Gang and drug prevention organization getting started in the community

Over the past month I have been attending some meetings with a few community members busily organizing a nonprofit that will aim to help improve the health of Lac Courte Oreilles and its surrounding neighbors. There is a serious drug problem here; we've been losing at least one community member a month to drugs by way of overdoses, or the mixing of prescription narcotics with alcohol, or suicide and the problem continues to increase. Some months there are several deaths. And these are young people between the ages of 15 up to 45. Much too young to leave because of something that could have been prevented.

Bugo Ganay Giizhig (Hole in the Sky) was the idea of Justin Gordon over 15 years ago and only now becoming a reality in our community. Justin took a long and burdening path to get to this point where he finally said, "enough already, no more." He, himself, became a drug addict as a teenager and only got himself clean just over a year ago.

A team that includes myself, Justin, Shondel Barber, Angie Wolfe and Curtis DeCora, have been meeting and crafting a plan that involves creating a referral service hotline at 1-844-TELLBUG, which will be active in a few days, as well as a website at TELLBUG.org, which also will be live in a few days. Once the website is up, you'll be able to visit that site and find out all the current activities we have planned in the new few months which include fundraisers but also development of a program that will serve the people most in need, at-risk youth.

I can tell you that we are all very excited about the overall strategy of what we're implementing and can't wait to get everything fully operational and begin serving our community. We feel strongly that we're going to make a positive difference in the lives of many of our people. The energy levels of each one of us is infectious, and it all started with Justin and his ambition to make this happen. I advise anyone that wants to get involved to just let us know, we are looking for volunteers to help plan and coordinate several major events coming up, which include our Sweetheart Supper on Valentine's Day and the Northland's Got Talent competition on April 2 at the Park Theater in Hayward. This event will be a lot of fun and will be set up like the TV show America's Got Talent, with celebrity judges and all. We'll also be looking for volunteers to help us with our services that we'll be offering.

We also currently have a fundraiser going this Thursday at the LCO Tribal Office serving Squeezer's Lemonade and philly cheesesteaks and burgers served with several different flavored toppings which include pepperoni pizza, 3 cheese and chili, bell pepper, provolone and cheez wiz. Some awesome food for an awesome cause, make sure to stop by and get some.

Also, our team members are out selling raffle tickets for a fundraiser drawing that will be held at our food fundraiser on January 7 at the tribal office at 2:00 pm. There's only 100 tickets to be sold at $20 each with one lucky $1000 winner. Stop by Circle of Life Home Health office across from the LCO Country Store and see Shondel Barber if you'd like to get a ticket and support this new cause.

Here is our latest press release about the community meeting that Justin organized last week;

(Hayward) A community meeting was held at the LCO Tribal Office Peter Larson Room on Tuesday, December 8, to introduce a new start-up nonprofit organization aimed at drug and gang prevention in the region.

Bugo Ganay Giizhig (Hole in the Sky), with a slogan of “a brighter path awaits,” was founded by Justin Gordon, and what started out as a dream of his 15 years ago when he was just 13 years old, is now quickly becoming a reality.

Gordon welcomed several community leaders, which included the Sawyer County Sheriff Mark Kelsey and Hayward Police Chief Joel Clapero, members of LCO Family Services, two tribal council members, and representing the Hayward School District was Asst. Principal Doug Stark.

Gordon started out the meeting recognizing his late uncle, Geronimo Wade, as a co-founder of the organization. He said that Geronimo was a major inspiration for him to start Bugo Ganay Giizhig after he had cleaned himself up from drug addiction.

“He encouraged me even when I was having my own problems,” Gordon said.

Gordon told the group that he had first wanted to start a nonprofit to help kids stay off drugs when he, himself was just a young teenager and witnessed first-hand, the effects of it on the LCO community. He started Bugo Ganay Giizhig back then, raised funds, got press coverage and started to assist some kids, but support from the leaders of the community at the time didn’t come and Gordon gave up.

“It wasn’t long after that, I turned to drugs and led a life of abuse, myself.”

Gordon said he has been clean and sober for over a year now and that was why he decided it was time he try to give back by helping people avoid living a life of drugs and gangs which leads to many problems.

Gordon said that he started posting on Facebook about his goals to get the nonprofit started again and received widespread support. He said some questioned his past drug abuse, “And one of the hardest things I had ever done was to come forward and be open about it, and I told my story on Facebook. Many only knew I had some problems with crack, but they didn’t know that I was using meth and heroin. It was bad and I was going nowhere.”

After making posts on Facebook to get support for his goals, he quickly had a team put together of community members who believed in the plan and wanted to help him get it started.

Gordon then explained what services his organization would offer. In the beginning, a hotline will be set up and widely promoted. The hotline will act as a referral service for any person in the community who needs help, such as drug or gang prevention, suicide and domestic abuse and even homelessness in the community, where someone could find assistance. Gordon recognized that there are currently services along these lines that are offered, but not one all-in-one hotline that would have all the different agencies throughout the county listed in one place. The hotline would help direct people to the right place and 24-hours a day.

“This is a service we plan to have up and running just after the first of the year,” Gordon said.

By spring of 2016, he plans to have other parts of the program up and running, which include a teen support program where kids participate in a drug and gang-free program which includes volunteerism, counseling, employment assistance, assistance in achieving a diploma or furthering their education and community service. Kids earn rewards as they are participating in the program such as feasts, awards and some kids who have excelled will even earn trips. The program will also award scholarships.

“With the rewards program, once-a-year, we’ll have community members choose from our kids at least two of them to go on an all-expense paid trip with their families. This will show them the community’s appreciation to their commitment of staying sober,” Gordon said. “Hopefully with the incentives and the community’s involvement, it will encourage more kids to participate in the program.”

Gordon said he came up with these ideas for the plan by going out into the community when he was just 13 and talking with kids. “I just asked them, why do you do this? They always answered that there was just nothing for us to do.”

Gordon said that in addition to these services, the organization would have a program to renovate or build parks, playgrounds and skate parks to create more activities for kids to do. He said that the volunteerism and community service parts of this plan would involve these kids actually doing the work and then following up to maintain the parks. He said that Bugo Ganay Giizhig also plans to organize sporting events and activities in the community. Gordon said he believes that providing more opportunities in sports for our youth will also help them avoid wrong behavior.

Gordon said he also wants to see the Sawyer County Court system utilize his program as an alternative to sending young people to jail when the offenses are less serious. Gordon told the group that he believes a lot of times, sending people to jail only teaches them how to become better criminals rather than rehabilitate them. A program like this may help them to not become repeat offenders, he said.

Gordon said his team has held several meetings already and are in the process of waiting on their articles of incorporation, preparing to file for 501(c)3 status and planning fundraisers, which include crowdfunding, several major events and other projects.

“We have two major events planned for this winter which are a Northland’s Got Talent competition at the Park Theater on April 2, with celebrity judges and everything, just like the show, but our own local version, and we’re having a Sweetheart Supper event on Valentine’s Day at the Flat Creek Eatery. More information will be coming out soon,” Gordon said.

Luann Kolumbus of LCO Indian Child Welfare said that she wanted to pat Justin on the back for starting a program like this because it’s long overdue. She said that there are over 100 kids in the LCO community out of their homes because of drugs.

“Drugs are running rampant in our community and it’s out of control and it has to start somewhere,” Luann said. She offered to help get a motorcycle ride fundraiser going for the group next summer.

Diane Sullivan told Gordon to make sure to heal himself first, then family, then the community, then the world. She told him to keep moving forward with his recovery because people will look at his past. She told him to knock on the doors of corporations and ask them to help.

Shondel Barber, who is part of Justin’s first board of directors, said that she wanted to get involved because, “drugs are killing people in our community, when is it going to stop? Our nonprofit is going to struggle in the beginning but it’s going to be huge and I wanted to be a part of that.”

Angie Wolfe also spoke to the group. She is also part of the board of directors.

“I have struggled to maintain sobriety but I don’t want my daughter to do drugs, or any of my family and my community. I want to be a role model for my daughter and when I saw Justin post it on Facebook, I said I wanted to be a part of that. I figured I could be a voice for other addicts.”

If you have any questions about Bugo Ganay Giizhig you can call Justin at 218-491-0052.

