citizen engagement

NNI Indigenous Leadership Fellow: Michael Kanentakeron Mitchell (Part 2)

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

In part two of his Indigenous Leadership Fellow interview, Grand Chief Michael Mitchell of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne touches on a wide range of nation-building topics, notably the importance of clearly defining the distinct roles and responsibilities of leaders and administrators working on behalf of Native nation governments, and the need for leaders to refrain from micromanaging the day-to-day activities of Native nation administration. He also discusses the need for Native nations to invest in the education of their people, and then to provide them opportunities to contribute to those nations onc they have completed their education.

Resource Type
Citation

Mitchell, Michael K. "NNI Indigenous Leadership Fellow: Michael Kanentakeron Mitchell (Part 2)." Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. April 3, 2008. Interview.

Ian Record:

"This is our second interview with Chief Michael Mitchell, the first Indigenous Leadership Fellow of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. What I'd like to ask you about next is this question about defining moments. We see across Indian Country in the work that the Native Nations Institute does these defining moments where Native nations essentially say, "˜Enough is enough. We're tired of the federal government or the state or whoever, whatever external force it might be dictating to us how we're going to run our nation, how we're going to determine our future and we're going to take charge.' And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about when that moment came for Akwesasne and what that moment was."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"It wasn't long after I had become Grand Chief that I began to notice that the [Canadian] government has their hands in everything. Anything you want to know about education, health, social, housing, you had to ask somebody from government. That's how it was set up. And they had a system in place and the reporting system was directly...the final say always came from them. The other thing I noticed is there was a huge deficit within the community because they didn't have control of their budget. They couldn't forecast to the way that would be to the satisfaction of the community.

So probably within the first month, I got a pretty good reading and I went and secured a meeting with the Minister of Indian Affairs and I told him, "˜In my opinion, the people are not involved in the governance.' In theory, in literature, in all the stuff they write, governance for the people, but the way their system works, everything is going back to them. So the big thing for him was this, "˜How do you deal with this deficit?' Because the day that I got elected they sent in a guy from Indian Affairs to come down to Akwesasne and he said he had two mandates. One was to run the election because it was...elections were run under the Indian Act and Indian Affairs conducted the elections. The second was...he says, "˜I really came down to lock up your administration buildings because of this humongous deficit.' So this is what the Minister and I were talking about. He looked directly at me and he says, "˜How are you going to deal with that deficit?' I said, "˜I'm going to deal with it by setting up a whole new management regime. And in this regime, I'm going to separate the politics from the administration. And the second really depends on you, Mr. Minister. I want you to recall all your people and I want to hire my own people from the community that have the skills to do the administration. We'll set up a transparent governance system.' And I guess it kind of surprised him because he says, "˜You think my people are responsible for your deficit?' I says, "˜Yeah, you are. You don't give a damn how funds are allocated and if it's...they're always short of their goal. They never realize that there's no satisfaction then people don't care. People that come down from Indian Affairs to service the community, they don't care. It's not their house, it's not their school, it's not their roads.' I says, "˜You need to involve people in governance who are going to have a direct involvement in impact, they're going to be impacted by what you do.' And curiosity they say killed the cat, but this man says, "˜I never had that question posed in that way before.'

So he gave me a year. He gave me a year to put all these things in place. We're considered a large reservation and once he gave the go-ahead and pulled his people out, then the rest was up to us to try to find people to come home. They were either working in Washington or Syracuse or Ottawa or Toronto, Albany, New York City, but I had a list of people and I started phoning them up and, 'I'd like you all to consider coming home and let's do something for this community.' And it was a challenge. I made a plea to find the right people and they all came back. They left their jobs and they took time off and they moved home and we had a team, I'd say a core team of about 20 that head up all the different departments and in a team meeting you ask, "˜What is it that we have to do that hasn't been done before?' Well, for one, the people don't get information on what council's doing. They don't know your deficit. So we set up to give quarterly reports and at the end of the year an annual report, very carefully put together that deals with almost every aspect of governance, with stories that went along with it. But in the beginning, we also asked people to, from the community, to get involved in the governance and help us. So they got on various boards from the health board to legislative to justice, police commission. These were all things that weren't there before so they were new. That's what the adventure's about. Not dealing with the government, but dealing with your community because the authorities came from external. You have to look at what has to be done to get people interested in their governance and we thought of different ways.

Within the first few months, we made a community flag for Akwesasne and we put that in all the schools, just to put our identity in the community. And there already was in existence a nation flag for the whole Iroquois Nation. So we made a community flag to fly alongside the nation flag and beside Canada's flag. And this is when I went to the customs and all the government buildings and I said, "˜I want this flag flying alongside.' And it did a lot to stir up involvement, interest, pride and along the way, very early, we started changing the name of the St. Regis Band Council, and as I said a while ago, we... everything was "˜band.' And it was done for a purpose, not many people think about it. They say, "˜I'm from the Ottawa Band' and 'I'm from the Chippewa Band.' Over here they all say tribe, it's the equivalent, but it's a government terminology. But they forbid you to say nation and in my meetings I says, "˜Whatever happened, we were once nations. We belong to a nation.' So I started using that and nation thinking and in the community people, even the chiefs along the table that were veterans, "˜We don't talk like that.' I said, "˜I know, because the government trained you not to talk like that.' Anyhow, we made a game of it. We decided that we're not going to use the word "˜band' in the community anymore and had nothing to do with our finances but it had everything to do with pride. And so there was no more 'band office,' there's no more band programs,' there's no more 'band administrator.' Everything...it went around the table, everybody kicked in with ideas and I says, "˜Well, that's...all these things is what we're not going to say. We're going to give new names.' "˜Well, what about the St. Regis Band?' "˜Well, we're going to change that. Our traditional name is Akwesasne and we're a territory, we're not a reserve, we're not a reservation.' So with everybody's help it became the Mohawk Territory of Akwesasne. It just grew.

Some of the older ones on council that had been in the system for a long time, they didn't kind of like go along with this right away and it's hard to deal with a mentality that has been there and they left it up to me. They says, "˜Look, you've got to find a way that we all go in the same direction.' Well, I wasn't about to tell somebody older that, "˜You're saying things wrong, your terminology is wrong.' So we made a game. Put a coffee cup in the middle of the table and said, "˜In our council meetings, anybody that refers to anything in the community about Band, if you say that, you're going to drop a quarter in here.' And they said, "˜Why?' I says, "˜That's just to remind you not to say it.' So when it became a game, it removed the tension, it removed the threat of direct authority. "˜Okay, let's do that.' Pretty soon, even when I'm not there, they were watching each other and months later they all had it, but I didn't realize that it influenced the program and service department and so they did the same thing and they're catching each other and everybody's laughing. Nobody's saying, "˜You can't tell me that.' And then they said, "˜Well, when government people come to see us, they better address us the right way.' Now they're growing in confidence and so whenever we had to meet with external governments, Department of Indian Affairs and provincial governments, authorities, etc., they sat at the table, we explained to them, "˜We don't want to hear that anymore and so if you say that, you're going to start donating.' And to everybody else on the table, "˜Yeah, [you] better do this.' And we would catch them. But attitude changed. The mindset changed. You start looking at your community differently. And that was the positive part. But trying to pull everything together that the staff would think different, that your council would adopt a different attitude, you've got to think community. So that was some of the initial things. It's still going on 20 some years later, just introduce new council members and they tell them, "˜These are certain things we want to watch out for in terminology. They're going to...external government's going to come and talk to you, you better watch for these things,' and all. So I'm noticing...and then it affected community members at large. Nobody says "˜band' anymore in the territory. If they do, if you say it inadvertently, somebody will catch you. That got everybody pretty well thinking on a collective basis.

Now going back to the governance part, we started having more public meetings, put out a newsletter to report on council activities and in the first year, any issue that was controversial, "˜Okay, let's go have a public meeting.' And mostly it was me going to the community saying, "˜This is what you need to know.' There was a big turnaround and leadership; Indigenous leadership goes in different format. Some are accustomed to doing things in a closed manner. The secret to success is you start opening up and report what you can. And as I... I'm explaining this because there are some things like let's say social welfare. Well, you don't have a public meeting about somebody... what they're going to get for welfare, if they're going to get a social job of some sort. So there's a need to keep confidential and we tell them, "˜There's things that we can't tell you but there's things we can.' And people understood that. After a while they would ask questions because in a community you're wide open, they'll ask you anything and that's why a lot of councils don't like to have public meetings. We have a radio station in Akwesasne and I make full use of it. Any kind of announcements, put it on the radio. Want to report something about a meeting, get on the radio. Get that information out there. And soon after it became settled in, that that's what leadership was about. It's subtle, it's not any secret or it's not any formula that's magic, it's just common sense and you see the turnaround in the community when they recognize the sincere efforts leadership is making."

Ian Record:

"Well, I think too, from what you're saying, they get on board, they jump on board that nation-building train when they feel like they have stake in it. Finally, after all these years of having no voice in governance, they have a voice again and the leadership is working with them to make sure that that voice is heard."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"Well, in the training I can offer this. There's always opposition, you always have opposition no matter whether you're well off or you're the poorest, and once they get an opportunity, people in the community, that they have a voice, you're always going to have a few that's going to be at every one of your meetings and they're going to grill you, and I've seen a lot of that happen. Most of the time you'll see people that all of a sudden, "˜Geez, I can ask questions. I'm going to come to the next meeting.' So in the leadership training, you have to know how you're going to address them but always make time for those people who come to the meetings who didn't get a chance to ask a question, because if it comes up that they feel somewhat of elitist themselves, they start hammering the council members and that's what a lot of council members are afraid of is, "˜I don't want to get hammered like that. I don't want to get insulted like that. I don't want to have a shouting match.' Well, you don't have to and now it's ingrained in leadership that you owe it to report your activities as a leader and they're not going to go back to any more closed-door sessions. And that's what separates good leaders from bad leaders is their willingness to say, "˜This is the way it's going to be.' And for young chiefs, young leaders coming in, sometimes they say, "˜I got elected to have more housing here and that's what I'm going to do.' "˜Well, I'm sorry, but there's 20 other things that also has to be done for this. We've got to worry about the roads, we got a lobby to our new facilities, there's a lot of other areas of responsibility.' "˜But I got elected on...I made that promise I would improve that.' You're always going to run into that.

So how you get people on side back home...it was sort of a tradition with the Head Chief that everybody went to him. Well, on council we have 12 district chiefs. Everybody was assigned a portfolio. If I'm going to go look for money and I take a portfolio with me, whether it's education or housing or economic development or justice, policing, whatever it may be, is that I don't have to take the whole council. I'll take the portfolio holder, I might take the staff, I might take an elder from the community and we'll go out for a few days to deal with the meetings. We bring a report back of those meetings, the results of those meetings, and then council deliberates it. And everybody has always to be ready to go out. So public speaking becomes a requirement. You can't just sit on the table and say, "˜Well, let him speak.' You have to learn how to present; very important to be a leader that you can stand up and make a report, deliberate, talk to government, be a public person. If you weren't that when you got on council and you're only going to do that one thing, you better think different. And that's what makes for good teamwork because now you're part of a team. And in the council makeup, they all have to think like that. This is a team and it's not just the council that's a team. Your team extends to your administration, to your staff. It also extends out to people in the community, that you're going to see that they're going to be able to...that we're part of this layers and layers of team and we're in there somewhere. They all have to be able to have an avenue to talk to leadership and that's why you have meetings and different portfolios. Anyway, it's...a lot of it was common sense. A lot of it was based on tradition.

One of the things that really didn't work for us, and it wasn't working when I became chief, was the term; we had two-year terms. And most tribal councils, chiefs, councils both in the States and in Canada, you'd be surprised, they still operate that way, two-year terms. And then you hear them, "˜I just got used to how I'm going to be developing, how I'm going to contribute to council, I have an understanding...' Boom. Time to have a...go back on the campaign trail. 'I've got to make a lot of promises, I've got to spend council's money.' How do you maintain a certain level of responsibility? How do you keep a level of your target that you want to hit, not this year, but you've planned that for three years, five years down the road, because you're going to have to have a joining of other ideas, other funding sources, so it doesn't happen right away. So what we did is we wanted to get out of Indian Affairs-controlled election, and so very early we opted out to develop a custom community election. And for the most part of that first term they went door to door and sat with people. And they had a discussion and I told them why a two-year term is not working under the Indian Act and if we opted out, do you want to see a three-year term or four-year term, a five-year term and also you had all that, people were commenting and at the end they settled on three years. And if the leadership is good, we can always go back, because now it's ours, if we want to extend that to four years the community will decide that. So we kept telling them, "˜It's your decision.' And then we had a massive vote after the first term and they brought it home.

Now back home there's a traditional side and they don't vote. So we got a letter from their council, the traditional council, that they liked the idea that we would bring an elected code, election code back home that would belong to the people, no longer controlled by government. And so those people who are always protecting, filing injunctions, "˜I want to go to court. I should have won. I want somebody to hear this. That guy cheated,' whatever it is, fine. We now have our own court, file with them. Matters will be decided here. If the community sees that you're way out of line, you'll also know about it. And so this is how our justice system became important to us, our courts became in handling these kind of situations. Now all of that is important. There's no one magic formula. It takes a combination of ideas to get people involved and that was some of the things that was done back home."

Ian Record:

"The title of this program is 'Leadership for Native Nation Building.' If you had say 10 minutes sitting down with newly elected leaders or young people, young Native people who are thinking about getting into a leadership position somewhere down the road in their lives, contributing to the nation building efforts of their own nations, if you had 10 minutes with them, what would you tell them about how to be an effective leader?"

Michael K. Mitchell:

"I would tell them that language is very important. We've had two generations of external forces telling us we've got to get an education. "˜Your language and culture, tradition is not important.' So we're the end product. Young people now don't speak the language anymore so they're not aware of the traditions and then there's elders and there's community and there's people that all has steps. If you're going to be a leader, always support the culture and tradition of your community. And the wisdom that comes from the elders in the community, when they give you support and they recognize that you're going to be respectful of your traditions, then support comes and follows after that. And don't be a person who is going to talk it, but don't walk it. You have to show community...and you do it by a number of ways. If you don't speak the language, then try to say the most important things. In my language it's [Mohawk language]. "˜Hello, how are you, how are things going?' And you learn the basics and let people know that those are the first things that you're going to offer back is culture, tradition, language. Know the history of your community, know the history of your nation, because you're expected to know that if you're going to be a leader. Know it well. If there are things you haven't learned from the dances to the history to the songs, then support it. They don't have to be all that instant, but it certainly helps to support things that are Native. And there are times when you have to speak out, learn how to speak well. And if you can't speak in your own language to your own elders, you're going to hit a bump right off the road, so communication. And the most important part isn't coming from Harvard or some other place and come home, "˜Now I'm going to be a chief because I got a degree.' The most important thing is what's in here, what's in your heart, what's in your mind, because that's what's going to go out. And within six months, people will know what kind of leader you're going to be. If you're dedicated...

The chief that got elected for saying, "˜I'm going to get more housing,' there's a set thing in place that's already pre-decided what you're going to get. Unless you have a magic wand or you've got a lot of money you can throw to the community and say, "˜Here,' it requires teamwork. On any issue it requires teamwork. So you have to work with different people, you have to work with your staff. Don't bully the staff. They know what they're doing and you're going to need their help to pull things together, to plan, to write a proposal, to write a report, to prepare a strategy of what you're going to say when you get out there. Don't be ashamed to take your staff with you when you have to travel somewhere, you have to negotiate something or you have to sell something. And that teamwork is very important. We had a leadership course just a few days ago and I heard one example after another, staff's not respected, they don't listen, and then they're polarized. Secret for success for new chiefs: recognize the abilities of people that are there.

And the other thing that's always important, especially for the younger ones, for some reason reservations right across the country, territories on the Canadian side, small or large, we all have our enemies, we all have people we don't like, so don't take that with you if you're going to be a leader. You have to serve all the people. You have to let them know by your decisions that you have looked all over and you have served them well. It might not reflect right away but people will know that you're going to be a leader that's going to be for the community. Not just your family, not just your friends, not just the faction that you belong to or the people that say, "˜We got you in.' But when you're in that spot, make sure you're speaking for the whole community and expressing thoughts of the whole nation with respect. You don't go to school for that. They'll teach you...elders will teach you to have that kind of respect and so always have respect for your elders. Know the way to the temple of your nation, how far the way things are going because you can spot them. You don't have to be a politician to know there's factions, there are Hatfields and McCoys almost in every reservation and as soon as you get on, make sure that you pronounce yourself, "˜I'm here for the community.' And they might not like it, but by your decisions people will have respect for you.

The ones that say, "˜I've got a certain thing I've got to do here and that's all I'm going to do,' most times they will last one term, maybe two terms and that'll be it. Or they'll leave, they'll exhaust it because a lot of frustration, if you're going to look at things in an individual basis. See, everything with us is a collective. We're a collectivity. I don't know if that's proper English, but that's how I look at it. Sometimes I make up my own words in English, but our treaties have to benefit the collectivity of the nation. Our rights are for all of us, not just an individual, not for you to say, "˜I'm going to make money off my right,' because I see a lot of that happen in my time. You have to ensure that the benefits are equal. That's on any given subject -- opportunities for education, opportunities for employment, a vision for education, for a school, for an arena, for recreation, for elders -- but it's the collectivity and that's the mark of a young leader when he sees that, that's the nation I'm thinking about."

Ian Record:

"You've talked...you mentioned this chief from your own nation who kind of came in on this campaign platform of housing, "˜I've got to get housing for the people,' and was kind of taking that narrow view of what his job was essentially. In the work that the Native Nations Institute does cross Indian Country, we see...we see this mentality that often incoming councilors have, incoming chiefs have, of "˜I've been elected by the people to make decisions.' And that's kind of the extent to which they view their job and when it's really much more than about, "˜I've got to make all the decisions, I've got to have my hand in everything.' From what you've been saying in terms of what's really powered nation building at Akwesasne, it's a much broader view and a much more multi-faceted view of leadership in terms of what leaders have to be in order to serve their people and their nation."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"Don't be ashamed to say, "˜I got stuff to learn to be a politician and I might take the first six months and learn my leadership craft well. I need to consult with more established leaders, I need to talk to the staff, I need to go seek feedback from community people, from elders.' You spread yourself out there and tell them you're not here to make decisions right away, because if you don't know what kind of decisions you have to make and you're making decisions, it's liable to be wrong, it's liable to be selfish and it'll come back on you. So give yourself a little bit of time to know what people...what things are in place and what people are feeling, what's on their mind. And for a good leader, he'll always go around the first six months of his term and listen. And it's not a crime to stand up and say, "˜I've got a little bit to learn here and I see some chiefs here that have been here for awhile. I know some people here that used to serve on council and I'm going to make sure I learn my craft well.' You get a lot of respect in the community if you can say that. On the other hand, yeah, I've seen the ones that pounded the table, say, "˜I'm here, I was elected, I'm going to make decisions.' "˜Well, you go out there and you look for money then.' "˜Well, the staff should be doing that. I'm going to tell them to go.' It doesn't make for that teamwork building that you're going to do. You might be mean, you might be tough, but six months down the line, people can't stand you. So what do you do after that? You're always on the outside because now you isolated yourself. So be a team player when you come into leadership, the most important thing."

Ian Record:

"You mentioned earlier this issue of when...essentially the crux of the defining moment of when Akwesasne really went down this nation-building path was when first of all you took control. You said, "˜We're not going to let these external forces dictate to us how we're going to lead our lives,' but then you did this important institutional step, which is you said, "˜We're going to separate politics from the administration of our governance.' And essentially what you're talking about and it relates back to this point of leadership, which is leaders can't micromanage. It's not an effective way to do things and achieve our priorities and our goals and objectives. I was wondering if you could speak to that a little bit more about first of all the importance of that, separating the politics out of the administration of tribal government. And then second, what kind of message that sent to the community."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"You know, the sad truth that sometime in the history of leadership, could be any community, you're going to have leaders around the table who have come from the staff, who have come from some program, who have come from school and have moved back home and that now they think they know what it's going to take and when they sit around the table, that's when you start hearing, "˜I'm going to go over there and I'm going to do this. I'm going to make sure that I'm watching that guy. I think that's not being done right, I'm going to be going over there and making sure that gets done right.' You're not a leader anymore and the word is micromanaging when you do that. If you catch yourself and you say, "˜I shouldn't be doing that because if I'm going to be a leader, those people can report. I can ask for a report to come in, I can look at it, as a council we can look at it, see how things are going,' but if I'm going to stand over the shoulder of somebody who's going to say, "˜I want to see what you're doing,' that's micromanaging. If there's programs that you have an expertise and that could be in any capacity, finance, you're over at the finance every other day watching. "˜I'm going to be watching how you're spending money.' That's not what you're elected for. People want to see you make decisions and they want to see you do things that are going to benefit the community at-large. Read those reports, look at and be able to write reports, make sure those reports are going to be going out in some way that's going to reach the community. But when I meet leaders, that's the biggest complaint, members of council, somebody's always in there, running over there and it's sad, but we have to appreciate in all walks of life you've got people coming back either from a job outside and they're home a little bit, they run for council and because they don't like something or they come home from school and they say, "˜I want to get on council here because now I have an education, I'm better, I know more than anybody. I got a degree, I got something.' And that usually triggers off the wrong message and certainly you don't intend to be a micromanaging chief, but ask yourself six months down the line.

Now what do chiefs do then? If you let the staff do the administration part and let the people do the finance part, they know the system, you direct that to say, "˜We will expect a report on this,' and you'll have it, but you no longer have to be running over there, chasing after people, looking over somebody's shoulders. You now have time to look at the politics of your community and start doing...analyzing the reports that are coming in, do some forecasts, do some three, five years, 10 years, 20 years. Where do you want your community to be in 20 years? That's a good leadership question. And how are we going to get there, what is it going to take for us to get there? What kind of population would we have then? So what kind of infrastructure are we going to require down that line? Because we have to start planning. Community planning is very important. So there's enough to do for political leadership not to be running over there. There's always people on every council that's going to be like, unfortunately, but that's a fact of life. And the more that people can be groomed and told and kind of guided and given responsibility, it slowly turns around. Sometimes the chief, the veteran chiefs will say, "˜What in the hell's the matter with you? Get down away from there.' Or it could be them that's always going over there, but the general council has to be aware that good planning requires good teamwork and good planning will get you down that line when you have a vision that you can look further down the road where you want your people to go. Because if you only got about 3,000, 5,000, 10,000, then work with your staff that's going to say, "˜Where are we going to be forecasting 10, 20 years down the road?' Then you can start planning.

We've got things that affect us from the outside. It could be anything from the state, it could be from the town, from the municipalities. You could be trying to create good relations with them, it could be defending a land claim and how are we going to use that. There's an endless amount of things for good leaders to sit around and say, "˜Boy, we've got a lot of work to do.' You don't have time to be micromanaging. Unfortunately, though, it's very particular...I guess it impacts most councils, because I hear it a lot and on one hand it's sad and on another hand it's a fact of life and so when you can recognize it, if it's you, if it's your council, all you've got to say is, "˜Let's not go there. Let's not get into that rut that we know is going to happen.' But unfortunately, somebody comes from a teaching background and they're going to be on council, so right away they say, "˜I'm here to make sure that those education...it's going to change over there. I'm going to be going over there and I'm going to be watching them,' or some other. You've just got no time for that. Good leaders start from the day one and they ask, "˜What are the things that we have to be concerned about?' And teamwork works best."

Ian Record:

"You and I both know that the governance challenges facing Native nations seem to get more and more complex from one day to the next. And what it sounds like you're saying is that teambuilding as you've mentioned several times is not just a goal, should not just be a goal, it's in fact a necessity if a nation's going to really move forward in an effective way. The idea that essentially councilors can't do it all by themselves anymore."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"I tell you why I like the word 'nation building.' You live on the reservation, you could be Lakota, Sioux, you could be Cheyenne, whatever nation you belong to, but there's seven, eight other communities that you belong to the same nation further recognizing you're not the nation. So you look at that and say, "˜But if I'm in a nation-building mood,' and I would always consider the whole nation first, 'I will impact for your benefit the nation. I will do things and make efforts to bring goodness and pride to everything that we're going to do.' Selfish thinking is, "˜Well, what do I want to get out of this in my time? What can I do for myself?' So nation building prepares you right off the bat that if you're going to be a nation leader, you have to think of everybody and the decisions that you're going to make has to impact for their benefit.

Leadership on a nation basis is that collective thing that I was talking about, it impacts the general benefit and it's the general interest of everyone out there. And it's not easy because nowadays we're like this: Some people have a casino, they've got good revenues coming in, good streams of revenues, they lease land, they've got good income and capacity building. You can have that very important ingredient in between that calls for good leadership mind, that's good planning. But let's say you don't have any of those things and you don't know where all your money's going to come from. Can you still have good leaders? So we're here and we're here. Yes, you can. And I think the true test of a leader is when you don't have all those things and you set those goals, you set those targets and along the way you find, yeah, there's something over there, there's a little bit over there and there's a little bit over there and as you collect them and as you develop teamwork, all of a sudden things start to move. But if you're a council that's going to be arguing all the time and those arrows are flying back and forth and sometimes it lands on your back, most cases it might happen, it could come from your community, it could come from your council, it could come from your staff, but the true test of a leader is to consider the farther, greater majority and do some community planning.

If you're shortsighted and it's that same guy that's going to say, "˜I was elected to do this,' well, it isn't going to happen. And we've seen it too many times in past events that they come and go. But there'll always be a spot for people like that and it's up to the other council members to influence them and say, "˜Here, we've got a lot of things, you're welcome to come and work with us and let's share some of this responsibility,' because portfolio, you may be the head of education, but other chiefs may come and help you with that. You may be the head of justice, but you can have another group that's going to work with you. It's not a one-man operation. Nor is the...sometimes you call them the Grand Chief or the Head Chief, the 'big chief,' whatever people would be referring to, it's just a man, it's just a woman and got a lot of responsibilities and for the Head Chief, he's got to hold everything together, he's got to make sure he's not the king, he's not the queen. It's a responsibility that is shared and that's the secret to good success."

