The Big Three-Two

Yesterday was my birthday, which based on the phone calls and emails, obviously a lot more people than I thought knew about. Thank you all! Like I responded to a couple of emails, my birthday was spent doing what every person should do: Avoiding work and hitting the beach. To be honest, I felt a little guilty about skipping out on the office, even though I did stop by en route to the coast to check up on things. The remaining Council members seemed to have everything under control...
The 32nd year doesn't quite have the omenous feel that 30 did, but I still have a hard time believing that my college years are nearly a decade gone now.
These photos are form Oswald West State Park, just north of Manzanitas. This was my third trip here. For those of you out-of-state, it is a beautiful park that my photos hardly do justice to. It is also an excellent place to learn to surf. In fact, I haven't learned much on a surfboard since the last time I got out in the water here. It was where I caught my first wave, even if I couldn't stand up for long. If this place doesn't make you proud to be an Oregonian, I don't know what will.

The park is basically a short quarter-mile hike in though some lush temperate coastal rainforest. You soon advance onto a small private beach, maybe one mile long tops, bordered by shear rock cliffs, as my photos testify to. There is camping, but one must reserve a spot with the park months in advance.

A Long, Long Week

Factually speaking, this week wasn’t any longer than others. There were seven days, and 24 hours in each of those, and 60 minutes in each of those. But it felt a lot longer than that for multiple reasons, some of which I’ll share here, and others that sooner or later everybody will get wind of. One week has probably been the longest I’ve gone thus far between blog entries.
There were three key events that unfolded over the last week, all related to the dual elections. One was that on Wednesday we appointed three members of the Tribal Election Board to be part of the actual Special Constitutional Election Board. This is a crucial part of that election because now a timeline for the vote is set. Between 30 and 60 days that they actually meet with the BIA, which I understand to be within the next two weeks, the election must take place. We can now pinpoint resolution on this long-awaited issue. Before mid-October, we’ll have an answer.
The second event was also Wednesday, and if you listen closely you can hear the sound of thick cardboard-like paper being inserted into secrecy envelopes. Ballots for the 2007 Tribal Council elections are en route to your mailbox. They will arrive any day now.
The third event is what I found the most entertaining, the Candidates’ Forum. I was admittedly very irritated about this whole thing for much of the week. All that we had been informed of was that the event would take place July 26, at 5:30 in the Tribal Community Center. I assumed the format would mimic those of the past few years: speech, tables for literature, meal. Last year for the first time I can remember they introduced the novel idea of randomly selected questions and answers. That idea would be repeated this year.
One candidate last year tripped over the simple question of naming the five tribes symbolized by the five feathers on our crest. In what was kind of an inside joke with a few other candidates, we quizzed one another on that same question, none of us wanting the embarrassment of flubbing a gimme.
Being completely honest, I was shocked by the turnout of the forum, and in a good way. The Community Center was packed, even if you could plainly see that a majority of the onlookers were very decided and weren’t going to be swayed by anything tonight outside of raising the dead. I suppose that’s the advantage of being in touch with the local community, after a while it doesn’t take much to figure out who is on whose side.
All the candidates were given five minutes to make an opening speech. Mine went over by about thirty seconds, one other candidate’s by a couple of minutes. Nobody seemed to mind. Of course I didn’t memorize them all, but could tell you that two or three candidates in particular seemed so far out of the loop that one front-row listener shot me a look of dismay following an especially uninformed comment. This candidate was curious to know why there was no Council involvement with Spirit Mountain Casino, oblivious to the touchy SMGI Board situation. And of course another spoke to the need to increase the budget of our Education division, seemingly unaware that last year we fully funded the endowment. And then of course there was the candidate who spoke about the need build a casino in Portland, and being a BIA employee vouched for La Center and Cascade Locks being near-certainties within the next few years.
Overall though, there was a lot of talk about unity, a lot of references to the future, and to the Elders, and geneaology
Breaking for dinner produced one of the most memorable and frustrating moments of my evening. While standing in the lobby an Elder approached me. Now this Elder tends to take gossip very seriously, and had called me the week before to ask why Council members weren’t paying taxes on their salaries. Seems this particular Elder (#1) had been visited once again in her home, by the same Elder (#2) who planted the bug about the taxes. Elder #2 clearly has it in for me. I garnered that #2 was male, #1 leaked this much to me. And #2 swore that he had heard me state publicly “If you’re in politics, it’s okay to lie”, and was so taken aback by this that he had to pay #1 a visit in her home to make this known. Such a statement is very revealing, and don’t forget that Chris Mercier is also up for re-election. I chuckled as #1 laid this out to me, and asked her if #2 himself was so honest and bold as to have been willing to let his name be known in passing along such a key bit of information about me. Evidently not.
Anyway, Elder #1 is also a big proponent of the Constitutional amendment, and asked if I was going to campaign on that issue. Thankfully an immediate family member was in on the conversation, and reminded #1 that as a matter of fact I was the only one who even touched on enrollment in my speech. That didn’t seem to be enough for #1, who for reasons I am not clear on suddenly became very, very rude to me, stating that I never listened to her, never took her seriously, and in general proceeded to try and make me feel about 10 inches tall. Even her daughter was aghast at these barbs. As she left to go smoke, I stood asking myself if I was ready for another three years of this.
Despite that surprise tongue-lashing, I was in high enough spirits to come back for the Q & A session. Now this year all of us candidates would get to take a stab at randomly selected questions, and be given two minutes in which to generate a response. With the variety of questions, of course, answers would range from 20 seconds to more than two minutes.
In what seemed like perfect comic timing, Dean Mercier drew the first question, which was basically “Can you name the five Tribes?” After laughter, he did. My own questions weren’t terribly difficult. The first was what would I do to improve communication if elected, to which I answered the same as in my campaign literature—the internet, more publications, try and figure out a way to establish a free press.
My second question was not so easy. Actually, it was. I just was not prepared for the simplicity. What two “programs” would I keep if there were funding for only two? Prior to being on Council, I’d have had a much easier time. Like I told the audience, I’m not sure what the questioner meant by “ programs”, did they mean departments, a division, services, what? Well, the obvious choice was our health care, given that it’s such a huge issue nationally. Number two is where I hesitated. We should keep up the casino, and the Elders’ pension as well, and education normally but it’s already funded by endowment which kind of eliminates that. Per capita flashed in my head, but I wasn’t sure if that was a program…Ultimately, my answer was health care, and at this point it’s just hard to pick a second “program”. Most of them are important. I am being honest, I told the audience.
As we were seated in a row up in front of the Council chairs, another candidate leaned over an applauded me for being honest. I still felt inadequate, being one of those people who likes having the answers. Thankfully, like my first question, the third was right up my alley: What would you do to help preserve the Tribe’s culture and history? I’ve started taking chinuk, I told people, and every class is a history lesson. We need to develop more incentives to make Tribal members want to learn the language and history. We need a book written on our history, the real history, too, unglossed. Dean Mercier clapped for me after that statement. Our cultural trust board will hopefully help bring more craft classes like woodcarving, basket-weaving, etc. And, I added, maybe a cultural endowment is an idea worth investing in.
Overall, a lot of the questions weren’t really hard, at least not for a sitting Council member. A number of them had me impatient, because boy would I have nailed that one. A couple of them were disturbing, not so much for the question but for the answer, and who gave it. I had to stay in my seat when a past Council member who had been involved in that rescinding of our Tribal Ethical Standards Ordinance in 2003 evidently forgot how they had voted on that. I bit my lip. I am not even going to mention the other question and answer that bothered me, not tonight anyway.
By the time the forum winded down, it was well past eight o’clock, and a weekday no less. Some of my brochures had been taken. And I had a very good conversation with some Elders with whom I’ve rarely had the opportunity to speak with. My biggest regret: That we didn’t get to debate.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
For anybody who is interested, here was my speech:

“I see a lot of familiar faces here today. I also see a few new ones. For those of you who know me or are lucky enough to attend our public Council meetings, you know I am not a talker. I’m pretty long-winded when it comes to writing, as everybody has noticed. But talking, that’s a different story.
Yesterday we had the Morris K. Udall tour bus stop by during their national tour. Grand Ronde was fortunate enough to be one of only two dozen or so stops. The tour crew was mostly people in their 20’s, some of them were college students, some of them were native. All of them had this look about them. I don’t know how to describe it. I guess you could call it the look of somebody who has their entire future before them, and just by looking at some of them, you could tell that future might be anything, and they were all pretty comfortable with that. I attended a Udall function in D.C. last month, and what I could see was the leaders of tomorrow paying their dues today. You could call it the next generation, the 18 to 40 year olds who will form the next crop of leaders. Some would say that I belong in that same group.
What I remember most from yesterday was as one of the more curious youth peppered me with questions about Grand Ronde, from general membership, to form of government, to even the unique politics of our own tribe. In informing this young lady that I was up for re-election, she labeled me something that I’ve heard before, but not often. She called me one of those “reluctant politician types”. I guess I am.
Anyway, I am not just telling this story to kill time and take up five minutes. I am telling it because yesterday, in seeing that crew, I saw two things that reminded me of why I am here and why I want to stay here and be re-elected. They are touring the country and performing different tasks with tribes, local governments, parks, you name it. Their whole aim is public service, not any sort of personal gain, but touching down in different communities and trying to make a difference. They reminded me of what we are supposed to be doing as Council. They spent all day helping dig our Tillamook Trail, and I suppose I don’t need to explain the symbolism here of digging a trail that future generations will use. There’s two words here I am talking about: public service.
Believe it or not, I am not much older than some of those youngsters who were part of that crew. I turn 32 on Monday. But after the past three years I feel older than that, and a lot wiser. When I was elected three years ago, it was on a wave of change. I guess the question that I would ask you, the voters, is “Do you feel anything has changed?”
One of the hardest things about this job is not losing yourself, not forgetting what drove you to go through a grueling and stressful campaign process. I don’t think I’ve lost myself. Maybe some of my views have changed, but not many.
What I stood for three years ago I still stand for now: communication with our membership, ethics, intergovernmental relations, insuring member services, and making our Council and Tribe respected throughout Indian country. Have I accomplished all that. I’d say “yes, but…”. And when I say “yes, but…” I mean we’ve made some progress in those areas but not enough for me to quit.
I’ve never intended to serve more than two or three terms on Council. My stance on term limits has not changed, I believe that three terms is enough for anybody. I don’t mean any offense to our long-serving Council members, but that is really how I feel, and after having served on Council I feel even more strongly about it than before.
There has been a lot about this election year about unity, about our Tribal elders. Those aren’t off my radar, I think I’ve demonstrated that those are priorities to me as much as anyone else. But what I’ve heard very little about is people in my own age group, the Tribal members who’ve taken advantage of our educational services, our job opportunities, who have been cultivated and aided by the help our Tribe provides. And also, the Tribal members who don’t live here.
I think you need diversity on this Council, because our own membership itself is incredibly diverse. You need people who have lived away from the community, who’ve seen the world. We need to make this an attractive place for our talented Tribal members to come home and work. And those that can’t come home, we need to make them feel a part of this community.
I am not an Elder, as you can see. I didn’t grow up out here. I may be a local now, but not before. That may not matter for some of you, but it does for me. Because there are more people like me than there are who aren’t like me. There are more of us who aren’t locals, who aren’t elders, who have spent most of their lives away from Grand Ronde. Yet when we talk about the future of our tribe, we never clarify what we mean. Our Tribe is expanding, geographically and population-wise.
Well the next generation is people like me. As think that as we proceed on this Tribal journey, we do need to remember and think of our elders, but we also need to think of those like me, the Tribal members who haven’t lived, the young adults who are just starting their future, and those who are affected by the enrollment dilemma we’re in. That is what treating all Tribal members equally is all about.”