Off-Reservation Elders upset over cut to their annual Christmas checks

Over the past couple of weeks, off-Rez tribal elders have been receiving their Christmas checks and getting quite a surprise. For many years our elders were given $150 every year, and that included all elders whether they lived on the Rez or off, whether they were 60 or 80, or full blood or 1/8. It didn't matter, but this year the tribal council decided to give off-Rez elders only $50, cutting an expected $100 from their check, and this was done without warning.

There was quite an uproar on Facebook on a large group page dedicated to LCO members, with some people under the impression that the LCO Elders Council had made this change, when in fact, it was the LCO Tribal Council and the elders council had nothing to do with it. I spoke with Jason Weaver of the council last month and he mentioned that the council had to find a way to cut $1 million from the budget in order to meet the escalating casino bond payment that was taken out back in 2006. This is a monthly payment that our tribe has to make or we'll lose management of our casino and any revenues to the bond holders. The payment increases each year and in 2016, the payment amount is expected to exceed the amount of monthly revenues the casino takes in. You can read all about the bond payment here http://lcotoday.blogspot.com/2015/03/casino-bond-needs-to-be-restructuredor.html

Anyways, this cut to the off-Rez elders is most likely part of the overall strategy to cut $1 million from the budget and save our casino from default. The problem was the tactic and the delivery that upset so many of our tribal members. Some felt that all tribal elders should receive a pay cut rather than a specific group. And, people were also upset that they weren't given a heads up.

One member who lives in Milwaukee wrote a great commentary on the issue and posted it to the Facebook page, but in it he questioned that the LCO Elders Council had made this decision because that's what so many were saying on the other Facebook threads, and this was because some elders who were asking questions were told by members of the council that it was the decision of the elders council, but this wasn't true and Vern Martin, a member of the elders council made a post on the Facebook page saying that the elders council had nothing to do with this. He said if it were up to the elders council it would have never happened. The issue did cause quite a divide between elders.

Jason Northern, LCO citizen, the Milwaukee member wrote a second commentary and I'm going to print that post in its entirety because he makes some great points about our people needing to come together and makes a few suggestions. He also discusses his research into the new wording in our tribal constitution calling our people citizenship rather than membership.

First off I would to apologize to the elder council. If the elder council was not involved with the decision, then I sincerely and truly to do apologize and to anyone else I might have offended. It was not my intentions to attack anyone or to single anyone out. I did not condone all the mudslinging on individual people that followed, that kind of stuff gets us nowhere. My intentions were to bring to light what is a clear divide with our people, which was made evident with some of the following comments.
My intention as a whole, is for all of us as a tribe to figure out how to come together. It’s very disheartening when I see people bickering and it sounds like “us vs them”. We are a shattered and scattered people. People that come together on a common issue can accomplish great things, especially for something they feel proud to be apart of. Its basic human concept, theres strength in numbers. Its time we start trying to bring these scattered pieces back together and make us whole as it will ever be.
Our people had to endure a lot of change over the years. It will never be like how it was back in the old days, as much as we like to talk about how it was, the sad reality is we can’t live that way anymore. But it doesn’t mean we’re suppose to forget, we will always be Anishinaabe, we will always remember the culture, language, stories and teachings. A revitalization of our culture is happening as we speak, our language is being taught in elementary schools, I am current taking Anishinaabemowin at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. This is revolutionary! So now is not the time to allow us to fracture some more as a people, we are going to need every piece to survive as a Nation. Because we need to take into consideration that the worlds population is increasing exponentially, its growing with or without us.
How do we bring people together? That is a tough question, but since I opened my big fat mouth and went on a rant the other day, some of you were probably saying “where’s all your big ideas?” which is understandable. I did some thinking for ideas on how to get people together and this is what I came up with. Since we can not exactly live they way our ancestors did, we could still do some of the things they did and one of them is farming. Agriculture is huge business and I don’t just mean your average farm, I also mean aquaponics and indoor gardening as well as outdoor farms. You don’t need huge acres of land anymore to grow lots of vegetables. Also I mean serious gardening and not marijuana, not that I’m against it, its just not realistic at the moment.
I say farming because it offers jobs for both kids and adults. And teaching kids how grow their own food is a skill you can’t put a value on. During the summers there could be farming camps similar to the berry camps and maple camps etc, where kids from all over the country can spend a few weeks on a farm learning about culture, language, nutrition and traditional farming techniques. When it all boils down to it, it starts with the kids, the only way we will survive is if we can keep our youth interested and educated. Also we need to give these kids purposes, thats why kids join gangs because they want to feel like they belong to something. Anyone who has kids can tell you that they just want to feel like they’re helping and giving them jobs mixed with cultural teachings can make them feel like they’re apart of something huge while helping to make a difference. How many off reservation families would let their kids go to such a camp on LCO for a couple of weeks, to learn about culture, basic farming, nutrition, language, and overall to develop a sense of pride for something?Remember we are the PRIDE OF THE OJIBWE! lets instill that back into the kids.(I’d like to see responses on this)
By growing our own food we can get on a track of being self sustaining. As a Nation, we need to seriously consider what will happen if civilization collapsed. As ridiculous as that sounds its still a realization that is not completely out of the question. I mentioned earlier the worlds population is growing and on top of all that the worlds freshwater supply is running out and no bullshit, we live in one of the last places in the WORLD! with freshwater, these are FACTS, not fear mongering or speculation. This is speculation but its not that far fetched, there might be time when we won’t be able to buy our food, just something to think about. So I digress, it seems that from reading everyones comments, the consensus was the blame is on council.
Blaming council is common, especially since there isn’t any checks and balances, so council should understand why they get blamed so much. This is one thing I will say to council, give up some of your power. You know we need checks and balances in the government, you had the same complaints when you weren’t council. You can make a real difference, giving up some that power will give people hope that real change is possible. But my issue is not with this council or any people for that matter, my issue is with the way of thinking. For any real change to be done, the way some people think has to change. There shouldn’t be a thought of those that live off reservation are looked at differently.
As someone mentioned in the comment thread, council changed us from members to citizens and I remember hearing about that from the meeting but I didn’t put much thought to it. Alright with any legal document everything comes down to the wording and why would they specifically change the wording from member to citizen? And since this is written in the English language, same as it is in every treaty to the constitution, very specific wording makes all the difference. Now I am going to speculate and so if I am wrong with my assumptions I want anyone to tell me I am wrong or full of shit and then tell me why I am. Because I want to promote open dialogue and not senseless arguing.
“Citizen” is a very specific word, when compared to the word “member” both can seem to mean the same thing but the word “member” is more broad. Now forgive me for my cliche google searches, on the word “member”, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/member and these sites you can look yourself and others, granted its only one source but I have no control of these sites. Thats why I say prove this to be wrong I want to be wrong, please discern for yourselves. Anyways from reading this, “member” means lots of things, but the overall meaning of it is to be apart of something that is whole. Also meaning an object that is missing a member of its body is not whole. A look up of the word “citizen” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/citizen they both have a similar meaning but citizen has one key word that follows it through the different meanings all the way to the origin of it and that word is “inhabitant”.
Now we all know what inhabitant means but what does the word “citizen” mean to you now after doing your own comparison? And what does it mean to the LCO tribes people to be recognized this way? My speculation continues to why the word citizen was specifically used and according to a simple word search, citizens are basically townspeople. The overall meaning from what I gather, as being a citizen of a nation you must inhabit the place of the nation. So what I am getting at is we are all United States citizens, when we go to a different country we are no longer entitled to United States citizens rights while we are out of our country, embassy aside.
Do you see where I am getting at? You would think that having a meeting and discussing the changing of such wording would be such a trivial thing, I mean seriously why would it be even a topic if it didn’t have some deeper meaning? Now if you get into the word citizenship, it has a deeper meaning, look it up yourself, but the overall message of what it means to have citizenship of a nation greatly varies from nation to nation, theres no set definition. So basically its up to our council on how they define a citizen of the Lac Courte Orielles reservation. Again, challenge this thought and tell me another reason why they changed the wording.
To finish I would like to apologize again to the elders council, I was just looking out for all the elders. I am only being vocal because I care about all of my fellow tribal members and I can see us doing great things as a nation. My intentions are to not attack anybody and I hope that people can see that, especially my friends on LCO and my friends on council. I honestly feel people can rationally discuss their differences without hostilities, and I hope to change peoples view points through discussion to close this divide that is so blatantly through us as a nation.

