policies and procedures

LeRoy Staples Fairbanks III: What I Wish I Knew Before I Took Office

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Leroy Staples Fairbanks III, who serves on the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Council, discusses some of the hard stances he had to take in order to do his job well and also shares an overview of some of the major steps thatthe leech Lake Band has taken in order to govern more effectively and use its resources more wisely and efficiently.  

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Fairbanks III, LeRoy Staples. "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. November 6, 2013. Presentation.

"Good morning. I introduced myself this morning. Like I said, I'm Leroy Staples Fairbanks III and I'm the District 3 Representative from Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, which is in north central Minnesota. Normally how...I've seen others introduce themselves in their language and so kind of how we would say it is I would say Boozhoo, which means hello, [Ojibwe language] is I'm Fox and I'm from the Bear Clan. Our tribe is located in like I said north central Minnesota. We have roughly 9,200 band members or band citizens. This is my first term and I was elected last year in July of 2012 and I wasn't going to say my age, but I'm actually older than this young fellow here. I was elected before I was 30 so I'll just say that, I won't say my age. We have a five-person council with four-year staggered terms. I would just like to say, I would like to thank the NNI staff for inviting me to be here today to share my experiences. I don't consider this much of teaching you guys but just sharing my experiences here with you and I would also like to say Miigwetch to the tribal leaders from this reservation here for welcoming us here to this reservation, this beautiful casino and hotel.

What I'm going to start with is campaign promises. I'm going to take a little bit of a different approach to the previous presentation, which was...it was an awesome presentation, very informative, and something I wish I could have sat through before I was elected into office. But I'll start off with campaign promises. When I ran my campaign to getting into office, it was based on honesty, ethical decision making, transparency, and you have a lot of people that support that, they support you. They say, "˜Yeah, this is what we want you to do. This is who we want you to be in office.' And you get in office and things just kind of switch. Those same people are asking, "˜Well, I did help you. Can I get a job? Can I get a raise? Can I get a house? Can I get a transfer? Can you appoint me to a certain position?' And it's difficult that the people that did help you, but you just kind of return the message back to them and you ask them, "˜Why would you put me in a situation like that when all that we talked about was maintaining integrity in a position?' So during my time in office I've had to have that conversation many, many, many times of telling people, "˜You wanted us to change the way that we do the hiring and the firing and the personnel matters with the tribe. We have an HR department, we have policies and procedures that outline how all the decisions are being made and how the hiring is...how it happens and employees rights as far as being a part of the organization,' but yet they want to jump straight to the council. And so we started to change those methods on how we handled it, but still the employees will say, "˜Well...' They'll try to get you back in your office and say, "˜Well, I gave you this many votes or I helped you in this way and you're obligated to help me,' and the easy answer is, no, you're not. I won by 30 votes. I had 919 votes and the other guy had about 890 and so everybody wanted to be a part of that 29 or 30 votes that actually got me into office. The easy answer for me is that 920 people voted me into office, but I still represent the rest of the band membership and that's the decisions that I have to make. I have to make it for the band membership and I don't make it to who voted me into office. That's just a process on how you get to that position.

And I would say that I didn't dream of running for office or I didn't dream of being a council member growing up. I had a little bit of a different type of experiences growing up. And so I've had quite a few experiences, but in my experiences of understanding what tribal politics and tribal government was on Leech Lake, I kind of had a sour taste in my mouth about it. I didn't have a good outlook on it. So I didn't really envision myself as this prestigious position and, "˜That's what I want to do, I want to get into tribal office so I can help my people.' It was more or less you see some of the negative outlooks and the negative aspects of what the office was looked at as, and so that wasn't my dream. My background is in human service. I'm a drug and alcohol counselor, and so in that field you aren't really involved as much in governmental operations. A lot of the things that he was talking about, you're not privvy to that information. You focus on helping the people that you help, your client list and that's your focus and so you put so much energy towards that, but it kind of becomes burnt out. And so when you carry yourself in a certain way in the community, people say those individuals that do carry themselves in a respectful manner, they kind of gravitate and people see those traits, they see the character, they see the behaviors and they kind of look to those people. And so I would just say that I think I was blessed that people seen some traits in me that they wanted me to start moving into leadership positions.

And so I managed a halfway house for a while and the tribal council asked me to come be a part of the administrative team as a deputy director, chief administrator basically, and I did that for a few years and that was my eye opener to what was going on with our reservation. There was a lot of things that I wasn't aware of on so many different levels because tribal government encompasses everything from top to bottom, it really does. I'm not so much hands on with all the little things like this gentleman has because we have...we employ 2,500 people. We have three casinos and we have departments that kind of handle a lot of that stuff and so we aren't so hands on with everything, but there's a great understanding and a learning curve that happened as a part of that position. But it's about training and helping people job shadowing and trying to train future leaders to take over those positions. My understanding of getting in this position was I wasn't going to be here forever. It's a four-year term. I'm hoping that there's enough movement in four years that if I choose not to re-run in four years that I've done enough to try to mobilize and prepare future leaders to take over these positions, because there's some bold things happening at home and we want that to continue.

I'll say one thing though is that I went through the [Native Nation] Rebuilders program. NNI partners with Bush Foundation out of St. Paul, Minnesota and there's a Rebuilders program that focuses on tribes in a three-state area: Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. And I was a part of the first cohort and I would say that I would attribute me running for office as being a part of that program because if I didn't go through that program, it probably wouldn't have motivated me enough to see some of the success stories outside of Leech Lake that gave me a big enough push to tell me that things can work, this is how tribes are working, because when you're in the middle of the mess sometimes it's hard to see out, and so you have to kind of step back and you have to take a look at how are other tribes doing it, what are other tribes doing, can we apply that here, how can we apply it here? And that's the most of what I got out of that program is seeing...they talked about some of the reservations and economic development up here this morning and those are the things that inspired me to, 'Yeah, there is opportunity and I'm going to bring that to my reservation,' and so that's kind of what got me to wanting to run for office.

I don't have a four-year degree and a lot of elders in the community, they told me, "˜Maybe you should just wait to run for office until you have that degree on your wall because that's going to validate your work in office and people can't question that,' but there were too many signs that were coming before me. There were signs that things just were happening the way they were supposed to be happening and I even told myself when I was working for the council, "˜I don't want to be in one of those positions.' I seen the mentality and I seen the behavior and I was kind of taken aback. I was like, "˜Ah, I don't want to be in that position. I can't do some of the things that they're doing because it's not right.' And so I told myself I wasn't going to do it. I went through the program, frustrations were building because of how things were going, and I said, "˜You know what, if I'm not going to do it, I don't know who's going to.' So I decided to take that step and it was a very big step. Tribal politics on Leech Lake is...can grow...I don't know how to put it kindly, but it can get kind of messy. And so it has been kind of messy. And I would say in the last year and a half things have stabilized, things are...they're progressing. I'll touch on how important nation building is to me.

I used to fly quite a bit when I was a little bit younger in airplanes and it didn't really bother me and for some reason that flying in airplanes bothers me now. I don't know if it's because I have a Twitter account and every...twice a day you hear about plane crashes or terminals being attacked, but I have a fear of flying. The last time I flew, I flew with the Bush Foundation up to go visit Salish Kootenai last year -- it's the last time I've flown out of state, otherwise I try to drive and it's just something that I have to overcome. Bush offered me an opportunity to speak down here in March on...I don't remember exactly what the title was about...I was going to be speaking about, but I ended up skyping in the presentation and we had a little bit of connectivity issues and I felt kind of bad about that and so this is...nation building and nation rebuilding is...it's the basis of everything that I'm trying to do back home and it's that important to me that I wanted to get on a plane. And it wasn't just a direct flight, I had a layover in Phoenix, and so that's two takeoffs and two landings. I get nervous about speaking sometimes too, but my hands aren't nearly as clammy today as they were when I was on the plane. It was tough.

I had some conversations with people on the airplane about...they were asking about, "˜What is your take on the Redskins issue?' And I said, "˜I don't know. It's not something that I necessarily think about day to day.' And she's like, "˜Well, what do you think the inception of the name was? It wasn't intended to be disrespectful, do you think?' And I was like, "˜Well, I don't really know the history behind the name. I would say that it's not one of the biggest things that bothers me, but I can understand how it gets under people's skin. I understand why there's a movement to change the name because it's not necessarily the owner of the Redskins is out depicting Native Americans in a certain way, it's how the fans, how the people...you get the people doing the...with the headdress and the tomahawk chops in the arenas and that's not very respectful and there's a lot of things down that line that I don't agree with.' It's just...it's something I didn't...I was kind of taken aback by and she's like, "˜Well, I live in San Francisco and there's not a lot of Natives so I don't really get to talk to a lot of Natives and ask them this question so I just wanted to know.' That was on one flight.

On another flight, they're asking about how gaming came to be. "˜Did the Indians want it or did the federal government want to give it to the Indians? Who regulates it?' I said, "˜Well, there's a commission.' "˜Okay. Well, are you guys represented nationally?' I'm like, "˜Yeah, there's national organizations that represent gaming.' There was another lady who was kind of sitting by me and she was like, "˜I feel so bad about Indians and their addiction.' I'm like, "˜Well, what do you mean?' These are just some of those things and she asked me, "˜Well, how much money do you guys get in per capita payments at your tribe?' And I'm like, "˜We don't get anything in per capita payments because we have 9,200 band members, we live in a very remote area, and we don't generate enough to do per capita payments and I'm not even in favor really of per capita payments because it kind of promotes...it promotes dependency and there's a few tribes in Minnesota that have big per capita payments like Shakopee Mdewakanton [Sioux Community]. They have less...around 500 band members. They're located very closely to Minneapolis, the Twin Cities area and they have a lot of money and they do give money back out to other communities, which is...it's very good on their part.

I would say that in getting into office you're challenged. You're challenged by naysayers; you're challenged by people who don't agree with your viewpoints. I was challenged on my knowledge of history of Leech Lake and my knowledge of history of the Ojibwe people and Native history in general and I would say...I kind of revert that back to...because these are supposed to be the experts in the community and they say, "˜Well, what do you know about this, what do you know about this?' And I say, "˜Well, I'm still learning. I probably don't know as much as I should yet. I will though.' But I revert that back to those experts and I just wrote a column in our newspaper last month and that's basically kind of what I said to them. I said, "˜I challenge all of you history experts in the community to ask yourself what are you doing to ensure that the younger generation in our communities are learning this stuff instead of being hoarders of information.' And that's what we have. We have a lot of hoarders, because people are scared because information is power and so you have to kind of go and find all the cracks and crevices of information to empower yourself and that's basically what I've done. I'm a quarter way through the room, through the house. There's plenty and many more things that I have to learn, but I'm not going to stop. But that's what I challenged all the experts on. I challenged them to ask themselves what are they doing. And there was this one guy who one time told me, "˜Well, I went and spoke to this one class and they liked it.' I said, "˜One class, one time. We have many more band members in this area that need learning. There needs to be system changes, there needs to be systems set up so we are preparing our kids and our next generation to understand who we are, how we've become to where we're at today and how we're going to be moving forward.'

