From The Chairman’s Desk
Hello to the people of the Fort Peck Reservation, the people of this reservation have suffered a couple of incidents recently that have been basically ignored by the governing body of this reservation, the Fort Peck Tribal Executive Board. The first incident happened early Tuesday morning when the Catholic church was burnt down by an arsonist. The second incident happened Thursday morning where an enrolled member was shot entering an non-enrolled member’s home, and we had a previous incident where our A& S Manufacturing building was also burned down by an arsonist. These incidents were addressed by our law enforcement officers during the meeting that was held Thursday morning in my office. These incidents were discussed, and the actions that we as a government need to take in order to make our reservation safer. During this meeting I had called the Law and Justice Chairman Councilman Bighorn to be part of the conversation and to relay that information to the rest of the committee.
What I found out from another councilman was that he didn’t inform the committee so the chief of police did that afternoon. I felt along with the officers that these issues needed immediate attention, the committee must have felt different and nothing was taken up. During our discussion some of the suggestions were: using a curfew, banishment for habitual offenders, violent crime offenders, drug dealers, holding parents accountable for their children, holding per capita payments for restitution, doing community service while incarcerated, and for day labor to pay back restitution.
This non-action by these leaders is a disgrace to the word leader because in no way do they know what a leader is. They have no concept of what a true leader is. This reservation belongs to the people, and it is this tribal government’s leaders duty to make sure that is a safe place to live for everyone. I feel our reservation is a reflection of our leaders, as an example, as soon as anyone comes to this reservation they realize that our communities resemble a ghetto. A lot of these homes are not even 20 years old, and they need renovations done to them already. This reservation didn’t get this way over night it has been an on-going way of how this government works and it is all about saving a vote, they don’t hold anybody accountable let alone themselves.
What the council was more worried about was violating our hiring policies for an individual that was selected for a position and declined it because that person felt that they deserved a higher wage, and asked for an amount that isn’t within the pay scale for the qualifications that the person put on their job application nor is it allowed within the pay scale of the program. The HR director explained to them that the amount the individual asked for isn’t allowable and is a violation of our contract with the federal funding department, but they passed a committee recommendation to approve of it anyway. This is what your leaders are worried about and that is saving a vote and not your safety, or your community’s safety.
Another issue that needs to be discussed is that some executive board members have not been truthful with the people, they have been saying that the Poplar River Casino is in the black. The casino is not in the black and they know it. If it was in the black, why would Councilwoman Gourneau, who sits on the Fort Peck Inc. Board which has oversight of the casino, come to committee with a proposal that is opposite of what she has been telling the people. Councilwoman Gourneau’s proposal is asking the Tribes to pay Fort Peck Inc.’s $5 million loan and to pay all the bills of the casino. First of all they have yet to pay a dime on their loan, and in the seven months that they have been open they have not cleared enough income to pay any one month’s bills. They must be using Fort Peck Inc.’s reserves to pay these bills, which they also used to subsidize Fred’s in Brockton. Now they have to subsidize Tribal Express’s bills in order to keep their doors open also. Now we have three failing business’s that this government has created.
The Fort Peck Tribes had to take the $5 million out of their reserves to pay for the construction of the new casino and the agreement was that the casino was to make more than enough money to pay it back. Now since they can’t pay it back, the proposal is to take the tribes’ profit from the casino and to use the loan back in order to replenish our reserves. The problem that I have with this is that we are going to end up paying $10 million for the casino, which will create another problem for us to resolve.
The profit that we receive from the casino is put into our tribal budget every year. This money is to pay the yearly per capita payment, the tribal burial fund, and our Tribal Enterprise program, Education Department, and to subsidize our other social services programs. So we have to come up with $1.3 million approximately yearly to put back in our budget. This means that this casino is going to cost the Tribes $15 million if we go with this proposal by the time we pay the loan back. What upsets me is that all of this money that they are playing with is the people’s money, but in my opinion they don’t have any concept of how to budget, because a lot of them can’t go a pay period without a pay advance, but yet they are in control of a $70 million a year government.
We have a lot of serious issues that need to be addressed, and they have been wasting their time trying to micromanage and attack the employees, and have done absolutely nothing to make our reservation a safer, cleaner and a more inviting place to live. I am sorry I waited so long to inform you but I couldn’t go any longer hearing of them not being truthful to the people.