A Soldier's Wish: Thomas Boyle Toy Giveaway set for December 12

On Saturday, December 12, many children in our community will take part in the donation of a truck load of toys brought to LCO from Illinois, in honor of a soldier who died in Afghanistan. To honor the life and legacy of Tom Boyle, his wife, Pauline and son, Ryan will be delivering the toys to LCO and Shondel Barber, through the Circle of Life program, will distribute the toys in a community-wide giveaway at the LCO School Gym.


The event was hugely successful last year and Shondel says this year will be even bigger. There are more toys to be distributed. This is the third year of the toy giveaway. The toys are collected in Illinois.


Pauline Boyle, an LCO Tribal member, said her husband Tom loved children and realized the value and impact they would have upon our future. Tom died on June 19, 2012 during an attack at FOB Provincial Reserve in Kandahar, Afghanistan.


According tot he brochure for the event, "Boyle began his distinguished public service career after serving two tours in the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War where he earned numerous awards including the Cross of Gallantry. After returning stateside, Tom followed in the footsteps of his family and became the fourth generation police officer to join the Chicago Police Department. This began a 30-year career which ranged from dignitary protection, organized crime, narcotics, vice control, and numerous undercover assignments. His most memorable and proudest accomplishment included the apprehension of the Strickland Brothers during their attempted getaway after killing Wheeling Police officer Kenneth Dawson thereby thwarting the kidnapping and killing of other civilians taken hostage that day. Tom earned numerous departmental commendations and one life saving award before retiring at the rank of detective, After retirement, Tom deployed in support of several Department of Defense contingencies including service in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. In his final deployment, Tom served with the 2d Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2d Infantry Division in Kandahar Province Afghanistan. Tomas Boyle died on June 19, 2012 during an attack at FOB Provincial Reserve in Kandahar, Afghanistan culminating a lifetime of service to his country."


For more information about this event visit the Facebook Page where Shondel will be putting updates about in the days leading up to the giveaway, https://www.facebook.com/events/1732973343597393/permalink/1733035913591136/

Scary Halloween news day for our tribe in regards to casino bond and other news

Happy Halloween LCO! It’s the perfect day to come out with some breaking news for our tribe. Why Halloween? Because, this is some scary stuff. I’ve received some new information lately that suggests our tribe is in serious financial trouble, just as I said several months ago in this very blog. I stated that we would only have a couple of months and the money would run dry. That couple of months has come and gone…and the money, apparently, has run dry.

I’m working on a story that I will be sharing within the next few days on this blog with more details on our casino bonds and the need for restructuring. Remember this blog http://lcotoday.blogspot.com/2015/03/casino-bond-needs-to-be-restructuredor.html that I wrote about the casino bond needing to be restructured within a year or we’d be in default. I first made this statement back in November of 2014 because at the current rate of increase per monthly payment, within a year of that time, we’d default. It is November 1^st tomorrow, one year later. Are we in default? No, not yet, but our tribal council is beginning to take serious measures to avoid this happening.

I spoke with both Chairman Mic Isham and his cousin, council member, Jason Weaver. They both told me two different stories and both pretty much denied what I’m about to share with you. Our council has approached the Shakopee Sioux Tribe for a large loan. I haven’t confirmed the amount yet. I originally heard the amount was for $10 million, but Weaver confirmed to me that the loan was for a casino makeover bond in the amount of $5 million. He said that the Shakopee Sioux have backed off on the loan approval because they have done several of these loans in recent years and the tribes are going into default.

Isham completely denied that we approached Shakopee. He said that financers are actually pitching our tribe to get a loan through them. He said we have approached no one.

I’m not against our tribe seeking out a bond for our casino. I believe we need a complete restructure of the current bond and yes, there needs to be some improvements to our casino. Our debt is $28 million, so $5 million would do nothing but increase the pain. Weaver said the $5 million would be used for some renovation and to purchase some newer gaming machines. Would this really help? Maybe a little, but enough to get us out of the mess we are in? I don’t know, but in another year, a balloon payment comes due.

What I am against in this whole process is what it may take for our tribe to achieve a loan. Here is the scary part I mentioned earlier… yet to be confirmed, but it comes from a pretty reliable source, is that our tribe is putting up 6,000 acres of tribal lands as collateral for any loan, in addition to casino revenues, and that was for a $10 million dollar loan that may involve a local bank as well. Like I said, I will have the full story soon.

Something else I recently heard is that our tribal police have been instructed by the LCO Legal Department to alert Legal two weeks in advance prior to any more drug raids on the reservation. Isham denied this and I haven’t bothered to call Chief Tim DeBrot yet because I know he can neither confirm, nor deny any of this because he has a job to consider. It seems that in the last drug raids a while back our local police made a blunder, so the council has determined. When I said this to Mic, he no longer denied anything and claimed that council had no say because it’s the feds. But, our council has strong input, especially when it comes to the local law enforcement, and that’s who they are referring to.

This is wrong on so many levels. There are many rumors in our community that the drug culture extends all the way up to the tribal council level, from protection and aiding and abetting, to actually receiving profits. We can easily dismiss this as hogwash…until you hear about something like this. The only thing I can gather out of a tribal council action like this would be to protect the drug dealers in this community who may be tied in or related to them personally.

I’m also going to come out with a few update stories in the next few weeks in regards to many of the blogs I wrote during election time. I’d like to see where the tribe sits today versus then. I know our people voted for a new slate of council members under the anthem of “Change.” Has there been any change?

During my talk with the chairman on Friday, he said that my writing of those blogs only helped him. He believes that the people voted for change and the change was to get rid of the four council members they did, and in that action, the people voted to support him. Mic feels this way because the four new members you all voted for did, in fact, support Mic and are continuing to support him each and every day. I told him that he was wrong. Yes, our people voted for change and that change was a vote against him and his policies, but they simply voted for candidates who stayed positive in the election process and at the same time, told the voters they represented “change.” Jason Weaver was asked numerous times if he supported Mic and he always said no. He said he was his own man and would make his own decisions, but now, it is becoming clear that he always supported Mic, his cousin. If he was his own man, he would be able to answer financial questions about the state of our tribe rather than tell tribal members they need to talk to Mic or Norma about that.

In all fairness, Jason did answer my questions on Thursday in a phone conversation, to the best of his ability. But, the next day when I spoke to the chairman, I got a totally different story.

Here are some of the things that Jason did answer. He said that the $2 million dollar balloon payment on the casino bond is coming due next year but the money would come out of a reserve account that already holds that money and it was always there from the beginning. He said that a company did come in and explain the account to the council. If this were true, how come the previous council wasn’t aware of this “reserve account?”

Jason confirmed that the tribe is taking serious measures to meet the bond payments. He said the council has lowered the amount of money they are taking from casino revenues for tribal operations. In doing so, the tribe was cutting their budget by $1 million. He said that over $9,000 a month is being saved from the cutting out of gas vouchers, comped hotel rooms and other services.

“We are trying to be more fiscally responsible,” Jason said. In regards to a local bank being involved in the $5 million dollar loan for a casino makeover, or for any other loan purposes where our lands may be put up for lien, he said there are no other loans outstanding right now, except for the Hideout, that he knows about. This is neither confirmation, nor denial because “he doesn’t know about it.”

Jason did say that Elders would get their Christmas bonus this year. He also said that they are giving turkeys to only Elders this year, but I thought it was always only elders. Maybe they are raising the age to qualify as an Elder to receive turkeys, because he did say the price of birds has gone up a lot due to the bird flu.

During my talk with Mic, he said that I wasn’t a reputable journalist anymore. This is his opinion, but, I don’t care about that. I only care about the people of this community learning the truth about what is going on at our council level. I asked him if I was so wrong on all the blogs I have been writing, then why has he not shown me or you any supporting documentation that proves I’m wrong, rather than just claim it. I’ve seen documentation in regards to my claims and I know the truth. He refuses to refute anything. His hope is that you, the people of LCO, will believe what he says and that should be good enough.

So tell me LCO, is it “good enough” that we don’t have a say at all when our tribe puts up 6,000 acres of tribal land in, yet another, bad tribal loan. Year after year we continue to operate in the red. If we receive this loan and put up our casino revenues and tribal lands, what’s going to change? In another year we will still be operating in the red and then what? Ask yourselves LCO, is Mic’s word “good enough?

Maybe it's time our tribal council begin asking the people for advice instead of pretending they know it all. Not one of them has a business degree, which is seriously needed at this time. Maybe, with a few good decisions, our tribe may find its way out of this mess. Either way, when it comes to decisions on this scale, a referendum vote of the membership should be required.