Ian Record:

"From what you've been saying, Mike, one of the keys to Akwesasne's success over the past 25 years or so has been instilling transparency and accountability in government where none essentially existed before. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the importance of transparency and accountability to empowering a nation's leaders to do their jobs well."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"Sometimes a chief will feel he's got to do everything so that he can get the credit for it and he'll want to have hands on personal charge of something. The secret to good leadership, if...let's say you are that person that can do it well, you can speak well, you can write well, you can articulate, then pull other people in with you. And the staff, there's got to be somebody in that particular area that you're talking about that will fit. You introduce the topic and allow for other chiefs to contribute, allow an elder or a staff person to be part of that team, because if you want to do everything yourself and you think that's the only way it's going to get done -- unfortunately that's very true with a lot of our people -- it doesn't always work because your own team will begin to feel like, "˜Eh, he's a big show-off. He's a know-it-all. He's the only one that can do it.' You're not part of that team and sometimes we don't see that. You go home thinking, "˜Boy, I sure gave it to them. I sure made a good speech. Boy, they must have liked me for things that I was able to say,' while in reality they probably said, "˜That guys was hogging the whole...wasn't a team player and he spoke way too long and he's very selfish in his attitude,' etcetera. So you have to analyze the situation and put yourself in the place where what do you want to do with the gift that you have.

The elders will say when you're born and as they've been watching you grow up and they put their hand on you and they say, "˜I saw you dance, you're going to be a good dancer. I heard you speak.' And as you're growing up, they'll say, "˜You're a good hunter. You have a gift.' And as you grow up a little bit more they'll say, "˜You're a good speaker. You'll be a good leader someday.' Use those abilities well. They didn't tell you that you're going to be the only one speaking. They didn't tell you you're going to be the only one singing because it requires everybody to sit together to make good music. It requires you to speak well and blend and carry people and work with them and that will resonate, that will have strength. In Iroquois teachings, when the Peacemaker came to the Mohawks and when they were doubting his message, he gave them one arrow and he says, "˜Break it.' So that Band councilman, he just crunches it and throws it back at him, show him how strong he is. He turned around and he took five arrows in a bunch and he says, "˜Now break this one.' So he's there trying to break it and it wouldn't break. The message that he was telling him was when you have people working together, when you have nations working together, the restraints there and it won't break. So these are things that are taught to us to say it's far better to concern yourself in working on a collective basis, working together, achieve your goal and if the nation has to fight on issues, it's better if we're all on the same side and going the same way. If we can't settle that, then we don't go fight. We manage to settle it at home. Make sure that by the time we get done we're going to go in a certain direction. So those are all important things to know."

Ian Record:

"How important an asset has an educated community been for Akwesasne as it's moved down the nation-building path?"

Michael K. Mitchell:

"What's that?"

Ian Record:

"How important an asset has an educated community, an involved community, been as Akwesasne has moved down this nation-building path?"

Michael K. Mitchell:

"Well, we covered it a while ago. It's easy to regress. When leaders...you have to allow for leadership to change. In my 25 years there were times when I left and made room for others to try it. Some will last a year, maybe they won't even complete their term but they will say, "˜That's a tough job.' But you always room for people to learn. Some are members of council. "˜I'm going to try that.' And then you appreciate how difficult it is because it's not that it's so difficult, it's what you do with it when you're there and how do you involve people and get them working together because if you don't do that, then those micromanaging minds come back again. And so with us it goes up, it goes down, it goes up. And when you have people that are fairly new, you're always going to have that problem because they're going to look at what they do well. And they will always say, "˜We need a lot of training. We need to know the issues.' But some will say, "˜We can't, we can't, we can't let people know we don't know a whole lot so we're not going to invite anybody. We're just going to drift in and we'll watch the house.' So nobody goes lobbying, nobody goes to meetings, nobody negotiates, nobody takes on the hard issues and you get to the end of the term, boy, the community says, "˜Geez, they didn't do anything here.' "˜We didn't have a crisis, we didn't get into any trouble.' "˜Yeah.' "˜We didn't go too far either.' So there's another change. So to me, it's always nice to see a blend of experienced people, new people coming in, elders, young people coming in, and with that blend you can do a lot. So I'm not going to say...and the reason I was a little stunned by your question, we're not in any degree in Akwesasne up here. It goes up and down and you learn as you go along.

I'll talk a little bit about my community. This long table, if you separate it in half, that's Akwesasne. This side is the United States, this side is Canada, and you separate what's on the Canadian side to two-thirds is in Quebec, one-third is in Ontario so that's five jurisdictions on the outside. Then you have a tribal council for the American side, then you have Mohawk council elected government on both sides. You have a nation traditional council that governs in a traditional way. So there's three governments and five governments, that's eight governments. I always think of the community, do they understand everything that goes on? And try to get as much information out. So it goes up and down and we have our share of crises because of all those borders, it's inviting for criminal organizations to say, "˜Ah...' There's the St. Lawrence River -- let me clarify -- right in the middle of our territory and for policing authorities, it's a "˜no-go' zone because these borders, the international border zigzags around islands so the law enforcement is virtually impossible on the river and people hear about that and so they take advantage of it. And people come and entice our young people to say, "˜Take things across for me and you'll make some money.' So it's always a battle to have a law-and-order society. It's always a battle to keep your young people on line.

Educated? Young kids will say, "˜Why the hell should I get an education, I'm making $5,000 a week?' Years ago, it's still going on, the greatest pride was for a high steel worker. "˜I work in New York City, I work in Philadelphia, I work in San Francisco.' Anywhere there's a big building going up, there's Mohawks on there. That's our skill. And we all aspire when we're young that that's, 'I want to be like my uncle, like my father, like my brother.' So that's the thing that's still ongoing. But now this new thing has come in that has influenced and it's not just cigarettes any longer. There's drugs going across, there's guns going across, and so it's becoming a real dynamic criminal activity and there's major players on both sides. So leadership is hard. It's hard to stabilize; it's an ongoing battle. Having said that, then knowing all that then you say, "˜Okay, well, what makes for a good leader, then?' It's all those things that you have to apply. And people go in and they say, "˜Well, that guy that got elected to look after the housing issue?' There's guys that went up on council to look after the smugglers, protect them or some other issue, and he winds up on council.

So it's...leadership is tough and it's as best as everybody else is going to work together and keep things moving. And it might be that someday be down or it could be just as hard for other leaders on other reservations, it's never easy. Historical, current, future leadership, Native Americans, never easy; but what you do in your time to be a leader, you leave a mark and if you want to leave your mark and if you've been on council a long time, how do you want that people to make their mark? It's nice for them after you've left council, people come up to you and shake your hand and say, "˜I'm really grateful that you've come home and dedicated your time and there's things that we see here that you've contributed to,' and you feel good inside. Or you can be selfish and say, "˜Well, I did my thing. I got some houses there. I did my thing and that's it,' and you have this empty feeling. So it's a lot of work, it's a lot of responsibility, and sometimes there's hardly any pay or very little of it so devotion as a commitment comes into play."

Ian Record:

"Your discussion just now brought to my mind a comment that one of your colleagues, Chief Helen Ben of the Meadow Lake Tribal Council, once said. She said that, "˜My job as a leader is to make myself indispensable.' I'm sorry, "˜To make myself...my job as a leader is to make myself dispensable.' And really what she was referring to is how important it is for leaders to govern beyond their own term in office or their own potential terms down the road, however many terms that might be, to really govern for the long term. And you've talked about that. I was wondering if you'd talk a little bit more about that and how that should be foremost in a leader's mind."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"Well, when you work with your staff and figure out where you're going to be in 10 years, 20 years down the line and you start planning for it and you say, "˜Our population is going to double in that time and so we need infrastructure, we have to build new roads and all, we've got to allot some land, we've got to have a community center expand, our school programs, our buildings are going to have to expand so we have to work for those things.' After you leave, whether it's one term or 10 terms, but those are the kind of things that people will be grateful for, that you've had that wisdom and you'd had that long sight to say, "˜We've got to look at the future as well.' It is so important for leaders to gauge the present and where they came from, to where they are, to where you need to go. And if you're in a community where you have neighboring reservations and you can work together on something, not compete with each other, but whether it's solving a land claim, having an arena you can share, or a justice system you can share and the more things that you do, it extends beyond where you live. If your cousin, relatives are close by, there's eight reservations and you're all the same nation, then do that long planning, "˜What could we all do together?' Because maybe as a result that the collectivity of all those territories, it might be 40,000 and then in your planning you say, "˜Well, what do we need for 40,000 now?' So maybe we need a judge that's going to be trained or a number of them that'll be able to go around and hear cases for all of us and then we can all have a justice system, we can all have our court system, we can all have those laws that'll be for our people to provide for that law and order. But on my own, "˜I've only got 800. I can't afford to do that. But if we all chip in, what could we do?' So when somebody says, "˜I dispense myself to this community and to around,' that's what I see, the ability to well, work on issues from your community to your own region, your own area to national and international because you can go to a national chiefs meetings, National Congress of American Indians to Assembly of First Nations and you get to know the issues. It's always time well spent. What are the national issues that are affecting us? And to have that experience, to know it well and before you go, what are they talking about over there. So I'll just do a little bit of reading to know what's all the stats in regards to education, what are the funding, what are the national housing dollars, health situations and if you don't have it when you go up there, make sure you go around and you ask for that information so you can bring it home. Knowing data, have information on the national trend. Even if it's how many of our people make up the prison population? How many of our own people are dropping out of school, suicide rates? A leader needs that information because wherever you're going to go talk, you have to be able to quote statistics. You have to be able to know how we're impacted. Know the other side, too. A lot of our people are now going to school and graduating. A lot of people are now coming home. They're our doctors, they're our lawyers. Well, how many is that? How many from our area? What's the national trend? Those are things that leaders have to know, it's good to know to have in your pocket so that when you're talking to a government person on the side and he says something, there's no greater satisfaction if you can put him in his place with statistics. But if you know what you're doing, it'll certainly help."

Ian Record:

"So essentially what you're saying is it's critical as a leader to know your community and not just know it well and systematically, so you know for instance what problems and challenges your community faces -- whether it's drug use, alcohol use, whatever it might be -- but also on the flip side knowing what your assets are, knowing how well educated your community is, who those recent graduates as you said are. That can be critical as you try to apply those resources towards what your goals are."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"That long-term planning is knowing how many of your children are going to be coming back from college, university, having...all this time, how many are in a certain level and their career planning and you reach out to them. "˜Don't forget, we'll have something in place you can come home to.' The saddest part for all of us is that we have nothing to offer them when they get an education and the other sad story is that they graduate and they keep going and they say, "˜Well, there's nothing for me at home. So I'm going to marry off the reservation, I'm going to live off the reservation and I'll still maintain...I'll come home once in awhile,' and you get disconnected. So maybe not here, but maybe that other reservation needs a doctor, needs a lawyer, they need something. That's why I'm saying, make sure that on a collective basis you know what your stats are, what your numbers are, and where people are going and what they're learning and amongst yourselves create that team. The team isn't just around the council, isn't just around your community, it's your whole nation and even beyond and knowing the organizations that are out there. Could our children land in some institution, some organization that they could work for that would still benefit us, because they're always just a little jump to come back home."

Ian Record:

"Really what you're describing, and we see this in so many Native communities on both sides of the border, is this issue of brain drain, where your best and brightest young people go off, get their educations and then when they finish there's no opportunity for them. And what we've seen is where leaders, where nations do the due diligence of creating stability in their nation, stability in their governing systems, it tends to foster those opportunities where those young people can then come back and become a part of the community again and not drift away."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"Yep. Let me point a few things out from experience. This is for young leaders and I'm thinking, "˜Well, I want to be a good leader, what should I do?' You get on council, get a list of all your students that are out there in college, universities that are far away from home. Write to them, tell them you're on council and get their thoughts, get their opinions. Tell them, "˜Your council would like to know and they'd like to keep in touch.' You don't know how it impacts a student that's far away, that's going to keep going unless somebody goes out and say, "˜Hey, I care and we're thinking of you and we're hoping that when you get an education, we hope during that time you're getting an education that you're going to maintain contact with us.' And it's never a bad idea for leaders to go and visit the schools where their students are going to school. Activities. Those students will probably have, if there's a bunch of them, will have some kind of a Native student activity going on. Leaders should go to those things. We only look at the statistics. How many people we lose, not dying, not suicide, not drugs. We lose our nation members because when they get outside and they learn and they don't want to come home because we haven't maintained contact with them, we haven't kept in touch with them, we haven't told them we care about what they do. And so they marry off, they marry somebody in the city and then they come back home and they say, "˜Hey, you're not one of us anymore.' And all those other things start coming into play. So the wisdom of a leader is gauged not just what goes on in his community, but with the youth and what is going to impact them down the line and that connection part. Sometimes we only concern ourselves when a person comes home and they're married to a non-Native. And it's, "˜Ah, damn it, they have no rights here. They just want our gaming revenue, they just want our education fund, they want our status.' And nobody maintained any contact and that's not exactly a welcome home. There's elders around and we haven't made that connection. So there's all kinds of reasons, pros and cons, but isn't it better to be proactive and maintain contact and tell them...your young people you care and give them that traditional and cultural and spiritual support so that they value who they are and they know who they are and that they will come home?"

Ian Record:

"And also creating the opportunities for them to come home, to follow those careers that they went off..."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"You want to be a good leader? Well, let's see. Let's build another school, a higher level. We need teachers now. What about our health institutions? We need our own nurses. We need our own doctors. That's the challenge of being a leader is what institutions can be facilitated and be homegrown and communications with your young. If you trained for this, there's something for you at home. And then when you do those things, well, then somebody's got to build those schools, somebody that's good with their hands has to build those schools so there's jobs at home, so a lot of community development."

Ian Record:

"Where we've seen this issue of brain drain really rear its ugly head is when you have a high level of political instability, meaning one administration replaces the previous administration and the new administration fires everybody and they put their own people in and very soon the message is clear to everyone in the community that -- and particularly those that have gone off to get their education -- if they've come back, they've invested their education, their skills in the community and suddenly they're out of a job. They say, "˜Why am I going to stick around for this?' We see that so many places and I was wondering if you could speak to that a little bit. You're starting to laugh I see."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"Man, I've seen enough of those. I guess I could cry. You feel bad about seeing those things. I've seen them at home. Fortunately, it's recent past and as we develop more, there's less and less of it happening, but it still happens and attitudes like that. And so nowadays you always have to have a balance from the youth and family and elders in the community that is going to have to say, "˜We need good leaders.' It is who you put in, because the ones that get on and unfortunately somebody has an idea, he might either buy his way on, he'll garner the votes, he'll get on and he'll take the community to a certain direction. I look at it say, "˜Well, it goes on, it's like that all over the world. You have leaders of nations that are like that but why do we have to be like that?' And I guess it's just dialoguing, it's just communicating. When you give an example like that, you tend to turn around and say, "˜Not my community, we're not like that.' And you get home and you say, "˜Well, we were like that five years ago. This council's like that but do we want to be that way.' It's a lot of thinking, a lot of soul searching and when you hear of things like this, you tend to think of your home community right away. "˜What are we like over there? How much of this nation thinking goes on at home?' And that's the most important message. And it's controlled a lot by the people that don't even have that recognition or the thought that, "˜We're the ones that are in power here.' And we could take them out of power if they don't behave. But they don't go vote, they don't want to get involved. They're sick of the way the leaders are, but they don't do anything. So it's a society thing. But those thoughts have to be transmitted and I always try to go to the younger ones that are saying, "˜You can impact it. You can go home and...' "˜Well, there's nothing to go home to.' They say, "˜You ought to see my leaders where I come from.' Well, then, how about changing it. So I've heard all the different views, I've seen a lot of situations like that and sometimes I'm asked to sit with them and just by communicating they kind of recognize where they're at. You see them at national meetings, where a guy's up there and he's talking about how sovereign he is and then he goes home and he does his BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] thing. He falls into the system. How do you get out of that system? Nation building allows you to think on a broader scale. When you're thinking of the whole nation, you're thinking of the young people and the elders and the families, you're thinking of your community, you're thinking of your nation and then the challenge goes on from there. Man, there's lots to do for a leader without having to micromanage, without having to have bad feelings against one person or another or a group or to represent just a few. But let's face it, in reality it's like that."

Ian Record:

"Really what you're speaking to is that while it is really important to elect good people that have, as you said, in their heart the entire community in mind when they make decisions, it's also jobs...the job of effective governments to put in place those rules that either discourage or punish those bad leaders for acting in ways that only advance their own interests and not the nation's."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"In about our second term, we started recognizing that that might be a situation with certain leaders coming down, whether they're on council now, or we've seen this happen or you'll say, "˜We don't want it to happen.' So we put together a code of ethics for chief and council, how they're going to behave. One of the things that you don't do, and if you do, what does the community have to empower to take you out or discipline you or suspend you or remove you from office? And we went out in the community and got all that feedback and then they put it together. So when you are installed into office and you sign a commitment to the community, your pledge, you also sign a code of ethics that you're going to be a good leader. That's what I was saying a while ago that we've seen it and we learn from experience. If we don't want to go down that road, put things in place in your community so that when you have situations like that and all that is based on something that may have happened before, you see it, or you even have a fear that you don't want to go down there and you put things in place. And when leaders go into office, they will make a commitment that "˜this is how I'm going to serve.' They won't be embarrassed to say, "˜Yes, I will sign a pledge, I will sign a commitment, I will sign a code of ethics how my conduct will be while I'm in office,' and I've seen a few people taken out of office when they violate that, but that's the rule. And if there's communities that need to work on things like that, involve the community, they'll give you a lot of good ideas."

Ian Record:

"What would be your advice to nations, Native nations both in the United States and Canada who, for example, have been operating under either Indian Reorganization Act governments or Indian Act governments where it's essentially created this system where outsiders are calling the shots, where they're kind of stuck in this dependency mode and are searching for a way out or searching to begin to rebuild their nations as nations. What would be your advice to them in terms of where they might begin?"

Michael K. Mitchell:

"Sometimes you are impressed by something you've heard out there, it could be a national chiefs' meeting, it could be a regional meeting, it could be out there or another tribe that's, groups that have made a presentation and you bring it home. I guess the first point of contact is if you find people out there, bring them and introduce them to your council. If you have a thought that you say, "˜Geez, that's different thinking. They talk of different ways than we're doing,' invite them. And it's that thought that it's not just you because it's frustrating when you're the only leader that wants to change and everybody else is locked in. We call that the Indian agent mentality or the mode. If you find people that have these ideas or you've learned of some community that has done things a certain way, invite them or go visit them. Take a delegation, go visit them and bring that information back. It's productive. It can do wonders because a change in attitude, sometimes they don't know and they've got consultants, they've got lawyers running their business. There's nothing more adventurous and more satisfying than to have a community try something or leadership try something and say, "˜It'll get us far better results. Tradition, we haven't been doing that. We haven't gone down that way.' Well, there's always room for leadership to try something. If you've got an idea, bring it to council and if it's something that you can try...nation building is, sad to say, is still new. People are engrained in a certain mentality, locked in a certain way that they're going to do business. It's hard to change them. And as younger people come on and the more they see the outside and they have a broader perspective of things, those are the ones that will say, "˜We'll try it.' How do you change it? I guess we just have to try to advance more people out there, spread the word more. But there's...yeah, I know what you mean. There's a lot of councils out there that are still locked in and it's very unfortunate, but I get a lot of letters from chiefs across Canada asking about the same thing. "˜Can you direct us somewhere or somebody could come you can recommend?' And I recommend a lot."

Ian Record:

"So really what you're saying is, it's learn as much as you can about what other nations are doing in nation-building ways so you can then start a dialogue within your own community, because it's not going to happen overnight."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"As we were developing, in the first couple terms in Akwesasne, I started signing agreements with First Nations and they weren't just Iroquois communities. West Bank in British Columbia, that's at the other end of the country, we signed an agreement with them to exchange information, to share resources, to exchange thoughts on leadership, on issues, land claims, nation-building ideas, and as far as we have been separated we're always exchanging ideas. And they're one of the very few communities in Canada that have settled a self-government process with Canada and they created a constitution, a charter that was drafted by the community and now they're trying to, understand this isn't easy, with all kinds of things in here that are accountability factors that we haven't done before. Sometimes they'll say, "˜Can you fly up here and talk to our community?' Or if they're in Ottawa and I invite them to come and visit us. And they're not the only ones. There are others.

We had a trade treaty with Mayans in Guatemala. I heard what was going on with a tribe over there and they had finished a 30-year war and when they got home they got about a tenth of their original territory, they had no economy, but they're in a warm climate, they had access to coffee. We flew down there and said, "˜We'll buy coffee from you.' But I went to the government and I told them, "˜We're buying coffee from them. We don't want you to come in here and say I'm going to take the percentage off because I want to do this treaty with them that's going to say fair market.' And it ran about five years and it went quite well. A lesson we learned is, when is the proper time to take something like that and turn it over to a private entrepreneur and let him take that off? You've created the opportunity, but our council was saying, "˜Gee, that's our idea. We control that.' Well, it was up there, a lot of nice things being said and everything, then it came crashing down because as leaders changed they don't know what's going on, they're not so committed to it anymore. It was a wonderful idea. I advocate trade amongst First Nations, among Native American tribes and it was a longstanding tradition. It's like that for all of us. What could we do to improve our economies? What could we do for our youth to have, secure good employment? So it's something that's not on the table, but I would advocate to any nation-building group to think of those things because you share resources, you develop resources, you develop good nation people and they'll stay home, you create opportunities. I just throw that in there because that's something that's starting to scratch the surface.

I went through the Supreme Court in Canada on trade. All they asked me, the government in Canada, "˜Can you prove that you have an aboriginal right to trade by some treaty or some Aboriginal right? If you can prove in a Canadian court, we'll accommodate you, we'll implement it, and we'll negotiate the exercise of that right.' So we set up a test case. Four or five years later, it finally gets to court and I win everything. The government is so thrown back. I says, "˜You asked. This is a test case and now you have it recognized in a Canadian court.' Well, six years later, ministers have changed, government people have changed, your justice people are paranoid to no end. "˜We've got to appeal. We didn't think you were going to win here.' Well, it went to the next level. I won there, too. So now a new government is in place and they don't like it. "˜Well, we don't know who made that commitment,' but isn't it typical of our history? "˜Oh, that group made that treaty with you. We're no longer responsible for that.' So they went to the Supreme Court and then they altered, restructured the argument. So I lost on a 'no' decision. They didn't take the right away that we could cross back and forth, they didn't take the right away that we could cross with our own goods duty free, tax free. The only thing we were concerned about was the trade, with that decision you could threaten the sovereignty of Canada. With that decision you could threaten the financial institutions of our country because you could set up all the reservations with goods crossing back and forth. I says, "˜That's not what the argument was about. The argument was about the right for Native Americans to conduct trade amongst themselves. It can be regulated. It can be controlled. We can do it across the table from you but we have that right.'

So I got gypped, as all the lawyers in Canada would say, "˜You got robbed.' So I took them to the International Court and we've had the hearing, we're waiting for a decision so the adventure goes on. It's always a good fight. It don't have to be with spears and bows and arrows or AK-47s. The fight continues when you have spirit to advance those things, but the most important part, what can be done in Aboriginal trade that would really benefit our nations? It's unknown territory and yet we haven't realized we have a lot of resources, we have a lot of potential and that's the next frontier. So we can stay in a socially deprived, in social conditions or we can say, "˜We've got to do some nation building here and we've got to take that challenge up.' And I give that message to all the young leaders that want to build. It don't necessarily have to be right from home, but you look at layers and layers of processes of nation building and it's a lot of satisfaction. If you're going to be a good leader you'll last a long time because there's so many challenges out there for leaders to think about."

Ian Record:

"So the moral of the story is think outside and work outside of those many boxes that the colonial forces have created for Native nations and begin to forge your own boxes and your own opportunities."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"I had an elders' council advising me most of my time on council. And I would always ask them what did they think of something because sometimes they [slap], "˜That's bad for us.' "˜All right, well, let's talk about it,' and we'd get a bigger discussion going. And all of a sudden, "˜Well, it's bad for us now. What do you want to do with it?' "˜Well, I don't know. I think we should build an arena to have a place for our youth to gather rather than hanging around the streets.' Pretty soon other people join in and discussions flow and the next thing you know it turns into a better idea, but you have to be able to discuss the pros and cons of anything I guess, but I always liked the idea of taking matters to elders and running it by them. And after a while, anything new I would always go to them and say, "˜What do you think of us?' and get that feedback. And sometimes they'll say, "˜Well, wait a minute. This is an issue that our daughters, the women folk should know about. This is something that the men should know about.' So we'd call a men's meeting and get that feedback, especially if it means you want to build something and you know they're going to say, "˜Well, there's employment there,' but there's also unions and there's also these other things. So it's better to have that support if you're going to go out there and say, "˜I want that employment for my people in my reservation, I want the most, I want to be able to identify how much of that can best be turned around and have our people employed.' You're never wrong if you go back to your people and say, "˜What are your ideas and what's the feedback?' And when they understand it, they'll give you a good decision."

Ian Record:

"Well thanks, Mike, for this very informative discussion. It's been very enlightening for me and I'm sure for Native nations and Native leaders across North America."

Michael K. Mitchell:

"[Mohawk language]." 

Jill Doerfler: Constitutional Reform at the White Earth Nation

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

In this in-depth interview with NNI's Ian Record, Anishinaabe scholar Jill Doerfler discusses the White Earth Nation's current constitutional reform effort, and specifically the extensive debate that White Earth constitutional delegates engaged in regarding changing the criteria for White Earth citizenship. She also stresses the importance of Native nations understanding their traditional governance systems and also documenting the origin stories of their current constitutions prior to engaging in reform so that they can deliberate constitutional change with the appropriate context in mind.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Doerfler, Jill. "Constitutional Reform at the White Earth Nation." "Leading Native Nations" interview series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. April 2013. Interview.

