The Final Post

I'm sure somebody will correct me if wrong.  But thirteen days has to be the longest I've gone without making a blog post.  No, it is not because I no longer care, or because the Council drama has consumed me.  Pure and simple, I've started another blog: the Grand Ronde Post.
It is not live right now, though I've made some posts.  Right now I am just getting comfortable with the hosting company, Wordpress.  I like Blogger, but Wordpress has impressed me enough to give it a go.  I like many of the features, and my research has indicated it to be one of the better if not best blog-hosting sites.  I plan to make it live this weekend, if not sooner.
I will not be eliminating this blog.  If anything, I plan on keeping it around.  Kind of like an archive.  Not sure how many bother to read this blog anymore, it has tapered off somewhat, and maybe a change over is what we need.  I hope to add other authors to the Grand Ronde Post, but it will all depend on who is willing.
Anyway, after three years plus year, we can all agree a little change will hurt nobody.

Details, Details

It seems like forever ago that we hired ECONorthwest to advise us on how better we might conduct our business.  In actuality, that was only four years ago.  But in Council years it might was well have been a lifetime.

In the very end, we did not accept all of ECO's recommendations.  I might more accurately say we didn't accept even a majority of their advice.  But what we did accept, and have since then molded and fashioned according to our tastes and preferences, is the Tribal Council Operating Procedures.

We had a very constructive, if scattered, meeting on those guidelines again today.  The last time we tackled the operating procedures was back in autumn, but enough has transpired recently to merit another look, in particular how we make decisions.

The still infamous Polk County Sheriff's Report/Leno Letter sparked a series of Records of Instructions.  The first was to mail the PCSR to the General membership.  The second was to somehow include the entire report in an issue of Tilixam Wawa.  The third was to allow those named in the report the chance to include a response in original mailout.  The fourth was to send out the original audit that was turned over the the police.  Only the first one passed.

This is not the first time multiple committee sheets have been circulated regarding the same issue.  In 2007 while trying to manifest some sort of decision on a Constitutional amendment on enrollment we ended up doing at least four, maybe even five different ROI's on the exact language.  We ended up going with the one with five signatures.  What was different this time around was only one got five signatures, as there was a noticeable lack on nine signatures on most of them.  One ROI disappeared briefly, for what seemed like a couple of days.  I am still not sure what happened.

Numerous questions abound.  Can one ROI supersede the other?  Do Council comments affect the intent of the ROI?  Can a Council member remove the ROI from consideration?  What if a ROI, like the one calling for the release of the audit, fractures a Tribal law?  Should the requestor be required to list their name as the requestor, instead of just generically Tribal Council?

It was an interesting discussion, to say the least.  In the past we adjusted the language so that committee sheets could only be introduced during a formal meeting, eliminating the practice of Council members drafting and ROI and collecting signatures in private.  There still appeared to be flaws in our system.  Ultimately, we decided to reserve nearly all votes, including ROI's, for Tuesday mornings, where they could be vetted and discussed openly.  There will be exceptions in the case of emergencies, which I'm sure at one point will be tested.  Tuesdays, already with Legislative Action Committee, have become legislative holy days.  Right now, I am okay with it.

It's true, that whole thing about the devil being in the details.