We can still stop the Madness LCO!

HI all. I know I’ve been quiet since the Primary Election last month despite having a lot more to say. I guess I had decided that I was going to stay out of the election but as the day approaches so soon, I just can’t stop thinking about how scary it is for our tribe if the same leadership regains control. I say again people of LCO, everything I wrote was true and our tribe is in a dire situation. If it wasn't true, then why didn’t anyone dispute anything that I had written?

We still face the Madness of....

Literally a hundred tribal members forced out of tribal jobs

More and more director positions handed to non-tribals

Our casino will be in default in less than a year

Our tribal funds will be depleted within months if not already

Being bankrupt or borrowing in the millions again from Chippewa Valley Bank

The loss of our educational systems

Millions of dollars in grant funds missing

Tribal leaders still interested only in personal gain

Housing shortages while our leaders sell off 41 FEMA trailers

Off-Rez construction contractors getting tribal jobs and paying off leaders

Heroin and Meth exploding on our Rez with support of tribal leaders

Threats to employees of being fired if they speak out

Being fleeced by highly paid executives at our casino to the tune of $500,000 per year

Secret back door deals and secret files being taken for unknown purposes

and widespread fraud across the tribe

With the primary election it became clear that our people wanted a change. Two incumbents were ousted and the other two were not among the top three vote getters, one of them barely making the final eight. Although our people didn’t choose me to represent them on this council, I firmly believe they heard my message that things must change, they simply expressed that desire by voting for other candidates who they believed would represent them with real change in mind. Unfortunately, our people were duped and two of those candidates don’t represent change. If elected, they will vote to support Mic Isham and Norma Ross and continue on this same path of corruption and self-destruction for our tribe. They are the two Jasons.

Jason Weaver told us all during the campaign that he wasn’t for Mic, but he lied to our faces. He is Mic’s cousin and will support him. Mic gave him his job at Public Works and has been his supporter. There’s not any doubt in many people’s minds right now where he stands who were previously duped by him in the Primary. Weaver is also untrustworthy. During the Primary he talked about how much he was for the people and campaigned on “jobs for our people,” but at the same time when one of his former employees applied for a very good job at the St. Croix tribe in their Public Works department, he gave him a bad reference. This was one of our tribal members who he undermined for no good reason at all. This tribal member has a family. I’m not going to mention names, but many of you know who I am talking about. He failed to get the job only because Weaver (who has more ties to St. Croix than our own tribe) told them not to hire him. We don’t need someone like that on our council. If you want the same purge of tribal member employees that we have seen over the past two years…then vote for Jason Weaver. If you want to protect tribal member jobs…then think twice before you vote for Jason Weaver!

The same goes for Jason Schlender. He is also a big supporter of the current direction of our tribe and will not change a thing. Schlender will be an extension of the same old status quo. Joel Valentin is a nice guy, but he is also a cousin to Mic and would support him to stay on as chairman.

There is one good candidate of the top three vote getters and that is Rose Gokee. She is fair and honest and will stand on her own. She will not go with the status quo and become a yes vote for current leadership.

Whoever is chosen in the general election one thing is for certain, the next council will have their hands full. They will inherit a mess. I want you all to know that throughout this campaign I have had our tribe’s best interest and future well-being at heart. I strongly believe our tribe could be so much better and we could be a leader among Indian Country once again. I say to you all right now that everything I have written is true and accurate…It is not rumor and speculation. I have relied on very good sources for information and when confronted, the council members couldn’t deny anything and have actually admitted things…like selling those 41 FEMA trailers.

There are several candidates who represent keeping the leadership as is and now a new chance for change has emerged because there are still some candidates who could cause change and no, they are not the ones hollering about change. This is my personal opinion of how I see things and I’d like to share these thoughts with you all. Although we’ve had our differences in the past, I believe Louis Taylor is our best chance to come out of this mess. If you take a look at when Louis was chairman and compare to our current chairman, there is a huge difference in the health of our tribe.

When Louis was chairman, at least our people were working the jobs on this Rez and not working for non-tribals in nearly every enterprise. Our council still held on to the principle that every tribal member should have a job.

When Louis was chairman, our casino was making twice the money it is today. Our management ran the casino instead of hiring a $500,000 per year executive staff. And, the buffet was much better and more affordable then than it is today with a six-figure executive chef and it was our people working all the jobs at the casino. Let’s not forget that there was entertainment there as well.

Two candidates who initially I voiced were supporters of Mic are now supporting Louis Taylor for chair and those candidates are Brian Bisonette and Little Guy. Even Little Guy, who has been a yes vote for Mic’s wrongs over the past two years, is now vocally challenging this poor leadership.

I could go on and on, but I don’t want this to become another rant about how bad our tribal welfare has become…I’ll save that for later. I just wanted to share with you all that change can and must still come. Although I’m no longer a candidate for the council, I will keep up the fight and will not stop advocating for new leadership of this tribe. We can’t afford two more years!

I leave you with this final thought as you head into the polls to vote for the future of our tribe on Saturday. It is up to you to save our tribe from a dark future filled with economic hardship, more lost jobs, a lost casino to bond holders, bankruptcy or massive debt to Gary Gerber and Chippewa Valley Bank, homelessness, an out-of-control tribal leadership sponsored drug culture, misspent and stolen grant funds, etc… You can vote for candidates that will stop this madness and stop Mic Isham and Norma Ross.

Here are the candidates that will make that change…

Louis Taylor

Rose Gokee

Brian Bisonette

Gary “Little Guy” Clause

Don Carley

Here are the candidates that will vote to keep the leadership the same and therefore, no change for another two years….

Jason Schlender

Jason Weaver

Joel Valentin

P.S. I haven’t discussed any of this blog with any of the candidates. This isn’t any official endorsement. This blog is of my own opinions on who I think would best represent the future of our tribe. Miigwech and good luck LCO! The future can be bright or it can be dark…It’s all up to you now!

BREAKING NEWS: FEMA trailers sold, patients notified and more...

I have several breaking news stories to report on in today’s blog, which include news that our tribal council sold 41 FEMA trailers that were supposed to come to LCO and aid in our housing shortages. This is a huge story and the truth is just surfacing. But, first I’d like to talk about the letter our tribal council sent out to the 229 people whose files were removed from the clinic.

Apparently, our leadership has decided that the employee who took the files did nothing wrong. Tribal Attorney Jason Stark said that what this employee did was in the course of normal work procedure. This is what he told me at the tribal office on Tuesday. It gets better…our leadership, in their letter to the victims, is recommending that everyone file a complaint against me with IHS because I had the list of names and decided to do the right thing and inform those people their files were taken from the clinic. In the letter, it states that I can be fined $50,000 to $1,000,000 per person.

 

Stark told me that the decision to send this particular letter wasn’t made by the tribal council, but was actually sent out by the HIPAA office and that it is now up to the Department of Justice prosecutors whether to pursue these fines against me. The BS just gets deeper and deeper.

He’s flat out lying to me because Gordon Thayer said they presented this letter to him to sign for tribal council authorization and he wouldn’t sign it. I asked Stark about that and he said it was an earlier version of the letter. Both Little Guy and Larry K. said the same thing, there were multiple versions of this letter passed around, but that Stark was seeking their signatures. Little Guy said the original letter he saw never mentioned anything about filing complaints against the person who had the list of names.

Stark then claimed that it was a different version of the letter that was sent out and had nothing to do with our tribal council. There won’t be any type of charges against me and he knows this. The letter was sent out by him and authorized by the tribal council. It is another election ploy to try to make you all think that I’m the one who actually did something wrong here. They continued to cover up the story, lied to us and even tried to keep from firing the employee, who happens to be Norma Ross’ niece. The only reason they eventually admitted anything happened and fired the employee was because I wrote the past stories that I wrote. Now they are mad that I forced their hand. Funny how they finally sent out a letter notifying the victims just days before the election and in it, they recommend people file a complaint on me. If this weren’t so serious a matter, it would be hysterical.

Some unanswered questions in regards to TGB statement on patient files

Our tribal attorneys have continuously given bad advice to our leadership. This is one example, and later in this blog, I will show another major example in the sales transaction of those FEMA trailers. Jason Stark can’t even practice law in Wisconsin. When he travels outside the reservation to represent our tribe, we have to pay for two attorneys to travel. He has Courtney Allensworth, another one of our three attorneys, travel with him so that she can actually represent the tribe.