Ian Record:

"Welcome to Leading Native Nations. I'm your host, Ian Record. On today's program we are honored to have with us Jill Doerfler. Jill grew up at White Earth and is a descendant of the White Earth Nation. She's been involved with White Earth's efforts for constitutional reform and served as a member of the constitutional proposal team. She also serves as Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota in Duluth. Jill, welcome, and good to have you with us today."

Jill Doerfler:

"Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here."

Ian Record:

"So I've shared a few highlights of your personal biography, but why don't you just start by telling us a little bit more about yourself. What did I leave out?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Sure. Well, as you mentioned I grew up at White Earth and then I did my undergraduate work at the Morris Campus of the University of Minnesota and then on for a Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus. And then had two years outside of Minnesota, one at Michigan State and one at the University of Illinois. Then I came back to Duluth for American Indian Studies, which has been really a great place for me to work."

Ian Record:

"And you're also a published author."

Jill Doerfler:

"I am. Thank you. I have had a couple of books come out recently, one co-authored with Gerald Vizenor called The White Earth Nation: Ratification of a Native Democratic Constitution, which we'll be talking more extensively about as we move on today, but Gerald was the lead writer during the constitutional proposal process and so we collaborated on a book. David Wilkins wrote an introduction for us. Gerald wrote a chapter and the constitution itself is in there and then I write newspaper articles for our tribe and so some of my newspaper articles examining the constitution and explaining different chapters are in the book. So that was exciting. And then just recently in February I had another book come out that's co-edited called Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories. And so in that book, I collaborated with Heidi Stark and Niigaan Sinclair and we have 21 chapters. It's a much lengthier book than the first and it's a wide range of scholars working in Anishinaabeg studies and using story as a kind of framework to look at law, to look at environmental studies, language, education, so a wide range of disciplines and kind of centering around story as a framework. And my chapter, in that I examine Ignatia Broker's Night Flying Woman which is a White Earth author's text about basically it's very instructive about how to act as a Ojibwe or an Anishinaabe person, and I examine how that text might apply to constitutional reform."

Ian Record:

"That's great. I'll have to check it out. So we are here today to talk about constitutional reform, and I'm curious to learn about how you personally came to be involved in the recent constitutional reform effort at White Earth."

Jill Doerfler:

"Yeah. So I was just a Ph.D. student working on my dissertation, which was on Anishinaabeg identity and citizenship focused on White Earth starting around the turn of the 20th century and moving forward. And I was just wrapping up the dissertation in 2007 when Erna Vizenor, our chairwoman, gave her State of the Nation address stating that we were ready to move forward with a new effort for constitutional reform. There had been other efforts at White Earth previously, but she announced that and so I was very excited to think about how my research could come into play in a very sort of real concrete way. So I called up the office and asked how I could get involved and we started out using newspaper articles as the first way, using some of my dissertation research and rewriting it into newspaper articles to share with people the history of tribal citizenship and Anishinaabeg identity. And then as the reform process moved forward, I continued to give presentations on my research to the constitutional delegates and so I became involved in that way."

Ian Record:

"So in 2009, those delegates ratified a new constitution for the nation. What prompted...you mentioned that White Earth had looked at constitutional reform in the past and had never sort of gone through the whole process and this time they did. What prompted them to go down the reform road?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Well, I think there's a wide range of factors. Currently, White Earth is under the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe constitution, which hasn't been functioning very well for us and there are no separation of powers, for example, in that constitution and the provision for citizenship hasn't been working well for us and there are several things, the Secretary of the Interior I think is mentioned maybe 13 times, and so that constitution just basically hadn't been functioning. And so there had been a few other efforts for reform starting actually in the "˜70s and then a strong effort in the late "˜90s and then Chairwoman Vizenor had ran in part on the fact that she would engage in constitutional reform. It's something that the people at White Earth have wanted for some time. They feel that a new constitution could provide some checks and balances. We have had some issues with corruption and fraud at White Earth in the past that were really problematic and if we don't have a new constitution in place, we don't have a way to prevent that from happening again."

Ian Record:

"So can you briefly describe the process that your nation devised to develop a new constitution, because I can tell you from my own experience that there's a lot of nations talking about the need for constitutional change, but of that number, there's a minority among them that actually make it through to the ratification of a new constitution. So in that respect, process is absolutely critical, so can you share a little bit about the process that your nation took?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Sure. It was definitely a grassroots kind of process and we weren't as organized to have a full plan laid out with timelines and deadlines when we started. Mostly, Chairwoman Vizenor just wanted to start by holding a constitutional convention and see how things went. So in preparation for that, I was writing newspaper articles and then we had a process for constitutional delegates. It was advertised mostly in the tribal newspaper and then people could apply to be constitutional delegates and then Chairwoman Vizenor also sent word out to our community councils and asked those community councils to each send two delegates. And everybody who applied to be a delegate was accepted so it was really inclusive that way. At the first convention, we discussed a wide range of issues and Chairwoman Vizenor ended it by asking the delegates if they wanted to carry this process forward and they did and so we did. So it was really...even though she was in some ways leading the process, she was really letting the delegates make the decisions as far as what they wanted."

Ian Record:

"So your process went through to its fruition, but I would imagine along the way there were several issues or obstacles that emerged. Can you talk about some of those challenges and how you worked to overcome them?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Sure. I think one of the biggest challenges was keeping everyone engaged and keeping the attention of the people and of the delegates, 'cause it was a couple of years in the process. So we started with that first convention in 2007 and then wrapped up in April of '09, so it was that lengthy process. We didn't have a large amount of funding or anything like that. We didn't have a person in charge of doing all the organizing. There were myself and Joe LeGarde and a couple of other people helping get things done, but we didn't have a dedicated person, which I think would have been advantageous to have somebody really coordinating the effort who was in charge. And so we were kind of splitting the duties and kind of each contributing what we could. So that was a little bit of a challenge, but I think the delegates who really believed in the process stuck through with us because they cared so much about the issue they were willing to take the few bumps in the road and to keep moving forward knowing that the results would be worth it."

Ian Record:

"So you sort of touched on this issue of citizen education and engagement, and you mentioned you did a number of newspaper articles which I've had a chance to read, and I think unfortunately we don't see that level of education in many other tribes that are engaging reform so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the efforts that you and the delegates undertook to really I think first and foremost get the citizens to understand why this should matter to them and then get them sort of moving in and engaged in the actual deliberations around what do we need to change in our current constitution or do we need to in fact develop an entirely new one."

Jill Doerfler:

"Yeah, well, I think the delegates are the ones who really did a lot of the work going out. We would talk about issues at the conventions and we would always say, "˜Okay, go back to your families, go back to your community, whether you're on community council or whether it's informally at other gatherings, talk about these issues,' and then I would write the newspaper articles also to kind of keep things at the forefront and hopefully keep people thinking about it and talking about it whether it's over a coffee break at lunch or whether it's at a powwow or like I said, another formal meeting. So we really asked the delegates to kind of go out and keep those conversations going and then to come back and share with us what they had learned and what people were telling them."

Ian Record:

"So it wasn't just about what you were hearing in the actual meetings but it was what you were hearing second hand from people who were coming back with essentially field reporting on what they're hearing sort of on a one-on-one personal basis."

Jill Doerfler:

"Definitely, definitely, and I definitely also received quite a few emails. As technology improves and with my newspaper writing, definitely a lot of people emailed me to tell me their thoughts and ideas and so we took all of that into consideration."

Ian Record:

"How important is that to make sure that the education and engagement of citizens around everything from what a constitution is to what we're thinking about in a new constitution, how important is that to be ongoing versus intermittent? We've seen other tribes stumble where really the only time they're really educating and engaging is when they have a physical meeting and whoever shows up, you show up and you get the information you need and you maybe give the feedback you want to give, but everyone else is sort of left out in the cold."

Jill Doerfler:

"Yeah, I think it really has helped the process that we've tried to stay as engaged as possible throughout, because it gives people more of a commitment and they feel like they're more part of the process, they are more part of the process which is what we want. We don't want a document that just comes out of a few opinions. We need to have everyone's input, because a document like a constitution is a big compromise ultimately. We took in lots of ideas and I'm sure no one person got exactly everything they wanted in that document and so that's another part of the process is sharing the deliberations, sharing the different ideas, and then the outcome so that people can see that there's such a range of ideas that we compromised on certain aspects to try to do our best with what would be the best choices."

Ian Record:

"So you mentioned at the outset that Chairwoman Vizenor was sort of the spearhead for this effort. She made it part of her State of the Nation address and took a lead role sort of at the outset, but then from what I'm hearing, she sort of took a step back after that and played more of a supportive role. And we've seen that as critical in other places as well, where it's good that the leaders are supportive of the effort but not dominating the effort. Is that sort of how it unfolded there and how important was that in the overall success?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Yeah, absolutely. I think it helped take...politics is never going to be out of anything, it's definitely not going to be out of a constitutional process, but I think it helped remove that Erma was not a delegate, she did not vote on the document, she helped facilitate the meetings, she helped with the agenda, but she was not making any of the choices. When delegates had to vote for something, she helped make the motions and helped the process, but she didn't have a vote in the issue, and so it helped give voice to the people and helped the people realize that it's up to them, they're the ones in control and they have the power to make the choices and it's not going to be a process where tribal government just hands us a document and says, "˜This is what tribal leadership wants.' Instead, it's more coming from what the people want."

Ian Record:

"So you did a presentation earlier this week at the Native Nations Institute's constitutions seminar on this topic and one of the things you cited as a key to success in terms of getting the citizens engaged and keeping them engaged was the use of small-group discussions, sort of breakout groups. Can you talk a little bit about what led the nation to use that as an approach and just how critical it was?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Yeah. Boy, I'm not exactly sure how we came to the decision to do that now that I think of it, but in preparation for the first convention we talked about...I was talking with Chairwoman Vizenor and Joe LeGarde and others about how the convention might run and topics and I think it probably was maybe Joe LeGarde that said we should do the small-group breakout. We started out with 40 delegates, which is a large group to try to have a conversation with and then all of the conventions were open and public, so at all conventions there were also other people who attended who were not delegates, and so what we did then is we would have a presentation on a topic or introduce a topic and then give the delegates time to consider certain questions within their small groups. And I think that gave each individual, whether they were a delegate or not a delegate, time to discuss and time to discuss with delegates what was best and it helped people get a more personal viewpoint and also not to feel intimidated to talk in front of a group of 40 delegates plus other attendees. That can be intimidating for some people and as far as time constraints go it was also useful that way. People could say more and then report back as a group and also kind of start the compromise process within the groups hopefully hearing a diversity of ideas in the group, presenting back maybe one or two ideas, and then hearing from others. And so I think overall it helped people feel like they were heard."

Ian Record:

"That's great. So you mentioned that this process lasted over two years. You had four constitutional conventions sort of spaced out during that time and obviously from what you're saying a lot of work in between, ongoing work. Was there...at any point in the process were you at all concerned that or did you doubt that a new constitution would actually take shape and be ratified by the constitutional delegates?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Well, let's see. I don't think...there was going to be no guarantee at the end what the outcome was because we started out with a very loose process with delegates asking them if they even wanted to continue with the process. And there was probably not the clearest of roles from the outset, and it wasn't until Chairwoman Vizenor selected the constitutional proposal team to start the writing of the document...and I think we were very fortunate to have Gerald Vizenor be a constitutional delegate, and as some of the viewers probably know, Gerald Vizenor is a really accomplished scholar from White Earth -- having written I think at this point well over 40 books, everything from poetry to novels to short stories to theory to history -- and so that was lucky for us. We didn't engage a lot of legal consultation, we didn't have somebody sitting by the wayside doing that, and so we had our processes and I had detailed notes and we kind of used that to start the writing. So I think until we started writing the document, it was a little unclear how long the process was going to be and who was going to be in charge of the writing. And I think it actually helped that we didn't have that team designated from the outset, that we were kind of in a looser process because then it wasn't...nobody identified us early on and said, "˜I want to make sure I say this to Gerald or this to Jill because they're going to be part of writing it.' Instead it was...kept it more open and kept the power also more dispersed."

Ian Record:

"So you briefly referenced the role of lawyers in reform process, and I think you may be an exception to the rule at White Earth in that you're not a lawyer and Gerald's not a lawyer and you wrote the constitution. We've seen other instances where the lawyers get involved, even before the writing of the constitution they're heavily involved in the process. Was that ever at sort of the forefront of minds, "˜Let's keep the legal aspects to the side, the legal folks to the side because we want this to be an expression of the people's will and not the expression of any particular lawyer's will?'"

Jill Doerfler:

"Absolutely. I think it's really difficult to find sort of objective legal advice. Everybody has their opinions, even staff attorneys at White Earth have their interests, and so we really wanted it to be a document that people can read and understand. Sometimes...from a legal perspective, sometimes lawyers write in a certain way that's difficult to understand and so we definitely wanted it to come from the people and we did not really utilize lawyers, which some lawyers have critiqued since then. Sometimes I get a raised eyebrow from lawyers that we didn't really engage that in the process."

Ian Record:

"Time will tell I guess if it's going to be an issue."

Jill Doerfler:

"Right, right. We'll see how well that works out in the end."

Ian Record:

"So what would you say ultimately -- now that the process is done -- what would you say ultimately were the keys to the success of the nation in actually seeing this process through?"

Jill Doerfler:

"I think definitely we had a very open, inclusive process. As I mentioned, we had delegates -- who everyone who applied was accepted -- and then all of the constitutional conventions were announced in the newspaper, it was open, anyone could come who wanted to come. No one was ever asked to leave or turned away and so it was very...it was as transparent as we could be and I think that was really critical. We never had a closed door meeting. Never had a closed door meeting with lawyers, we never had a closed door meeting with delegates. Everything was open and so that was definitely one of the keys to our process. Maybe I'll also say that persistence was part of the key as well, because it did take a couple of years and in a way that seems like a long time for me, 'cause that's the timeline I was involved, but some of our constitutional delegates had been involved in different efforts for reform over the past 30 years and so some of them definitely get a lot of credit for seeing the different processes through. And I would say that none of those previous efforts were failed efforts which could be looked at as well. We tried in the late "˜90s, there was a draft constitution at that time, but no action was ever taken on it. True, but I think nonetheless that process still helped us build up to what we did in 2007 and the experience that those people had, they brought that to the table with them when they came in 2007 with those other efforts so that was really advantageous for us."

Ian Record:

"And perhaps some informed perspectives on what didn't work and what to avoid and that sort of thing."

Jill Doerfler:

"Absolutely, yes."

Ian Record:

"So I want to turn to the subject of citizenship, which is as you know one of the most controversial issues facing all Native nations -- who's going to be a part of us and how do we define the criteria that determines that? Citizenship was at the core of your nation's constitutional deliberations, and I'm curious before we get into sort of the mechanics of how you came to arrive at your new definition of citizenship or perhaps a returning to an old definition of citizenship, can you talk a bit about how the White Earth Anishinaabe defined citizenship traditionally and what criteria they used prior to colonization?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Sure. It varied over time, so there isn't just one answer to how things worked, but there's big changes over time. Anishinaabeg people have had contact with non-Indians for hundreds of years by this point and there have been changes, migrations and where my research really starts is starting in the early 20th century, right after the turn of the century. And in my research, I wanted to look at how Anishinaabeg people thinking about their identity, sort of pre-IRA, pre-organized government, and what I came to look at was a series of records that were based actually on land transactions at White Earth. In the 19-teens, allotment happened at White Earth as it did in many nations. And what happened at White Earth is there's legislation that says, "˜Mixed-blood people can sell their land, full-blood people cannot.' Land at White Earth is really gorgeous and spectacular. It was both good timber land and good farm land, lakes country. Lots of non-Indians said, "˜Hey, we'd like that land, we can either make a living there or make money there.' And after allotment happens at White Earth, then we get that legislation about mixed blood and full blood and then land transactions take place at an extraordinary rate. White Earth is often pointed to nationally as a case study because of how quickly land changed hands. And White Earth people complained that there was illegal activities, that people were being lied to or people who couldn't read were asked to sign papers that they were told was for their bill at the store and it was for a lease or it was for the sale. So lots of White Earth people complained and ultimately the federal government did a couple of investigations and one was conducted by Ransom Powell, who was a relatively well-known attorney in Minnesota because he represented some lumber company interests and he was selected to do the process at White Earth. There's a clear political choice there on the part of the U.S. government in choosing him, but he and his team went around and interviewed Anishinaabeg people asking them, "˜Is so and so mixed blood or a full blood?' and those records are extraordinarily rich with responses by people at White Earth saying, [a] "˜I have no idea what you're talking about when you say mixed blood and full blood. We don't define people like that.' 'I can't remember' was a big one. And then Powell and his associates would then also ask questions like about phenotype. "˜Well, did such and such have dark skin' and Anishinaabeg people would say, "˜I don't know, I don't remember,' or some people would say, "˜I don't know, they weren't really light but they weren't really dark, they were kind of medium,' and so Anishinaabeg people found all these inventive ways to kind of get around these definitions that the U.S. government was trying to push, which were these sort of fixed biological, unchanging definitions and for Anishinaabeg people identity wasn't something that was fixed. Identity was something that people created themselves through their actions, how they lived their lives, what choices they made and so they conveyed that time and again in the interviews. And so part of what I shared was some of my research on that, that identity was fluid and people were empowered to create their own identity, which I think is really interesting for us to think about today, that many of us have been really familiar with blood quantum and thinking of identity as this thing that is unchanging that you're born with versus a 100 years ago, Anishinaabeg people saying, "˜Well, you make yourself a full blood or you make your own identity.'"

Ian Record:

"So you brought up a good segue to the next question, which is about blood quantum, because in 1963 White Earth, the sole definition for...sole criterion for citizenship at White Earth became blood quantum. And I'm curious -- how did that come to pass? And it doesn't sound to me like the White Earth people certainly prior to that and I would imagine in 1963 probably didn't fully embrace that change, did they?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Right. Blood quantum I always think is used to disenfranchise people at White Earth in two ways and first it starts with those land transactions. Ultimately, what that investigation found is that about 90 percent of people at White Earth were mixed blood, i.e. 90 percent of those land transactions are legally valid and there's no legal recourse. And so people at White Earth were familiar with how the federal government could use identity to disenfranchise them, in that case to take land basically illegally. And so White Earth becomes part of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, which forms in 1936 with the IRA kind of style government and originally there isn't real firm criteria for citizenship. People basically apply to become citizens based on their parents and they're approved. There is no blood quantum requirement initially. And the Secretary of the Interior starts writing to the tribal executive committee, which is the governing body of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, saying, "˜You really need to think about your citizenship requirements and you really need to think about using either blood quantum or residency or some combination of these things.' And many members of the tribal executive committee including people from White Earth said, "˜No, we don't want to do that. That's going to become a problem for our children or our grandchildren and we need to think about future generations.' And so they passed several resolutions on citizenship that were lineal descent and sent them to the Secretary of the Interior who has, there's an approval clause in the constitution that the Secretary has to approve. The Secretary rejected all of those resolutions time and again and so over about a 20-year period, this would kind of ebb and flow. It would kind of come up and they would pass a resolution and the Secretary would reject it and then time would pass and the Secretary would say, Well, you really need to decide this.' And they would do the same thing and the Secretary would write back saying, "˜For all intents and purposes, this is the same legislation that you sent me last time. I rejected it last time, I'm going to reject it now.' And then finally we move into the later "˜50s and into the early "˜60s and this is termination time as people familiar with American Indian history are familiar. And basically there were some letters sent that weren't too veiled threats regarding termination saying, "˜If the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe doesn't decide this very soon it'll be made a matter of Congress and Congress will decide.' And so ultimately the tribe agrees to one-quarter Minnesota Chippewa Tribe as the sole requirement for citizenship. It gets voted on by the leaders in '61 and it goes into effect in '63 as a constitutional amendment."

Ian Record:

"So it sounds like this was at the beginning...it sounds like this was a main topic of conversation from the get-go when the new effort began."

Jill Doerfler:

"Yes, absolutely it was. People have felt the impact of blood quantum now. I myself am one of those people. As you mentioned, I'm a White Earth descendant, meaning my mother is a tribal citizen and I'm not and the reason is because of blood quantum. And so many, many families have been impacted, literally divided by blood quantum which is what leaders were talking about in the "˜30s and "˜40s and the record on their statements is very rich, very impassioned speeches about the importance of family and how this will affect the future. In a lot of ways, it was a delayed form of termination. The tribe in some ways was up against these threats of immediate termination, but blood quantum itself is designed to slowly make the population smaller and eventually designed to eliminate tribes. And the Secretary of the Interior was very, relatively frank about that in some of his communications to the tribe saying, "˜Every person that you add to the roll diminishes the share that each person has,' and so trying to use resources to try to get people to tighten up citizenship requirements, trying to limit population numbers. And so to some extent, it's working. And the tribe actually did a demographic study recently showing population and the demographer found that using trends over the last 100 years, if we kind of average things out, we anticipate that by about 2040, we'll just have an aging population, there won't really be anyone eligible for citizenship, and by about 2080, 2090, we anticipate that there may be few or no citizens meaning that as the U.S. government has hoped, the nation will cease to exist. If there are no citizens, there are no treaty obligations, no tribal government, and it's over."

Ian Record:

"So you said the resolutions were from about the 1930s and the 1950s from White Earth about this issue and they were all rebuffed?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Yep. Yeah, "˜30s, "˜40s and then they tried some other tactics sort of in the "˜50s because what was happening was some people were like being rejected from healthcare, other BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] programs and the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe and White Earth as a part of that would write to the Secretary of the Interior or to the agent and say, "˜These people are our citizens and they don't have one-quarter blood quantum as the Bureau sometimes wants, but they're still our citizens and they still are entitled to these services.' And there was a big fight and as I said, the record is really rich, and I would imagine that the same is true for other tribes, and I would really encourage other tribes to take a look at their histories and kind of examine what was going on. If the tribe has blood quantum, how did that come to be, what was going on before that? Because I think for lots of people at White Earth, you know, we've had blood quantum since '63. A lot of people have grown up with that and not known anything different, and we need to look back at what our ancestors were saying, what people were doing historically, and think about, 'How can that guide us today? Can some of their wisdom still apply today?'"

Ian Record:

"I saw you when I was doing my presentation yesterday, I was making that exact point. You were nodding your head 'cause I was basically saying that it's absolutely vital for tribes when they begin the constitutional deliberation process that they need to first understand where they came from, where their constitution comes from, what's the oral history, what's the archival history, what's the documentation around what your own people were thinking back when these things were created and did they have any say in how these things were created? Or did they try to voice their opinion on how these things were created and were ignored, were refused, etc.?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Absolutely. I think that's very key. I think people sometimes assume that whatever document we have now or whatever document their tribe has been operating under was somehow sanctioned by elders or was the result of a lot of deliberation and thought and that's not necessarily the case. Sometimes these constitutions were passed with very little participation, sometimes the Secretary of the Interior or other bureaucrats from the BIA were heavily involved in writing these constitutions and it's important to look at that history. Before you're ready to move forward you have to think about the past, because really the way that we construct the past and what happened helps us understand our present and that's what helps us envision our future as well."

Ian Record:

"Isn't it really...at a fundamental level isn't it really an issue of ownership, that there are a lot of people in the community that -- because they don't know that back history, they don't know the origin story, if you will, of their current constitution and system of government -- that there is a sense that we do own this, that this is ours, that this is somehow our creation when in most instances, I won't say all, but in most instances, that's absolutely not the case."

Jill Doerfler:

"Yes, exactly. Yeah. There can be a loyalty to that document that maybe people would have a different opinion on if they had a little bit more historic information."

Ian Record:

"So I want to kind of dive now into how you guys deliberated citizenship, this issue of citizenship in the recent reform process. At the outset you developed some questions to help guide constitutional delegates in terms of evaluating the different options for redefining tribal citizenship. Can you talk about what those questions were and why you chose them?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Sure. It was actually a little bit more towards the end of the process. So we had had several deliberations on citizenship. I had given some presentations also on the history of blood quantum, which is important. It's important for tribes to know their own history, but then blood quantum as a concept has its own history. So we discussed those things, and then because of previous reform efforts at White Earth, there was a constitution created that had a list of citizenship options and so we utilized those during the current process. And so I asked delegates to take a look at those options and start going through them and based on the previous conventions I created a set of questions that wanted to ask which of these options best enacts our Anishinaabe values and beliefs because delegates had said time and again, "˜What we want is a constitution that's ours, that reflects our Anishinaabe culture and our values and how can we put that in the constitution? And so that was kind of an easy mark to say, "˜Then that's a question we want to ask as we look at our citizenship options.' One delegate had talked about how citizenship really is part of the question, who are we and who are we in our hearts,' which I thought was good so we utilized that. We also utilized a question relating to which of the citizenship options will be best for White Earth in the future, so not only looking at our current situation, not only thinking about ourselves or delegates thinking about themselves, but thinking about future generations as our ancestors had encouraged us to do then if we used that to look at the different options."

Ian Record:

"So tell me about one option which you've termed the "band-aid" option or maybe you didn't come up with it, but it's what you shared as the band-aid option. What did it propose and why was it ultimately discarded?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Sure. So we basically had several options that we were looking at. One was lineal descent, three were a variety of blood calculations of different types that were...some were relatively complex, and then delegates, White Earth delegates came up with another option during one of the conventions. One of the small groups said, "˜We have another option which is to make everyone who's currently enrolled, whoever is on the rolls right now, we'll make them a full blood. We'll make them four-fourths.' And ultimately that became termed the 'band-aid' approach. I think one of the delegates said that, that wasn't my term, but delegates considered that option a little bit and it was called the band-aid approach I think because it just put a temporary fix on the problem. What it would do would make it so that everyone who's a citizen now would guarantee that their grandchildren are enrolled no matter who they've had...who their children had children with, etc., that their grandchildren would be enrolled. But it doesn't guarantee anything beyond that. So we're looking into the future, but we're only looking into the future a little bit and there were probably definitely delegates with great-grandchildren who are part of the process who could already see that that probably wasn't forward looking enough. And delegates talked about the fact that this will fix the problem now, but what it will ultimately do is pass the exact same problem on to either our children or onto our grandchildren or some future generations, and so I think delegates ultimately felt like they came to be part of the process to make the hard choices. This isn't going to be an easy choice regarding citizenship, but they wanted to make it in a way that was more forward looking than just two generations in the future."