I'll talk a little bit about my first days in office. I worked with the council for two years and I thought I had an understanding of what it was going to be like on council and I guess I didn't know because my first days in office there was probably 45 people to see me...45 to 50 people to see me every single day the first couple of weeks in office and I was like, "˜Whoa!' And the basis of what they wanted to come and see me for was assistance and sometimes I feel...I'm not embarrassed to say it, but I feel bad that the state of my tribe was so dependent on...and basically it's kind of exploiting the band members about assistance, that it's their money, that I need to give you this money. That's not the case. It's not equitable distribution of resources if 10 percent of the membership are getting 90 percent of the resources. There's other percentage of band members who deserve equal access to those and so I was very taken aback. I thought it was going to be like, "˜Oh, okay, I'm going to get in there, we're going to start addressing some of the deficiencies programmatically,' that we were going to get into office, we were going to start tackling a lot of that stuff and it took time. It took a whole year to make some drastic changes as far as assistance methods go and I would tip my hat to the Salish Kootenai Tribe on their human [resource] development program, because when I flew up there last year I got to see a small snapshot of what that program is about and that is kind of something that I tried to apply back home is consolidation of assistance programs, that it's more easily accessed, for band members to be able to access services and it's not scattered all about and people are luckily enough if they catch a program who might be able to help them.

I guess...I wrote down in my notes that it might seem far-fetched to some tribes about the mentality of assistance, but we all know the power of the dollar and so it's, 'What can you do for me?' is very powerful sometimes and it's very powerful during those elections. And we have an election coming up next year and I keep talking to our council and talking to the membership that just because there's an election doesn't necessarily mean that there's an overhaul. We need to conduct business in a different way. The train doesn't necessarily need to stop and turn back and go the opposite direction because there's new council or new council members who are elected. Take what the successes are and how can you build upon those? But the communities are so split that sometimes it is drastic measures that they want to see done all the way from left to the right and right to the left and that's how progress fails. If you aren't able to capitalize on movement, you're not going to progress and that's why I would say that we are a little bit behind in development at Leech Lake. But like Ian [Record] talked about this morning, it's...you have four years and it might seem like a long time. It's not a long time. I've been in office a year and a half and it seems like a couple of months and so you want to make drastic change and people want to hit those home runs, but it's about institutions, it's about the system changes and starting with your foundation and that's a lot of what the first year, year and a half has been and I didn't think it would take that long. And so that's something that I came to terms with in being in office that government is slow; it's very, very slow. I guess in the size of government it makes the difference.

We had NNI and Bush facilitate a GANN process. They do a GANN, it's a Governance Analysis of Native Nations that we brought to Leech Lake and we focused on three things. We focused on changing our assistance methods and that's what it took -- a whole year. We changed those on July 1st so the tribal council doesn't have direct assistance. We had...prior to getting in office we had a budget, I won't necessarily say how much, but we had a budget. Each council member had their own line-item budget for assistance that was never adhered to. And so we have an emergency assistance program that basically was doing some of the same things that the council were doing, but it's very convenient if you have that money at your fingertips to try to help people. And you want to help people, but is it really helping people by giving direct assistance? Are we spending our time effectively by handing our assistance? Yeah, we're speaking with our band members, we're getting in touch with what the issues are, but we sure aren't putting enough energy towards a real solution and just providing assistance. And so that's something, that it took a little bit of change and it was very tough because there's a high percentage of band members in the communities who had that expectation of that's what tribal council does. And it's trying to change that mentality, it's been very difficult, but it's a work in progress and it's moving forward.

The second thing that we had was bylaw revision and I'm not sure of the political makeup of a lot of tribes, but in Minnesota there's seven Ojibwe tribes and one of them is Red Lake and they're kind of separate and they have their own constitution and whatnot, but the other six Ojibwe tribes in Minnesota are part of a Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. It's kind of an organization that has oversight of all the tribes constitutionally, and that's something that I would say I'm not in favor of because it's not self-determination if you have a tribal council member who is representing 1,000 people in one of the tribes and you have another tribal council member who is representing 20,000 members on the other end of the spectrum and they both have equal access and authority in the decision making of this tribal executive committee. And so it's not fair representation. And so that was the basis of what I was trying to do is revise and reform. And there is movement and through that GANN process that was one of the things that we identified is reform, but we can't reform what we can't change so there's systems that we have to make changes to first.

The other thing was you see economic development talked about this morning. And so my point on economic development in government is that they don't necessarily mix together -- he talked about it -- but there has to be a separation because at Leech Lake the tribal council is supposed, the government is supposed to be providing service and how are you supposed to be providing service or how are you supposed to be building a business and letting it invest in itself and grow the business and start more business development if your services are depleting your economic resources. And so there is a separation that needs to be made and I think you guys will talk a little bit about that here today and tomorrow, but that's another, that's the three steps that we moved on.

I will talk a little bit about accomplishments that have been there that necessarily might not have been there before getting in office: community center, a bike path. There's a bike path on a road where there's been about three deaths in the last couple of years and there's been other kids who are hit because it's kind of on a road by our casino and there's a lot of traffic that's on the road. And so we had a bike path that was put into place to try to alleviate the traffic actually being on the road and we partnered up with the county to get that going. We broke ground with an assisted living facility this fall for our elders, we secured funding for a treatment center on our reservation because a lot of the band members felt that a barrier to their success was going off the reservation for their treatment and they wanted to try to get their treatment or they wanted to heal at home. We broke ground with a $3 million library and archive center at our tribal college. We started an athletics program. This is the first year for our basketball teams at our tribal college. We broke ground with a government center last fall, a $4 million government center.

I'll say a little bit about transparency because that was basically what I was about in getting in office. With the assistance, the council had so many different ways of giving assistance, it's kind of crazy, but when I got into office I started to publish all expenses that I had authority to give, is I published those in our newspaper for them to see. It was how many...it was basically how much was being...how much was going out in resources, but it was also how many people were accessing those resources. So it could kind of give people a picture of who is really getting the assistance or who is this really benefiting and it's a small percentage of the actual membership that was accessing it though, so it kind of gives them a picture about that. I had open forums monthly. And the full council, they didn't want to do it monthly. We have quarterly meetings that we have to put on in the communities every quarter and there's a small open forum session for that and in those open forum sessions the band members kind of get riled up, they kind of...they like to build the fire prior to the open forum session so they can kind of vent and release during that time. And so I thought, "˜Well, if we do them every single month, maybe that'll kind of keep the fire from building so big and it'll allow people to say what they've got to say, it'll allow them to be heard, it'll allow them to ask the questions they really want to ask,' to alleviate from like rumors and whatnot that are building in the community that...they spread like wildfire too. So it gives them that opportunity to voice their concerns and then be heard. And so I did that as well.

The other thing that I'll say that I didn't know I was -- well, I didn't know the outcome of it -- but prior to getting into office I talked about giving back. And so that's kind of one of the things I was supposed to talk about in March when I was supposed to be down here is an endowment that I set up at our tribal college. People thought it was a political ploy and it necessarily wasn't because it came to fruition, but I basically said I was going to give 12-and-a-half percent of my gross salary to an endowment for scholarships and education at our tribal college. I got into office, I did the first installment in December, I got another installment going in December and I have people that ask me, "˜What was the intent?' I said, "˜Well, it was to challenge the other council members to see...to ask themselves what were they doing to give back in the communities.' They asked if I felt like...do I feel bad about doing it now because none of the other council members gave back. I'm like, "˜No, I don't feel bad at all.' When I first gave the first installment of the...for the endowment, there was...the act of giving I guess, it kind of...it'll multiply. And so after that, there was other community members in the community that donated either to my endowment or to other scholarship programs at our tribal college and so there was a lot that came out of it, but I think long term the success of what the act will do is...it's not necessarily to show our tribal council members to one-up them, but it's basically to show our kids and our younger generation in the community that in order to grow, everybody needs to be invested and everybody needs to give back and that was a good way of me showing that I wanted to give back because I believe education is empowering and it allows a person to not be so dependent on somebody else. Dependency doesn't breed productivity.

I got the stop sign. I could keep going, but I'll stop there because I think we're opening up for questions and answers. Thank you for allowing me to present to you guys. [Ojibwe language]."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.: Effective Bureaucracies and Independent Justice Systems: Key to Nation Building

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

In this informative interview with NNI's Ian Record, Leroy LaPlante, Jr., former chief administrative officer with the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and a former tribal judge, offers his thoughts on what Native nation bureaucracies and justice systems need to have and need to do in order to support the nation-building efforts of their nations. 

Resource Type
Citation

LaPlante, Jr., Leroy. "Effective Bureaucracies and Independent Justice Systems: Key to Nation Building." Leading Native Nations interview series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. August 12, 2010. Interview.

Ian Record:

"Welcome to Leading Native Nations. I'm your host Ian Record. On today's program, I'm honored to welcome Leroy LaPlante, Jr. Leroy, who goes by "JR" to many, is a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. He worked as chief administrative officer for his tribe for three years from 1998 to 2001. Around that time, he was named ambassador of the tribe by the then-chairman, a great honor. And he currently works as an attorney working with tribes on a number of different, in a number of different areas including economic development and housing. Welcome JR."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Thank you, Ian."

Ian Record:

"We're here today to talk about a couple of topic areas relevant to Native nation building and governance, those being tribal bureaucracies and then tribal justice systems. And I want to start off with tribal bureaucracies. And I'm curious to learn from you, what role do you feel bureaucracies play in advancing the nation building goals of their nations?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well I think it's really important for Native nations to have a strong infrastructure in order for them to really accomplish their goals. They've got to have, I think, one, they have to have a strong legal infrastructure, but I think they have to have a strong infrastructure where they can deliver services and their programs are functioning in an effective manner."