Our tribal attorneys actually said in the statement released by the tribe a few weeks ago in regards to these patient files that their investigation was forwarded to the district attorney’s office in Hayward for possible charges against me for having the list that was dropped off on my doorstep. This leads me to another story about our district attorney, Bruce Poquette. If you didn’t know this already, now you are being informed that he is married to the daughter of Norma Ross. Yes, that’s right, he’s married to Sara. My wife and I have been living with the concern that they could trump up some ridiculous charges in this matter because I have been writing the truth about Norma Ross and her activities highlighted in the audit report.

Here’s why this is a serious concern. It has to do with the trash-letter that Paul Demain is passing around about me. He has a police report from the city of Hayward that indicates I have a battery charge against me prosecuted by Bruce Poquette, Norma Ross’s son-in-law.

Here’s the truth of the matter. My wife and I went out for a couple of drinks and some dancing and we ended up at the River’s Edge Saloon. We don’t get out much, but we should be able to as responsible adults, go out occasionally. It’s hard to get these times out for each other when you have four kids. So, here we are that night and not long after walking into the bar, the owner and two other men attacked me (one of them a tribal member) and I defended myself accordingly. I walked out of the bar and the police were already outside waiting for me. My first thought was that I was set up. Remember, I was already writing about our financial situation last fall. This event happened in January. There was no physical injury to anyone and one individual said he walked into a door. I was charged with disorderly conduct. I went to court without an attorney because I planned to plead to a fine if I could and accept responsibility for being there in the first place when I shouldn’t have. The district attorney hands me the new report and the charges had been upped to a battery.

I left the court in shock and soon found out that Poquette is Norma Ross’ son-in-law. Aaah, it made sense then. I talked with several law enforcement officers afterwards and they all agreed that normally, for a battery charge to take place there must have been physical injury and the officer on scene will take pictures, or a victim went to the hospital afterwards with an injury they didn’t know about. None of this happened in this case. They all agreed that the case was weak and it seemed that maybe I was being targeted. It seemed like a set-up from start to finish. I know that if someone was writing about my mother-in-law, I would want to do something about it if I could.

This is an obvious conflict of interest but not only for me, folks, but for our entire tribe. Any political foe of Norma Ross better hope they don’t end up in the Sawyer County Court System, for he may target you for a more serious crime or punishment. I didn’t batter anybody in my case but yet, he thinks he actually has a case. Good luck. I’ve heard other things about this district attorney as well, and it may come out eventually, and yes, it has to do with our tribe. It’s a sad fact, but Norma Ross through her son-in-law can actually pick and choose which of our members may go to jail. I say that any and all tribal members in his court should ask for a conflict of interest!

The main reason that Paul Demain is handing out this letter is that the bar owner of River’s Edge said to the police he kicked me out of his bar for snorting cocaine in his bathroom. This is an absolute lie. Everyone who knows me well knows that I don’t do any drugs. I haven’t even smoked weed since 1998. There isn’t one person on this Rez who can step forward and say they saw me do any cocaine or any other drug for that matter…EVER! Good luck Paul Demain trying to produce that and other than that, all you have there is a piece of hearsay from a worthless drugged out bar owner in Hayward, who was wasted drunk in his bar starting fights. I even blew low enough that I could legally drive when I took the breathalyzer that night. Like I said, my wife and I were out for a few drinks and some social time, and weren’t even drunk. Now I know to stay away from these types of atmosphere because there are many who are determined to silence me anyway they can.

Speaking of silencing me, there is another story that I won’t be silenced on because it’s another example of how little our tribal leaders care about our people. Housing shortages is a major problem in our community with some families having to wait years on the waiting lists. Many of our people are homeless, some living in the woods and others shacking up with family members. It’s a major problem here that our leadership likes to turn a blind eye to. But, what is tragic beyond belief is when our leaders are given 41 homes to shelter our most needy families and they turn around and sell them!

You heard that right. Our tribe was awarded another batch of FEMA trailers a few years ago, but, those trailers never showed up. Our tribe stored them down in Oklahoma and other states instead of transporting them here. Within the past year, Norma Ross and Little Guy signed the sales document, a deal to sell them to Mobile Home dealers for a substantial amount of money. Some of them were traded to pay the storage bills and then the rest were sold. Where did the money go? How much did they net? These are questions I suggest you all go up to the tribal office and start asking right away. This is just sick beyond belief!

We have people waiting years on those housing lists. We have people sleeping in the woods. We have people overcrowded in homes and yet, our totally disconnected elitist tribal leaders thought it in the tribes best interest to sell them. I’m sure that will be their excuse…we didn’t have the money to transport them here and then how much would it have cost to get them settled in.

Here’s what I say to that…It doesn’t matter how much the cost, it would have been money well-spent to help our people who are suffering out there. Look at it like this. It may have cost anywhere between $50,000 to $100,000 to move them back to LCO, and then we would have to make them Northern Zone Climate ready by insulating them. You’re looking at another $100,000. The best choice at this point would have been to build a mobile home community close to the water and sewer system of the Rez so you only have to run piping to each home, so how much, another $100,000. For the price of $300,000, which wouldn’t even build 6 tribal homes, we could have housed 41 families and they believe this isn’t worth it? We had $220,000 in overdraft fees at Chippewa Valley Bank last year for insufficient funds. That would have nearly paid for the whole project. Also, these trailers sat for several years and FEMA announced in the beginning that HUD made grant funds available for moving the trailers. Over the course of several years, I’m sure we could have found grant dollars to pay for the whole project.

Besides all that, if the council didn’t intend to get those FEMA trailers back to LCO, then they should have refused accepting them. Those were federal tax dollars that built them and they were given to LCO to help with housing shortages, not to be sold for a profit. This is a serious matter and an illegal one.

I asked Jason Stark about the tribe selling those FMEA trailers and he said he had no comment. I then said it was illegal to sell them and he said no it wasn’t. FEMA built 140,000 of those trailers for Hurricane Katrina victims but couldn’t place them in New Orleans because of the flood plain, so then FEMA began auctioning them off to recoup some of the taxpayer dollars. The tribes across the country asked for some of them to help with their severe housing shortages. FEMA decided to give a couple thousand trailers to the tribes free of charge. The tribes just had to pay for moving them back to their reservations. In our case, it was around $3,000 a trailer.

FEMA would have never given those trailers to us so that we could sell them and make a profit. If FEMA wanted them sold to mobile home dealers, they would have done it themselves, as they were doing. This is another very serious matter and so I decided to call FEMA and ask them about the trailers and how many were given to our tribe over each award (this one and the previous awards that were handed out). I asked them for the serial numbers on each trailer awarded to our tribe because this is public information due to the fact that taxpayer dollars built each one of those trailers. They are getting back to me on that in the next few days. With that information, we can track the sale of all of these trailers through the DMV in the various states they were held. These trailers were valued at $30,000 each. Several of them in the first two batches didn’t end up in private tribal member ownership either, but were sold to a real estate broker right here in Hayward. And someone illegally profited on that deal as well.

There is so much more corruption and blatant disregard for our people that I could go on and on. You’ve read all the past blogs and there is a lot more that I haven’t even written about. It’s too bad that some people try to say that what I’m doing is running a negative campaign. I just don’t understand how shedding the truth on corruption is considered a negative campaign. Our people deserve better treatment and deserve respect from our council members, not mishandled grant funds, disappearing money, corrupt construction contracts, and cronyism. This is not a negative campaign folks. A negative campaign would be if I started calling them jerks and #@&... Or, if I started writing about the other rumors I’m hearing about some of our council members. I’m not doing that though, I’m sticking to stories that can all be backed up and that I have documentation for. If my stories are so wrong, then why hasn’t there been any public response claiming otherwise from our leadership? It’s because I’m right and they have nothing to say.

Go back tribal members, read some of the blogs. Read the audit report story. The auditors found 17 different findings of widespread fraud and corruption all leading back to Norma Ross. This is not me saying this folks. This is in black and white from a professional outside auditing firm. This is no joke.

 

Auditor's Report states there may be widespread fraud at LCO

We simply can’t afford two more years of this leadership. The same status quo has brought our tribe to its knees, so we must vote for change, vote for candidates that oppose keeping things the same. I know there are a couple dozen candidates that truly won’t support these leaders and their corruption any longer. But, I also know there are a few candidates that support the leadership and feel that there’s nothing wrong with the current road we’re on. Four of those candidates are Jason Weaver, Jason Schlender, Brian Bisonette and Gary “Little Guy” Clause.