Law Enforcement

Laws, no matter how intelligently written and how much they account for unforseen circumstances will inevitably fail if they overlook one fundamental, and that is the enforcement of those laws.  I've been thinking about this a lot lately for several reasons, one being the inconsistency of how we've dealt with the now infamous 2008 anonymous letter (aka the Leno letter) and others, the other being having to deal with an agreement for police services in Grand Ronde through the Polk County Sheriff's Office.  As of this morning there is now a third reason:  the resurrection of an Exclusion Ordinance that little did I know was written years ago only to languish up until now.
The Leno letter debacle and subsequent involvement of our auditor and police have rightly raised questions about fairness, e.g. why weren't past letters where somebody had clearly used a mailing list to which they shouldn't have had access also turned over to legal authorities?  For reasons that shouldn't be vague, I think you are reaching an ethical black hole when the decision to turn over the knowledge of probable illegal activity to police comes down to a vote of Tribal Council.  If there are laws and ordinances that clearly define illegal activity, do they do any good if there is going to be picking-and-choosing when to enforce those laws?
There is right and wrong, and then there is legal and illegal, with some overlapping of the two, but not always.  Right becomes wrong, and possibly illegal, when it is selective.  A state highway patrol officer is right to pull over drivers who are going 75 in a 55 mph zone, because then there are laws clearly being broken.  That same action becomes wrong, though not necessarily illegal (however I'm sure a case could be made), when the same officer decides that he will only pull over and ticket speeders that are either strangers or enemies, or he doesn't like the color of their skin, or age, or that they are women, etc.  My real point:  Tribal Council is not the best body to be making that kind of decision, because we don't have to justify our selectivity.  The reasons could be purely political and purely personal for deciding on whether to subject somebody to the hammer of justice.
Now my second point:  Our dealings with the Polk County Sheriff's Office have revived the idea of starting our own Tribal police force, because then we would have more control of the policing on Tribal lands, and the officers could even be Tribal members.  Frankly, this would be the ultimate excercise of our Tribal sovereignty, and in theory it is a not a bad idea.  But I think it's rife with pitfalls.  The first thing that occurs to me is what does a Tribal police officer think as he receives a phone call about a crime in which a distant or close relative is implicated?  What about when he must arrest a Tribal Council member, knowing full well this person will decide whether to continue to approve the police department budget?  Will "Other Business" on Wednesday night meetings become the venue where Tribal members talk about how police are corrupt, or present one-sided stories of their innocence and how Council must interceded on their behalf?  I've read of Tribal police, and judges for that matter, getting caught up in the storm of Tribal politics and crises.
This morning's meeting on an Exclusion Ordinance raised similar red flags, especially when the rough draft read that Tribal Council would make the decision on whether to move forward with banishing somebody from Tribal property.  I understand the need for staff to have a means to enforce ordinances, and the fact that people have been caught dealing drugs or promoting gang activity on our lands and are allowed back into housing and near our children has to be a cause for concern.  But I don't think that kind of decision needs to come before us.  Law enforcement needs to be independent.
Years ago, we appointed several former Council members to form an ethics task force and rewrite our ethical standards.  In the end, their recommendations, which included establishing an ethics commission, were not accepted, being viewed as just an additional layer of government.  In sitting on SMGI and getting to witness how the gaming commission polices Spirit Mountain Casino, with the ability to sanction anybody from frontline employees to the CEO, I understand now more than ever the need for that extra layer.  Run correctly and free of political influence, it works.

Yakima

Last weekend marked the second straight year we've gone to Yakima, Washington, as part of our annual Community Meetings. Of all our meetings, this one is without a doubt the most remote, the longest drive, and for what it's worth, the most interesting at least in terms of meeting new Tribal members who've set up lives elsewhere, which of course is most of the general membership.

Yakima is fascinating for sure. As you drive from the Columbia Gorge north and enter the Yakima valley, there almost seems to be a climate shift, as everything gets warmer, sunnier, and slightly humid. As a couple of Tribal members explained to me, the area is vegetable heaven, and they know what times of the year to buy which vegetables. Every major temperate-climate vegetable flourishes here, or so it appears.

Grand Ronde and Yakima have a history. This was where many Tribal members drifted to, perhaps for work, perhaps for other reasons. We've roughly 130 members in this area, one of the greatest concentrations outside the state of Oregon. There are several families who could just as easily enroll in Yakima as Grand Ronde. They are also considered a gorge tribe, whereas we would like to be a gorge tribe.

The attendance this year was smaller than last year, but still on par if not better than Eugene and Portland. Some might say we need to do away with this non-local community meetings altogether. I think we simply need to promote them more, by sending flyers and invitations, maybe even giving out more door prizes. You can announce stuff in the "Smoke Signals", but if you're like me it is not hard to lose sight of something amidst the obituaries, birthday announcements, and other advertisements.

While we might have had only 20 different Tribal members show up this year, I conversed with almost all of them on some level, even just superficially. Since I was one of four Council members, divvying our time, especially during the one-hour meet-and-greet prior to lunch, was not difficult. The breakout sessions went reasonably well, and overall those attending were polite, asked good questions, and inthe case of Council, were genuinely interested in talking to us. The only complaint is that Red Lion, as opposed to other businesses, would not let people take the leftovers home, which is different from the other places we've use to host these meetings. Since less the half of the food we ordered for 80 people got eaten, that is a criticism I agree with.

I hope we don't give up on the Community Meetings just yet. Maybe it was because I had as good a time yesterday as I've had at one, sparsely attended though it was. The people who come really enjoy themselves. Plus I was told "See ya next year!". I am still unsure, however, why some still confuse me with Mark Mercier.