Ian Record:

"So what, in your experience, do Native nation bureaucracies need to be effective?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well I think, for one, there needs to be, I think, a good system in place: policies, procedures, ways to measure outcomes. There also needs to be a very good financial accounting so that performance on a lot of tribes function under grants, federal grants and so forth. And so there's a big need for tribes to have a way to make sure they're performing well on these grants and so forth. But you know, in my experience as the administrative officer for Cheyenne River for three years, we had the privilege of having a good tribal controller who kept us on track financially, and we had a good planning office and we had a good grant oversight. But for me, what I think was really important -- and we grew exponentially in those years that I was, that I had the privilege of working as the administrative officer -- but the key was we had a separation of roles. The administrative or the executive branch of our tribal government, we knew people respected what we did and they trusted us to do what we did. The tribal council, the legislative branch of the government, they had an understanding of their role. And I think that that's really, really key. If you can have that, I don't want to call it separation of powers necessarily, because it's more so, I really see it as the government having different roles. And I think that's what resonates with Indian people, more so than powers. So I think that was key, to have this sort of hands-off approach and letting us really manage the programs and let the programs do their work."

Ian Record:

"We've heard others who either serve or have served in positions like you did for your tribe, draw the distinction between those who make the decisions and then those who carry out the decisions. Is that essentially what you're talking about?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Absolutely, that's exactly what I'm talking about. And I think that if you have a tribal council that tries to micromanage a lot, I think they can get in the way of what we're trying to do. And because, you know, the daily decisions that we make in government, you know, especially when we get caught up in personnel issues and those sorts of things, it can really bog down government. And when government gets bogged down, government gets slowed down, we all know that the real losers, in that instant, are the people. And we're there to serve the people, we're there to provide services to the people, we're there to provide critical services to tribal members. So it's important to just let those programs function freely."

Ian Record:

"So what happens when -- and granted it sounds like during your tenure there wasn't a lot of this going on, but based on your experience perhaps working with other tribes -- what happens when that political interference in the carrying out of programs, in the delivery of services, and just the day-to-day bureaucracy of the tribe, what impact does it have within the bureaucracy itself?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, I think the immediate...I think there's immediate impacts and there's long-term impacts. The immediate impacts are, you get this...the services aren't provided in an equitable fashion, you have this favoritism towards certain, maybe employees where you have some...so nepotism can come into play in terms of hiring. They get...if there's this micromanaging, there's this...it can interfere with personnel decisions. And also, just decisions in terms of where these programs need to go in terms of their planning and so forth. The long-term effect that it has on it is it does affect long-term planning, and I think that if they would just let the programs function and plan out their work like they're supposed to, then things will work out accordingly."

Ian Record:

"We've seen instances among nations where formally, there was that situation where there were elected officials interfering in program delivery and administration, bureaucracy of government. They make the necessary changes and that micromanagement stops or at least is reduced to the degree where the elected leaders suddenly find that they have more time to focus on, ideally, what they should be doing."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well that's what I meant, Ian. I kind of misspoke on the last response to your question, but that's what I meant by the long-term effects. I think there's a short-term effect and that the interference, it prevents those programs from functioning the way they're supposed to, it prevents them from hiring the way they're supposed to, making personnel decisions the way they're supposed to, making fiscal decisions the way they're supposed to. But I think the long-term is it detracts from what their job really is, and that is to plan long-term for the tribe. To think where, you know, the bigger decisions. So you kind of have this hierarchy of needs in a tribal government; you have these everyday, daily operations. And, you know, who decides, you know, what to purchase with a particular program budget is a very small matter. But when you have legislators and tribal council members making those kinds of decisions, obviously, that's going take away from the bigger things they should be doing, which is planning for the tribe's future, creating laws that are going to be implemented for the improvement of the tribe. And so it does detract from those bigger things and those are the things that they're likely to do. And so that's what I meant by a short-term effect and a long-term effect."

Ian Record:

"And it also has a direct effect on the people who've been charge with administrating the decisions that the elected officials make, does it not? The program managers, the department heads, the administrators?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"I think it really does, because you're hired to do a job and you want to...in terms of developing that leadership, in terms of utilizing those people for what they're hired to do, it does stunt their growth, in a sense. So that's...it does have an effect in that regard. But here's one of the saddest things that I see happening when you have talented people, tribal members that are doing these program management jobs or whatever, filling these tribal positions. I think when you get this interference from tribal council, it can get really discouraging. We hire people who are capable, we put our, everybody that applies for a tribal position through an application process, and we feel like we hire the best person. What happens I think with people, people get frustrated, they feel like they're not, [don't] have the freedom to do their job and so they end up, we end up losing I think some very talented people. So I think one direct effect is that it does maybe impact and where we have somewhat of a brain drain on the tribe. I mean, if you get hired to do a job, you expect to be able to come in and freely do that job."

Ian Record:

"So then...what role then should elected leaders play in ensuring an effective bureaucracy to carry out the wishes and priorities of the nation?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, I've never been an elected official. And, you know, I think, I don't know if I'm qualified really to speak to that. I guess I could, I guess I'm qualified enough to say what they should be doing, or what we'd like to be doing. So in a perfect world -- and of course we all know it's not a perfect world -- but in a perfect world what you would like to see elected officials do is really put the people before themselves. And put the interest of the tribe as a whole, collectively, before themselves. I think, too many times, people that are elected to tribal council or to an elected position sometimes have their own agenda. And I think it's important that -- it may be a good agenda -- but I think that it's important that they try to serve the people first and carry out those duties. Now again, elected officials have different roles. And I think it's really important. A long time ago, Indian people had different roles in our society, and you even see that today. If there's somebody in our community that makes drums, for example, that's that person's role. People respect that. And anytime somebody needs a drum, they go to that person to make a drum. And I think that those roles in tribal government are very similar, and I think that that's where we can import some of our traditional ways of perceiving what we do is that you have a role.

The problem I think, Ian, is that sometimes when people take a position in the tribe, they don't what that role is to begin with and so when they come in, I think, there should be some sort of orientation process. There should be some sort of time where they're brought in a transition period and they're saying: this is what we understand to be your role as an elected official, as an elected councilperson, as a tribal secretary, as a tribal treasurer. And you know, it's really, you know sometimes we're a little too hard on elected people because I think that we assume that they know what their role is when they're hired or when they're elected and I don't think we should make that assumption. I think we should, if we assume anything I think we should assume that they could use some mentorship; they could use some instruction.

So that person comes in, they take that elected office, and then they don't perform or they start micromanaging or they start doing something other than what we think they should be doing. But it really should come as no surprise, "˜cause they're walking into a position that they have no formal training for. And so I think that we need to really be understanding of, you know, and if you look at a majority of elected people in tribal government, they are people that don't have a lot of formal training. They are people that are from the community, that people trust, that are respected. You know, the qualifications of an elected person in tribal government is different from an elected person in state or in federal government. There's an emphasis...or in the non-Indian world, in dominant society, there's a great emphasis placed on education, there's a great emphasis placed on experience, and so forth. Maybe they were a former businessperson, maybe they were law trained. But in Indian Country, the emphasis on qualifications for elected officials is how well do they understand their culture, how connected are they in the community, how strong are their kinship units and, you know, how committed are they to helping the people, did they, how long have they lived on the reservation? And those sorts of things.

And so, I think if we're going to assume anything about people that are elected, I think we should assume that they probably could use some training. But with that, if that training's provided up front, I think what I would expect of an elected person is that they, if you're elected to council, obviously, I believe that first and foremost you need to represent your people as a whole and what's in the interest of the tribe as a whole. Set your personal agenda aside and really try to fulfill your obligations to uphold, number one, the constitution of the tribe, the laws of the tribe, and that includes our policies and procedures, and to do what's in the best interest of the people. And not just for what's going get you elected for the next term, but what's best for the people five, ten, fifteen, twenty years from now.

The other thing I would expect from elected people, Ian, is that I think we have a commitment to...as Lakota, as Sioux people -- I speak specifically to our tribe -- we talk about our [Lakota language], our lifeways. We talk about our traditions. We talk about everything we do is for that seventh generation. We try to plan that far ahead. I think it's really incumbent upon officials that are in a position to make laws, that are in a position to make policy decisions, it's really incumbent upon those elected officials to plan ahead, and to really walk that talk. Not just talk a good talk to get you elected, but really live out those core values of who we are as Lakotas. And I think that in and of itself would drastically change the landscape of tribal politics."

Ian Record:

"You made reference to this, essentially this need to plan for the seventh generations forward. And seventh generation planning, strategic planning really; when that strategic planning process has been undertaken and there's really no end to it, but when the nation and its leadership has done that hard work to forge a strategic vision, put a plan in place to get there, doesn't it make the day-to-day bureaucracy work that much easier because those people that are in charge of carrying that out, understand clearly where we're trying to head and does this decision that's performing today, does it contribute to that or does it detract from that?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Right. I mean it's very...you put that very succinctly. I think that that's exactly what long-term planning does. I think, when you have a strategy in terms of where, and a vision of where you want the tribe to be, you know, generations from now, everything works toward that end. And so people, it does give program managers more focus and it does...but you know, that example being set by elected officials is so critical. Because if they're setting that example, then it trickles down to your administrative personnel, it trickles down to your program managers, it trickles down to your tribal employees -- that there's this conscientiousness that what we're doing is really for the betterment of the people not just here, today, but further down the road. But in order for that to happen...we really talk a good talk. I think Indian people, we're very eloquent and I think that there are words that we have in Lakota or in our Native language, our Native tongue that when they translate to English, they're very beautiful concepts. And when the outside world hears them, they're very impressive. But do we really live by them? And I think that that is really, that's really the test. And if we do, if we're really committed to them, what you will see in a tribal government is you will see a structure. And that structure will have, it'll be a system in terms of how we go about our business. And it'll start, you'll see it in a way that we conduct council meetings. You'll see it in a way we...you'll see it in our organic document. You'll see it in our policies and procedures. You'll see it in our day-to-day operations. There'll be this structure in terms of how we go about doing our day-to-day business, and so you...and that's the infrastructure that I'm talking about. That you've got to have that infrastructure in place, because it's one thing to take a vision and philosophies in terms of how we want to be, but you got to have the practical policies and infrastructure that get us from point A to point B."