Ian Record:

"I think on Capitol Hill they call that the 'kicking the can down the road' approach."

Jill Doerfler:

"I think they do."

Ian Record:

"So what decision -- and I think you referenced this already -- but can you talk about the decision that the delegates finally arrived at regarding citizenship, and how did they arrive at that decision?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Sure. Ultimately lineal descent was selected as the option. We deliberated it, delegates deliberated it several times, I had given several presentations as I said evaluating options and sharing information and finally we were discussing different options for citizenship and finally one delegate just made a motion and said, "˜We would like to stop discussing options that deal with blood quantum.' It passed and therefore the only one option that doesn't deal with any type of blood quantum, that was lineal descent and then we moved forward from there. And I think it was probably a culmination of things. In some ways I think delegates who probably decided from the outside that they were in favor of lineal descent were maybe weary of talking about it because we had spent a lot of time on it and so I think for some of them they were like, "˜We are ready to make this decision' and I think for other people it was a little bit of a push that they needed to be like, "˜Okay, we're just going to...we're going to have to just make a choice here. We're never going to get a unanimous decision. There's going to be some people who are going to vote for and some people who are going to vote against and we have to accept that process and move forward.'"

Ian Record:

"So how do you...it seems to me that you're pretty certain that this will strengthen, this new criteria will strengthen the nation moving forward. Can you discuss in what ways?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Sure. Well, I think ultimately it is an enactment of our Anishinaabe values. It really places family and relationships at the center of the nation which is historically appropriate, which is things that we know that our ancestors wanted, and so that's advantageous 'cause it's putting those values into action. If we say family and love and respect is at the heart of the nation, how can we do that? Well, using lineal descent, using family then is one way to do that. It also strengthens the nation from the perspective that potentially we have the option to exist in perpetuity. We don't have a graph with a line that shows when the population will end like we do with blood quantum. We have the idea that as long as families are passing on their values and traditions and political loyalties exist, people will choose to become citizens of the nation and that leaves that option open. A strong citizen base I think is critical for any nation. It gives them a diversity of resources regarding people, what citizens can contribute to the nation, which is something we also talked about at White Earth quite a bit. Sometimes there's a perception that citizens will just drain resources and people will just want to become citizens in order to get certain benefits. We also talked about the fact that becoming a citizen is a responsibility and that when you make that choice to become a citizen, A, you're in some ways acknowledging the jurisdiction of the White Earth Nation, B, you're submitting yourself to those laws and codes and you have obligations to carry out. You're not necessarily going to get anything. We don't have per capita payments at White Earth. I don't see that happening in the future, and I think we want to think of citizens as assets and think about how can more citizens provide more resources. How can having somebody who's a citizen who has expertise in environmental like change, climate change be an advantage? How can we bring more people in and be more inclusive and what could that mean both for the nation politically and economically as well?"

Ian Record:

"So it's interesting you mention this issue of obligations. We talk with a lot of nations about that issue, that somewhere it was lost in the colonization process the obligations of citizenship, that a lot of folks in Native communities, because of the legacies of colonialism, view their relationship with the government as 'what do I get out of it?', not so much what the government and the nation should be expecting of them and what they should be obligated to do. Can you be a little bit more specific on what sort of obligations I guess are expected of citizens under the new constitution and system of government?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Sure. And I'll also say that I think in some ways, because of colonialism, that the relationship with tribal government and the relationship with federal government has sometimes been a little bit confused and I think there is this obligation and what the federal government owes especially via treaty obligations to tribal nations and tribal citizens. But tribal governments don't necessarily owe tribal citizens anything. They may choose to provide services, again enacting our values or choosing to do certain things, but that's not an entitlement necessarily that somebody has. So part of being a citizen is contributing and everyone...as Anishinaabe people we always say, "˜Everyone has a gift,' and the range and diversity of gifts is important to us. We don't want everyone to have the same gift. We want a diversity of people which also relates to increased population. But everyone will contribute in their own way. They will contribute maybe working in tribal government, maybe working for a certain program or service. They may contribute by raising healthy children, they may contribute by helping other family members, they may contribute in a wide range of ways, but focusing on that instead of focusing on what a single person might get."

Ian Record:

"I want to move now onto the other aspects of the new constitution, and I'll ask you in a second for your thoughts on what you think stands ou,t but I'm curious, there's one change that I forgot to write on the list of questions and that is, you're no longer the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, you're now the White Earth Nation. Why was that change made?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Well, we use that sometimes now anyway and we do feel it's a little bit more appropriate for us. It's a little bit stronger assertion of our sovereignty. That's been a preferential name that we've used internally for a while and so this was an opportunity to make that change officially in the constitution."

Ian Record:

"So what other things stand out in terms of the new constitution? Can you give us a brief overview of some of the concrete, fundamental differences between the new constitution and how you govern yourselves under the old arrangement?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Absolutely. I think the separation of powers is one of the biggest things. When Chairwoman Vizenor first announced the fact that she wanted to start constitutional reform, she mentioned two things: citizenship and separation of powers. Currently, there is no separation of powers and the court system is basically established via statute not in the constitution, which gives it a little bit more precarious of a position. And so the new constitution, the ratified constitution of the White Earth Nation, separates out a president, a legislative council, and the judiciary, and each has separate roles and responsibilities. Also the legislative council is not enumerated in a fixed way, because we know that White Earth population will change over time and we don't want to lock ourselves in to having three representatives or three districts or five districts and so that is left open, that will change over time. One part that is fixed is off-reservation representation -- which is something that doesn't exist now -- in a very concrete way. Right now, everyone votes for the chairperson and the secretary-treasurer. They're elected, as we say, at-large. But there are three districts on the reservation right now. So the constitution has sort of open number of districts on the reservation and then two representatives for off-reservation but within Minnesota. And so that's a guarantee that off-reservation [citizens] will have at least two representatives, which is important because we have a large portion of the population, White Earth citizens living off the reservation, so that was a major change. And as I said, having the judiciary separate and established within the constitution, that's really critical because things like the new Tribal Law and Order Act and the Violence Against Women Act, which is hopefully going to allow Native nations to extend their jurisdictional reach a little bit, part of that is having that separate judiciary helps guarantee for everyone that there will be some independence there. I think most of us in Indian Country are in favor of increased jurisdiction, but increased jurisdiction without a separation of powers can be a little bit scary and so that's also..."

Ian Record:

"It essentially raises the stakes and if you maintain a politicized court system, it's just going to make things even worse potentially."

Jill Doerfler:

"Correct. I'll also say a couple of other things about the new constitution. Currently at White Earth, we have community councils, which are operating in a relatively informal basis. They're not written into any governing document, but in the new constitution we have community councils established, we have an elders council and a youth council, and they all have real important roles within the community for people to gather to talk about political issues to also engage in cultural activities, to keep language and cultural practices ongoing and it allows people ways to engage the elected leadership and allows elected leadership maybe to choose to come to a youth council meeting or to come to an elders council meeting when they have a problem. And so that was really important to delegates, and I'm really proud that we have those different councils established and set within the constitution itself."

Ian Record:

"That's fascinating. One tribe I worked with for quite a long time, they, in a draft constitution, which has not yet been ratified, they actually gave constitutional authority to their elders council and their youth council to review legislation before it could be voted on which I thought was really cool."

Jill Doerfler:

"Wow!"

Ian Record:

"I'm really looking forward to that getting ratification at some point. So we talked about what's actually in the new document, some of the things you referenced. That's ultimately just a piece of paper. That leads me to the question: what's the new governance reality that that document seeks to create? How does it seek to improve the effectiveness of White Earth governance and make it more culturally appropriate, etc.?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Yeah, I think also trust is a big issue with government at White Earth and other nations as well. White Earth, as I said briefly, has had some issues with fraud and corruption in the past and that has really tainted peoples' view and their trust and their view of the tribal government as legitimate. And so we hope that the new governing document with the separation of powers, with the ways in which elections are structured, will help improve peoples' pride in the government, potentially their political loyalty, that would be improved."

Ian Record:

"If you were to explain to somebody that knows nothing about your tribe and knows nothing about the reform effort, what aspects of the new constitution and the new governance system are most culturally distinct to White Earth, what would you tell them?"

Jill Doerfler:

"I would say that our preamble is actually potentially most distinct. Preamble, as some people know, is a place in the constitution where there is sometimes a little bit more freedom rather than the articles and exact procedures that are laid out. But I think the preamble is really nicely written, acknowledges our broad range of relationships and cultural values historically and contemporary, and so I think that does a nice job. I do think that we have some processes for basically ethics, impeachment, citizens are allowed to petition. I think that kind of citizen involvement is very culturally appropriate and something that people will welcome having in the new constitution in a way that citizens haven't been able to be as engaged with the current governance structure. And I think historically, Anishinaabeg people and White Earth people had a lot more opportunity to engage leaders, to be a little bit more involved in the process than is currently available, so I think the new constitution also does that. And I think the balance of checks in power and balance of power is also culturally appropriate. Historically, Anishinaabeg people didn't have one or two leaders who were making all the decisions for the tribe. That power was disbursed, there were lots of lengthy council meetings where people could get out and participate, and so we see some of those things integrated in the new constitution as well."

Ian Record:

"So what cultural values would you say does the new constitution seek to protect, advance, to live, and what future do you feel it's designed to help create within the nation?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Sure. I think that one of the things that we talked about a little bit during the process was cultural values and core values. At ones point delegates were asked to identify some of their core values and write belief statements, and ultimately they came very close to intentionally or not intentionally mirroring our teachings, which are sometimes called the seven grandfather teachings, which is basically love, respect, honesty, humility, wisdom -- these types of really basic core values that transcend time, that transcend place that we can all be engaging in today. Sometimes culture for American Indians gets fixed a little bit historically in the past and fixed into certain actions, but if we think of love and respect as part of our cultural values then that opens us up to enacting them today."

Ian Record:

"So final wrap-up question. You guys have gone through the whole process. You're awaiting a secretarial election, is that correct?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Right."

Ian Record:

"But in terms of the actual process and the crafting of a new foundational governing document, you've gone through that process. What do you feel other nations can learn from the White Earth experience? What sort of lessons do you feel that you've learned that might be transferrable to the challenges that other tribes are facing?"

Jill Doerfler:

"Right. So I do hesitate to say we're through the process, 'cause we're gearing up for a really...hopefully what will be a really big citizen engagement and education effort, because things have been sitting at White Earth a little while. Delegates ratified the document in 2009, it's now 2013, and so we do need to work this summer and into the fall to reinvigorate and to educate about the document to make sure any questions that people have are answered. But as far as the writing process and the process that went into getting the document that we have now, I think that transparency was key. I think we did a relatively good job with that. I think since we've finished, social media has really taken off and I would say if we were doing...the nation who's doing it now I would say need more presence on the web. We primarily used newspaper articles which was great, but things on the web can happen a little bit more in real time and I think that would be something that tribes could utilize. I think the fact that we were inclusive as far as delegates went is also good. It also provided some trust I think to people who were maybe skeptical of the process. We can say that everyone who wanted to be included was included but there was that application process and there was a deadline and that was it. There were later some people who wanted to become delegates after the process started and we were unable to do that because we had to stick with our original plan. But I think that that was good as well. I think if we would have added new delegates later we would have almost had to start over and re-educate, so I think it was good that we had that open process, but then once the delegates were selected we stuck with it and we didn't make changes. So I think it's easy to say, "˜Oh, yes, we'll add you,' because there were definitely great people who came along that would have been great additions. Instead we said, "˜Please continue to come to the conventions and you can still share your thoughts and ideas and talk with the delegates and be involved that way.'"

Ian Record:

"Well, we really appreciate you taking some time out of your busy schedule to share your thoughts and experience and wisdom with us, and I'm very eager to see how things unfold there. I definitely think that other nations that are talking about reform, embarking on reform, struggling with reform can certainly learn a lot from the White Earth experience."

Jill Doerfler:

"Thank you. It's been a pleasure to be here and I'm definitely looking forward to our referendum, which will hopefully happen soon."

Ian Record:

"Well, thank you, Jill. That's all the time we have on today's program of Leading Native Nations. To learn more about Leading Native Nations and the Native Nations Institute's website, please visit nni.arizona.edu. Thank you for joining us. Copyright 2013, Arizona Board of Regents."

Honoring Nations: Elizabeth Woody: Environment and Natural Resources

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Elizabeth Woody reports back to her fellow Honoring Nations symposium attendees the consensus from the environment and natural resources breakout session participants, synthesizing their deliberations into four key elements for nation-building success in the environmental and natural resource management arena.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Woody, Elizabeth. "Environment and Natural Resources." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Sante Fe, New Mexico. February 9, 2002. Presentation.

Elizabeth Woody:

"My name is Elizabeth Woody and I'm born from the Bitterwater Clan on my maternal side. My people come from the Hot Springs, a place where [unintelligible] vacation resort is now and Wyampum, which has been submerged, which means the Echo of Water Upon Rocks and [unintelligible], which is the is the Place Where Water Turns to Blue on the Willamette River.

In our group, the four pieces that we came up with that seemed to be central was the recognition of tribe's ability in sovereignty, and this meant having confidence in your staff, having confidence in your position and footing with other agencies in the state, which ties into sovereignty. We felt that this also meant that people were strong in their historical and cultural identity and that they valued the tribal conception of science along with good science and biology. We recognized the culture and identity of our tribe is from a land-based knowledge and from all of this we have our rootedness, meaning we're not going anywhere.

The second part was the infrastructure was in place, meaning that the people who administer these programs or are directing these programs already had an infrastructure in place, they were able to build upon them, find out the missing pieces, design missing pieces to fit in there, and that these structures also gave them the formal authority in leadership that was described earlier.

Three, support from tribal and community leadership. Again that goes to the spiritual aspects of the leadership that comes from election and your leadership that comes from lineage. Also underneath of this was the listening and communication piece, meaning that they had the ability to listen to their constituency, they were able to listen to, for example, the ranchers making compliment to the tribe saying, 'We had a stream, the water hasn't ran here for 15 years. What did you do?' And she was able to say, 'Well, hmm, there was a benefit to what we did, which extends beyond the boundaries of the tribal reservation,' for these benefits are measurable and definitely something of value to the communities that surround them.

And then the fourth piece that was significant was the strategic critical thinking; this includes long-range planning and implementation. It also includes -- that's the forward piece -- and the backward piece it was just the traditional knowledge and subsistence that's been handed down from time immemorial by the Creator's law or recognition of medicinal plants and our companionship with them and our relationship with them that's been since the beginning of time. So those are the four pieces and there were a lot more to it, but it all boils down basically to these elements."

Honoring Nations: What is Good Tribal Governance and Why is it Important?: Tribal Leaders' Perspectives

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Moderator Joseph P. Kalt facilitates a rich discussion by an impressive panel of Native nation leaders about the role leaders play in building and sustaining successful tribal programs.

Resource Type
Citation

Anderson, Marge, Jamie Barrientoz, Peter Captain, Brian Cladoosby, Justin Gould, Kathryn Harrison, and Claudia Vigil-Muniz. "What is Good Tribal Governance and Why is it Important?: Tribal Leaders' Perspectives." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Sante Fe, New Mexico. February 8, 2002. Presentation.

Joseph P. Kalt:

"This next session is dedicated to hearing from tribal leaders and former leaders, former chairs who have had Honoring Nations award-winners. In listening to the discussion of Honoring Nations programs, of course, you understand that those programs are programs. They are run by managers, directors, and so forth, and yet when we talk to the managers and directors, what they keep stressing is the need for support from senior leadership within the community, and so we thought it would be very useful to start by hearing from those senior leaders about their roles in building excellent programs in tribal government.

We're going to allow these individuals to just take some questions and talk about what they see as the role of senior tribal leadership in building successful programs in tribal governance. And we'll talk about...Justin Gould as well. Justin, like all tribal leaders, I know Justin's been on the phone this morning having some problem back home. Let me introduce our panel. After we go through questions and answers from your talk show host, throughout the audience we will be circulating some little 3x5 cards and any questions you have that you'd like to pose to the panel, just filter them up toward the front here and we'll give those questions to the panel. And if that doesn't work, we'll do it live from the audience.

Let me begin on the far end with Jamie Barrientoz. Jamie is the vice-chair of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. Grand Traverse is actually a three-time honoree in the Honoring Nations program, only a two-year old program. They must be doing something right. The tribal court, the planning efforts, and the land use claim trust fund from Grand Traverse are outstanding examples of tribal governance. Kathryn Harrison is the retired chair of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. Grand Ronde was a winner of an Honoring Nations award for their enhancing intergovernmental relations programs. Next, Brian Cladoosby is the chair of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. Swinomish was a winner of an Honoring Nations award for its efforts in cooperative land-use planning. Marge Anderson is a past chair of the Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians and also Mille Lacs has been a three-time honoree for their conservation code for the 1837 ceded territory, for small business development, and for their outstanding language development programs. Next, Peter Captain is First Chief of the Louden Tribal Council, and the Louden Tribal Council's Yukaana Development Corporation was an honoree for its outstanding work in the development of environmental cleanup mechanisms that have dramatically changed the face of their part of Alaska. Next, Claudia Vigil-Muniz is the president of the Jicarilla Apache. Jicarilla was a winner of an Honoring Nations award for the wildlife and fisheries department, a world-renowned program in wildlife conservation. And lastly, Justin Gould from the tribal council of Nez Perce; Nez Perce was a winner of an Honoring Nations award for its work on the Idaho Gray Wolf Recovery Program where Nez Perce has been a leader not only in its own community, but in the region in the preservation and introduction of the gray wolf. With those introductions, it's now your turn to talk and I'd like to begin with what I suggested a moment ago.

The honorees, your programs, are directed by on-the-ground managers and directors who are in their offices today or some of them are here, but we keep hearing from them that they couldn't do it without senior leadership that saw what they were doing and supported it. And so I'd like to just put a general question to you and get your comments on the way you look at the do's and don'ts of building successful programs like the programs of your own communities that have been honorees, but you don't have to talk just about those programs. I'd like to just hear what you say -- as senior tribal leadership -- about the role of that leadership in building these programs. I'll actually take a volunteer for the first time. Who has any thoughts on that? Kathryn.

Kathryn Harrison:

"It's really an honor to be here. As a past chair of a tribe that had faced termination for 29 years, I'm just astounded that I'm here, that we have taken our place in the family of Indian nations where there's a lot of hard work and, what I see as, a way for councils -- and I mean all tribal councils -- to work, to build their tribal government and their community and their nation is to be a team player.

What I saw on our council, each one had their place and each one had their duty. We had loggers, we had past loggers, past truck drivers, construction workers and they were left to get the young people, but they were already I guess mid-life I would say. They already had their life skills and to me that was a plus. There was no time to get out and say, ‘Well, I want to be somebody so I want to talk first.' Everybody had their role and knew they were valuable. So in our newsletters when I was chair, you would never see a report by me. I wasn't the one, and any chairman says they did it all there's something wrong. It's a team effort. And we heard over and over yesterday, ‘We're families.' As a tribe, one nation to another, we're a big family, so that team effort goes in there, too. You heard today, ‘Watch your back. I'm watching your back.' That brings to mind Sue Shaffer who, every time she goes on the [Capitol] Hill, you know she's going to protect every one of us and she is the chair of a past-terminated tribe.

I think maybe one thing we've learned is having lost our federal recognition for 29 years, we appreciated what it was that we had and it took everybody working together to gain back...for 11 years we were...to gain back that recognition in the eyes of our federal government. One of the things that inspired me each time we were discouraged, we had the good vision to hire former Congressman Elizabeth Furse. Of course, she had not been a congresswoman yet. But she guided us through our restoration effort and every time we went to our little one-room office we had to pass by our tribal tombstones of all those people that had gone on before us and had sacrificed and that always inspired us. If they could do it, if they could walk to where we were today and not even understand languages because there were so many different languages, then we could do it for what they had suffered for. And to me it's teamwork."

Marge Anderson:

"I'm really honored to be asked to sit on this panel and I don't know where to start. It's a long story, but if you bear with me, we'll get a history on where we were and where we are today. We were a very poor tribe. In fact, we had probably about 50 employees to what we have now; we have a total of about 3,000 employees. Not all of our...there is enough tribal members to fill all those positions so we have both Indian and non-Indians working for us. Early on, we had one form of government that the tribal council did the hiring, the firing, hearing appeals on the same board. And we took a look at that and we didn't think that was...we knew that wasn't a good way of doing government, tribal business. And we created a system of government based on the United States system, separation of powers not, that was based on the Iroquois Nation separation of powers. And through trial and error and everything else we had growing pains and through that system we created the executive branch, judicial branch and legislative branch and the executive branch was the chief executive and I had eight commissioners. You have to delegate, they have authority so they can do their jobs and through Band law, the duties and responsibilities were through Band law and we followed those and only answered to me. That's how we got this going. We had a lot of issues.

One, I guess I'll be talking about sovereignty. We had some conflict with the State of Minnesota that required us to waive our sovereign immunity in order to get the services from the state, which were by the way, passed through from the feds. We refused to sign the contract so we went...our people went on without service for about two years and our tribal government went without pay for a long period of time. But we stood our ground. We would not waiver and finally the state legislature passed a law that says they would not require tribes to waive their sovereign immunity in order to get programs, food on dollars.

But there was a lot of, like I said, fights along the way. One of them was treaty rights, 1837 treaty rights that we tried to resolve through mediation and we took it to the state legislature and they turned us down. And we told them, ‘We're going to win this,' and thought they would settle peacefully but they refused to do that so we went to court, into the federal court to the court of appeals and to the Supreme Court of the United States, which was a 5-4 decision at that time. At least it was a win."

Claudia Vigil-Muniz:

"I'll be the youngest of the women and let the elders go first. Good morning, everyone. My name is Claudia Vigil-Muniz. I'm the current President for the Jicarilla Apache Nation. I've only been in office for about a year and a half, so the program, the model program that has been referenced to was many years ago.

I believe that that program was successful because it was allowed to be developed. The managers and the people involved were allowed to create the program for what it has become. It's still in place today and mostly because we rely on that as a resource, a financial resource -- two of our primary resources are oil and gas and the game, not in terms of gaming but the real game -- the operation had to make some changes, but we have two biologists on staff who are non-tribal members who have contributed to the program and to the management of that particular game park that has allowed it to grow and develop and I think that's what's key in the does and don'ts. I really couldn't make any recommendations, but this is how it worked for us and this is how it continues to work for us.

We also currently have a ranch or a...we refer to it as Chama Lodge. We were successful in outbidding the State of New Mexico a couple years ago for the piece of property. At that time, the tribal council thought it was important that we get that piece of land back because that was original territory to the Jicarillas and it also plays a significant role in our traditional beliefs. We've taken that under a private...it's more of a chartership. We have a corporation that monitors that program and we let them operate on their own. And it's a package hunt and it's a private facility that's located on what we refer to as Chama land and it's an exclusive facility that brings in trophy hunters. And so we have that entity. And in one end, if we ever get this land successfully into trust, those two programs will most likely be combined and monitored by the same...in the same method that we have done in the past. And because of that role that we've taken, the government has basically stepped to the backside and allowed the managers to handle it. It's been working for us because they're the expertise, they know how to handle the animals and they know what to do with them. So in that particular issue, I think it's been very good for us."

Brian Cladoosby:

"Good morning. My name is Brian Cladoosby. I'm Chairman of the Swinomish Tribe. We're about 70 miles north of Seattle. I'm finishing my 17th year on the council and I'm finishing my fifth year as Chairman. And as I think about this question, the do's and don'ts of building good programs, I think the do's are, you need good strong leadership in order for these programs to work. You need to be inclusive and you need to know your past, you need to know your tribe's history, you need to know your history with the state, with the county, you need to know the federal policies that have affected your tribes, you need to know what you want today and you need to know what you want for the future.

And some of the don'ts, I think, is, number one, don't think you can do it all by yourself. That's where I say, be inclusive, don't micromanage. We're a small tribe of about 750 members to 800 members and I've got around 200 employees underneath. An elder once told me to always surround yourself with people smarter than you and I have no problem doing that. He said, ‘When you do that, you can take credit for their accomplishments and point your finger at them when they screw up.' But I think one thing you can't do is micromanage the people underneath you. You've got to let them do their job. And maybe some of you staffers at other tribes know what I'm talking about when you have strong councils who like to think they have to run every single program. But I'm a firm believer in not micromanaging. So my ‘don't' is, don't micromanage. Of course, don't make stupid mistakes. Some of you may have known leaders in the Indian and non-Indian communities that have made stupid mistakes. And so, don't make stupid mistakes or you're not going to be able to build good programs.

And don't think you're an island. We as tribes cannot think that we're an island. I cannot say, ‘Okay, Swinomish, I don't need you Tulalip' or ‘Swinomish, I don't need you Yakama' or ‘Swinomish, I don't need you Lummi.' We can't think of ourselves, don't think as an island. And reach out. And that includes the non-Indian communities. We need to reach out to those non-Indian communities. We are continually educating them, so don't ever stop educating those non-Indian communities, because their leadership changes all the time but the people in the communities are always there. So we not only need to educate the leadership, but we need to educate the people in our communities. And so I'm going to keep my comments brief because there's others up here also, and ditto to the ladies that have spoke also before me. Good remarks."

Peter Captain:

"Hi. I'm Peter Captain of the Louden Tribe from Galena, Alaska. It's in the Yukon in Alaska. First, I want to squelch a couple myths. For one, we don't live in igloos, although that's been around for years.' And we also are inclusive. In starting out, we have 229 tribes in Alaska and we're just one of them, and just about every village in Alaska is a tribe. And each village has two forms of government. You have the state government and you have the tribal government, and of course the federal government. But one of the first things we did was to be inclusive is we held many town meetings and invited the various entities into our meetings. And we had a five-year plan for a village and our portion of the plan was to take care of the economic...I mean the environmental portion of the plan. The city took care of the sewer and water and what not and the fish and wildlife and other entities took care of their federal... One of the things you hear is be all-inclusive and doing that, we found that we could function better in our endeavors. I'm always one for passing on knowledge. We have one of the more aggressive tribes in Alaska in all aspects of education, environmental cleanup and what not. And we don't limit that to ourselves. We try to pass it around.