PACT Distraction

Back in my freshman year of high school, I read a book which contained an interesting story. In the early 20th century an asteroid came close to hitting the Earth. It was big enough, I remember reading, to have caused an unheard of amount of destruction, probably killing millions. What I found funny about this story was that aside from the scientific community, and even then probably mostly astronomers, nobody really knew.
Google asteroids heading toward Earth and you'll get a number of interesting stories. Supposedly we might be hit by an asteroid again at some point in the near future. I suppose it is hard to forcast such a thing. What is not hard to do is to be so distracted as to forget how tenuous our existence might be, so enveloped are we with everyday life.
On Friday I drove down to Eugene to hear the oral arguments in a case of significance that has been simmering for years since 2003. The organization People Against a Casino Town (PACT) has filed a lawsuit against the State of Oregon arguing that Indian casinos are a violation of our state constitution. From a legal standpoint, of course it is infinitely more complicated than that, as the 90 minutes of arguments atest to. And this matter has been making its way through the legal system. But if I have to condense my interpretation to one sentence, that would be it. The PACT makes their points here.
We've been monitoring this lawsuit the entire time I've been on Council. The Coos Tribe have been the primary targets of this effort, but if the PACT were to win their suit that would obviously have repercussions for every tribe in Oregon. So for as much of a longshot as this case may seem, it has the potential to pull the rug out from under all of us. I don't believe that is going to happen. Even if they were to win this case I cannot for the life of me picture police and government agents showing up and forcing us to close shop like they did bars and speakeasies during Prohibition. There would have to be some sort of mediation, some middle ground.
We have a tendency to take our sovereignty for granted. So much so, we get sucked into things that in the grand scheme of Indian country and our Tribe are really kind of silly. Some time this next week, members will be getting a large envelope. In it will be a brief letter from our Director of Development talking about potential identity theft, and attempting to update members on an event that took place two years ago, for which nobody is being charged with anything. There will be a 16-page police report that casts suspicion on several people.
I am not sure how many members will care or even remember what this is about. But there will a number who will pack the room Wednesday night, provided they get it by then, demanding action, accountability, and maybe even ask me why I didn't vote to mail out this packet. My reason will be, among others, that we've spent too much time, energy, and money on something that really amounts to mudslinging. That answer probably will not satisfy them.
It saddens me that this will be such a hot topic in the near future, because while some might think the decision to send out this packet will hopefully bring the still-simmering incident to a close, my hunch is the two-year simmer will reach a boiling point, with more heated meetings and accusations flying. I could see this going another two years. I also see it getting uglier, much uglier.
I question the role we play in all this. After six years I think we create more problems than we solve by immersing ourselves in situations that are political and personality driven. Worst of all, this kind of "stuff", informational junk food, distracts us and our membership from the things that matter more, the possible asteroids heading our way-- the PACT lawsuits, the Supreme Court decisions, the things infinitely more important, and relevant.

NIGA

The National Indian Gaming Association didn't impress me much back in February. Then, the conference was held in Washington, D.C., right before that epic snowstorm. I was battling the usual insomnia that gets me every trip east. It was hard to keep focused, much less awake during some of the speakers. And overall, the conference just didn't seem that organized, as some of the speakers talked more about the upcoming NFL conference championships and the upcoming Superbowl than Indian gaming. At least they seemed to.
The NIGA conference this past week, in San Diego, was infinitely more informative. I might even say too informative. I knew it would be interesting when the keynote speaker on the first day was, of all people, NBA legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar, who entered the convention with BIll Walton, also legendary. Abdul Jabbar was also accepting the NIGA Chairman's Award for his work in bringing basketball camps to numerous Indian reservations. The photo op caused chuckles as Walton stepped in, two seven-footers amongst several Tribal leaders, the tallest maybe six feet tall.
This week was a celebration of NIGA's 25th Anniversary, though only the 19th conference. It was also half conference and half trade show, as the lower level of half the San Diego Convention Center was a cacophony of new slot machines, booths, giveaways, lounge areas, and networking opportunities. I haven't really been to this kind of convention before. The trade show seemed geared more toward casino managers, name a casino department and there were multiple booths peddling some sort of novelty or software designed to make Human Resources and Restaurant management easier. The "bait" in many of these booths were young attractive women, complete with SoCal tans. Given all the older men in suits, that makes sense.
I sat in a number of workshops, most of which were useful, one not so much. Many of these workshops seem like "ins" for the company putting them on. I sat through one on the value of Social media for Tribal casinos. Facebook and Twitter were the focal points, with some recognitionof LinkedIn and MySpace. Facebook totals more than 450 users I learned, with Twitter following behind at 70 million. However, 14 million Twitter users account for more web content generation than all of Facebook. Also, the quickest growing demographic of social media users, over the past year anyway, has been the 55 and over population, who have increased 1000%. Given that same demographic contribute more to Tribal casinos than anything, it is only logical that this company helps marketing departments incorporate social media into campaigns.
The most interesting workshop I attended was the last, and titled "Different Generations, Different Challenges...Dude". It was basically a leadership/managerial course that got into generational differences. I understood Generation X and Baby Boomers, but knew little about Generation Y, the Greatest Generation, the Good Warriors, and the Boomer sub-generation the Joneses. The man hosting the workshop runs a company in Seattle, and although a Boomer, said in all his work Baby Boomers tend to cause more problems around the workplace than other generations, chiefly on account of an unwillingness to turn the reins over to younger generations and not coping well with the proliferation of technology in all aspects of life. Gen Xers, which I am one of, prefer to work unsupervised, don't believe in hierarchies, and were the first generation raised by single moms, which thus created our independence. We also lived through Watergate, IranContra, the gas crisis, Three-mile island, church sex scandals, all of which have made us cynics. Generation Y, they are the chronic texters, the most culturally diverse, and most needing of praise, though money isn't everything. The workshop was, to say the least, fascinating.
There was another workshop that resonated with me, but more on that later. As demonstrated below, I'm starting to use the video capabilities on my phone more.