Ian Record:

"You mentioned earlier the importance of serving the nation as a whole, essentially treating citizens fairly and consistently. How can Native nations achieve fairness in service delivery and within the bureaucracy of government?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"That's a big challenge for tribal government, because I think that tribal governments are already kind of up against the wall because they got to overcome the perception that they don't provide services in an equitable fashion. And there's always these horror stories about nepotism and all these other things that we have to overcome. You know, I think one of the ways you make sure that our services are being delivered in an equal fashion to everybody is I think you have to have transparency in your government, and I think you have to make sure that you have sound policy, and you have sound procedure. That when you draft these laws and you draft these policies and procedures, that you don't deviate from them, and I think that's the key. I tried to engage in a policy and procedure revision in my tribe, and I think the plan sat on the table for the full three years I was there. You find that you don't have the time, but the key is that you got to work with what you got, and as long as you're consistent with those policies, and they may not be perfect, but utilize them and force them, stick to them, and don't deviate from them. You've got to have a rule that you go by. And of course, and this is true with the community as well. You've got to have a rule of law where people understand that this is what's acceptable and what's not acceptable. The same thing in tribal governance, you've got to have policies, procedures, you've got to have ways of operating so that...and you've got to stick to them."

Ian Record:

"In one of the areas where we commonly see deviation, as you put it, or inequitable treatment from a policy or something like that within the tribal government is around personnel issues -- hiring, firing, other sorts of issues like that. Where should...where and how should those issues ideally be resolved? Or if there's disputes around personnel, where should those issues be resolved?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"It's going to differ from tribe to tribe, Ian. And I think the important thing is that whatever process you set up, that it be a fair process and that you follow it every single time, and again, you don't deviate from it. When I served as the administrative officer for my tribe, there was so many things I wanted to do. I wanted to engage in economic development planning, I wanted to...there was so many other grants I wanted us to look at and really decide whether or not we should even apply for certain grants because there are some...as an administrator you don't want to apply for everything, but sometimes you do it because you have an ambitious program director who writes a grant application, but you want to be able to look through and make a sound decision to make sure it's in the interest, in our best interest. And those are those big decisions, right? And you want to focus more on areas, departments that are weaker and get them stronger. Those are the bigger issues you want to deal with as an administrator. But I spent, I would say, roughly 75 percent of my time bogged down in personnel issues. And so one of the things, I would say, is your administrator has a role. That role is to administer the programs of the tribes. I wished I was never involved in personnel issues as an administrator, because I didn't see that as my role, but council did. The problem was was that a lot of times council would get involved in that. So we had system where if a personnel action was taken, the immediate supervisor would take action. The appeal process was that you were allowed to go to a program director. If there was a department chair, that was another level in the appeal process. I was included in the process, and then of course we had an elected personnel policy board that was the final say on all personnel issues. Now, sounds like a great system, but if you add up the time frames an employee had to appeal, you're looking, you could be bogged down in a personnel issue for 45 to 60 days. And if council got involved, it could stretch out for several months. So, I think, you really want to try, what I tried to do is streamline the process as much as I could. I recommended to council on several occasions that I be removed from the process because I wanted to focus on some of the more important requirements, job requirements of an administrator of a tribal government. We had over 75 tribal programs, we were managing over 50 federal grants, we had over 600 tribal employees -- there's just a tremendous amount of responsibility. But that's the system my tribe went with, and so the next best thing is to try to train your employees, your supervisors, your department chairs, your program directors. I couldn't say much of the policy personnel board, but our HR [human resources] person did a good job of training the board, making sure they knew how the system worked. And just trying to make sure that people follow that process as closely as they possibly could and just try to get a personnel issue through that process without it getting bogged down somewhere. And if we all kind of stuck to the process and followed it according to the books it would usually go through smoothly, but the x-factor was always council."

Ian Record:

"You mentioned that your nation -- when you were working in this administrative position -- had more than 75 programs operating at once. And among many nations, the number of programs is often hard to count. And a lot of that is a legacy of federal grant programs and things like that, which some have pointed to as a major source for what is commonly called the 'silo effect'..."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Sure."

Ian Record:

"...Where you have all these different programs kind of operating independent of one another, don't really communicate with one another, and then there's in turn, often a negative impact on the use of typically limited tribal resources. Do you see this silo effect at play in your own nation? Or perhaps have you seen it in other nations? And what do you think are some of the consequences or the drawbacks of that situation."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, I don't think there's anything positive about the silo effect, obviously. I think, you'd like to see a department chair or a program take ownership of that job and really grow that program, but I think the negative downside of that is you could get a program director that is, that does become too territorial. And so it does infringe upon our efforts to be more cooperative and to share resources where we can, but more importantly I think there are some real, I guess if, I'm not sure how to put this, but there are some areas, some issues in tribal life, in tribal government that we, there's environment. There's, where I'm from it's, there's management of land resources, social services, education. And I think that what I try to do, when I was working for the tribe, is that I tried to identify those areas and the more we could get programs to work cooperatively, collaboratively, to address those needs, the better. The silo effect, as you call it, really prevents those programs from doing that and it does have...and it does have an adverse effect. The other thing I will say about the grants is that sometimes as tribes we can get too dependent on those grants. I think early in the '90s, mid-90s, in the '90s period, it was an era where there was a lot of application for grants and tribes that were good at it, you know, they were getting grants. It was, you know, if you had a good track record, it was pretty easy to get certain grants and so forth. But sometimes we can get too dependent on that. I think what you want to see eventually, and again this is where if you free up time for an administrator, in my role, you can do more of this planning where you're not so dependent upon these grants."

Ian Record:

"I want to switch gears now to another topic that you're very well versed in and that's tribal justice systems. And I think it's no coincidence that in this era of Indian self-determination, this federal policy era of Indian self-determination, we're seeing a groundswell of attention by tribes to strengthen their justice systems. And I'm curious to get your perspective on this question of what sorts of roles can tribal justice systems play in rebuilding Native nations?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well I think they're critical, I think they're foundational to nation building. You know, I think the creation of your own laws, the promulgation of those laws, the adjudication of cases, the creation of case law -- all of that is so important to strengthening tribal nations. I mean, our tribal courts is probably one the most fundamental exercises of tribal sovereignty that we have -- the creation of laws and enforcing them. But the thing is the courts...if courts are effective and judges are performing their jobs in a good way, and the courts are functioning in a way we would like them, it gives the perception to the outside world that we're very good at resolving our matters in dealing with internal matters. But not only that, but we can also deal with any matter that comes through our courts on our reservation."

Ian Record:

"What, in your view, does strong, independent justice system look like? What does it need to have?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"I think a strong independent justice system, first of all, is tribal. I think it should be tribal in a sense that it knows how to deal with tribal issues and yet it's diverse enough to handle and adjudicate all matters that come before it. I think you should have conmpetent judges. I think you should have strong advocacy for clients and it must have a way of measuring its performance. But yeah, a strong tribal system should be tribal in nature. In other words, what I mean by that is it shouldn't just be a boilerplate replication of what a state court looks like and promulgate those laws, but those laws should be traditional in nature, it should reflect our customs, it should reflect our customary law, our traditional laws, and we should know how to deal with those and inject those viewpoints in our decisions."

Ian Record:

"It's interesting you bring that up, because I've actually heard that from several other tribal judges that I've had an occasion to interview. That in many ways, the tribal justice system and the tribal court in particular is the most direct, concrete way that a tribe can convey its core values, its cultural principles, not only to the outside world, but its own citizens. Is that something that you feel is accurate?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Oh, absolutely. You know when you think about the types of cases that come before our tribal courts, you know you're dealing with a lot of domestic cases, domestic violence cases, family cases, so the courts have the opportunity to resolve disputes between tribal members. And so there's a tremendous opportunity for our tribal court system to really bring into that process some of our traditional ways of resolving conflict. You hear a lot of tribes speak of a peacemaking court and so we don't have to necessarily engage in an adversarial process with tribal members, but you can actually promote some sort of peacemaking where people are, where we promote restitution and restorative kind of justice, which is more in line with our traditional values."

Ian Record:

"So we touched on this issue of political interference and bureaucracies. And I'm curious to get your thoughts about political interference in tribal jurisprudence. What are some of the impacts of political interference in court cases, for instance?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, obviously, you want your courts to be able to make decisions without any fear of consequence from an elected official, tribal council. You want them to be able to adjudicate matters in a way that is just and do so freely, and without any free of retribution from anybody. But unfortunately, in instances where council do get involved, it does create some hesitation on the part of tribal judges to really deal with matters as like they're trained to do. And unfortunately, the result of that is we've seen a lot of good judges come and go out of our court system. I think that, you know, your courts are, you have to have judges with good experience, if not law trained, with great, good experience, with sound awareness of tribal law, and some experience with handling a diverse number of matters. But you know, when you have this turnover of tribal judges because they end up not being able to stick around very long because they're doing their jobs properly. It's detrimental."

Ian Record:

"So you mentioned this issue of transparency with bureaucracies, and the delivery of services. Isn't that equally important when it comes to the administration of justice in Native nations?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Yes it is, and I think that there needs to be a sense of predictability when people come to, when they're coming to tribal court, there needs to be this sense that they know what to expect; there's not going to be this 'kangaroo court' process. And so, you know, we want to make sure that people know what to expect when they come into tribal court, that they know they're not going to have any surprises. And I think that's...that not only has an impact upon plaintiffs and defendants in tribal court, but here's another aspect of this, it affects who practices in tribal court, you know, because one of the things we lack in tribal court is sound advocacy. You know, we don't just want lay advocates practicing in our tribal courts. One thing that lends credibility to our tribal courts is the fact that a licensed attorney who practices regularly in state court and federal court has no hesitation to come and represent a client in tribal court. We want more participation from the state bar, wherever you're at, whatever state you're in, but we want more participation from lawyers and the state bar in tribal court, because what that does is it improves the perception of our court systems, it improves the advocacy in our court systems. And so you want that transparency, you want to know exactly what to expect when they show up in tribal court, that we have consistent, strong, civil procedures that we're going to follow, criminal procedures that we're going to follow, that there are going to be no surprises."

Ian Record:

"You know, it's interesting, we've been talking about tribal bureaucracies and tribal justice systems and a lot of the criteria or components you need for each to be effective are similar, are they not? And isn't it very difficult, for instance, to have one without the other? Specifically, in our experience, we're working with a number of Native nations and it's very hard to have an effective bureaucracy, for instance, if you have a kangaroo court system, as you talked about. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, I think that it is very important that you have some predictability, that you have that infrastructure, legal infrastructure, if you will, a strong tribal code where people can have a remedy for whatever, an issue that they're, a legal issue that they're involved in, that there's good procedure that we follow. Bbut in addition to that, I think it's important that we have, that we document our case law, that we...and so people know what to expect. I've received calls from people that will say...practicing attorneys that are members of the state bar that will say, "˜Is there a case on point in your tribal court on the following issue?' I'd like to be able to respond, "˜Yes, and I can get you a copy of that opinion.' And I think that that's the transparency, that's the kind of infrastructure that you want, where people can say, "˜Okay, when I go to Cheyenne River and practice law, I know what to expect when I go there.' And so yes, it's absolutely...in fact, if it's...I'm not going to say it's more important, but it is absolutely, at least, equally important as it is...to have that, those types of infrastructure."