We have what we call a Yukon Consortium. It's a consortium of about six villages right in the vicinity and we include all those villages within our group to pass on our knowledge, not to hold it in. This -- as you'll hear other people repeat this -- is passed down generations upon generations and my hope is...I'm not doing things for myself. I've never been one to do things like that. I do it for my people, of course, but ultimately I do it for my children and grandchildren and seven generations down. They're the ones that's going to be benefit from it. That's where we come from. Thank you."

Justin Gould:

"Thank you, Joe. It's a pleasure to be here this morning up here with this panel. My comments are somewhat similar to those expressed so far. I'm realizing now I really don't want to be in Jamie's shoes because I think I'm probably going to cover everything else that hasn't been said. I'm just kidding. Like the person sitting here to my right, it's an honor and a privilege to become a tribal leader in Nez Perce country and inherit some of the hard work of previous leadership. I was not on the tribal council when the Nez Perce Tribe got involved with gray wolf recovery as has been expressed by Joe here. Just to kind of shed some light as to...before gray wolf management, the Nez Perce Tribe was involved very heavily with many natural resource issues, primarily the fish management issues. And I believe it was from the record established in the direction that the Nez Perce Tribe had taken that naturally prompted the tribe in becoming involved with other natural resource management issues.

There is a long history in Indian Country of tribes striving to better their communities, striving to better themselves, and the common theme that the Nez Perce see in Indian Country is the direct relationship to the natural resources. It's evidenced everywhere you go in Indian Country, there's a story, there's a lesson to be learned in every part of our respective places.

Getting back to the Nez Perce story, it began in the late ‘60s with the tribe becoming federally recognized and having a formal government with constitution and by-laws, I believe it was around 1964. And at that time the fish runs were still alive and well in our country. The completion of the four lower Snake [River] dams had not even transpired yet. The Grand Coulee and Hell's Canyon dams were on the chalkboard and getting ready to go up. The Nez Perce Tribe learned early on that if these two dams were to go in it would drastically affect the future of the salmon in the interior northwest. Sadly these dams went in and consequently wiped out I would say 90 percent of the spawning beds of the Columbia River Basin salmon runs. And in the next 10 to 15 years, four or five other hydro systems were located in between these far-reaching projects toward the ocean, buttoning up the interior northwest for barging, irrigation, recreation. It was not until the late ‘70s, early ‘80s, that significant losses were recognized on the banks of the respective tributaries that our people used for thousands of years. And it was at that time a faction of our people recognized the need to create a level of awareness to bring about positive change to the situation the salmon were facing in Nez Perce country.

It didn't happen overnight. I recall these long nights as a child with my tribal leaders as a boy every night, every season there was another issue to discuss and at that time I felt we were beginning to organize ourselves and our thoughts. And it's taken a generation or so to really impact the home front in terms of educating our own people to the significance of these losses and what it means to the value of our culture that's providing the support we needed as leaders now to continue on in this good work of the leadership that we've replaced in some cases. It was only recently when our tribe was asked if we wished to reintroduce a species to the Columbia Basin that had been extinct for 20 or 30 years -- example would be the Coho salmon, the fall Chinook, the summer steelhead, the sockeye, the eel, lamprey. It was opportunities to look at these species and become true leaders and really step away from the followers that inevitably got us to the gray wolf recovery table. But it's the example that I'm speaking of now that is the basis for the tribe's involvement with gray wolf recovery.

Once we successfully returned and extirpated stock from Columbia Basin to its homelands again, the Nez Perce Tribe learned a valuable lesson and did its best to share what we could with anybody that would listen to take advantage of these opportunities when they present themselves. So four years later we got adult returns from the first generation we transplanted and the concept the tribe has is not concrete to concrete like in some cases like hatchery operation, but from gravel to gravel. And so for the last 10 years now you could say we've been double planting all of the streams. We will take the hatchery surplus and take them out into the streams and let them spawn with the natural or be reared with the natural and the wild stocks that are out there thus providing the double...doubling the size of the small runs to the estuaries. And it was through a series of political moves by the tribe that we became party to the Pacific Salmon Treaty as an Upper Columbia River Tributary Tribe, and it was again from the efforts made by the faction of the Nez Perce 20 or 25 years ago recognizing that the fishery was being destroyed and something needed to be done.

All of the issues that are in Indian Country just take a little bit of organization and leadership in my opinion and many great things can and will happen if strong leadership avails itself to those specific issues. So that's kind of the basis for Idaho Gray Wolf Recovery and for the Nez Perce was getting management capabilities and being recognized in a field of science to be equal or greater than the experts in those fields and continuing in that fashion as being the only choice of the Nez Perce Tribe. Extinction is not an alternative for the Nez Perce Tribe so we will look to find every way possible to continue on with the work that we've begun. It's my hope personally that the work that I'm able to do the short time I'm on the tribal council will be another positive lesson in terms of legacy for those who are yet to replace me. Thank you."

Jamie Barrientoz:

"I'm Jamie Barrientoz and I agree with all the comments that were made. I just want to just highlight a few. For our tribe, we haven't got to where we are today -- like the others were saying -- we didn't get to where we are just because of the select few that stand out in the tribe. It's a collaboration of all the people in the tribe.

One of our awards from Honoring Nations is planning and development, and through our planning and development initiative we include throughout that part of our protocol is to hold public hearings and to include all of our members. And you'll see in the documents here that we held a series of planning meetings with our members where 400 tribal members turned out and they all gave input and very valuable input. That helped us to incorporate our culture into what we were doing. We accomplished that and the things that we've done are so beautiful and will be there for the long run because many minds put much thought into it and the council was very gracious and didn't stand in the way and didn't get bogged. We held our egos back, because oftentimes egos get in the way of the tribe and people think, ‘Well, I don't...' I'm just speaking for my tribe. ‘If it's not my idea then it's not going to happen at all.' We need to learn to set that aside before we can even move forward. We need to accept that we need to compromise and we need to agree and disagree on many issues and accept that Jaime Barrientos doesn't have all the answers, and I don't.

And we surround ourselves with many smart people, but also we surround ourselves with many practical-thinking people with common sense, because so often we can get caught up listening to just the lawyers and we can get into trouble sometimes just doing that. And so we've learned from many experiences like that that just having...surrounding ourselves with everyday people, people that are living in the community, the laws and the things that we are doing how it's going to impact them. Those are the people that we get the most valuable input from because those people are the ones that are living the day-to-day life on the reservation in the communities.

And so that's kind of where we come from, that's where we stand and all of our council meetings are open to the public and the majority of the time, the time that I've been on the council, I've spent most of my time on the roads. But I like that and I like to communicate. I'm corrected all the time but that's how I learn. I'm 30 years old and I have learned a great deal from many of my elders. And my mother and my grandfather and grandmother always told me, ‘Never forget the elders because that's truly where it comes from.' That's something that we need to work hard at doing, because oftentimes we think about if we're going to invest in something we need to get value back and we always think about the dollar and the returns that we invest in. Sometimes we forget about the culture and that's one thing that we're very strong on at Grand Traverse Band is our culture and our history and we will continue to be that way. Thank you. That's how we do it."

Joseph P. Kalt:

"Let me put a question to you about the following. It deals with continuity within these programs and with the directions you try to set. All of you are elected officials, you're politicians, and politicians sometimes is used like a bad word but in fact, it's an act of tremendous courage to step forward and say, ‘I'm going to try to serve my people and I'm going to put myself out there, they might turn me out.' And all of you, Claudia is relatively new, Kathryn's retired, all of you have been through transitions at some point. We know that these programs to succeed need continuity in them. Any thoughts that you have about what you do in your community to put that continuity in there, recognizing there's going to be turnover in the elected officials, or things you wish you could do because some of you have probably been burned. It's a politician's life. It's a tough thing to do. Do's and don'ts or what you wish you could do around this issue of continuity -- how do you do it? How do you get continuity in programs when you retire, when you're newly elected? Claudia, any comments? You're recent, you said you're recently in office."

Claudia Vigil-Muniz:

"One of the things I'd like to stress is that something I learned a long time ago. I was in the education field for a long time and I had the opportunity of hearing a gentleman speak who was a former governor of the one of the pueblos here in New Mexico. And he put things into real clear perspective and it affirmed my way of thought and how we as Native American people fit into this whole picture. He basically said that we walk, you've heard this story of how we walk two paths and we have to know where the fine line is.

In one hand, we live in a society that has a different way of thought and we've had to adopt a western way of thought and that's the way of our lives now today. In order for us to survive, we have to be able to walk both of them because in the other hand we go home and we step into a different role and what...I guess it really didn't hit me until just by chance it was during the holidays and we went to his particular village and there was this gentleman that had spoken the day before at one of the universities and there he was. He was the leader of the group that was singing and from what we were told in that particular village, it's an honor to be selected as the head singer. That brought things into clear perspective about the role we play; for me it did. And also it's kind of fitting in terms of my own upbringing. My father was the one individual that I really idolized and who taught me. These little conversations that we would have during our visits, little did I realize what he was preparing me for. And some days I sit there and I think, ‘This is what he was talking about'. And sometimes I wonder, ‘How could it be that he knew that he didn't know.' Everything that he has prepared me for is for what I'm doing now.

The other thing is I'd like to clarify I'm not a politician. I do not agree with that. The reason why I say that is because, to be real honest, I didn't put my name into the race so to speak because I wanted to. It was because I was asked to and I had to discuss this with my mother, with several people and they basically told me, ‘You know what the honorable thing is. You know what it is that you have to do.' So I thought, ‘Okay, we'll do it.' Just to throw the numbers off. Little did I know I was going to win. But I think that it's important that, as Native people, that guides us in our decision-making and how we fit into this whole picture. Unfortunately, we do have to become the politicians as you refer to it. In my culture and what my father taught me was that that is not a good word and it has a lot of bad meaning to it. And you have to take it and use it to your best-decision making, because when I step into that role coming down here to Santa Fe, I do have to become the politician and I have to learn how to play the role of the beggar, so to speak, and that's sad that we as Native people have to do that. We have to come and beg for everything that we think our people could benefit from. Unfortunately, I don't know about the other states, but in this particular state, in my presentations to the state legislatures, it's always been to literally remind them that we play a role and that we too are citizens of the state and that we too deserve to be treated fairly and equally. And unfortunately, we have to come to that role. But I think that I deserve that same mutual respect from my colleagues as well as from other leaders and from other entities, government entities. And until we get that same status, I don't know if we'll be able to function as expected because of the term that the white man uses, which is assimilation. Unfortunately, that process is almost completed for all of us.

The villages here in New Mexico still maintain their beliefs and they're very strong about it and they are to be admired for what they maintain. Their history goes back a long, long ways. Mine -- in particular with the economic development that's taken place -- you can see where we're losing our children and a lot of it has to do with that almighty dollar. Having to remind your own people where you come from is what's most important and knowing who you are and where you come from so that they can make the right decisions, reminding them about the mutual respect that should exist so that we can progress on some of these issues because there again, we have to play the role of...the same role as the rest of the world in order for us to survive. If we don't, we don't educate our children and if we don't point these issues out, we're not going to do it. Our children are the key to this whole thing and we keep hearing about the seventh generation. Where are we at in the midst of that? And it's up to us to decide and to guide our children in that direction."

Joseph P. Kalt:

"Claudia, if I could follow up with one question. You've been president for a year and a half approximately. As you came into your position, on this question of the continuity of programs, what specific steps did you take to review the personnel, the programs, assess their strengths and weaknesses? What's it like, in other words, to be in this new transition and how did you go about managing that process? What specific steps did you try to take?"

Claudia Vigil-Muniz:

"I came on and I've been assessing basically on my own and observing to see how things...because as any tribal entity, there are a lot of rumors that go flying left and right about how you're going to...their interpretation of how you're going to be leading. It's been difficult, because you have to play a role as a personnel director and as a leader, so to speak, because you're constantly...when you go home you deal with bad personnel issues, at least in my case I do. And so redefining that, a lot of the policies are in place, they've been created and they're there, but what I've been having to do is actually implement them. I refer many things back to the departments and to the directors, executive directors, and trying to maintain the continuity, so to speak, but there's a lot of resistance because the policies have never been really enforced. But it's important to me because, in order to move forward in the economic development portion, several things have to fall into place. The personnel matters cannot interfere with the role of the government.

Earlier we heard about the separation of powers. Well, in our particular situation, to a degree, it exists, but still it needs to be refined. And in this assessment process, we also have to update our own policies and our own procedures based on who we are. They've been developed for us and that's what we're doing right now, but the continuity portion of it has been assessed to the degree that they've been allowed to function. And then now we're going to back and we're going to say, ‘Wait a minute. These things are going to have to be refined,' and looking at it from the positive things of improvement rather than from the negative things and trying to encourage everybody's participation, because I don't believe in functioning only hearing one side of the story. For too long we've done that. And coming from a matriarchal society this has always been encouraged and allowed and for some reason we got caught up and we have a misinterpretation that has distracted us. But now I think we can get back to hopefully...my term is four years and I don't think I'll see that. If I'm elected again, if the people wish, then we'll continue it. But it's only striving for the achievement of what everybody would like to have and everybody's say so."

Joseph P. Kalt:

"Anybody else on this continuity question. Marge?"

Marge Anderson:

"I think first of all you have to have checks and balances and accountability and hire a team who has expertise in those areas of education, services and so on. I think it's...in Indian Country, you've got elections out there and we had continuity when I left office. And it's unfortunate the recent elections I was in Phoenix so I don't know what's happening there now. But you need to have long- and short-term goals and a strategic plan to see where you're going."

Brian Cladoosby:

"Continuity with programs. I'm going to be speaking on programs that we've set up with others outside of our communities in the non-Indian communities and I think of the in-stream flow that we have established. As many of you know, water's a big issue out there in Indian Country and our tribe was the first one in the state in the last 20 years to establish in stream flows and there's already attacks by politicians to try to undermine that. So it's, once again, educating, educating, educating.

We have been able to set up a program with the Department of Ecology, EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] to allow us to do NPDES permitting, that's the National Pollution Discharge something-something committee. That's why I hire those smart people, they know about those names. I think it's like poop and stuff...that's laymen's terms. But our tribe is able to issue those permits and programs like that need to continue. Our land-use planning, the award that we won through the Harvard Honoring Nations, a program like that needs to have continuity. Our police on our reservation, they carry...they're also sheriff's deputies in the county. Programs like that need to continue and our utilities. We recognized back in the ‘80s and ‘90s that when you control the utilities you control growth on your reservation. So we came to agreement with the other purveyors in the county and they recognize us as the only ones on our reservation that will be allowed to issue a permit.

Now these are programs that have been established...I can go on and on and on. We have a list of probably another dozen programs that we've established, but how do you continue continuity with those programs and make sure that they last and continue? For one, you have to have a foundation. You need to create a foundation; you have to have some kind of mechanism in place that people will recognize in perpetuity. Now there's no guarantee that that will take place because like I said, our in-stream flow...one of the county commissioners in our county who is running this year and his platform is going to be the anti-Indian crusader out there fighting the tribe on all issues and he's already got some lawyers from Seattle, downtown attorneys reviewing that to see if there's any cracks, any way that he can get his little finger in there. So I think educating, educating, educating.

We continue to have new politicians and we are politicians and...I finally...someone had told me what politics means. It's a Greek word. It's 'poli' meaning 'many,' and 'tics,' 'blood sucking insects.' I refer to those as the D.C. politicians. But I think just educating, to have continuity to those programs you need to continually educate these new officials that come into office. That's the only way you're going to have continuity. We've had two new county commissioners this year. I spent two hours with them just educating them on things that the tribe has done with them over the years, so I think that's the key, just educating these...and I'm just referring to outside programs, not internal programs."

Joseph P. Kalt:

"Thank you. Kathryn, yes."

Kathryn Harrison:

"Thank you. I think one of the things that has worked for us was reaching out to the communities but not only that, being role models as tribal council. It's not a 9-to-5 job. Once you're elected, no matter what you do, where you go, awake or asleep, you must be a role model for your people. That includes and inspires continuity among the next lot to come along.

The other thing is when we campaigned for our recognition, we told everyone, ‘We won't have any surprises.' That included our people, the people in Washington, D.C. and the local people, the county commissioners, the schools. So our meetings were open and that is why we established our intergovernmental program that was our winning program with the Honors for Harvard. I like to have Justin and Nicole, Justin Martin and Nicole stand and be recognized for the good work that they do in reaching out to our legislative people not only in the State of Oregon, but in Washington, D.C. They keep their finger on the pulse of what's going on in Indian Country, they advise us of bills we need to monitor, they tell us when to come to the state capitol, the attempts [unintelligible] on Indian services, which includes every representative from every tribe in Oregon that's recognized and [unintelligible] representative from [unintelligible] and also a state senator and a state representative.

I think the other thing is you include all our people. We've held a lot of meetings that we included the county commissioners and everyone around us to show what we were going to do and ask them, ‘What do you think of this? Where do you see us in five years, in 10 years?' That included them. You have to show your people what works and once it's in place it's going to take a lot of convincing from the other side that wants to try to change anything and that puts continuity in place. And the last thing I want to say is I think we all agree how important spirituality is. That's what's carrying all of us, no matter what trouble we face, no matter what obstacles we face and that's what's going to pass on from our ancestors. That's how they overcame the struggles, that's how they pass on things to us and that's something we must never forget.

One thing I learned to say to our council is, ‘If you want to be treated like a tribal government then you have to act like one.' And by the way, I had black hair when I started. Thank you."

Peter Captain:

"I remembered what the other myth was coming from Alaska, not all tribes are oil rich. Unfortunately, ours is one of those that's not oil rich. So we have to be innovative in the things we do to keep these programs running. Our state dollars and federal dollars are being depleted. So we need to come up with innovative ways to keep all our programs running. You hear people say, ‘Well, you've got to surround yourself with smart people,' and that's good. You also have to integrate within your school systems the teaching of the young children on the different pollutants and the different aspects of the worldly comings, otherwise they're not going to know what's coming down the path and when it does hit they're going to be caught off guard. So a good solid education, if you can incorporate those within your school system, great. Short of cloning that's one way of continuity."

Joseph P. Kalt:

"Something I think that Claudia said must have sparked...you mentioned about looking at these programs and maybe some of the systems you have in place may not be working as well. A number of people are asking questions that deal roughly with the same thing. People would like to hear you talk about the way you handle issues of hiring, having to fire and promoting the career development of your employees. What role do you as senior leadership play in that regard? Any comments on that? A number of people have actually sent me questions like that. I know people wonder about those relationships. Anybody? Marge."

Marge Anderson:

"In our system of tribal government, separation of powers, that's delegated to the [unintelligible] policy board, which consists of all the commissioners and they handle all the personnel issues. I didn't have to worry. So that's how we handle those issues. What was the other one?"

Joseph P. Kalt:

"Both the enterprises and the programs, are they handled in the same way?"

Marge Anderson:

"The enterprises, we have a general manager and we have a corporate commission. We did have anyway, and that's where the personnel issues were dealt with."

Joseph P. Kalt:

"Continuity, though I heard you say could be an issue here. Anybody else? Jaime."

Jamie Barrientoz:

"For us, many times, the tribal council went, particularly with just the Grand Traverse Band members, we have public forums where...at our council meetings we have an open forum where any member can say anything that they want of their choice and oftentimes those kind of issues are brought out there and then we give the direction to those members on what they need to do to get their issue resolved. We do have an administrative appeals board. That's not perfect. We're always continually having to refine that, because we're a small tribe and often family members get involved on the board and then they get involved in employee disputes and we have to sometimes separate that and sometimes if you're new to the community or whatever you don't know who's related to who and what kind of click is going on. But we have those and we do have dispute [resolution] mechanisms, but mainly for the Grand Traverse Band members they come to the council and the council points them in the direction that they go. There are some times where the situation is so gross that the council has to intervene and make a decision based upon the tribal manager or the CEO not taking charge because oftentimes the tribal manager or the CEO is unsure if he gets involved. Which segment of the tribe is going to be coming down on him? So it's a real touchy situation, it's continually being refined, but it seems to be working for us. For the most part it seems to be working for us. There are some cases that are so difficult that they have to go to the court system and that's how they resolve it."

Joseph P. Kalt:

"Marge."

Marge Anderson:

"I need to add if they go to the [unintelligible] policy board they're going to work with their supervisor. If they're not satisfied with that then you go to the [unintelligible]. If you're not satisfied there then you go to tribal court."

Joseph P. Kalt:

"Brian?"

Brian Cladoosby:

"Personnel issues are the toughest to deal with in Indian Country. I hate dealing with personnel issues. That's why I tell my directors, ‘If you can solve it, solve it.' But we have this thing in our policy called nepotism, but I think it needs to be defined differently in Indian Country. But it is tough to deal with personnel issues in a tribe, especially a small tribe. At Swinomish, where the vast majority of our people are located within a very small area so everybody knows everybody and everybody knows everybody's business and the casino, we have 300 employees down there and we started just gung ho with a lot of tribal members filling those jobs and slowly. And I'm speaking to the choir here for those that have casinos, slowly by slowly those numbers start to dwindle for various reasons and you get calls as the chairman. ‘My daughter just got fired.' And I said, ‘Well, what happened?' ‘Well, she...it's not fair. She's a tribal member, she should have that job.' So I call the casino. ‘Well, the last 21 days she had 21 either lates or no-shows or no-calls or tardies or something.' And so it's real hard to deal with because you're so...you know them, you grew up with a lot of them. There's just such a personal connection there and it's...but...you know what I'm talking about. Personnel issues are the toughest to deal with, but unfortunately as the chairman you're put into a position where maybe a tribal member needs to be let go because they've been accused of sexual assault or sexual harassment or something like that and that's when the director comes to you and says, ‘I can't deal with this, can you deal with this?' I think personnel issues are the toughest in Indian Country to deal with."

Claudia Vigil-Muniz:

"Yeah, ditto. I mentioned earlier that I've been trying to refer back to the policies and procedures that are in place and so I kick them back. We have what we refer to as the five meg-department structure where we have five executive directors, one in...[unintelligible] director and education, public safety, health and welfare, education and public works. I guess, in the past, no one's been using these executive directors and they didn't know where they fit into this whole picture.

So when a decision comes to my desk, and as you well know, everyone has a tendency to go directly to the council or to the leader, and it's like, ‘No, I'm sorry. I'm not going to...I won't deal with that.' I'll kick it back, I'll call the executive and then I tell them, ‘This is your problem, you need to handle it, come up with a solution. If we can't resolve it, we have a human resource program, let them set up a grievance hearing committee.' Council is the last resort, and I keep reminding them that if they come to the council, they've exhausted all the remedies. And so people are finally beginning to adapt and adjust to that method.

The other...for the enterprises what we...we have boards in place for a lot of the enterprises that we have because they're under federal statute corporation. So they have a five-panel board that makes all the...that will make the decisions for them so that it leaves us out of the picture and that's how I've been handling it. Like was mentioned, with the nepotism issue, trying to keep things in perspective and try to correct the behavior that was mentioned about people being tardy, coming in late and what I keep reminding them of is that what I was taught was that anything you do in this organization it's yours, the resources are yours, what it pays for is yours. So you have a say so in every decision that we make here, but you have to remember that if you're going to go crash that vehicle that was on loan to you from the motor pool, that comes out of your pocket. It may not be a direct impact, but the fact is that you have ownership in that vehicle because in the title it is Jicarilla Apache Nation. And by doing that they're like, ‘Oh, yeah.' And so trying to re-establish the ownership part of it because the ownership, somewhere we've lost it along the way because it also flies to such things as being involved with the public school system. You hear this all over Indian Country, ‘Well, the school district isn't doing this for us, they're not doing that for us.' Well, what are we doing about it? What are we saying about it? Those are our children that go to those schools, so it just doesn't make any sense constantly going back and reminding, ‘You do have a say so on any of these things.' So I think it goes back to the gentleman here from Swinomish where you play a role in all of this and I think that's important for our people to understand that."

Joseph P. Kalt:

"You touched on something there and I have a question related to this. I'll introduce it by way of a story. One of the tribes we work with at the Harvard Project, one of the tribal chairs says to me one time, ‘All this stuff is great, Honoring Nations, nation building. My daughter's the president of the student body of her high school and doesn't know what I do for a living.' I've got a question. What ways do you have in place and what are you doing to involve the youth in your community in tribal government? They are the future leaders. What steps are you taking, what concerns do you have in that area? Justin."

Justin Gould:

"Being relatively young, it's not hard to remember the days of youth. Ten years ago, I got involved with the United National Indian Tribal Youth Program. In 1991, I was the National Youth Coordinator for the 1992 Alliance, an Indian advocacy group on Capitol Hill. I was a person who made the second to the motion at the policy table right after I swore my oath to be an elected official of the tribe. The motion maker made a motion to create another subcommittee within the structure of the Nez Perce Tribe. That new subcommittee is called Youth Affairs Subcommittee and it's a culmination of various efforts of the different youth provider programs within our tribe. We have social services who has concerns with our tribal youth dedicate employees to that cause. We have education liaisons who are dedicated to the needs of the youth in terms of their education. We have various examples to draw from that are essentially the same path and direction and vision but with no true administrative support to enhance one another's abilities to provide that positive future for our youth.

So under discussion a lot of that came out and before I called for the question I just reminded them that by taking this serious stance toward youth initiatives and youth services that will make it better tomorrow for us when we become the elder and they become the leader and if we could keep this direction going. I looked at my elders and said, ‘I will take care of you tomorrow and through this youth affairs committee we can set that value strong within Nez Perce territory that these children coming up have an obligation as well to take care of us tomorrow.' And that was the basic theme behind the rationale to it, looking at the national statistics in Indian Country among other things prompted us to do that.