And if you've ever wanted to see a Cuban cigar made, here you go:

Mounds of Memories

In late 2006 I helped myself to an oak shelf that sat in the Executive Office's meeting room virtually unused. No, I didn't steal it. I just moved transferred the shelf to my own office, because by then an obscene amount of paperwork was starting to accumulate on my desk and table. Rather than buy a new shelf I simply swapped a smaller cherry wood one for a larger oak version. Weeks went by but somebody noticed, and after coming and chewing me out (albeit in a friendly way) a replacement was ordered. So my attempts to save the Tribe money went for naught.
Since then the shelf has become overloaded. I save everything piece of paper, every report, memorandum, etc. possible. Some people think it excessive, and I cringe when watching that cable television show "Hoarders" because if there is ever an office or workplace version somebody might turn me in. But you never know, I always say. Electronic records can be manipulated and conversations, I learned by sitting through some of the Pearsall hearings, can be mysteriously forgotten no matter how important. Hard copies, with my own notes, are the way to go, my proof of history.
I've started making a dent in paper mounds by learning how to scan, double-sided, much of these reports and packets and converting them to PDF's. Thus I now have photocopies of my notes and can scrap the originals. It has been somewhat liberating.
Some people know this but I've requested all of our reports be emailed to me in PDF's, including SMGI paperwork. I download these to my netbook or laptop and scroll through them during meetings. Foxit Reader, a PDF reader that is downloadable for free, allows me to type notes onto the reports and memos. At first I would get a lot of looks during meetings, some guy sitting on a laptop during a meeting, but people are catching on. I take some solace in the environmental part, today's work session packet was 90 pages long. The longest one in recent memory was nearly 150 pages. With nine Council members you can guess how much paper we go through. I am tempted to compute how much the paper costs weigh over two to three years versus a netbook with a 2-3 year lifespan.
Sorting through many of these older packets as I scan them has been akin to strolling down memory lane. I've always considered myself having a good memory. But in looking over many of these packets it is obvious that much has happened that I've almost forgotten. My notes or the agendas trigger floods of memories, some of which must be embedded deep in the back of my mind. It is almost overwhelming.
The agendas will often just list a meeting we had, at what time. Depending on the topic I either draw a blank or relive a session that got very heated. I came across many on enrollment, and I can recall that a crowd of people showed up. I can remember when somebody got upset and stomped out. Some things I can remember I wanted to remember, but obviously did not.
Years ago National Geographic featured on article on memory. There is a woman in California, who now prefers to be unnamed. She possesses an extremely rare condition called hyperthymestic syndrome. She remembers every waking second of her life, of what she has read, of what she watched on television. People thought her a freak or phony, and would harass her to prove her condition wasn't real.
She said in the article it was more of a curse. Not sure if I agree. This job has tested my memory like no other. I would love to remember everything. As I close in on the end of my second term, and who knows maybe even final depending on voters, there has been, as all the notes and packets remind me, quite a story to tell.