Ian Record:

"So, to generate that infrastructure, to create that infrastructure, that takes funding, does it not? And essentially, an approach on the part of elected officials, or those who set the budget of the nation, to treat it as not just another -- the justice system, the courts -- not just as another tribal department, but as kind of a stand-alone, larger, more encompassing branch -- that may not be the best word -- but branch or function, fundamental function of government, does it not?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"I think at least our tribal officials need to recognize our court system as a stand-alone entity that has a specific function, a very important function."

Ian Record:

"So you mentioned this need for tribes to ensure that the infrastructure's in place for the court system, the justice system overall to function effectively and essentially, act as the nation's protector, as its guardian. That infrastructure, achieving that infrastructure takes money, does it not? And perhaps a realization on the part of elected officials, or those who control the purse strings of the nation, to treat that system as more than just another department, but to actually treat it as a fundamentally critical function of government."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Right. And it takes time to educate and to help our elected officials understand that. And I don't think it's a matter of our elected officials not knowing that it serves an essential function of government, but I think that they have to understand and it takes time to educate them that what the courts do is so vital to tribal sovereignty, it is so vital to self-determination, it is so vital to us. You know, if we want to engage in any type of regulatory authority on the reservation, you know, our courts have got to be equipped to be able to carry out, you know, adjudicating any matter. And so yeah, it takes a while to get them to prioritize, I guess is what I'm trying to say, Ian. I think they understand that it serves an important function, but for them to understand that it should be up here on the fiscal or the financial fundraising list is another matter. So, sometimes it's just about...I would like to see elected officials just take a run through tribal court and just to see what they do on a day-to-day basis. I think you have committees and tribal council that obviously understand that and who hire judges and hire tribal attorneys and they're well versed in the importance of that. But unfortunately, when you look at the tribal budget, Ian, there's just so many other needs. And how do you say...it's like trying to pick your favorite child, so to speak. It's really hard. And so that is a problem with courts. And I think one way is to maybe look at some of the available federal funding that's out there, but again that takes planning. And it's being able to have that foresight to see when those opportunities are going to come down the pipe."

Ian Record:

"Isn't it important for the connection to be drawn not just for elected leaders, but also citizens that when you have a strong, effective, independent judicial system, that empowers you as a nation to tackle those other needs through restorative justice, through healing people, through healing families and things like that."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Yeah, and it does. I think people...the thing about the law is it doesn't get a lot of publicity. When a case is decided, even if it's an important, an appellate case in tribal court, when it's decided it doesn't get a lot of fanfare. The people that pay attention to it are people like myself, but as far as a general public, there may not be any publicity about an important case that our tribal court decided that's going to have some sort of ripple effect across Indian Country. But there is this general understanding by tribal members that the courts serve a special role, but I don't know if they really see the long-term effects of that. For example, Cheyenne River just had a case recently that went all the way to the Supreme Court. I don't know if people see that and how that impacts. And if that case would've been decided favorably by the United States Supreme Court that would've changed our civil jurisdiction authority over non-Indian people on the reservation. Unfortunately, it wasn't decided favorably, but it could've had that kind of impact. And so yeah, I think people are starting to see it more and more. And you mentioned some of the benefits. The other thing is when we have a solid court system and we have remedies, especially in civil matters, it does encourage things like economic development and corporations coming on to the reservation and things like that. So, and again it goes back to council. Is council willing to do a limited waiver of sovereign immunity so that these matters can be resolved in our tribal court? Because I think the courts are ready to do it. I think the court, I have a tremendous of confidence in our courts that they're willing to take on any issue. We have a very strong appellate court that's willing to hear these matters, but is our council...so I think that that appreciation for our court system, I think, really starts at the top. And I think our appreciation for any of this stuff and appreciation for improving tribal governments really starts at the top [with] your leadership.

Ian Record:

"You mentioned this issue of investment and the role of courts in that. How does a strong, independent justice system create an environment of certainty and competence for investors -- not just financial investors, but people willing to invest their own human capital in the nation and its future?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, I think, you just...I think the main thing is that you want to be able to, the tribal court, you want to be able to have a statement that says, or a law that says, or a code that says that matters of dispute will be resolved in tribal court. And I know, people that come into contract with tribes, they want to be able to say that if we...if things don't work out with this specific contract, we want to be able to enforce this contract somewhere. And hopefully, we can say it can be resolved in tribal court. Like I said, I don't think it's a matter of the court not being able to handle those matters, but again, it's whether or not the tribes and the tribal council feeling confident enough to be able to open themselves up to that sort of court action."

Ian Record:

"I want to follow up quickly on this issue of sovereign immunity, and this is an increasingly critical topic. What we're seeing is more and more tribes approaching that issue strategically, whereas before it was kind of this blanket response of, "˜We don't want to waive sovereign immunity because we're sovereign,' as if those two things are the same. And more and more tribes are coming up with innovative approaches and doing exactly what you say. 'We'll waive our sovereign immunity through this contract into our own tribal court system.' Isn't it incumbent upon tribes to really approach that issue in a very calculated, deliberate manner of, "˜Okay, this is a tool that we can use, but it has to be used wisely'?"

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, and I think, to answer...I guess I'll answer it this way. Yeah, I do think tribes need to be very deliberate with that approach and I think maybe the reluctance would be again...you got to have a competent court though. And so what I think we're seeing with some tribes, they may -- I think we talked about it today -- some tribes have considered setting up a separate business court where you might have special judges come in and hear these matters. Because I think there's this perception in the outside world that either, you know, you're typical tribal court judge can't handle a very complicated, contractual issue. So set up a separate contract court where those issues are heard by a special judge that would come and hear those matters and is well-versed in that area of the law. So there are some very unique ways that tribes can try to address this and to improve the outsiders' perception of how we conduct business on the reservation."

Ian Record:

"I want to wrap up with I guess you would call it a personal question. Last year, you were selected to be a part of the first cohort of the Native Nation Rebuilders program, which is a program that was developed by the Archibald Bush Foundation out of Minneapolis in conjunction with the Native Nations Institute at the University of Arizona. And I'm curious to get your thoughts on the program. You're almost a full year through the program now. I'm curious to get your thoughts on what the program is about, the potential for the program moving forward, and how it's empowered you to contribute to Indian Country."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, I...first of all, it's just an honor to be a part of the program. It was an honor to be selected. And, you know, since I came on as a Rebuilder, you know, I've been through a couple trainings, which I thought were absolutely fantastic. I think our first training was tribal governance and, I think that, being able to participate in those courses, in those training courses, it just kind of gave me some hope that there are resources out there for tribal governments. I've been law-trained and I've taken courses in Indian law, tribal law and different other things pertaining to Indian Country. But a lot of -- like I said earlier -- a lot of our elected officials aren't well equipped to do their work. And I think a lot of our tribal officials could use a crash course in federal Indian law, a crash course in tribal bureaucracy, a crash course in tribal governance. And being a part of the Bush Foundation has exposed me to those resources and hopefully those resources -- more people will take advantage of them. My overall impression of being a Rebuilder is really is it's opened up doors, because I meet so many people from across, from other tribes. It's given me some good tools to do my work."

Ian Record:

"One quick follow-up: As part of this Rebuilders program, you were asked to go through a distance-learning course on Native nation building. I'm just curious to get your thoughts on that course and what it could bring to Indian Country."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Well, I think it's...I hope our elected officials take advantage of it. You did a really good job of putting it together, Ian, I know that you worked very hard on that. And, you know, it's easy to maneuver your way through the online course and the material is very well researched. But what I gained from it mostly was just hearing other tribal leaders and other members of tribes and citizens of tribal nations that are doing a lot of the same work that I'm doing. Hearing their stories. I think Joe Kalt said today that he's just kind of a pipeline, where he's gathering the stories and kicking them back out to Indian Country. And I think that's a good characterization of what Native Nations [Institute] is about and what the Bush Foundation is doing through the Rebuilder program. We're taking this information, we're funneling it through, we're getting it disseminated out to the people that need to hear it. And those stories are inspirational and if anything else, what it does is it says, you know, that nation building is taking place and it's being done very effectively."

Ian Record:

"Well, JR we really appreciate your time and thanks for joining us."

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"Thanks, Ian. I appreciate it."

Ian Record:

"That's all the time we have for today's program of Leading Native Nations. To learn more about Leading Native Nations, please visit the Native Nations Institute's website at nni.arizona.edu. Thank you for joining us. Copyright 2011. Arizona Board of Regents."

Karen Diver: Nation Building Through the Cultivation of Capable People and Governing Institutions

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Native Nations Institute
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In this informative interview with NNI's Ian Record, Chairwoman Karen Diver of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa discusses the critical importance of Native nations' systematic development of its governing institutions and human resource ability to their ability to exercise sovereignty effectively and achieve their nation-building goals.

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Diver, Karen. "Nation Building Through the Cultivation of Capable People and Governing Institutions." "Leading Native Nations" interview series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. September 17, 2009. Interview.

Ian Record:

“So I’m here with Chairwoman Karen Diver, who is the chairwoman of Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. And previous to that, she served as Director of Special Projects for Fond du Lac, so she has a wide range of experience, which is precisely why we’re having her sit down with us today.

The first question I’d like to ask you is a question that I ask everyone I sit down with and that is, how would you define Native nation building and what does it entail for your nation?”

Karen Diver:

“It’s almost straight out of the textbook: aggressive assertions of sovereignty backed up by capable institutions. You come into tribal government and it’s at different phases in its growth. And given that most tribes have really not been self-governing for that long, often times, we’re plugging the gap or reformulating. But if the basis of your decision is always putting self-governance first and self-determination, generally you can always plug in the gaps of your institutional capabilities along the way. But it’s the legitimacy of the actions and then backing it up with the way to actually implement them.”

Ian Record:

“You mentioned 'legitimacy in the actions,' and the Native Nations Institute and Harvard Project research holds that for Native nation governments to be viewed as legitimate by the people that they serve, they must be both culturally appropriate and effective, which is a double-edged challenge for a lot of nations, particularly those that have not governed, essentially been in control of their own governance for a very long time, and had that determined by outsiders. So how do you view that assertion that for governments to be legitimate, they have to be not only effective, but also culturally appropriate?”