Weaver posted on his Facebook page that he supports Schlender, who is a supporter of the status quo. In the very next post, he singled me out of 36 candidates to say that he doesn’t support me, although I’m doing a great job for the tribe and that I’m an asset to the tribe. Tell me I’m a nice guy while you push the knife deep into my back. Well, I know I must be doing something right if he felt compelled to single me out of the crowd to say he doesn’t support me. He has finally shown what he believes in for the future of the tribe, all the while claiming he doesn’t support the leadership and wants change. He is Mic Isham’s cousin after all. Weaver flat out told us candidates at the BBQ last Saturday that he does not support Mic, claiming that he hasn’t done anything for him, and yet he comes out supporting the most Pro-Mic candidate (Schlender) and bashes the most Anti-Mic candidate (myself) all in the same breath.

Win or lose my fellow tribal members, I promise this. I will keep writing right through this election and I will help those candidates who oppose this crooked regime!

See you at the polls on Saturday and good luck to all the great candidates this year. Remember, you have four votes and I’d appreciate one of those spots, a vote to Restore Native Pride! Vote Joe Morey.

A Few Good Reasons to Vote for Joe Morey

My name is Joe Morey and I am a candidate for the LCO tribal council. Some of you may know me from my days as editor of the LCO Times and Ojibwe Times over the past 20 years. It was during that time I gained vast experience in dealing with the tribal council and learning how our tribal government functions. Those 20 years prepared me for my next chapter in life, that as a tribal governing board member representing you, the membership.

Because of my background as a watchdog reporting on stories over the years you otherwise may have never known, it is one of the strong points that makes me the best candidate for the council. I know how important it is that our membership is informed of the activities of the governing board. I strongly believe that there shouldn’t be any secrets unless it is dealing with personnel issues, otherwise, you the members have every right to know what’s going on. As a tribal council member, I won’t forget that I am beholden to you, the membership because it is you who I will work for. This was a philosophy that I held as the news editor for LCO over all those years and I’ll carry that mentality with me always.

I pledge to maintain openness and to hold the other governing board members accountable to openness as well. How do I plan to achieve this goal? Simple. As many of you know I write a blog on a regular basis that has been a whistleblower of sorts about the corruption that grips our current council. Well, I will continue to write that blog focusing on all activities of the council while I am a sitting council member. There will be no more secrets and that’s a promise. I have no big family to own me. You, the membership will get me elected, not a big family, and so it will be you that I account to through openness and being approachable. I also pledge to push our council to hold at least one of the weekly meetings each month in the Peter Larson Room so that you can come and see the council in action. The council is very uninviting behind two sets of doors and rarely do regular tribal folks come to a meeting because of this. It is my hope that if we have at least one of those meetings each month in the Peter Larson Room, you will feel welcome to stop in a meeting and express your concerns or questions at any time. It’s the way it used to be and it’s the way it should be again.

Over the past two years there has been a lot of suffering on our reservation through deaths, homelessness, losing jobs and the pain continues to grow. Our tribal council has aided in this despair throughout our reservation by shifting jobs away from our members which I’ll talk about it in a minute, but also by refusing to acknowledge the serious housing problems we face from shortages of adequate housing to mold-infested homes making our people sick. Several years ago FEMA gave our tribe another batch of trailers totaling 41 homes but those homes never made it to our reservation. They were never even transferred here but instead stored down south and eventually members of our tribal council, unbeknown to others members, sold them all just this year to mobile home dealers to make a profit. Norma and Little Guy signed the document to sell the trailers. Those trailers were given to our tribe free of charge and were meant to provide housing and shelter to 41 different families in need here at LCO. They weren’t meant to be sold. This is another sad example of the care less attitude our leadership has towards our suffering members. When you elect me to the governing board I will find the funds immediately to clean up the mold-infested homes and begin improving the health of our people here at LCO. The sale of these trailers was meant to be another corrupt tribal secret you weren’t supposed to know about, but the information was leaked to me, and I will be writing a separate story in the next couple of days about these trailers.

And in my mission to improve the health of our people, I will fight for our people’s right to have a job at home instead of traveling to other reservations for work, and I’ll fight for your right to feel secure in your job. This starts with filling in all the executive jobs on our reservation with our own tribal members who are qualified through years of experience or education or both. We need to start with a change of management at the LCO Casino as well and at the same time we need to return jobs to everyone who lost their jobs this past year. I will also get the TERO office here so that our tribal workforce is protected and all businesses and contractors operating within our boundaries or on any of our contracts has to hire at least 75% tribal members and then pay them equal wages to non-tribal members. It’s the right thing to do.

And I will fight to repeal the social media in the workplace ordinance that our council recently passed. Our council has no right to intimidate the tribal membership from speaking out against the actions of this council through fear of losing their job. The council is elected officials and they should have some tough skin, I know I do. You have a right to speak out, especially now during election time.

I have many other ideas that I’ve shared with the membership through my blog at lcotoday.blogspot.com where you can read about my campaign platform and where I stand on all the issues. If there is any candidate you know, who isn’t part of your family, it’s me because I’ve been writing news for you and sharing my opinions with you for the past 20 years. I’m an open book, always have been and always will be. Remember, you can vote for up to 4 spots and I’d appreciate your vote of confidence in one of those four spots on May 16 in the primary election for LCO Tribal Council. 

Supportive Housing plan for 30 units shot down by current chairman

A project meant to help fight homelessness at LCO and help at-risk families was recently cut short by the current tribal administration. The Supportive Housing Project was initiated by former chairman, Gordon Thayer.

As chairman, Thayer visited the Fond du Lac Reservation in northern Minnesota to visit their Supportive Housing project, which has received praise on a national level. He immediately put in a plan of action to bring the project to LCO in an effort to reduce homelessness in the local community. The project is aimed at providing housing for at-risk families who otherwise couldn’t get housing.

The project at Fond du Lac includes a 24-unit complex, with single bedroom efficiency-style apartments and two town home facilities with up to three bedrooms as well as a community facility and playground. Thayer said the project at LCO would have been similar with a community center and 30 units.

During his administration, tribal representatives from support services across the reservation met to discuss pursuing the grant funds. Thayer said the project was in its pre-development phase looking into federal grant funds and tax credits. Thayer said there would have been some subsidizing from the tribe.

The project would have been under construction at the corner of Hwy K and Froemel Road if it hadn’t been cut short by current chairman, Mic Isham. According to witness reports, Isham had commented that he didn’t want to have a place for drunks to be hanging around.

Isham didn’t respond to numerous attempts to reach him about this story.

The project in Fond du Lac was funded by no less than 15 different sources. The final construction cost was $4.6 million.

“This incredibly successful project received rave reviews and tremendous applause from local, state and tribal officials,” said Zoey Lebau, coordinator of the project.

The Fond du Lac Supportive Housing program not only places at-risk families into affordable housing, but it provides services to meet the needs of the clients, addressing their barriers to maintaining housing. The program creates a support system around the families to prevent homelessness from re-occurring.

Some of the families that would receive housing include long-term homeless, chronic homeless, which include double up occupancy, tripled up, overcrowded, those in shelters, facing evictions, leaving institutional settings, or those living in abandoned housing without running water or electricity.

Thayer stated that to go after these funds, it was a lot of work. “You had to have your ducks in a row,” Thayer said, which is what LCO did.

“This was a great project that would have helped a lot of families in need. It would have helped them get back on their feet,” Thayer said.

Is neglected Housing making our people sick?

Time and time again our leadership has shown they don’t care about our people. It’s become an obvious “Who you know” culture around LCO and nowhere has this become more apparent than with the housing situation. We have a major housing shortage at LCO and it doesn’t help when houses that are livable are in serious need of repair. These homes have been neglected despite the fact that HUD allocates money every year for upkeep of these homes. There are many stories across LCO about housing concerns, but here is one that gained a lot of attention in the past couple of months, the story about a baby named Aaron and the disrespect our leaders have shown this sick little baby's family.

On Monday at the regular council meeting, the council by consensus told the Housing director to put Baby Aaron and his family, which includes his parents and two siblings, into a different house on Gurno Lake Road after complaints of mold in their current house. The family also discovered that the previous residents of the home in Drytown were cooking meth there.