A Growing Frustration

I didn’t go into the office Friday. It had nothing to do with being sick, but rather another commitment. You see, I had been invited by Lewis & Clark College in Portland to participate in their Indigenous Ways of Knowing program, something that has just gotten off the ground for them and one which I am eager to see progress. I felt a twinge of guilt for not alerting staff of my absence this Friday, because often I am one of a few Council members who stays past lunch on the last day of the week. Given the start time, there was really no way I could make it into the office. So this Friday, July 20th, 2007, I would not be in the office, would not be able to make the Elders’ Honor Day, and would not be able to mark my calendar.
On my desk sits a large calendar, 18" by 24", with each day large enough to where you can draft a sentence. For my first two years, this calendar was nothing more than a desk matt, but since December of 2006 it has served a very important purpose: This colorful calendar, which always bears some sort of catchy “nature” photograph, serves as my attendance log. Most days, when I remember, I mark who on Council was in, who was out, why, and where. I think members would be shocked to come in and look at it.
Being a Council member must be in many ways like being self-employed. More than anything it takes a whole lot of discipline, especially just to crawl out of bed every morning and come to work. When I first got elected, the most shocking aspect of this job was the leniency regarding our attendance. Council members can not show up for just about any reason. In fact, they can not show up for no reason.
Last summer with an outgoing Council member I saw that taken to an obscene level. I barely saw him last summer, maybe nine or ten times tops, as he was not seeking re-election and obviously didn’t feel the need to come in. Most mornings upon arriving from work I would look at our status board, the one which lists all Council plus our supporting staff with convenient “in” and “out” columns and times, and would see simply “personal leave”. Of course this particular Councilman was no longer making a concentrated effort to be productive when he did show up, so I can’t say we really missed him. But still, as Angie Blackwell pointed out when she questioned his attendance one morning during Legislative Action Committee, how different is collecting a paycheck for work not done from actual stealing?
Given the partisan position of this Council member within our nine-body board, it was obvious to raise this issue was just going to yield unproductive and mean-spirited arguing. We still had a job to do, and let the issue pass. Looking back, I realize it was a mistake to let him off the hook.
I can’t really say that things improved after the election. In fact, towards the end of the year, I would venture to say they got worse. Bad enough, at least, to where in November during a staff update a pretty notable staff member timidly, if firmly, informed us that it would be nice to have a quorum to conduct business. I jumped on the bandwagon then, tossing in my own comments. For a couple of weeks, I would almost say this little outburst, if one could call it that, worked. But as the holidays rolled around, that work session quickly became forgotten.
Council has recourse, there is language in the Tribal Council Ordinance for dealing with missed meetings, it revolves around “excused” or not. But the real issue is would a majority of Council be willing to enforce this? More importantly, is it worth the time and headache?
The Ethics Task Force included some very forceful rules regarding attendance in their new language, but that ordinance died back in February. I’ve often wondered if reverting Council pay to an hourly basis, clocking in and clocking out included, would provide some sort of antidote to what is becoming a major problem. I’ve also wondered if we need more guidelines for what warrants travel, since right now the policy for which to send Council members to conferences are basically the whims of each person.
My frustration reached a new high in June. In one of the only months during my three years on Council, I had to travel twice, for the first week of the month and the third. I was to learn upon my return that of the four days scheduled with work sessions during my absence, three of them were canceled completely. Three whole days of business were wiped clean and postponed for later. The reason: lack of quorum.

Inspiration

Today was a very good day for me. I started off this morning in an early meeting with a Tribal elder to discuss cultural education and identity issues. I was very inspired by his ideas and just by knowing I still have the support of some highly respected local elders.