Karen Diver:

“I think for tribes, we’re not as removed from government; government is very personal. Tribal members can walk in at any time, we employ our tribal members, we’re related to one another, so it’s not impersonal in a way that I think traditional government is. And when you’re decision making, the actual impact on real people in their real lives really has to be primary. And for that to work, you have to take into account the circumstances in which they live. It could be as simple, for us, making sure that our policies and procedures account for the ability to participate in cultural activities like wild rice leave, for example, is actually in our personnel policies. It’s a week-long endeavor; people need to do it when the crop is ready. Or it can be as broad based as, what do your family leave policies look like? Recognizing we have extended, large extended families, the grieving process is a community process. So just giving a bank of leave time might not be something appropriate. You might want to have some flexible use of leave to take into account that our families are large, complicated, and primarily their employment serves to take care of them and their families. So you have to have that balance. So cultural traditions matter, and to balance those with the needs of both governmental and the economic entities that we serve; that’s the only way we’re going to have a successful workforce.”

Ian Record:

“So I want to next run a quote by you that we reference often and it’s a quote by a Native leader who once said, ‘The best defense of sovereignty is to exercise it effectively.’ Can you speak to that statement?”

Karen Diver:

“To me, that really means once again building up those capable institutions. Everybody likes to know, ‘What are the rules that we’re playing by?’ Especially if you’re dealing with outside entities that you do work with, whether it’s governmental or through your economic development efforts, but also that you’re defining what those rules are and whether you’re dealing with a local unit of government, the feds, bankers, auditors, they don’t get to define the playing field. You’re defining the rules, you’re communicating them, and you’re saying that, ‘Your work with us is going to be defined by us.’ A lot of that is understanding the tenets of Indian law and explaining it to people and making distinctions between, ‘Who are we as a race?’ versus our political status and those are often confused by many people. So as long as you keep your political status separate than our cultural traditions and who we are historically and currently as a people. To me, that’s real basic and that’s really one of the main elements of sovereignty."

Ian Record:

“You, as I mentioned at the outset, you have served your nation both as a senior administrator and as currently, as chairwoman. I was curious to learn, what, based on your experience, do tribal bureaucracies need to be effective?”

Karen Diver:

“Well, that’s real key. We all know when it goes wrong. It’s the deviation from what is normal and it’s viewed as political graft or having a brother in power so to speak and that’s where…for the average citizen they feel that tribal government isn’t really serving them; it’s inequities in service delivery or access. And sometimes that happens at the service delivery level or the program level or institutional level with hiring and things like that. I think for tribal government, monitoring those activities, putting those systems in place, building accountability and transparency of the rules ends up being key to having equitable service delivery and equitable systems. And for our band members, the expectation that it doesn’t matter who you elect, the level of service you receive and your opportunities are the same.”

Ian Record:

“So it essentially supports stability and expectations among the people when they don’t…they see consistency. They see fairness and they can see consistency across administration so it’s not just, ‘Oh it was this way for this term,’ and then the new term comes in, new administration comes in and things change.”

Karen Diver:

“Well, you’re proving capability in government, too, because the reason you would elect people changes then it becomes about their effectiveness and their skills and ability to do the job rather than your personal connections and how you might gain from that. So it changes peoples’ I think reason for how and why they may vote for tribal leadership.”

Ian Record:

“And being a chair of a nation, you must experience this firsthand, this challenge of the dependency mentality. Where the expectations, at least on part of the citizenry, is rooted in, ‘What can the government do for me?’ or, ‘I’m going to go to the government and get the goodies,’ rather than really viewing that government as serving the nation, as advancing the nation’s long-term priorities. Is that something you struggle with and how do you do you work to overcome that?”

Karen Diver:

“Yes, I’ve struggled with it, but I’ve struggled with it in terms of, once again, how do we build those systems in place so that they serve the needs of our citizenry, but also changing the expectations of our citizenry? And the current tribal council has been a part of kind of changing the mentality of, ‘What our citizens should expect from their tribal government?’ And I usually say to folks, ‘Don’t ask me for a handout. Ask me for a job, or if you’re not ready for that yet, why don’t you tell me what you need to get there?’ And the framing of it is fairly simple. What I tell people is, ‘I care about you enough that I’m not going to put a band-aid on your issue because it’s going to come back. Unless I know what’s going on, we need to create or refer you to something that creates a long-term fix because I don’t want you to have to come back.’ And I really feel that promoting dependency within our own community is a part of the reason why we haven’t been able to move as forward as we could be yet because I’ve turned into a social worker now instead of an administrator, instead of someone who assures that there’s good systems. And I also think it’s not fair to our people to say to them, ‘The way that you get services is by telling me a lot of your personal problems that are going on.’ I need to know them to the extent that I need to identify any gaps in our system, but I also shouldn’t put my own people -- if I care about them -- in the position of having to beg, and there is a difference. I’m not doing it to satisfy my ego because I can feel really good about what I’ve done for you. I care about you enough to say, ‘Let’s look at a long-term fix instead of a short-term band-aid.’”

Ian Record:

“Right. So it’s essentially, ‘Let’s look at the root cause of your problem or your challenge,’ versus just simply addressing the symptom, which will be sure to reoccur at some point.”

Karen Diver:

“Right. And it helps me identify where we might have gaps in service, whether it’s combined case management, stabilizing your housing, where you really need some service delivery, whether it’s health issues, we should make sure that each of our systems are coordinated enough that there is a holistic response to the issues people face in their day-to-day lives.”

Ian Record:

“You mention this issue of building a holistic response, or the capacity to do that, to whatever issue is at hand or that you’re facing. And this really gets to this issue of developing a systems-based approach to service delivery, which we hear about more and more, and we see a lot of that sort of activity in Indian Country with nations saying, ‘The status quo is not working. We’ve got our programs and services going a million different directions, they often duplicate one another. We’ve got to take a systems-based approach that gets at these root causes that you discuss.’ Is that something that you’re working to do, take care of?”

Karen Diver:

“Oh, actively. And both as a staff member and then once I got elected. I’ll give you an example. One of our projects that we’ll be breaking ground here within a month is supportive housing. Supportive housing is what transitional housing used to be. It’s for folks who have had a hard time getting on their feet and for every step forward it might have been two back, chronic homeless, multiple episodes of homelessness. Well, homelessness isn’t the lack of a house, it’s a circumstance, a set of circumstances going on that are preventing people from being stable. In order to do supportive housing, you not only have to build the housing, but you also have to develop service delivery that looks at what are the needs of the family and they may be multiple. You’re also committing to staying by them whether or not they take that step forward or step back, and that’s why they call it permanent supportive housing, because unlike transitional housing the two years are up whether you’re ready to be independent or not. And what it really does is say, in terms of case management, what does the whole family need and it’s self-determined by the family. So much like for tribal government, it’s saying for families, too, to say, ‘What are my needs right now?’ and their needs might be simple in the beginning. It might be having adequate health care and getting their diabetes under control so they’re not facing chronic health issues. It might mean helping the family say at some point that they’re chemical dependent, coming to the realization that it is fueled by underlying mental illness, but there’s a safe place to be able to say that and get at the root causes of why people anesthetize themselves with drugs and alcohol. And what you’re trying to do is reduce the episodes of homelessness and instability in the family so that children can stay in longer, the same school longer, they can maintain their level of health care and what you see over time is school social workers are talking to mental health case managers. We know that health outcomes are affected by the lack of housing; we know that school performance is affected by that. Working together stabilizes the need for service delivery by multiple systems, but they all have to be at the table and integrated together. It’s a model that’s been shown to work outside Indian Country, not yet being implemented to a big extent within Indian Country. The model’s perfect for us because we know our families best. We need to be talking to each other and the family will be the one that hopefully will move forward because of it. So it’s an example, but we’ve built silos in Indian Country, much like we’ve bemoaned in larger systems that are out there, but we’re better contained within ourselves to actually break those down.”

Ian Record:

“So you mentioned you know your families best. And hearing you describe this approach of supportive housing, that requires an intimate understanding, intimate awareness of what’s going on in your community, what their needs are, what their challenges are, what their priorities are, what they need from the tribe in order to be made whole, or put them on the road to self-sufficiency, whatever it might be, that’s not an approach that an outsider can develop and implement. Is it something that has to be done at the local level by the people who it’s designed to serve?”

Karen Diver:

“Absolutely, because at any given point in that service delivery or that plan that the family develops, you’re going to have to have culturally competent service delivery. You’re going to have to understand that for a family to break their cycle of chemical dependency that it might be isolating to them for some of their other family members, and that’s a hard thing to do. So you’re recreating family systems and showing them a healthy way in a way that doesn’t deny their ability to still remain a part of a larger community. It’s understanding that children are served best when they’re with their families and an easy fix isn’t putting them in out-of-home placement, but intensive services for their extended families. It’s building even the actual facilities in a way that understands that we tend to congregate together and you never know when you might have a niece coming to live with you, and it shouldn’t upset your household composition because that’s what your housing rules say. So it requires us to be flexible. And I think that’s one of the beauties of self-governance is when you determine your own rules, you can be flexible enough to meet multiple demands, but in a way that’s also accountable so that everybody has the same access to that flexibility.”

Ian Record:

“As I mentioned, you were once a senior administrator of your tribe and now you’re the chairwoman. And I was curious to learn, having served in both of those capacities, can you speak to the importance of delineating clear, distinct roles, responsibilities, authorities for each of those key decision makers, implementers? And what happens when those roles aren’t clearly defined?”

Karen Diver:

“It’s an over-used phrase, but I think many people have heard it. If you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter which road you take. I think that for both tribal government and tribal administrators, it’s all about the plan. Where do we plan to get in two years, five years? I’m a big fan of strategic planning. I’m a big fan of understanding who is responsible for the items in the strategic plan. Who’s monitoring the outcomes and making sure that we’re holding staff accountable? Has there been community input to the plan so that we’re actually serving them and going in a direction that they care about? And we are just starting to undertake now a whole community-wide strategic planning process that will inform tribal government and it’s a difficult transition. Last year I thought, ‘I’m just going to get the staff kind of primed and say give me a few goals and objectives for the year,’ and I almost started a mass revolt. I had the flurry of emails saying, ‘What did you mean by that?’ ‘Well, I want to know what you plan to do next year. This is not a trick question, what do you plan to do,’ because at the end of next year I’m going to say, ‘Did you accomplish what you had planned?’ And you’re actually going to maybe make presentations to tribal council about that. Also understanding your role, there’s a plan and each department should understand who their stakeholders are. Human Resources, for example, they think of the applicants and employees as their stakeholders, but they don’t necessarily think of their other divisions that they do the work for as their stakeholders and at the timeliness of their work and the quality of their work can have a big affect on operations. So right now, our tribal council has three of our members were in administrative positions before so we were on the other side of the tribal council table. It’s made a huge difference in terms of our understanding of the importance of their work, not frittering it away, making meeting time productive time and they’re happy. They’re happy because being accountable to us is different. It’s in terms of decision making, not necessarily these huge processes that takes up a lot of their time but doesn’t necessarily accomplish anything. So very important on both ends to understand, ‘What is our role?’ We’re an approving role, they’re doing the work and they’re bringing us their recommendations.”