Currently, I work with...as a natural resources chairman for the Nez Perce Tribe. I work with the other subcommittee chairs on developing holistic initiatives that will represent unity among all the generations alive on my...in my country in setting up literal examples of week to week, month to month, seasonal activities that we can all enjoin and share together in the spirit of health prevention, education, cultural identity, pride, all the good things that our forefathers had set aside time to provide to us. So it's just a simple continuation in a formal contemporary sense of something that we've all had a little taste of in our lives."

Joseph P. Kalt:

"Just let me put a question to you real quick. Specifically with respect to tribal government, is this Youth Affairs Committee attempting to expose the children and the kids and the high school kids and so forth to the work of the tribal government or are you working more broadly on youth issues?"

Justin Gould:

"Both. We actually have three youth that serve at the tribal policy level on this committee representing the different communities on the reservation; the eastern side, the western side and the northern side. So it's new but it's...and it's having a lot of growing pains, I would guess, but it's working. We now have an agenda that recognizes every youth provider to come in and be accountable and for the first time it has a direct impact to tribal policy formulation development versus being some kind of a quarterly report in a little bulletin fashion format that is like page 156 of a 600-page quarterly report. So that's kind of where we'd been treating them administratively, our youth, and this is a way to really let them tell us as tribal leaders what those concerns are. So it works."

Joseph P. Kalt:

"Good, good. Anybody else involving youth? Jaime."

Jamie Barrientoz:

"We have a junior tribal council that we established. It's a seven-member board of youth that are elected by the youth and they have a budget and they have a chair, vice chair, treasurer, secretary and they do their own fundraisers. And we have a thing called a Youth in Government Day where these youth -- not necessarily just the Junior Tribal Council -- but any youth that is selected through a process can job-shadow a council member or a high executive official on a day. And sometimes these youth are taken out on the road with us and exposed to these kind of meetings. We need to do more of that, but we are trying and we make attempts and they have a board just like a mini-council and they make decisions that impact the kids and how they try to influence us into making things easier for them because they understand what it's like with the environment that they're in in school and in the neighborhood and stuff. So we have that vehicle for them to be able to hear us. And there's an administrative...school administers board where the deans and the superintendents of the schools all get together quarterly and that's hosted by the Junior Tribal Council. They can talk to the school superintendents directly and say, ‘These are our issues as Indian kids. These are what we're facing and this is how we think you can help.' And the council is there and we're all there listening to their concerns and I must say that these kids are very smart. Sometimes we might take that for granted thinking they're young and they've still got a lot to learn but, man, I went to the last Junior Tribal Council and superintendents meeting and I was blown away by how much they really could articulate their point of view and move these superintendents into making policies that are positive for them and it was great."

Joseph P. Kalt:

"We're going to have to bring this to a close, but I'm always struck by the tremendous combination of leaders such as yourselves, show both the vision and tremendous ability to manage and to make things happen and to lead in good, strong directions. We've joked a little bit about the word politician but if you all are the examples, then the word is on its way in Indian Country to being a term of honor and respect as it should be. So thank you to all of you. Thank you."

From the Rebuilding Native Nations Course Series: "Leaders Are Educators"

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Native leaders and scholars stress that for Native nation leaders to be effective at advancing their nation's priorities, they need to do more than just make decisions -- they need to educate and consult the citizens they serve.

Native Nations
Citation

Kalt, Joseph P. "Rebuilding Healthy Nations." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 27, 2007. Presentation.

Kendall-Miller, Heather. Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 27, 2007. Presentation.

Mankiller, Wilma. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. September 29, 2008. Interview.

McGhee, Robert. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. October 10, 2012. Interview.

Miles, Rebecca. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 23, 2011. Interview.

Norris, Jr., Ned. "Perspectives on Leadership and Nation Building." Emerging Leaders seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 26, 2008. Presentation.

Pinkham, Jaime. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 26, 2009. Interview.

Sherman, Gerald. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 26, 2009. Interview.

Heather Kendall-Miller:

"Leadership goes beyond just having an active role in making things happen. It also requires the ability to inspire others to take action."

Joseph P. Kalt:

"There's one more thing, and it's leadership. When we say that, we don't mean necessarily leadership as decision-maker, we mean leader as educator. Someone carries into any community the ideas, the ways of doing things, the new ways of doing things, the old ways of doing things. And it's leaders that do that. Not just elected and appointed officials, but all the dimensions of leadership. And the challenge that you face -- you all are leaders. You got out of bed this morning, or yesterday you flew here. You're not here because you're crawling under a rock and hiding. You're here [because] you're leaders, and the challenge is to carry these messages of effective nation building into communities. And the more you do that, what we find, the more successful the leadership of a community is in getting on the same page and talking about the fundamental nature of these needs for running things ourselves, founding them on our own institutions that are culturally legitimate. Then suddenly, the community starts to stand behind you and then you get stability and then you build a community and then the kids stay home instead of moving away and you've rebuilt a nation."

Wilma Mankiller:

"But I do believe that an essential part of leadership is -- besides all the things like making sure you're working on legislative issues and legal issues and health and education and jobs and all that sort of thing -- is to try to help people understand their own history and understand where we are within the context of that history and to believe in ourselves; to look at our past and see what we've done as a people and to remind people that if they want to see our future they just simply need to look at our past to believe in ourselves, to believe in our intellectual ability, to believe in our skills, to believe in our ability to think up solutions to our own problems. I think that is critical to our survival."

Gerald Sherman:

"I think nation-building leaders need to first just start talking nation building and getting people to think about it a lot and trying to win other people over to get other people to understand what it's all about because what I've seen is you'll get one leader in and they'll understand some of these things but one leader it's hard to make a system change. I've seen it in like the Bureau of Indian Affairs, they pull in some good people to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs thinking that they can make a change but there's a very strong system that exists there and they just can't change it."

Jaime Pinkham:

"When you look at the issues facing tribal communities, issues about per capita distribution, blood quantum, constitutional reform and others, those are very difficult issues that are communities are facing and quite honestly they could be wedge issues that would eventually fractionate communities and so doing education within the community must come first to talk about nation building, to overcome these challenges. I think when there was a time when tribes looked at the greatest threats were from the Colonials and from the Cavalry, then it was from the states but really my fear is that the greatest threats because of these wedge issues that are really pressing on our communities, the greatest threats may come from the inside. And so if we don't do a good job of developing the sense of nationhood within our communities through education and empowerment that the challenges are going to come from the inside not from the outside."

Rebecca Miles:

"Engagement, getting engaged with your people frequently. A lot of times you see tribal council that the first time that they're chewed out they just, it's just now we're in this hole and we're not coming out. And that happens and it's really at no fault of a tribal leader because you can only get chewed out so many times, but instead you do have to have the courage, you chose to run, face your people, get them involved to the extent of, no, they're not micromanaging you as the government, but you've got to inform them and know what it is you need to inform them about. There's just some things that are not...you're wasting everybody's time. That's just not something you inform people about. There's other things that you want to hear from them about. If you want to change enrollment, you better talk to your people. If you're going to make a big decision like our water settlement, go out and get your input from your people and if they have the wrong perception, then whose job is it to change that or work to change it? It's yours, and a lot of times tribal leaders do not think it's their job to do, to be that public person and it very much is your job. You've got to get out there and talk to people and you have to be able to tell them things that they don't want to hear."

Robert McGhee:

"I do believe that at first you are an educator. You are educating your other general council members, well your other council members, especially if it's an idea that you're proposing, or if it's an issue or a concern that you have, you're educating them. But you're also educating your tribal members. Like I said before, in order to make, have a strong government and to have a government that's going to last and to have focus and change, you're going to need the support of the members. And I think if you have any opportunity that you can educate, I think you should, especially on the issue. However, I think the flip side of that is being the student. And there's a lot of times that it's the general council that can educate you, it can be your elders, it can be the youth, that can educate you as a tribal leader to say, 'This is the issue impacting us.' If it's youth it's usually drugs, alcohol, or social media issues, or bullying. And if it's the elders, it's like, 'How can you provide a sustainable, in our last years, how can you make these [years] a little bit better for us?' But also, let's tell you about why this didn't work in the past. So I think they're both valuable tools. I mean you have to be an educator, you have to be a student, but I think there's always being just willing to listen."

Ned Norris, Jr.:

"'You can accomplish anything in life provided that you do not mind who gets the credit.' As leaders -- and that quote is attributed to Harry Truman -- as leaders I like to think of myself in that way. That what I have to do -- the people have entrusted in me their trust to lead them and to guide them for the term that I have been elected. As a leader, I should not ever take advantage of that trust that the people have placed in me. I should never take the position that, 'That was my idea, not yours.' I should not take the position that, 'It's my way or the highway.' As a leader, that should not -- that's not something that we should be doing as tribal leaders. The [Tohono O'odham Nation] vice chairman and I -- Isidro Lopez -- when we ran for these offices, we ran on a campaign that we say in O'odham, it says [O'odham language], and [O'odham language] translates to 'All of us together.' And what we wanted to be able to do was to bring the people together, to bring our people together, to give our people the opportunity to actively participate in the decision-making process. Too many times, we get tribal leadership that think they are going to impose those decisions on the people. We can't accomplish that, we can't accomplish what we need to accomplish if we are going to dictate to our people. That's not our purpose. Our purpose is to lead, our purpose is to work together, and our purpose is to bring our people to the table so that we can hear what they have to say."

Diane Enos: Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Economic Development

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC) President Diane Enos provides an overview of SRPMIC's effortto build a diversified economy, the institutional keys to make that effort a success, and the cultural principles SRPMIC abides by as it engages in economic development.

People
Resource Type
Citation

Enos, Diane. "Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Economic Development." Building and Sustaining Tribal Enterprises seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 29, 2007. Presentation. 

"Thank you for inviting me, Joan [Timeche]. I'm really honored to be here to be able to talk to your conference or seminar. By way of background, a little bit of what Ms. Timeche just said that I am an attorney. And sometimes that's a blessing and sometimes it's a curse, because today it's a blessing, because as you all know attorneys never lack for anything to say. I have a lot to say, but I'm not so sure that I've got it in order so please bear with me. What I like to do when I speak to groups such as this and actually any group and even to myself is sometimes I have to say a prayer and I ask for help that I may say something that's relevant, something that's helpful, and certainly most of all something that you can remember and take home and use. Joan had asked me... before I get started I've got to mind my manners here. I would like to acknowledge some of our staff that are here today and some of our community people.

Ruben Guerrero is seated at the table. Mr. Guerrero is a young community member. He works with [Congressional] Representative Raul Grijalva's office here in Tucson and he is going to be a future leader of our community and he's been a friend of mine for years and a vital part of the community and a good example of what our youth is. Next to him is Michelle Clark. Ms. Clark is also a community member. She works with our Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs for the community. She also works with the Community Manager, she also works with me, the president, and the vice president. She is new back to the community. While an enrolled member of the community, also seated next to her left is her sister Cindy Clark; they did not grow up in the community. But like a lot of people did not have the opportunity to do that, but are coming back to the community and offering themselves to help us out. And we anxiously look forward to having membership like the Clark sisters. We're anxious to have them come back to where they came from and help us out and become part of us again. So again I wanted to acknowledge them. We also have some staff people here today. Ms. LaFrance is with the Salt River Financial Services Institution. It's our ninth enterprise and what they do is they're in the business of loaning money to membership in terms of small business loans, home loans, and we're working on developing all the loan possibilities. With her are her staff members. I know Ms. Deer is here and I forgot your other name. Mauri, how could I forget? Are there any other staff people with you? That's it. We're well represented here today. I also wanted to acknowledge Cecil Antone who is a brother, he's related to us. He's from the Gila River Indian Community, a fellow O'odham, as well as Mary Thomas, who is also a fellow O'odham from Gila River.

Joan had asked me to talk about basically about the idea, the concept of keeping politics out of enterprises and in order to even begin to address that question what I wanted to do is tell you a little bit about our enterprises. As Joan mentioned, we are close to the City of Scottsdale. We're also a door to the City of Mesa and the town of Fountain Hills. So we're very surrounded -- in fact we're landlocked -- but what that has done is, it has it's challenges, but what it has done is offered us significant, a very, very significant development opportunities. And what Salt River has had to do over the years is attune itself to our location, and again that's another example of a blessing and a curse, because while we've had to endure the problems of the metropolitan area such as the drugs, the crime, the traffic, the smog, all the negative things, we've also had a blessing to be in a most, most opportune place for economic development, which is we're next to the City of Scottsdale. There's a nine-mile corridor which the community has termed the economic development corridor, and we've done that because the community has wanted to not let development encroach in the interior of the community. We're rural, we have a rural lifestyle, we live in the open area where there are a lot of fields or desert, and so people have decided that they wanted to keep it that way, and in doing so we've dedicated the western portion of the reservation, which is again the nine-mile strip to economic development. But also in doing economic development, what we have done is had to create enterprises which are tribally run businesses. We have nine of them today, the SRSFI is the ninth one, and we started diversifying a long time ago.

Before I get further into my discussion about what we've done in terms of economic development, I want to tell you a little bit about Salt River, about who we are as a people, because that's really important and those of you that come from tribal communities know that we cannot be anything but tribal people if we intend to survive as sovereign nations. A little bit about the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community: we have been here since time immemorial. The O'odham people -- as Cecil and Mary know -- have lived here, we have mountains that we have songs about, we have origin stories, we have migration stories that play into the location that you are in right now because this is all our territory. The four southern tribes of today the Tohono O'odham, and the lady sitting at the table here is from Tohono O'odham, I forgot your name already, but you're our relative as well. Gila River Indian Community, Ak-Chin Indian Community as well as Salt River today comprise the four tribes and we've lived here forever in our history. And what we have done in terms of dealing with the Europeans is we've never fought a war with the white man, we've never fought a war with the invaders. And some people can look at that and not think well of that, but for us what it basically says about us as a people is that we have learned over the centuries that one of our methodologies to survival is negotiation. That's a value to us, it's a value in our way of living, which is referred to as the Himdag. And I know we have two tribes, now we are Maricopa and Pima, O'odham and Peeposh. And the Peeposh people came and joined the Pima people both at Gila River and Salt River around 1800. They migrated here because they too wanted to be peaceful and they wanted to avoid warfare and those sorts of activities. But we never fought a war with the United States. What we did instead was sell them...here you go, economic development way back then. We sold wheat to the army, we sold wheat to the Mormon battalion, we traded with the Spanish people when they came through to set up the missions and we got some of our most prized food from them like peaches, figs, pomegranates, those sorts of things, but we also helped them survive. So our opportunities and our taking advantage of economic opportunities began historically a long time ago and it began with the Europeans coming here. But again, it's in keeping with what we value as a people in terms of our survival. But it's more than it, it's how we not only survive but thrive, and that's to take advantage of an opportunity for the people.

Now getting back to keeping politics out of our enterprises, as I indicated, way back when before gaming even came up. We have to acknowledge gaming because it's a reality for a lot of our tribes and again it's a blessing and a curse, because right now it affords us the opportunity to do things that we only even could even dream about years ago. I've been in tribal government for 16 years. I was part of tribal government before gaming came into the picture and as all of you know, those of you that are gaming tribes, know that it has changed our communities sometimes for the better, sometimes for not so good. But back then what we had to do before gaming was we had to diversify. Salt River knew that it had to diversify if it was going to continue to provide services to its membership. And I'm talking about services like police protection, fire department, sanitation, tribal government itself, housing needs -- all kinds of normal services that tribal governments provide to its membership. And the only way we're going to do that was to make money. We knew that we could not rely on the government or the Bureau [of Indian Affairs] or anybody for our livelihood and being in the location that we are we again took opportunity of it, we created enterprises. And what we did way back then, and I think it was fairly new at the time, one of the first things that we did was set up what's called the Salt River Sand and Rock and the Phoenix Cement Company today. Back then it was Phoenix Cement Company and I would say back in 1987 the community bought Phoenix Cement. We took out a huge loan. For us it was breathtakingly huge, today it isn't. It was $78 million to purchase the Phoenix Cement Company. Today that is one of our most successful enterprises. And just because we've gotten into gaming we haven't ignored the need to maintain those enterprises and to keep them flourishing. The main reason for that is because we know that gaming is not guaranteed forever. It's just an opportunity and it's a sure opportunity for us to continue to diversify as I'm indicating here.

We have several enterprises, and I will say right now that you cannot keep politics out of enterprises. You cannot keep politics out of anything and I say that from experience having been in tribal government for 16 years. But I'm not so sure that that's a bad thing. Politics, if you really think about it in terms of well, what does politics mean? Politics really means a personal desire to see something done your way and that's not anything new to human nature, but it's how you go about achieving that. How do I go about getting what I want to have happen? Am I going to step on people to get there? Am I going to hurt somebody to get there? Those are challenges that leadership always has and I think that the membership of any tribal government, any tribal entity in itself has to think about that. But we're coming into a time -- at least at Salt River I believe -- we're coming into a time where we're starting to say, "˜Why am I voting for this person? Why am I voting for that person?' and it's something that leadership has to remember and it has to stay focused on because when you talk about politics, politics as I'm saying today is never going to go away, it's never ever going to go away, so the best thing that we can do again is to negotiate with the situation, take the best that we can from it because...And I was talking to some of the membership this morning, you're always going to have that, you're always going to have somebody opposing your ideas but that's a good thing. That's only a positive thing if you can eventually be able to work it out with them and come up with the best solution.

I think that's what really Joan was asking, how do you keep things legal and keep things working well? So what we have done for our enterprises, we've done several things and I wanted to show you just as a matter of demonstration what I brought today. I'm not going to go into this book; I'm not going to read it. This is called Our Enterprise Ordinances. This book is full of all the ordinances that Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community had to create in order to monitor, in order to manage, in order to help all of our enterprises grow and flourish, and this book is tabulated, full of the rules. I just want to tell you some of the rules that we've had to adopt and to establish and further to keep things legal, to keep things moving along, to help things flourish. Some of the things that our enterprises have been enabled to do are limited waivers of sovereign immunity, and those of you that are in tribal governments understand that the waiver of sovereign immunity is something that tribal councils themselves only have for the most part, I'm sure there are exceptions, but for the most part, Salt River tribal council is the only one that can waive sovereign immunity even on a limited basis. But what we've started to do for our enterprises is allow them to contract. The only thing that they cannot do is encumber land. They can encumber property, they can encumber equipment, and they can take out all these loans and to that degree they have the opportunity to do a limited waiver of sovereign immunity. And that's a scary thing because what you're doing as a tribal government is you're giving up some of your power and some of your authority. But you have to monitor those enterprises. You have to make sure that what they're doing is in compliance with your ordinances and you have to be really critical and careful when you create those ordinances to begin with. So if you want to keep things legal, you've got to keep an eye on it. The other thing that our enterprises are able to do is that they can, they have the authority to...the boards have the...I've written down some things here and I can't even read it 'cause it's dark over here. The council doesn't micromanage, but the boards do have autonomy for the most part, and again that's the giving up of some of your power as a tribal government. For instance, they can contract, technically speaking, the enterprises are able to contract. They have disclosure requirements. If I have a contract or if I have a relationship with a provider, I must disclose that and I must sign a form if I'm on a board. We have all these boards that disclose any potential conflict that I might have. The other unique thing about our boards is what we've done is we've made them up of not only professional membership. For instance, Salt River Sand and Rock we have people that are in the industry that know something about the cement business or the sand and gravel business, about commerce, people that are generally for the most part non-Indian because they have that expertise. But the other part of that is we also have to make sure the boards are made up of the membership, and these may be people who have no business experience, but they've got a desire to serve the community and they've got a track record or they've got an experience where people understand who they are, people understand that they will do the best that they can, and that doesn't always work out well. Sometimes you can have the nicest people, the most honest people, and they're totally ineffective as board members. So again, you have to go back as a tribal government and monitor what they're doing, make sure that they are performing and doing things to the best of their ability to serve not only government but the board. And the other thing that the community has done is it's unleashed these enterprises to some degree and their sole reason for being is to make profit, their sole reason for existence and doing what they do and for us having some degree of arm's length from them is so they can make a profit for the community. Again, because we understand that in the future we may not have gaming to rely on, we may not have that huge cushion that we have. So while we're socking away the money and putting it into investments and other safekeeping, taking other safekeeping measures, we still know that we have to make money in the future. So setting up these enterprises is one way to do that.

Now again, back to Joan's question, how do we keep politics out? How do we keep things legal? And I mentioned a little bit ago, like if I wanted to appoint...as tribal council they select the board members. If there was an individual that I wanted to put on that board just because I was friends with that person or I had business dealings with them or they're my second cousin, you know, all the wrong reasons, well, let me say maybe not the best reasons, that can still happen because if you're able to convince other people to vote for this person you can put somebody on there. But the proof is, how are they going to perform as a board member? And that's the responsibility that tribal governments have not only to make sure things are legal but to make sure that they're performing. And if we don't monitor these board members and make sure that what they're doing is what they're supposed to be doing then we're going to lose as a government and again that goes to responsibility of leadership.

What I'm describing to you, there is a lot, a lot of concepts that go with being in office, with being in tribal leadership. But I also wanted to tell you that one of the best things that I find now as being the president and supposed to be a council member, and I was mentioning this to Mary just a little bit ago, is that you can do a lot more now. You have a lot more flexibility, like coming here today and being with you and being with some of the membership of my community and spending time with Dr. [Joseph] Kalt and talking to him is an opportunity that I might not have had if I were a council person. I could have chosen to do something else. Today I could be sitting at my desk or I could be doing something else. But leadership really has the opportunity to do what you think you need to do. And one of our young attorneys with our Office of General Counsel, who gave me some of these notes to keep in mind when I talked to you today, said that it's important and I want to say that it really is important, what we've done as a community is establish what's called a vision statement for our community.

Years and years ago, I would say probably about 15 years ago, we started having meetings with our membership and we started asking them, 'What do you want to see for the future?' Now remember, this is all pre-gaming, there's no big money in the picture. We simply said, 'What do you want as people that live in the community, as people that are membership have rights to vote, people that have membership rights to have a say in tribal government, people whose children will inherit land in the community, people whose children and grandchildren will continue to be part of our community forever, hopefully?' We asked them, "˜What do you want to see? What do you want your community to look like?' And we had a series of meetings with all the districts and this went on for probably about maybe a year and a half or so. And what came out of those meetings and those discussions is what's called a vision statement. And they told tribal government, I'd say we told tribal government, we all sat down and talked and came up with the vision of what we want for the future. And what I talked about a little bit earlier in terms of the economic corridor was one of those concepts that came out. We said, the people said to tribal government, we do not want development in the interior part of the community. We want tribal government to make them money but we want to have a say in it. And that's one of the reasons that our enterprises have developed the way that they have because the people told us that that's what they wanted us to do. You cannot have a government, you cannot, we cannot continue to exist and flourish as a government unless we communicate with our membership, unless we take into consideration what our membership says and why they say it. We at Salt River hopefully in the future for the most part the tribe, at least I tried, my administration to work like that, to listen to the people and to try to take into consideration what they have to say. Not only is it very smart politically, but it's very smart in terms of the long-range view for our people.

I also wanted to leave with you today, and I touched a little bit on it, in talking about a visionary type of leadership that one of our attorneys reminded me that I should talk about. I wanted to say to you also that it's really important for us at Salt River -- and I think those of you that are tribal leaders -- to remember that we have to be who we are not just in a business sense, not just in a government sense but as far as a cultural sense. And I hate to use, I kind of squirm every time I have to use that word cultural. I was talking to Dr. Kalt this morning just a little bit. What I mean is who are we? Who are we as O'odham people? Who are we as Peeposh people? And that goes again to what I started out when I started talking to you when I mentioned about remembering who we are. Why are we here in this particular location at this particular point in time? And it goes back to where did we come from? Who came before us? And when you start thinking about that, you've got to think about who's coming ahead of us. And that's what makes us separate, that's what makes us separate from other governments, and what we were talking about was the concept of separation between church and state and state government and county government, city governments, you have that clear division that you do not respect any particular established religion and I think for the most part they're talking about established religions. We don't have that concept in tribes. How come we don't have it? Because who we are is very tied into what we believe in and once we get away from that, we're not going to be a people anymore, we're not going to be a tribe anymore, we're not going to be a viable reservation anymore because the federal government in my opinion -- and here I am talking as a lawyer again -- is going to say, 'What right do you have to have this land? What right do you base your claim on to have sovereignty? What right do you claim to have to have courts if you're just brown people living there?' The only way that we're going to continue as Native people, as tribal people, is to remember who we are and why we are what we are.

And I'm going to leave you with a little quote today. It goes to the concept of really what I'm talking about when I say, "˜Who are we?' It goes again to why do we do what we do? Why do we run for office? Why do we set up these enterprises? Why do we have all these employees? Why did we get into gaming? Why am I here today? Why, why, why? Unless we go back to who we are. A thing that I want to say, too, is not only who are we, but why do we further that, why do we want to keep being tribal people? Isn't it easier to just go out somewhere and maybe make a nice living and hang out in resorts like this and have all the things that America has to offer if you're successful economic-wise? Why do we want to even be tribal people? Why do we want to stay who we are? I will tell you that we can't do it unless we love who we are, we cannot do it unless we love the land that we live on, and we cannot continue to do this unless we truly love our people. And unless your tribal government comes from that angle, it's not going to be really helpful to you in the future, so we must demand that of leadership.