That meeting was followed by some work in the office, but then I took some personal time in the afternoon to run some errands. Then I went to the Eugene Satellite Office to talk with the staff and to meet their new Youth Prevention Intern. It was good to see how the office has grown and to hear about all the ways the staff is reaching out to the members in their area. There are still some wrinkles to be ironed out, but for the most the office is a huge success.

Later in the day I had the opportunity to talk with some Tribal members that are launching an educational campaign for the Constitutional Amendment on enrollment (you'll receive information from the BIA later this summer/early fall). I appreciate the way that Tribal members are taking responsibility for informing the membership. It is important that the message come from fellow members rather than just the Tribal government. The group was very energetic and it reminded of when restoration was run by volunteers that really cared about what they were doing. Don't get me wrong, it's nice that we pay people for working on committees, but it has diminished that sense of everyone working together on something for the pure satisfaction of achieving a common goal.

I finish this day with a sense of hope for the future. I don't just mean hope that I will be re-elected, it is much bigger than that. I have hope that Tribal members will continue to work cooperatively for the common good of all our people. I have hope that however small, seeds are being planted today that we will nurture and sow for many generations to come.

Things Get Interesting

Elections have a way of bring out the worst and occasionally the best in people. More often, however, it tends to be the former. This year in particular doesn’t seem to be any different, but over time I guess I’ve learned to live with it.
Honestly, my intentions when starting this blog were to keep a running journal of what happens to Council members in their jobs on a daily basis, and especially during elections. In that respect, I wish I’d started it after first getting elected. Last summer I made my push for having blogs as part of the Tribal Council portion of the tribal website, since it just seemed one of the best ways for leaders to communicate. That idea of course went down quick. One Council member, I remember quite distinctly, told me it would be unfair because of course I would be posting more than others. I was later reminded that I am more of a computer person, and not everyone on Council is comfortable or used this way of life. And of course one Council member shot it down because… get this “It could become political”. We know how taboo that is in our line of work, for anything to become political.
In hindsight, my suspicions are that some Council members 1) don’t like to put anything in writing, lest they be held accountable for it (verbalizing everything is the easiest way to cover one’s behind, you can always say “I didn’t say that!” and unless recorded the matter rests), and 2) don’t want to add any extra work to their jobs, and a blog would be extra work. Either way, I lost the blog battle one summer ago and haven’t raised the issue since. My one true regret is not starting this blog earlier, but I guess the light didn’t go on in my head until recently.
I don’t really have a major point to make today, other than to appreciate how interesting life as a Council member gets during election time, and how the internet is such a great invention that allows me to communicate some of that experience to those who are interested. In no particular order, here a few anecdotes from election time life as a Council member:

Tuesday morning a rather hostile message was left on my office voice mail. In keeping with the format of much of what I’ve posted here, for something like this names will be omitted, even though this person made sure there would be little mistake as to who left this message. Basically, earlier in the year this person called me repeatedly, under some admittedly grim circumstances, and made a request that legally I really saw no way to honor. When I explained my reasons for not being able to help her she unloaded on me. That is basically an understatement, but I don’t know quite how else to put it.
After that incident she called two separate times, one time breaking down and screaming a message onto my voicemail that meant nothing good. A second time she called and left yet another message, this one subdued at first but basically lapsing into a tirade like earlier.
The message she left for me Tuesday was pretty simple. I have power of attorney over five family members, she hissed into my voicemail. That’s five votes, she said, and I’m gonna make sure none of them go to you!
It was not the best way to start my day.

Also Tuesday morning, a Tribal Elder called me, with a rather unusual question. Well actually, two questions. The first one was “How’s the campaign going?” To which I responded in past campaigns I always seemed to have more time. The Elder understood, working full-time leave little room for campaigning.
I am hoping that this Elder will read this post and correct me if I’m wrong, because here goes the second part, from memory. Another Elder stopped by her house, evidently doing a little bit of campaigning, and not on my behalf. The story was that Council members don’t pay taxes on their salary. Naturally, the Elder who called me promised them this couldn’t be true, but to the other Elder it was evidently gospel truth. Not only do they not pay taxes on those Council salaries, but doesn’t that seem like a lot of money for some of those young Council members?
The obvious way to resolve this issue was just to put in a call to me, which is what happened. Because I usually do Direct Deposit into my bank account, my paychecks are sitting around collecting dust since they are basically just receipts. Having one handy, I simply ripped it open and read off, line by line, what taxes are taken out of each paycheck. The Elder thanked me for my time. I had to chuckle, because what gets taken as fact out there sometimes baffles me.

I’ve actually already gotten some feedback on my first campaign letter. Knowing that detractors rarely respond, it’s no surprise that the emails I’ve gotten are supportive and overall encouraging. One though I especially liked because this person had read my blog and offered some advice on how to handle a few things, mainly Chairing meetings. His advice made sense in fact I plan to try a thing or two. But he also made a very good point, one that I kind of knew but could ever put into words, and that is that for running meetings Roberts Rules of Order works if people are respectful, polite, and deferential. In other words, the people in the meetings matter just as much as the system used to run those meetings.

All this and it’s just Wednesday.