Ian Record:

“So it’s essentially -- and this gets to what my next question’s about -- what are the respective roles of elected officials and those administrators and bureaucratic employees because you’re seeing it less and less, which I think is a good thing, what you see in some Native communities is still the mentality among the leadership where they have to do it all, and a reticence perhaps to delegate authority. And I’m curious to learn from you how you envision the roles and the separation of those roles and where does one’s work stop and the other’s begin, perhaps?”

Karen Diver:

“I think we’re fairly typical of every tribal government and it comes up during campaign time and when we have our open meetings with our citizenry, they say, ‘The reservation business committee, they micromanage.’ And what I tell people is, ‘You expect us not to micromanage, you want us to take big picture, our appropriate role is in policy making, procedure development, setting vision and long-term direction of the reservation.’ I said, ‘But you want that until the issue involves you, then you expect us to micromanage and fix your problem, and if I go back and tell you you have the ability to provide a grievance or you can talk to the program manager and resolve conflict that way,’ you say, ‘you’re not taking care of my issue.’ So it goes back to that, how do you balance the personal aspect of tribal government, because we are all interrelated, we’re a community, a tight-knit community with the ability to put good governance systems in place and good business systems in place and there’s no perfect science to that, because first of all you’re never going to develop a policy where you’re going to expect to hit every possible outcome or gap. That’s why your policies are a work in progress and need regular review and updating. Also people come up with some really personal circumstances that you may want to accommodate. So I think that there’s a balance there.

The delegation of authority ends up being a lot about control and hiring capable staff and letting them do their job is really key in getting all of the work done because tribal government has a breadth unlike any other form of government. We are corporate, we are government, we are like non-profit service delivery agencies, environmental, education, health. We have to rely on content-area experts. However, I also think being a context expert, they don’t always recognize the big picture they operate in because they’re looking at it from their silo of expertise. So I think tribal government role -- if you look at it in terms of dialogue and challenging each other -- we can help them see the big picture, they can help us understand the peculiarities of their particular area of expertise. That’s where you come up with the win-win. It’s when it’s directive or when you impose upon them, but if you set up the right processes, we often say government-to-government consultation, well we need to have consultation within our organization as well so that we can come up with the best possible scenarios up front and tweak them along the way and see where we may have missed something.”

Ian Record:

“So you mentioned in part of your previous response about the expectations of citizens, particularly come campaign time. For instance, where internally between elected officials and administrators, bureaucratic employees, you may have a clear understanding of who should be doing what, but then there’s the citizen’s expectations that are always causing friction against that. How important is public education about the separations of authorities, about the checks and balances, about the delegations, about who does what? That it’s incumbent upon Native nation governments not just to have a clear internal understanding, but also to make sure the community understands so that it allows you to keep your momentum going?”

Karen Diver:

“It’s a difficult process, I’ll be very honest about that. And one of the ways I characterize it in some of the one-on-one conversations I have with tribal members is if all of my wishes could come true for our own people, one of them would be that it really didn’t matter who you elect, because it didn’t have relevance in your day-to-day life. That as an individual and as a leader in your family, you were able to get and/or acquire those things you need to meet the needs of your own family, whether that’s through employment educational opportunities, social services, that you knew what was out there and you could access it and you were using those resources to build your own self-sufficiency to the point where once it came to the ballot, it was much like traditional forms of government. Who has the skills to do the job? Do they have the background? Do they have a plan? And it changes your expectations. So I think that’s something that comes over time. But also, when people understand that in their best interest, they can self determine their own needs and you’re creating the systems for that to happen, I think it’s going to change the dynamic of what individuals expect out of tribal government.”

Ian Record:

“And isn’t that where strategic planning is very important because the community understands, ‘There’s a larger goal at work here. It’s not just about the now, it’s not just about what I need personally or what my family needs at this moment, but it’s about where we’re trying to head as a community.'“

Karen Diver:

“I think the economic crisis has really changed that a bit. I think in Indian Country -- especially for tribes who have been building a private sector economy within their borders and really using that as a surrogate tax base -- you’ve been able to plug in some of the gaps and funding in order to create programs or supplement them and access other sources of funding. And I think that the downturn really let people know that it’s not a given that tribal government’s going to continue to grow, it’s not a given that the things that are here now will remain. And we’re a per capita [distribution] tribe, so that’s one of the things we’ve been able to do purely as a poverty reduction; nobody’s getting rich off it. But people understood that maybe that isn’t a given and that we have to be smart about our resources, and maybe the best use of tribal government time is looking at economic and governmental stability and not necessarily the day-to-day issues that arise in tribal council’s life. They’re taking a little bit more ownership and more what we’re doing is more information and referral, ‘Did you know that this is available to you and this is available to you?’ rather than direct service, one-on-one."

Ian Record:

“So I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about economic development. And a lot of what the NNI-Harvard Project research looks at is the two polar opposites when it comes to economies that we see in Indian Country. One, you have essentially the dependent economy, which is largely born of constitutions and governments that were imposed or systems of governments that were imposed by the outside. And then you have productive economies, which we’re obviously seeing more and more of as tribes take control of their own affairs, as they begin to launch and build diversified economies. I was wondering, from your perspective, how do Native nations move from a dependent economy, heavily reliant on outsiders, the federal government, to a productive economy where they themselves are in the driver’s seat of economic development? And in that process of moving from one to the other, what are some of the most important building blocks?”

Karen Diver:

“First and foremost, social capital. You need to develop your own citizenry to be a part of that. Talk to a lot of young people and say, ‘What are you going to school for? Liberal arts? Great. We need people to do services to our own band members, but gee, do you also know we need accountants? We need internal auditors; we need dentists and healthcare delivery people, teachers.’ So I think building that social capital so that the cultural competency comes from our own people serving our own community is real key. We can’t always use neighbors and people who aren’t familiar with our own community because then you miss that cultural competency piece. A lot of good people in Indian Country who are Native, but we really need to grow our own and provide the role models. The other part of it is purely regulatory. Do you have the systems in place where economic development can thrive? One of the gaps in our own system right now is we don’t have uniform commercial codes. So that’s kind of on the block. Developing systems of conflict resolution that are transparent and you know who’s rules you’re operating under. Once again, the tenets of Indian law, if you’re working with outside parties, do they really know what dealing with a sovereign is and the context with which this business relationship will be taken out? Regulatory control is also things as simple as what’s your background check policy? Are you going to be able to meet outside commitments that you’re making, for example, under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act? Do you understand their rules? If you’re in a banking relationship, what are their rules, their operating on and how do you mesh that with your own? So I think that a lot of homework goes into building a community where economic development can thrive. And part of it is do you understand your role in it and the role of your people and all of your different departments? For example, if you’re going to work with an outside agency that’s looking at some resources within the reservation, like mining, do you have your regulatory capacity there to look at environmental issues, for example? So, identifying those initiatives and seeing what you have within tribal government that needs to be involved, having them all on the table up front, and identifying your gaps, and either developing it or bringing in consultants who have it so you can have informed decision making.”

Ian Record:

“You mentioned this issue of, or the importance of investing in social capital, particularly among your young people. Not only finding out what their interests are, but saying, ‘Hey, we have needs in this area.’ That’s, but that, isn’t that the first step because then you have to make sure that the opportunities that are available are stable, that they’re consistent? That you’re not going to have the political turnover, ripple effect where the administration comes in and they clean house, which our research has shown causes this horrible problem of brain drain where people say, ‘I’m not going to invest my time and resources in the future of the nation because I can’t be certain I’m going to get a return on that investment.’ So I was wondering if you could speak to that issue of making sure that those opportunities are stable and that the environment in which you’re asking them to participate is reliable.”

Karen Diver:

“Once again, I think if you start to change and really have a conversation with your community about what do they feel is the appropriate role in tribal government in their day-to-day life, that then starts changing the stability of the workforce. And you’re right, we’ve invested heavily in education, both by creating our own institutions and through scholarship funds and telling people, ‘There’s a big world out there. Go learn things and bring it back home.’ Only for them to not be able to have the ability to worry about their sacrifices of their own stability in their family, and that’s sad. It’s sad and it’s unfortunate because you’re right, it creates brain drain. With the capable institutions, and with some emotional maturity and changing your expectations of what tribal leaders should be both personally and professionally, I think you get towards the bigger picture of, ‘If I’m here to serve my people, that means also dealing with my political detractors, as well as my political supporters,’ and they still end up being tribal members and deserve service whether they like you or not, whether they care about you or not, or whether they believe in you or not, you do your best by them. And I think it’s developing some political maturity to say, ‘Yes, I may not be meeting your expectations, but over time, can we find your place here within this community as well?’ So I think it’s a little shortsighted. We think we want to be surrounded by loyalty, but that’s a moving target. On any given day, you’re going to make a decision that may affect people in a way that they may not want, but it’s whether or not your transparency of government helps them understand why you’re doing it, that it’s not personal, that you were going to make this decision because it’s good for the whole and yeah, it might not work for everybody. So I think a part of it is just your skill at the politics of communicating why decisions are made and whether the transparency was there in the decision making so people understand why and then don’t take it personal.”

Ian Record:

“And doesn’t that really get to this issue of rules? The NNI/Harvard Project research clearly shows that rules are more important than resources in terms of building vibrant economies. Can you speak to that issue?”