The quote that I wanted to leave you with here, and it goes to again economic development; it also goes to what I've been talking to you about today. And it's a quote we have...it's a hero, it's almost a mythological hero, but this was a man that lived who knows when. His name was [O'odham language], and he's part of what I'm wearing today. He's part of what Mary Thomas and Cecil know about, and it's this maze here that is our tribal seal. He was a magician so to speak. He did a lot of things for the people, he was a hero and saved the people at various times and a lot of times was himself criticized, people tried to kill him, very much like a human being, very much like the lives of some politicians. Anyway, he was going away and he was going away and the thing that he said -- it's a prophecy -- he said to the people was, and I'm going to quote from him, he says, "˜And they will kill the staying earth. You will see it but you must not do it and you will be feeling just fine.' Now what that says to me as a tribal leader and as somebody that's involved in economic development, it says that we should never do anything to harm the earth because it's our sustenance, it's our substance, it's where we came from. And we're going to see it, we're going to see it happening, we're seeing it happening with global warming, we're seeing it happening with all the pollution that's occurring in this world. But we're not supposed to participate in it if we're going to survive and he says that you will see it and you will be feeling just fine. In other words, this is coming and it's already here, but if we're going to continue to love ourselves and love each other as tribal people, we're going to survive it, but the thing we have to remember is not to kill the staying earth. So all of our economic development ventures that we go into we must keep that concept in mind. Thank you. That's all I have today."

Cecil F. Antone: Nation-Owned Businesses: Gila River Telecommunications, Inc.

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Former Gila River Indian Community Lieutenant Governor Cecil F. Antone provides an brief overview of the evolution and growth of Gila River Telecommunications, Inc. (GRTI), an enterprise of the Gila River Indian Community.

Resource Type
Citation

Antone, Cecil F. "Nation-Owned Businesses: Gila River Indian Community, Inc." Building and Sustaining Tribal Enterprises seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 29, 2007. Presentation.

"I'm going to try to give a little bit more perspective of what we've done at Gila River, and not so much on the technical stuff that's been provided to you with the slides and so forth, because I think that's what you really need to know is the relationship we have with our council and our administration.

As it was mentioned, GRTI (Gila River Telecommunications Inc.), we call it GRTI, it was established in 1988 as a tribally owned telephone company. And how we got into it is, simply the fact that at the time US West©, as some of you recall US West© was the big phone company in the west and still is today with Qwest©, their new title. But what happened, what was going on in our communities, even though we're located right next to Phoenix, which is probably the sixth- or fifth-largest city in the country now, we couldn't get adequate phone service simply because of the fact it was cost prohibitive. At that time, our Governor Tom White, he tried to ask for service to his residents and he only lived, the closest line was like maybe less than a quarter of a mile and they were going to charge him like $20,000 just to hook in. So as in any community or urban area, you know who gets the most attention is the cities. But in our case, since we're close to the City of Phoenix, it was just, and the other suburbs, it was a little bit difficult for us. So what we did was partner with a group out of Oklahoma, a company, and we initially set up as a 5149 corporation under the laws of the Gila River Indian Community.

I was on the first, I was chairman of the, as was mentioned, the chairman of the board for the first five years. And it was a very difficult time for us because at the time maybe, I can't remember exactly the percentage of members that had phones, but it was like in the very populated area like Sacaton and the west end of the community. What happened was that the membership or the people that had phones were kind of against us getting the phone business because we didn't know if we were going to succeed or fail. So we went through that process, got established by the council and it took a while. In fact, we had two recalls on some of our council members simply because they supported the effort of getting the telephone business. Of course they got back on again, but it was a struggle and there were times that I thought to myself or other board members, was it worth it? But we stuck together and today it's doing very well.

We've done quite a bit of improvements since... you've seen the overview of our company. The other thing that happened at the same time, which is quite interesting and it's really helping us out right now is that in 1988 and '89 if you recall, the FCC were issuing our licenses for cellular, when cellular was becoming a very important part of our life. I guess today even more than ever, everyone's got a cell phone. Anyway, at the time we only had two members. As I mentioned, when we were starting our phone company and two members that could always speak to each other, they were neighbors across. And part of the requirements in order to apply for the lottery, in this case, you had to at least have a phone company per se, but because of these two families that live across from each other we qualify as this phone company. And so we applied for the lottery. Of course the other, US West© and the other telephone companies in the areas, already had an agreement in place. So whoever won the lottery, they would all share the responsibility in developing the cellular area. Guess who won the lottery? We did. We tried to ask to be a part of that group and they said no, so we did it on our own and we won the lottery. And it was a long battle, but in the end we did own, we gave up a little bit of it. And today we own 25 percent of the ownership of that market between Tucson and Phoenix. And it's been very lucrative for us because at the time it was $100 investment to put in the paperwork. Every quarter we get a dividend from Verizon anywhere from $1.5 to $2 million every quarter and that's free money that we utilize to enhance our phone company. Fortunately, the time was right for us to do that. So it was an effort that the council supports us now.

Next year is going to be our 20th anniversary that we've been a phone company. And we provide a lot of opportunities for our membership; we do a lot of training for our members that want to go in the telephone business. We are expanding. We're going to different types of services. As you look in your little information that's been provided to you, we are going into other types of business. One of them is the Native Technology Solutions and there are brochures on the table, I brought some this morning. Basically we're expanding to provide other services throughout the community. Currently we are, our company is doing some work right now in Salt River for the schools -- the high school and day school, I can't remember which -- but we're planning to go out to the other areas from the local area to help other communities provide this service to them. One of the original things that, when we set the phone company up was to do video of our council meetings and because of circumstances that we couldn't control, the cost prohibitive at the time we were looking into it, that was the first thing we always heard when we'd go to council and give our report is, "˜When are you going to put us on TV, one of the members?' And about a year ago -- I wasn't on the board -- but at the time we were directed to and then within three days they had the first council meeting but that was just one council meeting that they had it videoed and it was seen by the membership. But we are in the process of finalizing hopefully in the next month or so or two months we'll have, that'll be offered at every council meeting from here on. But I guess the council wants to see themselves on TV I guess.

One of the things I guess to add on what was discussed earlier was I guess when Mary and I were in office, one of the things that we felt very strong [about] was communication with our council and our members, as was mentioned already about the money. Because at the time me and Mary were in the office when gaming came into being at least we stepped forward and got our casinos in place and it was very important that the membership know exactly where the money's going to. It was some exciting times but we had to establish different programs, departments. So it was very important at least for me to establish a real good relationship with our council, because a lot of the projects that we built or started when Mary and I were in office are in place now, but it was very important to have the council understand the direction we were going because they would wonder when we go to Washington D.C. what would we actually do with Congress. Of course we had to go talk to them and ask them about certain programs that we're involved in, but we also would take them along with us. And they finally realized that it's a lot of work going back in both sides of the House and trying to establish your program and priorities to Congress. I think that was probably the most gratifying event for me during my tenure as lieutenant governor is that communication I had with our council because it's very important to keep them abreast of what you're doing and what the company is all about.

What we do every quarter is give a report to the council, both financial, the activities we're involved in, the other things that we're doing within Congress. I was just telling Ken Robinson about the farm bill that's coming up this year and a lot of the cooperative telephone companies that we deal with, that's very important because that's where you get our U.S. funding and that's how you establish your phone companies. As they mentioned earlier about either you're going to fail or not, at the time we were seeking federal funds, it was REA funds at the time. And we, as far as the telephone side of REA at the time, you could have a power side and then a telephone side, you can get funds through the federal government. They had never had a telephone company ever fail and fortunately we never failed. In the first five years, I think we were in the black. We started there. We have about 3,000 customers that we have in place. It's just a big opportunity for us now simply because our location. I guess one of the things I look at economic development is location, location, location. If you've got location to the sixth-largest city, it's an added incentive to your community because it creates jobs and then you diversify yourself. It was mentioned in my little brochure about the Wildhorse Pass Development Resort & Spa. That was one of the projects I worked on when I was in office and now it's there and starting to expand our whole area along that area because the more industry you bring in the more services they need, in this case our telephone services. It's been an exciting time for us at least in this endeavor, but the technology has changed since I left the board. I left the board in 19--, when I went into politics, lieutenant governor in 1994. And since then I'm just overwhelmed. Both Mary and I just got on the board a year ago come June and it's just amazing what has happened within the last 15 years, 10 years.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to present to you today. If you have any questions, I'll try to answer them. I'll leave you with one note is that and I said it already about communication. I think it's very important that you talk to your council and your membership. What Steve mentioned about rumors about money here and there. We used to put it in our newspaper too is the budget for the fiscal year and then we'd leave financial reports to the council of course. That's all I can say, I can't say enough for communicating with your membership and your council. Thank you."

Robert McDonald: Engaging the Nation's Citizens and Effecting Change: The Salish and Kootenai Story

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) Communications Director Robert McDonald discusses the challenges his nation faces when it comes to effectively educating and engaging its citizens -- particularly in the age of social media -- and what the nation is starting to do about it. He also discusses the reasons why CSKT decided to produce The Rez We Live On, a ten-part series of public educational videos designed to eradicate misconceptions about his nation and Native nations in general.

Resource Type
Citation

McDonald, Robert. "Engaging the Nation's Citizens and Effecting Change: The Salish and Kootenai Story." Emerging Leaders seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. October 11, 2012. Presentation.

"[Salish language]. Thank you for having me here. My name's Rob McDonald. I'm with the Salish and Kootenai Tribes. I need to read my own presentation so throw stuff at me if I get in your way. My name's Rob McDonald and I need your vote. Sorry. Wrong speech, wrong speech. I am the tribe's communication director but I'll get to that. I want to talk a little bit about communication, how that ties to engagement and the people, talk about how it works in our community and then talk about outside of our community. Just to kind of set the right stage, I started this job...actually we go back 20 years. I'd bring up government around family gatherings or whatever and people say without a thought, ‘Council's corrupt, they're taking our money, there's so much corruption I just can't stand it. Somebody should do something.' I had the audacity as a journalist to go, ‘I'm really curious ‘cause I don't know, what have you seen that is so corrupt? Teach me.' And then, ‘Oh, well, there was that one time.' I go, ‘Just one example recently, anything.' ‘Well, so-and-so drinks.' I keep asking that question. I ask it today when people get very angry. But I do see...I look at the passion, I look at the anger -- anger is passion -- they care, our people really care and I think we're getting closer to harnessing this passion.

This is headquarters. This is Pablo, Montana. This is where we've got several buildings. Of course this is the council chambers. This was built...back in 2005 we moved in. It's a drum on top. Nice building. Mission Valley Power is our utility company. They let me borrow their truck and you can see a shadow. I'm in the top of the bucket getting a good view of the thing.

Who we are: we are 1,200 employees, largest employer in the county. We overlap with four counties. Nearly 8,000 tribal members, 5,000 on the rez. We're in a dozen departments, top three administrators overseeing department administrators, legal team, two culture committees, many people doing many things. This is how we do it, how it's broken down. I'm tucked...I'm not on council, I'm not an elected official, I'm a staffer. I am way in the right somewhere in communications. But council always makes a point to point this out. At the very top is the membership, they are the bosses and it is a popular election. Ten councilmen, four-year terms and usually the most popular people get in.

This is my messy office. Seven years ago they brought back this position. Someone did it one year before me, a non-tribal member of our tribe. Didn't do too well with the politics. This is what I do. Each of the 10 council [members] I learned very quickly are already experts in talking to the membership and I learned very quickly the last thing they want is me between them and the public. It even feels weird for me to talk to a group. I look around and make sure no one...no one here is Salish or Kootenai ‘cause no one corrected me and laughed and said, ‘You just said good morning in Salish and Kootenai, ha ha.' ‘Cause I can't pronounce the good afternoon in Salish and Kootenai very well. That's my test I throw out.

Council meets twice a week. They commence with a walk-in session, which means between 9:00 and 10:00 anybody could come in the door, they can check in with the gatekeeper, Sharon Silverman, and say, ‘I want to talk to the council about this.' ‘How much time do you need?' '10 minutes, 5 minutes, half an hour,' and they engage and they...I swear I have seen someone come in and say, ‘They promised to fix my gate, they did not. It's been two years.' ‘We'll fix it.' Followed by the person that said, ‘My neighbor's dogs are harassing my cattle, I want you to do something about it.' ‘Okay, we will.' To someone who says, ‘My son just got a scholarship and I want to introduce him to you all.' To someone saying, ‘You're all on the wrong path and this is why,' and criticizing the government. Never know what's coming through the door. Council likes to point to that and say, ‘We're highly participatory, wide open to our membership, anybody can come in.'

It's hard to stay in touch though. We are larger than Rhode Island. That's the reservation, exterior boundaries. Now homesteading and allotment policies broke us up. The tribe owns about 62 percent, got a checkerboard situation. I'll get to that. It's hard. Actually there are...there's an IT network that keeps all the computer networks together that goes through six different companies going from the lake area toward Missoula trying to keep us all connected. Email does a good job with that. How did we ever try to stay connected? Well, in 1956, Walter McDonald, my great uncle, was on council and he said, ‘We need to tell the people information, crucial information. They keep asking me questions in the grocery store. Let's make this formal.' 1956 they start the Char-Koosta [newspaper]. It's a nod to our last two hereditary chiefs. We adopted a constitution in 1934 or the Indian Reorganization Act and the last two chiefs that we had were Chief Charlo and Chief Koostahtah, put the names together. It went away and came back in '71 and still exists today, the tribal paper. It's still mailed to all tribal members. Includes the [council meeting] minutes. Non-members do subscribe at times without the minutes.

It is not what I would call a true newspaper. It is not free and unfettered. It is not independent. It does have the 'oop-tion,' the ten on council who could take great exception for the content and made it pretty clear no personal grievances, court conflicts and excessive negative attacks on individuals, especially people working for the government. When that decision was made, before I ever came around, it came about partly because previous leadership at the paper thought it should be unfettered and free and they put in many challenges and attacks to the current administration. And that was deemed as feeding into the surrounding anti-Indian groups who are using this dirt to hurt us and destroy our credibility. And the belief was, ‘Let's keep our fights in-house, let's not air them out so the public can see them.' That is what was handed to me as I showed up. Like I said, it's not perfect but I do say it's kind of like the Stars and Stripes, what that is to the U.S. Army. It's informative, but it will not have attacks and I do point to people when they complain about their letter not running that they're protected by that same thing, nobody will be attacking them in a letter as well that is unfair.

However, our world has changed. Anybody seen this movie? It played enough on HBO, whatever, "The Social Network." I love that movie, nerds, rebels and I'm CEO... partner. It's a nice movie but this is real life and it has had a great impact on communications. The community around us has discovered a very quick and efficient way to share ideas although not always accurate. This is the start of a discussion on why council is refusing to put part of the settlement money for minors into IIM accounts. ‘What, are they going to spend it themselves?' He says, ‘Yeah, I know they're going to do that.' The third one down here, ‘I can't believe they're doing that. I know they're doing that, they've done this before, they're stealing from us. I know they do that. I cannot...' It's amaz...when I've got a thick elephant skin I love to read it ‘cause I'm like, ‘How did they get from here to here?' All you've got to do is introduce so-and-so did something and then 20 people jump on it, true or not. Usually when people say...when I say to people, ‘Where's this corruption?' usually it's, ‘Well, I saw it on Facebook.' Okay, well, is that a good source...I don't get into that discussion.

So I call it gossip on steroids. Now, our council does look at it from a very negative light, but I think there's a bigger picture that we can miss. This is membership engaged and even organizing at times on some of their views. There's a petition out there trying to get us to give out more of our settlement money from the Salazar settlement. It's called the Hundred Percenters and about half was given out. They're trying to give out more and they're trying to get petitions and have their way. They're engaged, they're organizing. There are more voices; more voices than there were before, young people engaging. Is it official? No, but the conversations are not unknown to our leadership. They do get elevated. Someone tells someone who tells someone who tells their wife who says, ‘Hey, look on Facebook, you should see what they're saying about your husband or your wife.' And council is aware of this, kind of a back informal channel. Unfortunately the debates, like I said, are often negative, caustic, attacking, based in fear, rumor, imagined corruption. I'm not going to say there never was corruption. We have the same challenges throughout history. I think decades ago probably but they're attacking the wrong corruption in my opinion. It's a turn-off. Some people refuse to get involved or they get involved and they just say, ‘I don't want any part of this.' But my experience in my little education tells me this will eventually evolve, be more sophisticated. Into what, I'm not sure. But it is power and our department heads wanted to hold some of that power. They saw networks that would really help them. These are people, a thousand people actively engaged. How do I get my information into this group? I've asked council directly, ‘Do you want me to jump into this Facebook site, interject some facts?' I'm kind of like jumping into the mob, gladiators in the arena. Are you not entertained? But they said, ‘No, no. Let's not...let them talk of course, free country, but don't...don't jump in.' So I watch once in awhile.

There's been some push-back. When department heads said, ‘We'd like to get into this Facebook thing somehow,' they said, ‘You've got a tribal website. This is front page. There's all kinds of info up there. You've each got a site for your department. You can post things. What's the problem? Why do you need this other toy? Do you just want to surf and have the instant chat feature or what?' So in the end they said, ‘Rob, can you try to come up with a social media policy?' And so I looked at it and I said, ‘Well, let's create a mechanism for departments to create an official tribal government Facebook presence.' They had to explain why it was needed, how they'd moderate it and keep the stuff off it, the name calling and the attacks and how the department has exhausted all other tools. That right there kind of stopped some of departments, ‘cause they're like, ‘Oh, well, we don't really use the website.' ‘Why don't you?' ‘Well, it's too hard.' ‘All you have to do is send text to the IT person and say, ‘Put this up'.' ‘Oh, well, we haven't written that yet.' Well, this is no different. You're still writing, so, ‘okay.' It kind of...it took the glisten off the new toy a little bit. But three departments did.

This is the actual policy; so usually three pages on Microsoft Word, pretty straightforward. I have copies I could email or share. It's not exactly brilliant policy. It just says, ‘Here's what's expected of you and council will ultimately decide the guidelines that guide the paper, guide your content and how is this going to help you, check in with us in six months.' Council has said 'yes' three times, although it's been a split vote, 5-4, 6-3. So far, so good. The People Center, which is kind of like a tribal embassy. They work with the culture committees and present history, stories, museum pieces, classes plus a gift shop. Education Department has found it a great tool to get information on scholarships, success stories, resources for homework. And the Victim's Advocate Program is struggling with it because this is a world where Facebook by inherent nature is wide open in a community, but sometimes you don't want to be wide open if you've got problems at home and you need some help. It's not a network some people are joining for that reason.

Department heads are still asking for some updates but they're still not accepting of it, they still kind of put up with it is probably the best way to put it. And there are some troubles. I'm sure all of you experienced a little bit of this but disgruntled employees have discovered, ‘Hey, this is a great place to talk bad about my boss.' And someone else will go, ‘Yeah, he is a jerk.' And then come back to work and kind of give you the... ‘What? It's a free country.' And our personnel department is kind of like, ‘Well, there's a policy against disrupting the government but they're not protesting, they're not burning down buildings.' I understand this is a big issue in the workforce off the reservation as well. But for the most part it's not used...it's blocked at work, you can't use it at work. You can get special permission to use it for research or department. Our lands department has been very successful in using and tracking down owners of different tracts of land with the newspaper, etc., I think. Four or five different individuals had permission from council to use it. However, it doesn't mean you can't use a smartphone and get out the information that you want to get out ‘cause you can still post on a smartphone and...'Well, I was on break and it's my phone, what's your problem?' It's a challenge.

So engaged versus 'gotcha.' It was a series of bitter communications over months that led to the tribal paper having kind of a restriction of their content. And these bitter communications on Facebook are outside the governmental control for the most part but they are leading to hard feelings. Tribal community does have an independent public forum to hash out these ideas. Sometimes they use facts, which is nice. I hope that'll mature but we're still just dabbling in this social media world and it is starting to have an impact on our official commentary. There's been some happy successes. The tribal paper does have a website, charkoosta.com and I found that I can put a link on Facebook to a story or an announcement and it gets out there circulated very quickly. This is a dinosaur. It is paper delivered into the home once a week and everybody gets it, yes, but that's...in the current era of communications that's pretty slow. But on Facebook, everybody knows pretty quickly. Those who don't know get on Facebook.

We're still looking for the sweet spot. We have trouble communicating to all our membership. There was an incident where we had a bunch of turkeys for the holidays. Somebody in the giant freezer turned the dial...this is how I imagine it. He walked away and he thought, ‘Should I check that dial to see if I do it right? Nah, I'm sure it's fine.' So we have 400 turkeys that spoiled and we're in the process...some got delivered and so how do we get word out, ‘Don't eat the turkey!' That's a critical communication. Luckily it was a department that is actively engaged with...a department that's actively engaged with that population and could reach out very quickly and tell them. And that was...but it was kind of a wake-up call to me, ‘How do we reach these people?' We do a thing called 'everyone email' that goes out to all the employees and if it's really interesting it's forwarded to all their family very easily. That helps but that's not everyone. Tribal paper and the website like I said, kind of. There is no silver bullet. We're looking at a cell phone alert system. Kind of a solution but again doesn't hit everybody. We're looking at 'Indian CNN,' it's what I call it anyway. In our lobby we've got a pilot, this is a screen and I control it from my computer or any computer. I can log in, I can post updates, news and it flashes around. If you go to Char-Koosta, you can see an html version of that and I think this is going to be in all of our buildings here pretty soon.

Room to improve? Definitely. People are involved. I think that's a good thing. There is access to council that we already have; access socially in our community. I think we do a lot of work in the grocery stores. Should people want to get involved? We have all kinds of pathways and invitations to speak up and they do. Whenever someone comes in to complain, which we all know does happen, council is in a position to say, ‘Have you put in for this board? Do you want to say on this? Do you want to affect tribal credit? Do you want to be a say over this corporation? You can apply to be on this board.' It's been very effective to say...in fact, some of these boards don't have enough people apply sometimes. ‘We need your...you care that much, please help us.' It's been very effective to engage them. And it's kind of a grooming for them in their future political leadership. Facebook offers unofficial forums, but again with the freedoms I hear them say, ‘We're saying all this great stuff but can't we make council do anything?' I see that they're almost there. They're realizing we're having great talks, but we need to connect it to the government and I think that might be the next step that we're going to see. I could just tell them that but they're not going to listen to me I don't think. They have to find their path.

Okay, quickly. Looking outside. We live on a reservation where we are a minority in our homeland. It's been that way since 1934. We were homesteaded in 1910, allotments and whatnot. So we have our lands, then we've got theirs and theirs and theirs and theirs. As our D.C. lobbyist says, ‘They stole the land fair and square.' Obviously being a minority in our homeland, allotment, some say it's the worst thing ever done to us, but it's perceptions that come from not knowing us. Those perceptions led to federal policies that thought we needed to be assimilated for our own good. There's a lot more other impacts of this ignorance that I'm seeing. Ignorance does hurt us. I see so commonly lawmakers, educators, leaders, business entities, make decisions that impact us based on bad information and it became clear that our tribal story needed to be better established. We've been telling it, but it's not sticking and for some reason I think we were shooting too high. We had our best, our smartest, our most passionate giving presentations on sovereignty, self-governance and history and afterward I learned something. I think we kind of duped ourselves. We see Michelangelo, ‘The greatest danger for most of us is that we don't aim high enough.' I think that is important, but I think in our situation we were aiming too high. We were missing the ground floor. We did not realize how unschooled our neighbors were.

Actual questions I've gotten recently. ‘Can non-Indians buy land on your reservation?' Not that dumb of a question I suppose, but without fail someone's going to come up, ‘That's a great talk on sovereignty and the socio-economic impacts of this and that and historic trauma, however, do you want to be called Indian or Native American?' I'm like, ‘Really? That's what you got out of that brilliant talk of our Ph.D. and social scientist?' ‘Where's your Indian village?' Wow! Max Rehberg has a staffer who has a daughter-in-law who came to the rez with a camera and asked me to take her to the Indian village, people in loin cloths, fires, teepees. I said, ‘Well, we've got tulle mats too.' ‘Where's the real Indians?' Ya'll hear that. But a light goes on. We're talking way over the head. People lack essential understandings to understand the more complex ideas. How do we do that? I got right to the heart of it. What are 10 things I never want to hear said again about my people? And I did an informal poll in the building, I did emails to our administrators, I did emails to the community and staff and I gathered this information and it was pretty amazing how the list was pretty consistent. I brought in some talent ‘cause I can't really do a great website and I found some people that said, ‘You know, we can do animation.' ‘How much is that going to cost?' ‘Not that much.' ‘Wow! Okay, let's keep talking, let's keep talking.' And council always said, ‘People must know they live on our reservation.' They just don't get that in our community. The county seat in Polson, I had a high school kid call me up and wanted to do a story on border towns because Polson has high racism and border towns have high racism, ‘I want to do a story on Polson.' I said, ‘Well, you do realize Polson is on the reservation, it's not a border town?' The kid was like, ‘Oh, okay.' Excused himself and never called me again. It's just they don't know where they are.

Therezweliveon.com. I guess you got played a video yesterday so we can spare that. Ten videos addressing 10 things I never want to hear again and it does it in about a 45-second clip, much faster than I can. That's taken on a life of its own far beyond anything I expected. Ya'll play it to people. I'm so flattered. I did not know that until recently. I know people have asked for it. It still gets hits. It's going through an upgrade. UC San Diego law school professor wrote me and said he assigns it to his Intro to Indian Law students. Vine Deloria, Jr. wrote me, not Vine Deloria, Jr., Philip Deloria, Vine Deloria's son, Ph.D., social scientist wrote me and said, ‘Great site.' It's on to something. It's information that I heard the state is using to train the tribal police. It's still hitting in 50 states. Well, it started out hitting in 50 states. It's kind of tampered back to just Indian Country. I did learn a happy accident, so I'll share that with you, is that educators in the classroom in our community, they have a mixed population and the kids start fighting when they talk about history, Indian, non-Indian, ‘Your parents get tax dollars that my dad pays for,' that kind of B.S. Well, the teacher wants to stop the conflict and the teacher may or may not know that one of these two kids is repeating myths, incorrect information and if not outright racial fueled ignorance. Well, the teacher is not allowed to say to the ignorant one, ‘You're wrong. You're just out wrong,' ‘cause that kid will go home, tell his parents, the parents will come to the school, go to the school board, teacher...so they're paralyzed. I did not know that. Now they can go, ‘I understand you think this and you think that. Let's see what the tribes have to say. Here's their story.' So the ignorance is so deep a teacher can't hit it. I ended up giving them a tool and didn't realize it. Like I said, the upgrade's coming and I think it's important.

