Situational Rights

Situational Rights

Yesterday's General Council Meeting featured what might be one of the oddest, or at the very least disorganized, actions I've seen for some time. A request came forth by a Tribal member to de-classify the results of the Leno letter investigation. That request was made by a motion, which was then seconded, and then rescinded, and then seconded again to put forth the matter right then and there for an advisory vote of the General Council present. Multiple people sought clarification on the motion, and exactly was being decided and voted upon. Our chief attorney offered multiple words of caution, considering the range of legal repercussions. And then a vote was made, overwhelmingly, to guide the Council in their decision over whether to publicize the results of the investigation. At least, that is my interpretation of what happened.
The series of events that lead to the vote, and what exactly we are voting on, raised not just a number of legal questions, but issues regarding process, and what in my opinion is more important, fairness. You see, the motion was intended to be only for the investigation of the Leno letter, and presumably other audits in the future. What would remain cloaked in secrecy, for the general membership anyway, were audits from the past. None of which made a whole lot of sense to me.
Although the investigation has not yet concluded, we have were told some time ago back in mid-October who the suspect(s) were. So the Council members pushing for opening up the audit know fully well who is under suspicion. Furthermore the person who requested for the audit to be opened also seemed to know more than they let on. Sometimes a question, no matter how worded, gives away any pretenses.
There were a number of objections I raised to this request. First was one course the utter lack of clarity in what we were voting on. Second the issue of legality, since this was a personnel issue. Last was the sense of a larger policy, i.e. if we open up one audit for public scrutiny then we open up all. I also questioned the process of how the request was being handled. This was not an agenda item, there are well over 4000 Tribal members who aren't here to vote, and lastly we have more constructive means of dealing with this kind of think, especially from a policy standpoint. We could just as easily amend the public records ordinance, and open those changes for public comment.
None of my comments had any bearing on the outcome. In fact I voted with the vast majority of those present to open up audits, though my suspicions are despite how the motion ultimately ended up being worded, the interpretations will vary.
It should be interesting to see how things play out from here. I do believe that there are some who in a way believe they are accomplishing something good by blowing the lid off, but in the long run I see further complications, not just in the results of this one specific audit, but in others. I am very familiar now with how audits are conducted and how the people named wouldn't necessarily want their names being thrown out there.  It is bad enough to be caught doing something wrong, but public shaming has a way of making things worse.  The truth can be ugly, I guess.  And I've seen few audits that made anybody look good.