The baby was born in January and at five weeks old, became very sick and was transported to ICU in Duluth fighting for his life. The illness was respiratory. After a 9-day stay in the hospital they went home. Before too long, the baby was sick again. This has happened three times now in his short little life, poked with needles, prodded, hooked up to machines and struggling to breathe. Here is a Facebook post by Aaron’s grandmother, Sue Quaderer, after the second hospital visit;

“Our little one "Aaron L. Quaderer" is home tonight feeling a little better. We thought he would end up in Duluth again. He had a rough night last night, stopped breathing once! Thanks to Don C. and Deanna Baker for being on "stand-by" to help the family, if the baby had to be sent to Duluth again. The BIA Health Department is coming in on Tuesday to inspect Edwina's house for possible mold contamination that might be causing the baby to keep getting sick. The housing director was very ignorant when he was approached about the possibility, so we went to the Tribal Council with a letter and pictures. If the house is found not to be the source of the baby's sickness, I will face up to being wrong, but if mold is found to be the cause, ....hold me back..., I will be one mad grandma....There must be other homes on the rez with the possibility of this problem, come on people, take a stand, report it, and stand up for our right to live in a healthy environment and to keep our kids safe...”

There are in fact many homes on our reservation that are mold-infested. The home on Gurno Lake that our Housing director, Mark Montano, said was ready for them and they could move in right away, was in some pretty bad shape. It looks like it probably has mold problems as well. Sue Q. posted pictures of the exterior of the house and the siding was peeling away and all the windows were still boarded up. Rightfully so, the family refused to move into this home.

It is Housing’s responsibility to fix these problems but they have neglected to and why? Supposedly, it comes down to money. They don’t have the money to fix them properly, but they should. They receive HUD money for this but all the funds that come in from the federal government for Housing purposes is shipped over the tribal office and comingled with everything else. Federal dollars and tribal dollars all thrown together into 62 different bank accounts so that no one has any idea who or what department has how much or what funds. These Housing funds that should be used to repair homes are at the tribal office under the direction of whoever has been controlling tribal dollars for the past decade and mysteriously, the funds aren't there. It's the same story with the clinic...they are supposed to have money but they don't. It's the same story with the tribe's health insurance premiums...a large amount of money is supposed to be safely tucked away in a bank account for this, but the funds disappear supposedly used for other purposes. It's the same story with so many federal grant funds...money comes in for a specific project and then it disappears, used for other purposes, for example the Headstart construction which the Audit report revealed was misused.

Back to the tribal council meeting on Monday. Montano came to the meeting while Sue Quaderer fought for her grandson to be able to live in a mold-free home. Sue also told the council that she had heard in the community that the house had previously been a meth-house. Vice Chairman Rusty Barber then proceeded to ridicule here about the “Moccasin Telegraph” and we can’t rely on that, but come on people, our community is a small one and we all know each other, and we all know which houses are the drug houses. Montano continued to be rude to Sue and tell her that he didn’t believe it was mold or meth residues that were making Baby Aaron sick. Rusty Barber agreed with him and said council needed proof and documentation all the while the little sick baby is sitting in the council meeting room hacking away.

At one point, Sue was speaking about the meth in the house and Montano with a snide attitude said to her, “cooking, smoking, I don’t care what you are saying.” How our council allows this non-tribal member to come in here and talk that way to one of our Elders is beyond me, and he was backed up all the way by Mic and Rusty who continuously said they needed proof and documentation that it is mold or meth that was causing her grandsons illness, despite a poor little baby hacking away right there in front of them. For the sake of that baby, who cares about documentation... why take a chance? Would they take a chance if it were one of their grandsons? I'm sure we all know the answer to that.

In the end, Sue believes that Montano knew the other house couldn’t be moved into and had no intention of getting the family a different home. Right now the family is at the casino in a hotel room comped by the council. Sue reported this morning that the family is doing well and little Baby Aaron is doing much better now that he is outside the mold-infested home.

The argument at the council meeting centered on whether mold or meth residue was the problem and Montano didn’t believe it was. He said he sent over a health inspector to see. The health inspector sent a letter to council, which Mic was touting as his evidence, where the inspector said it wasn’t, but the inspector only did a visual inspection of the home. I know for a fact that black mold can be covered up and it doesn’t die. It will live in the heating vents and elsewhere. The home needs more than a simple cleaning to get rid of it. Many of our tribal homes have this mold infestation and it can make you very sick. Do some research on Black Toxic Mold and see for yourselves.

This week they are actually doing tests all over the home of moisture content where they stick the test into the walls. Sue said this morning that they will be at the hotel for another week while they await the test results.

Mic said that Housing had rules to follow and couldn’t simply put the family in another home, and yet, Sue presented a letter to the council that showed a list of violations of Housing policy. In her letter she stated Montano said absolutely not to the family’s request for a different home. Some of his comments included she’s lucky to have a house, some people don’t; if there is mold we’d have to tear down the house and build a new one; this matter could take months or years and there’s nothing we can do.

Here is the next part of the letter she submitted to council;

“Well on Thursday following this talk, I went to the housing office because the Board of Directors were meeting, and they used to have a 11:00 walk in during the meetings for anyone that might need their assistance. Well, wrong again. I got there a few minutes after 11:00 and I was told that a person had to sign up by 11:00 am in order to get into the meeting. The next day, Friday evening, my grandson Aaron was again sent to Duluth by ambulance for viral infection. He was put into ICU and an IV was placed in his head to combat the infection. At this time, he is doing better and hopefully will be released earlier this week. The parents asked the doctor if mold could be a factor in his sickness. The doctor stated that it could be possible, but to test children, they must be at least 2 or 3 years old. My grandsons are 1 year old and 9 weeks old, should their lives be risked until they are 2 and 3 in order to test them? Isn’t there anyone on the Housing board or council who can change the director’s way of thinking? This is about our LCO people and the health and safety of all of our children on this reservation. Does just one non-tribal person have that much authority to just say “absolutely not” because we are just numbers to him, he doesn’t know our tribal members or our communities and to me he doesn’t care, it’s just a job for him.”

In Sue’s letter she then highlights several instances of improprieties among some housing staff members who were able to move into homes without waiting on the list. Sue has posted some pictures of these houses on Facebook.

This is a very sad situation and it’s tragic that this little child will now suffer from Asthma for the rest of his life. There are probably many situations like this on the Rez with mold homes and sick families and we need to fix it immediately…for the health of our community.

A Few Good Ideas for Al Capone's Hideout

I've heard several good ideas over the years about what we should do with Al Capone’s Hideout beginning with the idea to move slots in there and turn it into a high rollers casino resort, landing them on the lake and the whole bit. Give ‘em the Al Capone experience!

Then there was the idea of turning into a drug and alcohol treatment center, charging for services and opening it up to other tribes nationwide. Lord knows we have our own problems with drugs and alcohol here at home, so we'd offer the services to our own people free of charge. A third idea was the assisted living facility, something to keep our Elder's here at home instead of risking mistreatment outside the Rez.

I like all three of these ideas, but then just recently I heard another idea from our former chairman, Gosh, and it's probably the most feasible and cost efficient idea yet, aside from putting slot machines in there. This idea we could make happen without having to seek grants. Gosh suggested making it a dinner theatre with plays re-enacting Al Capone's retreats here back in the Roaring 20’s and focusing the plays on his interaction with our tribal people during that time. We could make connections with UW-Stout to produce the plays and could get drama students from the high school, or even have the college start a drama course. During the tourist season we'd get a lot of tourists and Hayward folks who would pay a decent price to come out and have dinner and see a great historical play.

There are a few other things could be done with it and around this theme, but that's it in a nutshell. For example, there are enough rooms and buildings there that we could still have a small casino and a gift shop with the dinner theatre. I'm not sure if the land is in trust, but I don't see why it wouldn't be by now. We've owned it for what, five years now. I hope we're not still paying taxes on this land that is buried deep within our rez.

We could even seek funding for this project in a unique and unconventional way. There are many TV shows on air these days, such as Restaurant Impossible or Bar Rescue, where the hosts of the show come in to a failing business and help restore it. Al Capone’s Hideout is a historic landmark and we may be able to find one of these shows that would love the chance to refurbish the Hideout back to its glory days. They may not be able to put in all the Al Capone memorabilia that once was, but I’m sure they could still make it look like the Roaring 20’s and the one-time hideout of Al Capone.