My message is: as tribal nations, embrace getting your story out. Don't underestimate the impact of the ignorance to the systems around us. And realize that sometimes the gatekeepers that talk about issues that we're doing like in education...I just saw this picture online and I can be a shallow person. This might be an Indian man for all I know. He might be married to an Indian woman. He might be very schooled on the intricacies of Indian history and policy and he may not be smirking talking about Indian education or casting it in light that somehow we're getting another handout from the government. He may be our best ally but my instinct at looking at this picture was, ‘Do I want this guy telling thousands of viewers, ‘This is what's going on with Indian education...' It wouldn't be my first choice but maybe that's me being shallow. I don't know.

My hope ultimately is that other tribes follow through with their own public education campaign and other tribes have contacted me, thought about doing something similar. I heard there's a national effort that's been trying to get off the ground from a company out of Seattle called Pyramid Communications. I kind of view that like a bumblebee. Maybe it'll fly but its wings are a little small. I hope it flies. I hope it doesn't care it's too big to fly. But from my point of view, this formula has worked to some degree and maybe it offers something to you all. [Salish language]."

 

Richard Jack: Engaging the Nation's Citizens and Effecting Change: The Lac du Flambeau Story

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Richard Jack, Chairman of the Constitution Committee of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, discusses some of the struggles that he and his fellow committee members have encountered as they engage the Lac du Flambeau people on the topic of constitutional reform and the need to regain true ownership of the nation's governance.

People
Resource Type
Topics
Citation

Jack, Richard. "Engaging the Nation's Citizens and Effecting Change: The Lac du Flambeau Story." Emerging Leaders seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. October 11, 2012. Presentation.

Richard Jack:

"It's been really engaging for me to be part of a process that's so dynamic and so exciting. We did a lot of research on where we needed to go as a nation. We did a lot of research on the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Ho-Chunk Inc., a whole slug of models that were actually introduced by the Native Nations people and so we began this whole process of adopting and adapting. When we first started engaging, we got into a whole series of bad investments that pretty much bankrupted our tribe and there were some...people wanted accountability, they wanted retribution is what they wanted because things got bad. But we're here now and so we had to take a real hard look at what got us there and start exploring some ideas on where we were going to head as a nation. Well, we needed constitutional reform in the worst way because there was a lot of gray areas and things that weren't addressed. Our tribal council still today has not adopted any formal rules of procedure but we have a stable government. That is critical to moving the conversation forward and that was a process. It was a very challenging process and it took a lot of community activism to get it rolling. People were very concerned about our children, our future and 'How are we going to pay for it all? All our money's gone.'

Some of our tribal leaders wanted to hire out the process of reform to some lawyers and we as the constitution committee took offense to that. We needed to be the owners of our future. We needed to be the owners of our destiny. So when we took a hard look at sovereignty and...these guys were pricey, too. They don't come cheap. And they told us straight up to our face, with the council in attendance, that, 'We'll write the document for you and if you want to do community education that's fine, but essentially we'll just do it for you and we'll go on and we'll figure out some other ways that you can pay us to develop your judicial system and your legislative system.' And so they were kind of happy with kind of the way things were moving. And then some other things had hit the scene and we stepped back and we started engaging our council in some real engaging conversations about just taking that ownership. So we were granted leave to conduct a series of educational forums at our convention center twice a month, three to four hours long. And like many processes, how do you encourage that? So we got kind of a little creative and so we said, 'Well, we're going to do a little free play along with the whole scenario but you won't be able to utilize that until after a three- or four-hour session.' So that was real successful. So we began.

And one of the things that had happened, over time when we actually got through actually the fourth article of our constitution, and some other things that occurred in between, some more crises were developing within the tribe. So we had to spend a couple sessions educating the community. By our own law we had...our kids were being shipped all over the country, dysfunctional family systems, a whole series of things that we're all aware of as Native people -- drugs, alcohol. They have an impact on our community. So we had this educational process and by our own law we had to adjust our ordinances so that ICW [Act, Indian Child Welfare Act] could...but we had to educate a whole lot of people. We had to educate our council on all the processes that were involved and it was pretty successful. So we developed an ordinance that now ensures that our descendents will be taken care of. We will assume jurisdiction over them as a nation, as a people.

So that started a whole new discussion when we got back to the work of constitutional reform. We were about five months into the process and my uncle, he passed on, and he was...he just kind of absent-mindedly wanted to question -- because we have all these strategy sessions and we have all these think-tank sessions discussing this, that and the other thing on how best to proceed. And he asked the question of the audience and there were three council members in attendance at the time. And the question was, 'How many of you believe you are wards of the government?' And we had a couple hundred people in attendance at that particular session. And over 300...over three-quarters of the audience raised their hand, all three council members also. So we just kind of looked at each other and, 'Where do we go from here?' So we kind of continued on with our discussion about one function of the government or another and continued that process. But we had to go back to the drawing board. We had to start with the fundamentals all over again and how do we do that. So those are some of the things that I kind of mentioned yesterday about the paradigms that we have to challenge, entitlement, the victim, the ward and what are the good ways to do that.

At the same time that we were going through this economic turmoil, we also had a rise in gang issues in the community and so the discussion now moved to, 'What are we going to do about the youth?' I see one of our young people here from Red Cliff who's deeply engaged. This is kind of what we did. We combined it with that purpose for 'why do we have government?' and we encouraged that discussion of a thought process that extends far beyond our lifetime and the foundations that we need to ensure them a future. So aside from the economic discussion, now we were entering into coalitions that were so meaningful. I didn't realize it. A gentleman had approached me a year ago to be part of our Tribal AmeriCorp program and I got interviewed for like two days. And I was saying, 'I'm up to my ears in what I'm doing right now. How am I going to do what you want me to do?' He said, 'You're pretty much doing whatever this job requires and our focus is prevention.' And I have a document back here, been worked on for about a year now through the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council and it's about prevention. And one of the things that's encouraged in this book is culture. It's essential to what nation rebuilding is all about. And that whole document, it centers on culture. Culture is prevention. That's where that's at and the tribe, we got the tribe to buy a facility, an eight-bedroom facility and also another facility to start an elder-guided youth camp all summer long. We're just on the threshold of this. But it took a long time to convince it because we were losing a lot of kids. There were emergency meetings in our communities, death, a lot of deaths, wrongful deaths. So it kind of moved things along and in terms of reform. A lot of community involvement. We had to outsource to a specialist to help come and guide us.

So it began a whole new look at how we approach community development. And one of the things that really came to light was the two approaches that one's working and one doesn't, kind of like the format Stephen uses. And one was called the needs-based approach and one was called the asset-based approach. And when we took a look at it, a hard look and looked at the economics of our local community we found that we had at that time about $20 million that were flowing through our community dealing with people's deficiencies. Now some of our analysis of our community, we had a community that already has about $300 million that flows through it and I mean flows through it -- it doesn't stay. So when we were taking a look at that whole picture, I said, 'What's wrong with this? We've almost got 50 percent people that still are living under endemic poverty. This is a seriously bad-looking picture.' So we had to start taking that picture apart. We have a school budget that's about $120 million. Our planning department that works for three tribes pulls in another $120 million. Our tribal casino and tribal operations and the grant sources about another $80 million. But none of our people were qualified. We have an unskilled job force. We have to outsource all our upper management people. It was pretty discouraging when we started to take a hard look at the picture.

So we had a referendum vote, we had a new council come into office, every two years we have a turnover in our council. So they forced a referendum on us to see whether or not we want to go ahead and go forth with the constitutional restructuring. They had it on a Sunday. There were no public hearings, there were no mailings like we were promised to get all this good stuff out, so it took us...and it made us think, 'What are some of the things that we could do immediately to help our government meet the needs of its people.' So where we encouraged take a hard look at policy and procedure and possibly looking at enacting it into some kind of legislative process. We don't have yet an independent judiciary so we're looking at that whole process on how that could be set up. Our current thing is we got in touch with the Bureau [of Indian Affairs], they have to operate under a whole new set of [regulations] now and they have to render technical assistance to you. So we found a one-time funding opportunity through [Public Law 93-] 638 dollars that allows us to have a constitutional analysis done and I really like the use of lawyers. They seem to have a profound effect on councils and just...it's like their word is 'God's law' and it just...so we educate the lawyers and they come...they go in there and tell them exactly what they hear from us. But it's magic, it works. So we use them to the best of our ability.

There was one other anomaly that we kind of looked at and I know you all experienced this at some point in your career in Indian Country and this happened not too long ago, maybe eight, nine years ago. We had a young gentleman who worked for the tribe most of his life but he was running the roads department. He needed some vehicles so he got the three estimates that he needed, got himself on the agenda, went to the tribal council and was turned down flat. But he's been a longtime guy and he lived in the community a long time. He's a great observer. So he goes back to work, gets this white guy that works for him, dresses him in a suit and tie, gives him the very same three estimates, gets back on the agenda. Not only did he get the two vehicles, they wanted to know what more they could do for his program. We have a lot of discussions. I talk to a lot of educators, psychologists and anybody I can to help me with this whole process, to understand human behavior, to understand a lot of things and as a strategist I suppose I said, 'Well, how do we use this to our advantage? It's important that these things get accomplished and do the ends justify the means?' So I took it upon myself to encourage my committee to...'Well, let's get a white guy to be the head of our community economic development department and begin the discussion. We'll feed him all the information, he'll feed it to the council.' And by god, it happened. It happened exactly that way.

So these are some of the things that we need to challenge as Native people and it has to happen through an education process. We have to understand terms like "internalized superiority," "internalized oppression," those things we use on our own people that we've learned from a colonial presence here. These things impact us in ways we are beginning to understand. They impact our children. We were talking the other night about, 'We don't really have history in our public schools.' What we are engaged in as a community, and it takes a lot of people, is we now have maybe nine teaching lodges, seven sweat lodges; we have fasting camps. So the rebirth, it's not rebirth because people have been doing this all along and now we're trying to bring them together to have more of an impact on our youth. As Mr. [John] Barrett was sharing some of the ancient history of our people, we tried to bring those people here to share with our youth. Much of our culture came from, the dreams of what we practice in our culture, came from the dreams of children and that's interesting. So when we were looking at the neuroscience of human biology, we find that children have these extraordinary number of neurons in their brain and the more connections that you make with them at an early age, the more that sticks with them. This is an extraordinary thing.

We had a new person in our education director, our education over...since we began this whole reform thing has like expanded exponentially into a crazy, crazy, crazy thing. So we're...we've got a workforce development now. I think we have 120 students. It just...we have the first time in three years we passed a budget and this goes back to the accountability thing. After people started waking up to the fact that they really do have some power over their people that they put in there to represent the community's interest, a lot of accountability things. We've had record numbers of people that are running for council. We've had extraordinary participation in council meetings reminding our people why they were put there and why we need them to be stronger and more focused on what our Nation needs. So we're exploring.

Now the latest development and it's probably the most exciting thing is we separated business from politics. We copied the Citizen [Potawatomi] people. We adopted and we adapted a successful model and we're moving forward with that. We've got an all Indian board but now we're utilizing real world people like J.P. Morgan, like anybody else who can come in and educate our people on how to do these things with best practices. And the model is, once we're successful, all this money's going to go back to fund your 501(c) 3's, your community things, all these things that your community needs to move forward, the educational processes. It's just exciting.

I want to thank the Native Nations people because it gave for me a road map putting this together. It gave me a way to understand without all the emotion and without all the anger to look at a real solid way of proceeding. And it doesn't have to be all done that way. What I've learned is that education has to go in hand, tandem with whatever changes that you want to move forward on. These are the things that I encourage and it's not easy for me because I want things to happen quickly. It can't happen fast enough. But I'm more accepting of the process that education needs to have its flow, the way it needs to flow out and creating the environments for our youth to experience a meaningful dialogue, a meaningful experience in how we're going to look forward and make these things happen for our people. So I guess I got the sign. But I want to thank the Native Nations Institute for allowing me to be part of this and I...they do so much and we...Stephen [Cornell] invited us down to some of the constitutional things and it's had an extraordinary impact. People know now that these are some solid things that we can move on. Let's do it. [Anishinaabe language]. That's the word we use, let's do this. [Anishinaabe language]."

Robert McGhee: What I Wish I Knew Before I Took Office

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Treasurer of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians Robert McGhee shares some of the things that he wished he knew before he first took office. He also discusses how he and his elected leader colleagues have built a team approach to making informed decisions on behalf of their constituents.

People
Resource Type
Citation

McGhee, Robert. "What I Wish I Knew Before I Took Office." Emerging Leaders seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. October 10, 2012. Presentation.

Robert McGhee:

"Once again, thank you to the Native Nations Institute and to the tribe allowing us to be here this afternoon and to go through this, I think a very interesting subject. As she was speaking, I can hit on a lot of those and say, ‘Okay, I had that written down. I had that written down,' so at least to show we're somehow consistent from tribe to tribe. We are located in a small town. We're the only tribe in the state of...federally recognized tribe in the State of Alabama. We have several other state-recognized tribes in the state that we have a pretty good working relationship with. However, we are a council of nine. Just some background; we are [on] staggered terms. So the good thing and one of the best things I can say about our tribe is that we're staggered and we have the continuity instead of being all elected at once, ours is three people every year come up. So at least we're only, if we're replacing somebody, we're replacing one to three people. We have never once actually even replaced entirely three people during the time that I've been on. I'm on my second term...third term and will be up next June for my [fourth] term.

We're structured as we have a separate economic development authority who, we have Creek Indian Enterprises that takes care of all of our economic development authorities, all of our businesses. And then we have a PCI Gaming authority, which takes care of all of our gaming ventures, and we have them throughout the state and in Florida and working in California and some other places too. We do have one council member who serves on each of those, which it helps so we can know that...you were coming to that trust issue and just saying what is being done at those board levels. Each council member actually serves on one of those entities and we rotate every year. So what it is, is we want to learn about...we don't want to give somebody too much autonomous and too much power where I'm serving on PCI gaming for three years, I'm the only one that really knows what's going on. We ask that everybody rotate a year. So this year I get to be involved in those decisions. Next year it's going to be Catalina [Alvarez] that gets to be involved in those decisions. So it helps us to get a better understanding of what is out there because we did not have that.

So to get back to the things that...when I first got started on council, it was...I worked for the tribe a number of years ago as a social worker out of undergrad. My father served on council, my brother served on council, my great-grandfather was the chief and so I always had an identity that one day I would come back home and serve on the council. However, I went off to graduate school and went and worked in Washington, D.C. and worked for the United States Senate Committee [on Indian Affairs] and worked for the federal government. So I had an understanding of the way D.C. government impacted the tribal governments, but I really did not have an understanding of how local politics impacted our tribal government. And not even...when I say local politics, county commissions and cities, but also just the tribal members themselves. So the hardest part for me was coming back. And I got elected. I worked for a year and I got elected. And we have, we are part-time council members and full-time council members. What I mean is, you have the opportunity to choose if you will be a full-time council member or a part-time council member. There's two of us that are part-time council members. That's me along with actually our general manager of our casino is also a council member and then the other seven are full-time council members. I also handle the government relations part of the tribe.

But the hardest thing was when I came back home and you got elected was the fact that it's really difficult working for your family. You are working...we have 3,000 members and the amount of...you go into these meetings and you're sitting there and you're thinking you're making the best decisions for the tribe and then you have your own cousins and things like say, ‘Well, why did he make...Robbie just stood up and made that decision and he...' without them knowing the facts that were presented. As a social worker, and I got my degree as a master's in social worker, and it was like I always know to look at there's three sides to every story. And the sad part is the general council, and that's to our own fault, sometimes they're not aware of all the sides to the decision that's being made. They only see the one side that's being presented, they don't take the opportunity or we're not providing them the opportunity to learn all of the different discussions that took place.

When we first moved back, we were, I would say probably 10 years ago, 'Type A' development that was up there. We were, I wouldn't call us -- you may know some of our past tribal leaders so I'm not going to -- we were just in a different direction. We had strong leadership; the other council members at that time necessarily did not have a voice. What happened was, when I came back on after working in D.C. and then we encouraged a couple other younger individuals to run for council, that we started not necessarily challenging but we started just saying, ‘Why was that decision made or why are we going this route?' That's not necessarily the way I perceive the law. Because we had...our general council, we set up education funds and we educated our youth and we educate. So they went off and got the education, now they want to come back and serve and there was a gap there. It was a gap between the elders who served on the council and then you had these young bucks and the McGhee boys who were coming back and they were trying to run the tribe and that wasn't true. It was just one of those things of -- as I said before -- you do not know the history that has taken place under your tribal leadership for hundreds of years. You'll never know. The sad part is you will never know. You can sit there and study, you can sit there and look and you can sit there and research. I do not know why that decision was made 10 years ago or 15 years ago, but that was the hardest part. Why did you make that decision 15 years ago? Why did you make that decision 20 years ago? And to get them to answer those when you're coming into new directions. Sometimes those questions are hard to get answered because it's maybe it's one of those things that it was pride, it was we had...you had to get reelected, you had to...to get progress done you had to make certain sacrifices.

But I think as we've gotten, as we've moved forward, I would say that the hardest thing that, I would say a key attribute that I think every council member should have is just humility. I think they should have humility, I think they should have generosity and I think they should have authenticity. I think it's one of...because as you're moving forward to make a decision you have to be authentic, but I think if you can recognize...if you're authentic, then you can recognize someone else's generosity. You can sit around a table now of our nine, and we have leaders who have been on council now for 25 years, there's two of those. The rest of us have been on, I'm the next at nine years and then after that it's six and three. And I think it's taken...what we had to do was come together as a group. We weren't as a group when I first got elected. You still had this...our elders who are on the council who are very strong and very opinionated and they had the right to be. They have already lived this and we were coming in and challenging their decisions, which was not very respectful at that time when I look back. But we were coming in and challenging them and saying, ‘Well, that's not necessarily true,' or ‘I've worked here and I see a different approach,' and that really did separate us a lot when you had these newer people coming onboard against the elders.

But it was one of those things of, ‘Well, how can we work together?' So what we did, after the second year of my serving on council, I asked that, ‘How about we just take a retreat? How about all of us go somewhere? Not at the local, at the casino hotel because that's not getting away. Let's go somewhere else.' And so we went to...the good thing is where we live, we live on the coast so between two beaches an hour away. So we took the council away to the beach for the weekend and we asked...and I asked another thing. I said...because I'm a very, at that time, I was a very challenging individual; passionate is what my tribal leaders called me. So that was the term that was labeled actually at the retreat about Robbie, ‘He is passionate.' So I asked then, I said, ‘Well, for all of us to have a voice at this retreat, we need to bring in somebody from the outside who does not know anything about us. Can we bring in a moderator?' So it's not Robbie taking over a conversation, it's not our elder, the past chairman for 25 years taking over the conversation, who at this time is no longer the chairman but he still had a strong voice or others. And so that was where we started shifting in the right, not in the right direction, but in a new direction.

We sat there, we went through that weekend, we challenged each other, we were able to speak freely to each other about how I feel threatened by you or how you feel threatened by me and we also talked about the micromanaging and how things needed to change. Because at that time we were...the council not...in the past was going in and pretty much just telling directors what to do and that is not the way this government was set up. This government was set up of, ‘We have hired competent people in place as our program directors and we need them to do their jobs.' So we figured, ‘Well, how can we get the full-time council more, not work, but where they feel more involved in the process but yet not going in and micromanaging every department?' So we set up legislative committees. So every council member now, by law, had to, we passed an ordinance that you had, to be a full-time council member, we created several legislative committees and you had to serve on two or more. And then those legislative committees were the ones who actually would work with the administrator or if there were laws that had to be changed or any policies that had to be changed or resolutions that had to be amended, they would go and meet with the directors and of course not just directly to the director.

We made it...we had a plan that you had to go through the administrator or even the chairman's office out of respect to arrange these meetings and that actually was a great move for the tribal council because it...no longer did they feel the need to call up so-and-so in social services, ‘why didn't...why did you turn down the...application?' Because like I said before, there's always two to three sides to every story and when you have a general council member going to a council member, you're only getting one side. And that's the hardest thing for the council member themselves to realize. When a general council member comes to you, you are only hearing one side and the sad part is sometimes you're hearing a truth that may be sometimes flawed. And so what we had to encourage the tribal council members to do was we need to meet with every, get all the parties in a room or ‘Hey, call this...you got this side of the story, now call the director and get their side of the story and let's move forward from there.' I think that as we've done this it's been one of those growing challenges because you still will have individuals who talk in the community. I always think that's amazing but now we've empowered each of our council members through these leadership retreats and through events such as this to also challenge each other but also to challenge a general council member. Meaning if so-and-so is saying so-and-so about another council member, now we stand up for each other. Now we say, ‘Well, why do you think so-and-so made that decision? Well, I know why he's made that decision or why she's made that decision but you're more than welcome to call them to address it.'

We have a lot of open...in the past we didn't have transparency of government. What we did was we decided that from now on everything would be open. You can come in and you can look at financials, you can come in and you can look at every document that you need to look in. However, you can't leave with the documents but you can come in. That's still not perfect. They still want to take the documents but we say, ‘No, you can come in and look at everything.' We have community meetings. We don't have...in our community meetings, if there are any topics that are bothering the tribe, we open it up. We have to sit up there, all nine of us and we have to take hit after hit after hit. We only have one speaker. We don't ask everybody to speak, only if there's a question that's directed to them. I usually draw the short end of the stick because I'm the government relations person so I'm the one that takes a lot of the hits. But it's...you stand up there and you give every council member the voice because that's all they want. Our general council just wants a voice and they want to be heard and that's one of the hardest things was trying to get evolved to the rest of the council, is just taking the opportunity to listen to the general council and be honest with them.

I think the other key is just you tell them, ‘No, we cannot do that. I cannot do that for this family over here because...and this family actually does not represent the 3,000 other members that are here.' Even in a community meeting when I have 10 people speaking to an issue or the council has 10 people speaking to an issue, we let them know at that community meeting that, ‘Okay, there's only 300 people here. There's 3,000 members. So please know that we cannot leave this meeting making a change or an ordinance based upon the 100 that spoke out of the 300 that do not represent the 3,000.' But we will let them know in the newsletter that, ‘Hey, these 100 spoke to this and if you have a different agenda, then you need to contact us. You need to let...because if not, we will be going in this direction.' And that's when you get everybody then speaking. It's like, ‘Well, I wasn't at the meeting.' ‘Well, that's not our fault.' We make sure that we give a pretty amount...a lot of time and effort to go there.

Another thing that the...when you come into it with just the challenge of recognizing political agendas of each one. They have them. We did have several members that used to be employees who were upset. So they ran for council and they got elected. And they did make some changes, which was quite fun. But after you started working with each other and you understand just the political agendas of each one of them, you ask and it's like, ‘Well, that's actually not a bad political agenda. How can we do that together but I need you to support mine.' I didn't know the difficulty would be...it's like I was a politician per se, I was a lobbyist in D.C. also, too, and worked in government there but then moving back, that was a harder political game to play at the local level amongst tribal council members. But one of the things that we started to do was actually ask them at our meetings, private meetings, ‘What are your top 10? What are your top five?' or ‘What did you want to see done in your term?' And if they're not completely truthful, you can look at the newsletter when they wrote their platform for being elected, they're right there. So we can say, ‘Well, you said this, you're going to build an education institution and you do know an education institution costs $2 million. So how do we get that done?' I go, ‘I want to build a new health care facility, that's going to cost $10 million. So how do I get that done?' And it takes the time that we had to prioritize and to go through and say because...and we published these things and the good thing about it is it publishes all of the political agendas. But if they're little things, I encourage you to call. I encourage you to talk to your other council members prior to council meetings. Explain to them what's going on. We don't like anything presented without being discussed. We get very upset if you just throw something on the table. We will not support it. We've been very good about standing strong as a majority to say, ‘We can't support that. This is the first time you've ever talked to us about that and that's not necessarily something that's good for everybody.'

The last thing that we had done that I thought was...and it took...we went on a leadership retreat actually here in Tucson at Miraval. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. And we went away and we did all these team-building exercises. And we developed a goal and a purpose and we set a value statement. And we got to understand how each person on the council was. When we went to the core, we had emotional environments and we went to the core to each of us as individuals. And we realized that you make all the...so-and-so makes all his decisions based upon family, that was the core. So we knew if he made a decision, we're like, ‘Why did he make that decision?' and if we could relate it to his family, we knew why he related it. And he was honest about it and that was the best thing. At least I knew where you stood, you were always about, ‘I'm focused on my nuclear family, then my larger family,' which is the tribe. But at least we knew where so-and-so was coming from every time he made a decision and that's what helped us. And after that we developed a value statement for the council. And we actually wanted it to be a part of our constitution so we put it on the public. We put it on as a constitutional amendment; it was voted on. And we let the people know that every council member who runs in the future must support this purpose and this value statement for our tribe. And the people supported it; it passed overwhelmingly. And so now, over the last two years, when you have people running for council, we challenge them to say, ‘tell us how you support the purpose of this tribe and do you have the same value statements that we said we would all support?'

It's been an interesting road. I'm up next year. So far no one's come out against me. The sad...I would say one thing that I think every council member needs to be aware of is the role now that social media is though is playing in our lives and how it's becoming very difficult to get a message across that is accurate when you have social media taking over. If you can have one tribal council member who's not happy, you've provided now that individual a voice and you will spend a lot of your time engaging. And it's been a difficult thing to figure out how we can go around this with social media and the Facebook. That's been the difficult task because they're not...they're not getting the whole story. They're airing business that should not be aired and we try to...this is not...the nation sees that now. Not the tribal nation, the nation. And you can never take it back. So now we're trying to have community meetings on explaining the impact of social media. So if you're just now getting elected or anything like that, I would try to start addressing that very quickly because it can be a dangerous avenue. We're in a fight with the county and the county knows more stuff about us because they can...friends of friends and friends of friends and they see the arguments that are taking place and it's very difficult. So I would encourage all of you, if you can figure the best way, if anybody can come up with a model on how to put that genie back in the bottle or to at least use it as a more social activism for the tribe and not against the tribe. Thank you."