawsuit claims county excludes Indians in hiring LINCOLN, Neb. (AP)-The American Indian tribes in Ne braska have filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment ( )pp irtunity C( mmissi n claim ing that Thurston County rou tinely excludes tribal members from local government jobs, The ( )maha and Winnebago tribes are asking the federal commission to force the county to cuit alleged discriminatory hiring practices and award the tribes compensation for dam ages caused by those practices. Hut county officials deny any job discrimination exists. Thurston County Assessor Vivian I lartwig said when she recently advertised to fill an open position in her office last fall, she got four applicants. None were American Indian. "I would have been willing to accept any individual with the qualifications for the job," she said. The tribes note that in a county where American Indians make up 52 percent of the population, none of the county's 46 employees are tribal mem bers. "Our tribal members should have an equal opportunity to apply for jobs at that level," said Danelle Smith, assistant general counsel for the Winnebago Tribe. "It's really a constricted hiring environment." The tribes say the county often fails to advertise open positions, instead finding appli cants through word-of-mouth, and when it does, it neglects potential tribal applicants by not will help float plan Lake Coeur d'Alene permanent or seasonal, to work with the tribe to ensure long-lasting water quality, fish and wild life habitat and general environ mental health in the region," Stensgar said. In 1998, a federal judge af firmed the tribe's ownership of the southern third of the lake, and the ruling was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. The tribe has committed rev enue from fishing licenses and encroachment fees, projected at $65,000 annually, to water qual ity, fish and wildlife programs on the lake and its drainages. The tribe spends about $2 million to manage the resources, Stensgar said. Pining Kooinni fis - H 5 (sale ends April Slalpfi'd 3iwiUwe 525 S.L 5tfi Stxcety Madras em 97741 (541) 47 5-257 S advertising in either of the county's two tribal newspapers. A hostile county work envi ronment has also scared poten tial Native job applicants from applying for jobs, the tribes al lege. Teri I.amplot of the Thurston County Hoard of Commissioners said she has not seen the kind of employment discrimination alleged by the tribes. "That very same rumor has been circulated before," she said of the complaint. "They kind of have to apply first." She saiil she rarely sees tribal members applying for county jobs, even though the county routinely advertises open posi tions in the Pender Times. I lartwig suggested tribal mem bets simply weren't interested in applving for jobs in Pender about 20 miles from the near est tribal community for jobs that pay SK an hour or less. Darren Wolfe, spokesman for the Omaha Tribe, said it has become easy for the county to neglect Indians in its hiring prac tices, because tribal members have not exercised their politi cal power. About 400 of some 1,000 eligible Omaha tribal members are not registered to vote, Wolte said. In Winnebago, only 44 1 of 817 eligible tribal members are registered to vote, Smith said. I le noted that is changing, explaining that the Winnebago and Omaha tribes recently be gan efforts to get eligible tribal members registered to' .Vote. 1 The North Idaho Citizens Alliance questions the tribe's ju risdiction. Angie Morrow, president of the landowner group, said, "We have nothing against Native Americans, but we have a prob lem with laws and regulations that aren't equal for all people. The United States government is our government and who we follow." Morrow, who owns water front property near Harrison, said property values have de clined, residents are resistant to the annual dock fees and the tribe doesn't have jurisdiction over private citizens. offf 31st)