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.
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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.
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