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.
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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.”