Odds & Ends- Two Things

Intergovernmental Relations

One of the first lessons I learned after being elected in 2004 was that the Tribe has its hands, so to speak, in many affairs. A lot of these involve other governments, local, regional, State, Federal and intertribal. There is something to be gained from working with other governments, from the old “safety in numbers” philosophy to pooling resources. Every intergovernmental relationship has value.
That is why I was surprised how a few of these relationships had fallen into neglect. Even more surprising was that I wasn’t alone. My first year involved in the Council of Governments and helping coordinate the visiting Yamhill County Sister Province from Korea opened my eyes. People were happy to have the Tribe’s participation again. I know because they told me. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde was an enigma, large sovereign government that when motivated could be an enormous help to these intergovernmental alliances. It just seemed waking this sleeping giant was the hard part. But thankfully we’ve been able to change that.
I am incredibly happy that our relationship with Governor Kulongoski has improved so much. It could have definitely gone sour given the situation with Warm Springs and the election in which we ran those commercials and other advertisements. But it didn’t.
Friday we took a step towards another good relationship, one that I feel strongly about. After months of coordination, we were finally able to host the Chinook Tribal Council, a tribe with whom Grand Ronde has very close historical and familial ties. Of course, I must hesitate in calling them a “tribe”, for all though we know they are their official recognition was derailed under the present presidential administration, for reasons that it is probably best left them to explain. That was why we were hosting them, to ask what Grand Ronde could do to further their recognition/restoration efforts.
There were a number of things we could do, from financial support to letters of support to advice. In fact, one thing they’ve asked for is a series of meetings where we can share with them our own trials and tribulations as a growing Tribe. What mistakes not to make, that sort of thing. I am not sure what we’ll do. But I hope that we’ll do something. Our own restoration was aided by another existing tribe, and for reasons I can’t quite articulate, helping another tribe secure their future just seems like the right thing to do. They’ve got so much before them, I am almost envious.




The Unknown Debate

Saturday morning I got a surprise call. It was Wesley West, who rang me at about 11:00 a.m.
“You know anything about the Candidate’s Forum today at Buell Park,” he asked rather innocently.
“No,” I told him. “I haven’t heard anything.”
The truth was I really hadn’t. There wasn’t any notice posted anywhere, nor none in the mail. But he had it on good authority that there would be some sort of “Meet the Candidates” and a “Q & A” session for individuals running for Tribal Council. Whether this meant an actual forum for honest debates and open discussion or more I couldn’t say. My personal guess was that it was more of a pep rally for the “Honesty-Integrity-Family” political party that was running its slate of three candidates.
So Wesley and I discussed whether to show up. It was very short notice, and my personal feeling was that if we hadn’t actually been invited, then we probably weren’t invited. But he planned on driving by just in case. He would be only a couple of miles away anyway, since somebody had torn down one of his campaign signs off the highway near Butler Hill.
My suspicions were correct, as I called Wesley the next day out of curiosity.
Oh I drove by, he told me. But I wasn’t welcome, he continued. There was about thirty people, and they turned and stared at me as I drove up. I didn’t get out of the car, he added, I just drove around and left. Nobody even waved, they gave me dirty looks. I definitely wasn’t welcome.
Had I been invited, it would have been fun, and at the very least interesting.

Subject to Interpretation

Wednesday we had one of the shortest Tribal Council meetings in recent memory. I am not even sure if it had gone more than 10 minutes. Because you never know how long some of these public meetings can go—I think the record for my first term was a little more than four hours—for one to go short is usually kind of a relief, and a surprise. A group of Tribal youth had shown up to see us pass a resolution for the Canoe Journey, one which had failed to make it through Legislative Action Committee, not for lack of votes but for time and proper channels. They might have been disappointed, but I assured them we would pass a Record of Instruction sheet the following day, that Council support was unanimous, and there was really nothing to worry about. And as far as I know, that is what happened.
But that lapse in procedure was hardly the event of the day. Among the more notable resolutions we passed recently was Wednesday’s enacting of the Public Records Ordinance after a First Reading. We received only handful of comments, a couple rather general and one somewhat constructive. There was some slight tweaking to the language, at my request, which the previous week seemed to spawn a conversation and debate that could have gotten way out of hand.
Basically, there was some language I personally didn’t like in the ordinance. Once again, I felt some compromise had gone into this, but better to have the new law than none at all. My hang up was really on one sentence (e) (P) “Records, disclosure of which the Tribal Council determines might divulge political or business strategies.”
Okay, then there is the logical follow-up question: What exactly is your hang up? My hang up is basically that the language as written would allow Council the opportunity to declare anything confidential and not available upon request simply based upon their interpretation of that line. I didn’t like that.
You see, sometimes in a situation like this, I try to imagine what my take would be if I weren’t on Council. In this case, I found myself being skeptical, because that wording alone could basically upend the whole intent of the Public Records Ordinance, which is freedom of information. A Council could make a blanket decision that covers a slew of records, making them unavailable to Tribal members for reasons entirely left up to the Council discretion and interpretation. I know that could happen, because two years ago it nearly did.
Two years ago Council was in the process of writing, with the help of Legal staff, some ethics provisions to the Tribal Council Ordinance. A battle line was between two very distinct philosophies, and they were these: Council records are considered confidential unless deemed otherwise or Council records are considered public unless declared confidential. Really, the philosophies were polar opposites. The straw vote we had went down to the wire, another 5-4 vote, and I was on the losing end that time. But of course all that language got scrapped months later so it really didn’t matter.
What I learned in that was certain Council members had strong and differing convictions from me when dealing with openness and transparency. There appeared to be almost a blatant habit of never documenting some decisions because that same documentation could be used in court or gasp, fall into the wrong hands. The legal term is “discoverability”.
Granted, there were some legitimate scenarios that actually happened which would justify such nervousness. But realistically, that’s an unavoidable risk if you want to make a practice of accurately recording decisions, because there is no better way than simply having everything in writing. Plus, maintaining precise records can usually be a form of insurance in the long run.
The wording that bothered me in the Public Records Ordinance bothered me for the same reasons that I dislike calling for Executive Sessions. Often people, Council members too, don’t want what they say to be on the record, and the reasons for that are myriad, and to be completely honest, at times suspect. Like I wrote in a previous post, I’ve heard Council members say the exact opposite in public of what they said in private, behind closed doors, during either Executive Session or meetings subject to Attorney-Client Privilege. I don’t need to explain why that is wrong.
The language we ended up adding the (e) (P) was that the records Council decides to keep confidential must at the very least be decided by a written Record of Instruction. In other words, Council must sign, in writing, that they want a certain record classified for “business” or “political” reasons. They may not have to state their own reasons, but they do have to put their name and signature to it. By doing so, members know and can always ask them.
I don’t think the Public Records Ordinance is anywhere close to perfect. Heck, I even imagine making more amendments in the future as members get into the habit of requesting information. But for now, it’s a starting point, one that marks a good change in direction. It’s progress, imperfect, but still progress.

