Hard to Avoid

More than five years ago, in what would have been my first week on the job as a Tribal Council member, something happened I'll never forget. It wasn't anything epic, in fact if Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" for some strange reason decided to increase their coverage of the Tribe it would have been the kind of thing they got a few laughs from.
I had just been elected along with Angie Blackwell and Buddy West. Spirit Mountain Casino was going through the process of hiring a new Marketing Director, and the interviews were to be held right there in Council chambers, and we were encouraged to participate. When you consider the controversy surrounding what happened earlier that year in 2004 with Angie Blackwell and her position in the Community Fund, the repeated talking point was that Tribal Council members didn't get involved in personnel issues. I suspect that was a defense from a story that even made "The Oregonian". So Angie asked the obvious question, which was basically weren't we getting involved in a personnel issue right now? Weren't we about to engage in a hiring decision? Nobody really had an answer, so Angie, packing up her folders and notepad, simply walked out, saying that there were numerous things more important to the membership she could be spending her time on. I'll never forget the look on a couple of Council members' faces. They basically said "Oh man, it's gonna be a long year."
I've thought about that incident a lot over the last 48 hours because an employment issue was brought up Sunday during the General Council meeting, and it wouldn't die. We didn't get into nearly the same level of detail as the person who mysteriously knew enough about it to raise the issue during Other Business, which I must say raises other points about how frivolously confidentiality is regarded around here. But once again the fundamental question is out there: To what degree does Tribal Council involve themselves in employee matters, or more importantly, to what degree should they be involved?
Ethics suits have arisen involving Tribal Council members and their interactions with employees, and not all gave us reasons to believe certain lines don't get crossed. But that doesn't change that we "supervise" a handful of personnel, from the Tribe's Executive Officer to our Finance Officer to our Audit Director. I use the word "supervise" because that is what we do, even though you arrive in the supervisory position by way of elections, while the Directors must apply and meet a number of qualifications from minimum years experience to degree requirements. It seems kind of an odd arrangement, but I guess it would be nigh impossible for us to avoid overseeing somebody.
On top of that, Council approves the compensation for all Directors at Spirit Mountain, which over the last year has been problematic. While we are supposed to simply approve the compensation- we're ratifying a decision already made- there have been instances of Council members trying to quash the compensation for reasons I can't prove but which reek of passive-aggression and/or politics.
Tomorrow we have on the agenda resolutions for approving the compensation for almost all of SMC's Directors. I'm hoping things have changed and employees aren't left to wonder why. Today we also discussed moving forward with a Tribal Employment Rights Office and Ordinance. I hope that cuts back on the politicization of employee matters. Office politics exist as long as you have offices I suppose, and people are people. But there is always a better way, I remain convinced.