The other idea for funding to restore it to its former glory would be to seek crowd-funding through a site such as Kickstarter.com. Many historical projects are getting funded great sums of money right now from millions of investors all over the place. For example, a local crowdfund was the Spooner theatre which received funding through Kickstarter.com to restore their old theatre.

I like the idea of restoring the Hideout and having re-enactment dinner plays and I think it's something that could be done rather quickly. We could even have this dinner theater up and running by next summer, 2016. But, like I said, I like all four ideas above and definitely would support a treatment center or assisted living facility if the grant dollars could be found.

It's important to put something in there that actually turns a profit for our tribe, which will take additional investment, or we put something in there that provides an awesome service for our tribe, like an assisted living facility. It might be possible to find grants to cover it so very little expense falls on the tribe.

We definitely can’t sit on it and do nothing like our current leadership's attitude. Right Now Mic Isham has his family members living out there. Not sure if the tribe is paying the bills, but most likely, and that’s wrong. Was this "position" posted for any other family to have that opportunity? This is what I'm talking about with this chairman and who benefits. Only a few while the rest suffer. Think of all the homeless people we have and that we can’t help but we can house the chairman's family rent free.

They should have an Open House day or something for any tribal member who wants to go up there and have a walk-through. We own it so we should be able to see it. I was given the opportunity to walk through not long after the purchase and it is a beautiful piece of property. The main building will need a little work to get back in order to bring back the Capone theme would be somewhat difficult because all the memorabilia is gone, but not impossible.

In our mission to expose the truth, a platform has developed!

It’s been quite an experience running for our tribal council. I’ve encountered a lot of things over the past couple of months that I could never have expected. I’ve been meeting some awesome tribal members that I hadn’t previously known. I’ve learned a lot about how much work it is to run for this position and I’ve also learned that I didn’t know as much about the activities of our tribal leaders as I thought I did.

Over the past couple of months Shondel Barber and I have formed an unexpected partnership in our mission to expose the truths about our corrupt tribal council members. Each of us has been leaked some pretty reliable information from many different sources since we began our quests to represent the membership of this tribe. But, prior to this when I started writing articles about the mismanagement of tribal funds and the terrible path our casino manager had us on, and especially, seeing so many of our people lose their jobs, was when I decided to rise up to the challenge of running for tribal council.

Why am I running for council? Because I got tired of sitting back watching the current leadership destroy the fabric of this community through misconduct in many forms, which include illegal activities, fraud and intimidation. They hold job security over people’s heads even going so far as creating a tribal ordinance that said no tribal employee could speak out against the tribal council or face termination. They’ve fired many hard-working tribal members only to replace them with non-tribal workers. They denied a TERO office here that would have protected workers from unfair wages and secured jobs for our workers on government contracts. They’ve eliminated positions of workers who had been in their positions for decades because they didn’t fall into line with their illegal policies. They’ve eliminated positions and fired long-time employees to free up payroll money to hire unnecessary executive positions with six-figure incomes and of course, these positions were created for their friends! Enough is enough.

I asked one of our young warriors the other day what he thought I could do for him and his generation if I were elected. What could we do better for the youth? This is what he said, “We need direction. Too many of our youth fall into gangs and drugs. There is no sense of community. Out here it’s an every man for himself attitude. If our government could do something to improve our community’s pride, that would be the first step to advance us as a people.”

Well said, and this sentiment is exactly what many of our young people feel. If we continue on this path, what type of Rez will we leave them? They are the next generation of leaders and right now, if we don’t change the course, they will inherit a mess beyond repair. We cannot allow these current leaders to continue to steal from us, destroy our communities, lead through fear and intimidation and neglect the ones who need leadership the most, our youth.

The only way things will change is if we remove the officers from their positions which include Chairman Mic Isham, Vice Chairman Rusty Barber and Secretary Treasurer Norma Ross. Unfortunately, those three aren’t up for re-election this year. But, the only way they continue to run this tribe into the ground is because they have a block of four votes, themselves, along with Gary “Little Guy” Clause, who does happen to be up for re-election. This group of four is running everything right now. The key to removing Mic from the chair is to vote for all four candidates that agree with me… we need a change of leadership! This means that you won’t cast a vote for Little Guy, or any other that supports the status quo. There are a half dozen other candidates that support keeping things as is and I hope that you, the voters who truly want change, will investigate each candidate and see where they stand.

Shondel and I are two of those candidates that will change the direction, but we can’t do it alone. We need the perfect team to be elected, so that we can remove the officers who are currently leading this tribe down a path of despair. Please vote in the primary election on May 16 from 9 am to 6 pm, and remember, you can vote for four candidates. I know many of you have a family member you support or have already in mind who you support, but I’m asking that you consider us for those other spots you can cast a ballot for. Also, on May 16, if you can’t get to the polls for any reason, don’t hesitate to message me or call me.

Here are some of the issues of our platform that we will push for when we are elected. These are a few of the changes that can take this tribe in the right direction and improve the health of our Rez!

JOBS, JOBS, JOBS

We need to create jobs through business development and improving the businesses we have so they make a profit, or face closure so other businesses can be operated that may make money. We need to return jobs to those who lost theirs over the past two years, especially at the casino. We strongly believe in the “Tribal Member Preference” policy. Our casino manager is firing long-time employees who make too much money for non-tribals who he can pay much, much less to cover the outrageous executive staff positions he created. We also firmly stand behind creating a Tribal Employee Rights Ordinance here at LCO to protect our tribal workforce so that all businesses and contractors operating on our Rez have to hire at least 75% workers and to pay them the same wages non-tribals are paid. Our current leadership recently said no to a TERO!

IMPROVE HOUSING

Way too many of our tribal homes have mold problems and for the health and well-being of our families, this problem can’t be ignored any longer. Our people are getting sick. We need to seek funding to repair these homes immediately. We also need to seek funds for more housing on our Rez and work to eliminate the homeless problem. We need to put the Supportive Housing project back on the table that would have helped shelter those who need it the most.

CASINO BOND RESTRUCTURING

By next year our casino bond payment will exceed what we can pay and we’ll default all because of a terrible deal that our 2006 leaders put us into with excessive interest rates, increasing monthly payments and outrageous commissions, so much so that it resulted in a $2.3m lawsuit against the bond holders. We need a new bond deal or we’ll default losing management of our casino. A good deal with zero commissions and very low interest was almost made with the Shakopee Sioux tribe but our chairman, Mic Isham, with Norma Ross, Rusty Barber and Little Guy Clause turned it down and now we have nothing but uncertainty. We need to make sure to get four council members elected who agree that we need an immediate leadership change. It's the only way we can save our casino. We need to ask the Shakopee to sit back down at the table and give us the deal that had previously been agreed upon.

CHILDREN’S DAYCARE FACILITY

A major struggle for our people is to find work and have adequate daycare for their children. There is no daycare for our hard-working families, especially single mothers. We will work tirelessly until we get a daycare facility.

TRANSPARENCY

Our tribal finances should be open to our tribal membership. We'll make sure our people are made aware of exactly where we stand financially. We were nearly broke in November, unable to make the Christmas bonuses for employees and elders, until our council made the $2.3 million dollar settlement and received a lifeline. Very soon we'll be broke again. Repeatedly we are saved by a settlement or a bad bond deal, but what happens when we go broke and their isn't a lifeline? It's going to happen soon. Look at the millions of dollars we've run through since the last bond deal was made in 2006 or the $8m Nez Perce settlement. The $2.3 million dollar settlement last year saved the council a lot of humiliation from explaining how broke we truly were. But, it won't be long, and they will face the same circumstances and will have a lot of explaining to do. We guarantee to end these secret deals and inform the membership!

CASINO MANAGEMENT

Shortly after Lee Harden was hired as our casino manager, he hired several highly paid executives to do the jobs he was hired to do and gave himself a new title...Chief Executive Officer. Lee “the General Manager” decided to hire Dulcie Rae Wolfe in that role. He must think he’s running the MGM Grand. We don't need a CEO. We don't need to be paying well over half a million dollars on executive jobs he created so he can sit in his office and be unapproachable to our people. We’ll eliminate these executive jobs freeing up the money to get our people back to work. We’ll replace Lee Harden with a manager who knows and understands the ways of our people and be more sensitive to the struggles that us regular folks encounter. Lee has lost touch with the reality of LCO!

And there you have it! Remember to vote at the primary on May 16 and a vote for Shondel Barber or myself, Joe Morey, is much appreciated. Let’s restore Native Pride and start looking out for each other once again… like our Elders used to do!