What Have I Gotten Myself In To?

THIS POST IS FULL OF SELF-PITY AND COMPLAINING. I JUST HAVE TO GET IT OUT OF MY SYSTEM. THANKS FOR YOUR INDULGENCE.

Being on the Tribal Council is no picnic. I wonder sometimes if other candidates have any idea what they are in for. I though I did. I tell people that it is pretty much what I expected, only more intense.

The one thing I didn’t count on was members of my own family turning their backs on me. I’m not talking about distant relatives, I’m talking about an aunt and several close cousins, people that I have been close to all of my life. The sad thing is that it’s not my ideas they oppose. To quote one of my cousins, “You didn’t support me when I ran, what comes around goes around.” That argument might carry water if I opposed him; but I didn’t. He declined to be associated with my “group” and chose to run independently. His brother ran independently against him. Needless to say, neither one of them was elected.

That excuse doesn’t even work for one of my other relatives, in fact, I supported her campaign when she ran, helped her develop her platform and write her letters. She didn’t get elected either. Maybe that is why she doesn’t support me.

I don’t expect blind followers. The only thing that I expect is to be judged on my principles and my actions, not on whether or not I can pull strings for someone. My positions don’t sway depending on who supports me and who doesn’t.

Maybe what goes around does come around. Maybe that’s why they’ve never been elected.

If I sound like I have hurt feelings, I do. If I sound cynical, I am.
Politics will do that to a person, but I am learning not to let it get me down.

Dissecting an Election

I got the call today. It wasn’t anything too serious. I knew everything would be okay, there might be some stressful days ahead. But I would live, that is the important thing. Regardless, the eight campaign signs would run me $410 total. Ten would have run me $500 even. One single sign would cost $60, all the more reason to order in bulk, if eight could be considered such. With that, my first real expenditure of the 2007 Tribal Council elections was in.
All of this got me thinking. Just what does it cost a person to run for Tribal Council these days? What better way to know than to break down my own costs.
So my eight new signs cost $51.25 each. Whether they are worth that price is as yet to be determined. Corrugated cardboard, colored lettering, white background—the salesman assured me these babies were all-weather, and could last a good year without fading or deteoirating. In other words, this was really an investment, a long term one. Should I fail to be re-elected this year, I’ll have these signs for 2008. Of course, signs are recyclable. You can always buy new vinyl lettering should your name change or you decide to support a different candidate the following year. Changing them is pretty easy.
That is good, because the most expensive part of waging a Tribal Council campaign consists largely of one-time, non-reusable money spent. What I am referring to of course is that most important campaign tool, other than having a large family, letters. Postage just went up this year, and everybody is probably totally aware of that. Two cents might not seem like much, but when you plan on mailing out thousands of letters, you and your wallet notice.
Mailing out a campaign letter to all eligible voters in the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde ends up costing at least $1000 per round, and that is just in postage. So you can guess how candidates who prefer to mail out more than one letter are taking on a little debt. Postage is but one facet as well, since copying a few thousand letters and tri-folding them costs quite a bit. You can always pay someone, like Staples, to do that, because if you don’t, what you save in money is lost in time. In previous years, I would hold a barbeque or something similar, invite friends, and basically spend a few hours stuffing envelopes, stamping return addresses, and wetting the back flaps of those same envelopes. Can you say “tedium”? Nowadays, I opt to pay someone else. With all that saved time, I do stuff like…blogging.
By the time this election is over, win or lose, I will probably spend at least $3000. It all goes on the VISA, but still stings. The money though tends to pale in comparison to the sheer amount of time spent just in election mode. Often times your letters draw different responses, from a media standpoint. If you leave an email address as a point of contact, the letters average at least a dozen or so responses, many of them from people you’ve never met, and most of them with questions that aren’t answered easily or quickly. But you always respond. Phone calls are more time-consuming.
When you consider all this, what becomes obvious is that there are more advantages to running as a slate other than pooling votes and constituents. One of them is a cutback in costs. If you can mail out one individual letter and then multiple “slate” letters, there is extra exposure and lessened costs. The greatest risk really is that one or two people in your “slate” taint it for whatever reason, thus diminishing one’s own chances. Pick your running mates carefully, I guess.
I also guess that being an incumbent carries its own advantages chiefly among them that unless you’ve completely failed to distinguish yourself, most people will know your name and face. Plus whether you like it or not, there is an attention that just comes with being on Council. I suppose whether you believe all publicity is good publicity tends to get tested, and either proven or disproved.
Elections tend to bring the “American Idol” out in everybody, although this year has been rather quiet. What I mean by that is candidates have often borderline been obligated to stand up in Council meetings and raise some sort of issue, regardless of relevance or magnitude. Draw attention to yourself this time of year, even if you normally wouldn’t. One former Council member years ago complemented me for speaking at meetings year round, not just in election season. I guess I’m not the only one who notices, and keeps track.
It is all this that makes elections so darn interesting. And it is also all this that makes watching an election as a bystander so vastly different from a participant.