Karen Diver:

“Yeah sure, it’s interesting because when I talk to folks and I’m in the unfortunate position of having to tell them I can’t do something for them, one of the things I usually preface it with or end with it is, ‘I know you want this, but one of the rules we follow here for this tribal government is if we can’t do it for everyone, we can’t do it for one. And so if…do you think if I ask the tribal membership if we should do this for you, what do you think their answer would be? Would they be supportive of this decision?’ And generally, when you put it in that context, people will understand that you are making rules for all, not the few. On the other hand, sometimes you come up with one where you say, ‘Geez, we should do something about that and would we be willing to do it for everyone? Maybe, maybe not because the circumstances matter, but it’s justifiable and you knew if you put the whole circumstances out there, our community would say, ‘Yeah we don’t maybe don’t want to make that a practice,’ but in this instance, for their set of circumstances, it’s the right thing to do because we do care about our community. But it’s justifiable in a way so you almost have the litmus test of community voting. And you’re saying, 'How would people think about this?' And if you constantly keep that in mind, and the fact that it doesn’t matter who’s in your office, assume you’re telling everybody because everybody will know. Your actions are public and if someone asks, ‘What’s going on with tribal government?’ you have to be willing to tell them. That transparency is what keeps government honest. So day by day, you take it as it comes and take each circumstances, but if you use that litmus test of, ‘If I put it to a referendum vote, or no matter who walked through the door, would you behave the same?’ generally, you’re going to get pretty close to what you need to a capable government whose rules are not only transparent, but consistency ends up being the biggest key.”

Ian Record:

“And when you have those consistent rules in place that are consistently enforced, isn’t that liberating for you as an elected official, because you then are in a position where you can say no to someone and have it not be personal? And say, ‘Here’s my reason. We have, for instance, a hiring and firing dispute, which I’m sure you encounter in an economic development entity of the tribe or within tribal government. You say, ‘Hey, we have a personnel grievance process for that. I’d be overstepping my bounds as an elected official to take on this issue, to even consider your complaint.’”

Karen Diver:

“Very much so. It is liberating in a way and it’s something that the current tribal council, in terms of building our own capacity to govern and also for our own stability in making sure we’re all behaving in the same way even when we’re not in a meeting, when we’re having different interactions, is to actually have those conversations with each other, have a set of board norms, take some planning time and say, ‘here’s something that you don’t necessarily need a policy for, but it’s something we’re confronted with. How do we behave? Let’s be consistent, all get on the same page.’ Your answer then can be, ‘Gee, I hear you and I understand but the council made a decision that this is the way that we’re going to handle it,’ and speaking with one voice. A lot of this goes to whether or not you’re building a capable board that’s cohesive and all operating off of the same page, so speaking with one voice. You have those arguments. It’s kind of like mommy and daddy, you argue, but you don’t let the kids hear you kind of thing. We have that time where we work things out amongst ourselves but once we come to talking about them in a public way, whatever answer prevailed, we all stick with and support and so a lot of it goes to good governance from an internal perspective as well. And you’re right, it is liberating. It gives individual members a way to say, ‘We all stick together.’ You can’t go from one to the other and try to get a different answer because we’re all going to talk about it and then give you our decision as a whole rather than an individual.”

Ian Record:

“One final question I wanted to ask you, and it was interesting, we were interviewing another tribal leader earlier this morning, and he likened being an elected leader of a Native nation to drinking from a fire hose, which I’m sure you can identify with. I was wondering if you could talk about, how can leaders manage the often overwhelming pressures they face, in order to lead effectively? How can they manage that load, forge ahead, implement that strategic vision, guide that strategic vision, so that the nation can achieve the future it wants?”

Karen Diver:

“I think it’s management principles, and I think as we develop our own folks and they decide to serve through elected leadership, they’re going to bring different management capabilities to the table. And I usually tell new managers or people who are also feeling that -- because it happens all through the organization, not just at the top -- is prioritize, delegate and advocate. You prioritize. I liken it to going to the casino’s buffet. You only get one plate at a time, but you have all those choices so you pick that first plate carefully. When things are going well, you might even start with dessert, but when they’re not going well you might start with your meat instead of your salad. So you prioritize and pick that first plate very carefully. You put out the fires, but you pay attention to what precedent are you setting. Don’t just make it go away for going away’s sake 'cause you’re setting precedent, but you put out the fires first and you kind of look at your organization methodically. Right now we’re lucky; we have no fires. So what we’re looking at is that middle layer of management that is actually broader than the emergencies, but has more long-term impact. Does our organizational structure fit the service delivery we need to do, are there gaps, are there efficiencies to be found so you prioritize and you clip your way through it. Delegating is you don’t have to do it all on your own. You have a hierarchy in place. Make sure the hierarchy is working for you. Use content-area experts; hire them if you need to. I think one of the biggest failings of tribal government is to not admitting what you don’t know and asking and listening to those who do. I couldn’t have done a lot of the work in the last year without listening to my environmental staff, my education staff, my health staff. In many ways I take my orders from them. What are your priorities? What do you need me to talk about? Who do you need me to call? And let them do their jobs. Advocate ends up being important, because a lot of I think doing with tribal government work is educating people around and within you of the role of tribal government. What are our boundaries? How do we get partners in to do our work? We’ve been so busy building our self-governance, we forget we have allies out there, different funding sources, the legislatures, building relationships with townships and counties, which I think is actually going backwards lately because of cuts in local government aid and the economy and they see tribes not as partners anymore, but how do we get into their pocketbooks. So maintaining those relationships and advocacy sometimes happens in a crisis, sometimes in a proactive way, but really saying, ‘Hello, we’re still here, we have an impact, we have a role to play. It might not be the one you define, but there are areas of win-win, let’s talk about those,’ and telling that story. And if you can slowly clip through it that way, it becomes a little bit more manageable. What I usually tell people is tribal government, we’ve only really been self-governing in any meaningful way, probably for thirty years. We’ll continue to get better at it and we’ll make mistakes along the way, but it’s what works and so we have to prove that. So prioritizing and making sure you’re hitting those things and trying to prevent them from becoming those fires ends up being really important.”

Ian Record:

“Well Karen, I appreciate your time today and thanks for sharing your wisdom and your experience with us.”

Karen Diver:

“Thank you, my pleasure.”

From the Rebuilding Native Nations Course Series: "What Effective Bureaucracies Need"

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Native leaders offer their perspectives on the key characteristics that Native nation bureaucracies need to possess in order to be effective.

Native Nations
Citation

Brown, Eddie. "Tribal Service Delivery: Meeting Citizens' Needs" (Episode 7). Native Nation Building television/radio series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy and the UA Channel, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. 2006. Television program.

Ducheneaux, Wayne. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Spearfish, South Dakota. April 11, 2012. Interview.

LaPlante, Jr., Leroy. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. August 12, 2010. Interview.

Luarkie, Richard. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. October 1, 2012. Interview.

Penney, Sam. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. August 20, 2010. Interview.

Leroy LaPlante, Jr.:

"You know, when you have a strategy in terms of where, and a vision of where you want the tribe to be, you know, generations from now, everything works toward that end. And so people -- it does give program managers more focus and it does...but you know, that example being set by elected officials is so critical, 'cause if they're setting that example, then it trickles down to your administrative personnel, it trickles down to your program managers, it trickles down to your tribal employees. That there's this conscientiousness that what we're doing is really for the betterment of the people not just here today, but further down the road."

Sam Penney:

"With most bureaucracies, there needs to be roles and responsibilities, there needs to be clear lines of authority, policies and procedures need to be in place. That can save a lot of time over the long run. I think what was important for our tribe is when we adopted our strategic management plan that goes to all levels throughout the tribe, and that communication/coordination among the tribal departments and programs can always be improved. We are a pretty large entity, and I think that just by simply adopting a strategic management plan that is tribal council-approved goes a long ways in providing the day-to-day direction for your staff."

Wayne Ducheneaux:

"I think it all falls back to a solid policies and procedures, something that...a handbook, a guideline that everybody can look at and distribute equitability amongst everybody. It really helps to have the support of your elected officials when you're carrying out the day to day. That's one of the things that I've found has really been cool about my job is of the 15 tribal council people, I've had every one in my office come in and visit with me, ask for advice. I've asked them for advice and what we need to help keep that going is the trust from elected officials, but a clear policy to follow so we make sure everything's fair."

Eddie Brown:

"It's building a good solid foundation of making sure that you have your regulations in place. When we talk about foster care programs or child welfare programs, they have a lot of rules and regulations and standards to ensure the protection of the child as well as the parents. Those kind of things -- having good regulations in place, hiring competent staff, providing training for those staff, pulling together management information systems that allow them to track and to evaluate the kind of program or the impact of the programs that they're having. I think all of this -- it's a tremendous challenge for an administrator today at a tribal level, because there are so many things that need to be done with limited dollars, and a growing expectation of tribal members toward the tribal council to begin to act in a full essence of what a government is, and that is a government's role is to care for the wellbeing of its citizens."

Richard Luarkie:

"For Laguna, I believe what makes our system work well, our bureaucracy work well is the ability to authorize those that are in decision-making roles -- like directors and supervisors -- to make certain levels of decisions. That way everything is not coming to the governor's office, everything's not coming to the chief of operations, and so when you can begin to build quality staff, great systems, the system will take care of itself and you don't have to sign off on every little document. So having that type of environment in place is very critical and I think definitely helps with the bureaucracy. On the tribal side, same thing with the...on the tribal government side, same scenario where the tribal council has delegated to the governor's office and to our staff officer level certain signing authority so we don't have to take everything into tribal council. As an example, we just had a request for filming. There's a movie that's going to be filmed at Laguna and starring Jennifer Aniston and they wanted to come and film for two days and it was two hours per day. So as opposed to taking that into council, that's something that the governor's office can just sign off on. So it allows the council to focus on the big issues and not have to worry about, do we authorize somebody to come film for two hours and we end up debating that for two hours. So it becomes critical when you can begin to delegate certain responsibilities out and so that helps in our bureaucracy."

Membertou: Accountable to the Community

Producer
Centre for First Nations Governance
Year

Leaders of Membertou First nation explain how a high level of accountability to citizens and partners has been key to its success in both governance and business.

Native Nations
Citation

Centre for First Nations Governance. "Membertou: Accountable to the Community." Centre for First Nations Governance. Canada. 2011. Film. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuHc-sONf4g&list=UU6Kmkt3MUlLgGT4vN4NVKWQ, accessed May 6, 2014)

Indigenous Governance Toolkit

Producer
Australian Indigenous Governance Institute
Year

The Indigenous Governance Toolkit is an online resource developed for Indigenous nations, communities, individuals and organisations searching for information to build their governance. It covers all the basics — your rules, values, culture, membership, leadership, and decision making — and has many examples of ideas that work from other groups, tools to help you get started, and useful guidance to sustain your efforts.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Indigenous Governance Toolkit. Reconciliation Australia. Australia. 2013. Tools. (http://toolkit.aigi.com.au/, accessed July 25, 2023)