Powwow Socializing

Saturday’s are usually those days I sleep in. Not today, though. I woke up early because of an unexplainable obligation. Five years ago two Tribal members made the long trek from Table Rock to Grand Ronde, re-tracing the Trail of Tears. Our version at least. Scores of different people joined in for the last legs, and personally entered it for the last quarter-mile, basically from Grand Ronde Elementary School to the Governance Center. This day a Tribal member was finishing his own Trail of Tears hike, this journey considerably less publicized.
An email had gone out weeks ago at work notifying us of this. The final leg was to coincide with Grand Entry at our Veterans’ Powwow. About a dozen of us, including one other Council member, met at the elementary school to finish out the leg. Because I had done it five years ago, there was almost a sense of duty to repeat. So I did. It was fun. The veterans were short a flagbearer, and I ended up carrying the U.S. Navy Flag, despite not having served myself in any branch of the military. I felt honored.
To explain why I am sharing all this, Veterans’ Powwow is one of those times a person can look forward to in Grand Ronde. The weekend doesn’t quite have the same intensity and sense of busy-ness as the Annual Powwow, but there is still a feeling of camaraderie. It’s kind of like Thanksgiving: not quite as big as the following holiday, but still enjoyable nonetheless.
But Veterans’ Powwow seems to be growing. That was evidenced by the abnormally large crowd of onlookers today for grand entry, and the seemingly endless line of veterans who joined the line to garner their well-deserved medals. Some of the same vendors who normally show up for the Annual Powwow were present.
Friday I strolled through the powwow to peruse goods. Nearly every powwow I purchase a few necklaces and other items. As a rule of thumb, I rarely walk away from any powwow without being at least $150 lighter. The vendors don’t seem to mind.
While catching up with a distant cousin, a man stops by and introduces himself to me. He is a Yakama, but one of his children is an enrolled Grand Ronde member. The man knows me from my articles in Tilixam Wawa. A remark is made to me about how busy our Tribe seems, and invariably we discuss enrollment. I’m not going to share that part of the conversation, but I am reminded of how diverse our Tribal membership is.
Today was eventful. I was brought into two separate incidents. Both involved people arguing, one involved different veterans, the other two vendors. Evidently as chair I am viewed at some type of referee. Both incidents blow over, but I can’t help but chuckle to myself. I never considered that the role of powwow mediator was one of our myriad responsibilities. But like any Council member, I suppose, I like peaceful powwows.
I run into Wink Soderberg later in the afternoon, who shares an interesting anecdote. While perusing a booth, one of the workers says “Here you go Wink.”, and slides a card into his hand. The card is a campaign card, with the yellow and purple logo, and the slate of three candidates who I’m sure everybody will hear about. It doesn’t take much to figure out that this gesture was meant to be insulting. What can you do?
Spending the entire day here, I meet and chat with dozens of people, some Tribal, some not. This is one of those things I really enjoy, because every Tribal member has a unique story. I learn something from every person I speak with.
One in particular is the Vice-Chair of a Tribal Council for a tribe in Washington State. I always relish speaking with other Tribal leaders because it reminds me that the communities and politics of tribes often overlap. Also, I am reminded of how fortunate the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde is, in general. The Vice-Chair I speak with hails from a non-gaming tribe in fact they lease their machine rights to another Tribe, getting a small cut of the profits. And boy do I mean small. Interestingly enough, this tribe disperses small per capita amounts, much of it, in her eyes, squandered by members with numerous social problems. Their big focus right now is economic development, which makes me envious.
I am not sure who I’ll meet and talk with tomorrow. There will be plenty of others, no doubt. But I don’t mind, it’s kind of like work, but in some ways, kind of not. I feel lucky, and not just because the date is 7/7/7.

Nippon

You know, when I set up this blog, I had more in mind that just the Tribe and politics. That is the whole point of these photos. Plus, I think visuals are important when it comes to any website...
These are photos from three months ago, when I took a vacation in Japan. The restaurant photos are from a sushi bar in Asakusa, Tokyo. That is a track you see running around the bar. The chefs kept the track so full with fresh sushi at times it seemed it would flow over.
There are other photos here from that same neighborhood. The last one is from Kamakura, south of Tokyo, and as you might guess, a major attraction. I love the Japanese style of buildings.

20 Hours of Sunshine

I probably travel the least on Council. In 2006 that was basically a fact. But 2007 has been rather different, in part because as Tribal Chair I’ve had to make three separate trips to D.C. to meet with numerous representatives. Other than that, I haven’t really done much travel over the past year, aside from the popular trip to South Korea last fall.
It has been more than two years since I attended an ATNI (Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians) Conference. I’ve yet to attend an NCAI (National Congress of American Indians) meeting. The more general the conference, in my opinion, the less I usually get out of it.
Two weeks ago I attended the annual NIHSDA (National Indian HeadStart Director’s Association) Conference in Anchorage, Alaska. That might seem kind of unusual given two things, one that I am childless, two that I am a man. The ratio of women to men in the HeadStart field was used as the source of more than one joke during the conference. During one of the workshops I was the only man, among more than 50 women.
So why then would a child-less man barely into his thirties and 25 years removed from kindergarten have any interest in such a conference? I’m getting to that.
Two years ago I attended a HeadStart Conference in Palm Springs. It featured some of the best speakers I’ve ever heard in person, and touched on some of the major issues that confront all tribes nationally, from cuts in government funding (vital to non-gaming tribes) to of all things, meth.
What I remember from two years ago, and this is repeated in Anchorage, was a question put to the audience. “How many of you were HeadStart kids?” It’s safe to say that probably one out of every four or five tribal leaders, directors, and/or teachers present at these conferences benefited from the program they continue to support. Were it not for this program, how many of them would have been here today? Something about that never fails to impress me. Not until my first conference did I learn the window that is childhood and the importance of getting kids on the right path at a young age. Everywhere there were Indian people from throughout the country, and Canada too, who served as living testament.
There were a handful of workshops at this NIHSDA conference which caught my eye. The first one I sat in on was a study of workplace personality types, clearly a topic with depth because the session lasted more than three hours. I’m always reluctant to categorize people, it seems a disservice to the individual nature of our personas, but psychological and sociological studies have provided convincing truth that we all belong in some sort of niche, even if constantly fluctuating. I’ve chosen in my life to read a number of books on the topic. What this workshop yielded for me was the realization that my own personality, of the five types presented, is a “squiggly”, as opposed to squares, rectangles, triangles, and circles. That basically means I enjoy being creative (check), irreverent (check), unorthodox (check), and disguise myself as some other shape in the workplace so as not to be alienated or drive co-workers crazy (check). Darn, I thought I was unique too.
A workshop the next day, the one in which I was definitely unique being a man, featured two aspects. One was an exhibit by a tribe in Minnesota (or was it Wisconsin, they had the same accent?) that demonstrated some of the exercises they use to promote teamwork and harmony amongst their tribal children. The second aspect was a team-building exercise, one that we had to build a tower out of two materials: uncooked spaghetti and marshmallows. We had to rotate in pairs as two people were charged with defending the structure from beachballs hit around by opposing teams, meant to symbolize the different problems confronting early childhood education programs, from drug-use, abusive parents, budget cuts, etc. Having grown up with Legos, my innate talents for structure building carried our team to victory, as I wedged one last stalk of spaghetti into a plump marshmallow, giving us that additional two inches for the win over the runner-up. It got pretty cutthroat.
I would end up winning another prize for being able to name a woman of note, in a trivia question, Bill Clinton’s Attorney General Janet Reno. A prize is also given to me for being the only man in the workshop, and the only Tribal Chair.
Beyond doubt, the most valuable workshop I sit in on is themed “one-on-one communication”, and is led by a priest of Russian orthodox faith and heritage. It is absolutely fascinating, and insightful. He has worked in numerous Alaskan native villages, bridging the cultural gap that I never realized still existed. But then again, Alaska is so isolated from the lower 48 states, and so untouched in comparison, I should have known. I learn about the “music” of our voices, and how tone in one culture might mean something completely different in another. He also shares with us anecdotes of his work with the University of Alaska, including an episode wherein he had to counsel nearly 90 Nigerian students whose overaggressive body language and physical spacing was a huge obstacle in their ability to make new friends in Anchorage.
I can’t help but marvel at what a diverse place Alaska is. There really is a frontier feeling to Anchorage, a sense that we are bordering on a true wilderness. In one of only two times I get to leave the conference site for dinner, the restaurant where we (the different staff and I) eat abounds with accents—German, British, and who knows?
What is also obvious is that for a tribe to have a tribal leader present, much less a Chair, is not ordinary for HeadStart Conferences. People attending the conference seemed surprised, even honored that a tribal leader would take such an interest in this subject. One of the conference hosts makes a point to approach me and let me know. More than 60 tribes are represented here, and I am only one of nine tribal leaders.
So why did I come? For one, to learn. Two, to see what a difference enthusiasm and passion make in one’s job, because people in this conference have plenty of both. These individuals know they make a difference, even if that difference isn’t always apparent for another 20 years, when somewhere, somebody asks “How many of you were HeadStart kids?”