Council denies TERO proposal in another assault on our tribal workforce

In another assault on our tribal workers, the LCO Tribal Council yesterday voted no to a proposal for a Tribal Employee Rights Ordinance (TERO) on the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation. The TERO would have required that all employers engaged in operating a business or contractor job on the reservation would have to give preference to qualified tribal members in all aspects of employment, contracting and other business activities. The TERO could also insure that tribal employees are paid wages equal to non-tribal employees.

Jeff Crone presented the proposal to the council a couple of weeks ago. He would have been director of the TERO office that would have enforced the ordinance at LCO. According to Jeff, at that time he had support for the office, but in the meeting yesterday morning, the vote turned out differently. Voting to support our tribal workforce were Don Carley, Larry Kagigebi and Gordon Thayer, but voting no were Rusty Barber, Little Guy and Norma Ross. Breaking the tie, of course, was Mic Isham.

Jeff said that just two weeks ago Rusty Barber told him eye-to-eye that he supported the TERO proposal, and he believed that Little Guy also supported it. So what changed between then and now that they would side with their usual block of votes and turn down this much-needed ordinance to protect our workforce.

“This is a great thing for our tribe and instead, they are playing politics,” Jeff said.

It’s no secret that Jeff Crone is on Mic Isham’s blackball list along with so many of us. Mic already dissolved the Eagle Wings Safety Center late last year because it was a previous accomplishment of former chairman Gordon Thayer, who had Jeff Crone as director of the center.

But, in the case of a TERO office here at LCO, that petty BS should have been put aside and the protection of tribal employment should have been the priority. This is just another assault though, in a long list of recent attacks on the Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal workforce, from all the lost jobs at the casino, to the health center and to the fact that there are rarely any tribal members working as directors or assistant directors at any tribal entities anymore. Who hold the top positions at housing, the health center, the school, the college? Our tribal workforce is being thinned out and eliminated.

To top of the assault on our workers, 18 housing construction workers have recently been laid off and 20 LCO Development workers have been laid off. That’s 38 construction workers who could have been put back to work under a TERO.

Let’s take a look at some examples of how a TERO would protect our workers. The recent bridge construction on Hwy CC next to the Landing didn’t have one tribal worker on the construction crew. Not a one and this project was done within tribal boundaries. With a TERO we could have stopped the construction all-together until they hired at least 75% tribal workers, according to the ordinance. Also, let’s say the non-tribal company that was hired to put a roof on the grocery store didn’t hire enough tribal workers. I’m not sure how many tribal members were hired for that job, I know I saw some of them out there, but if it were only 30%, this could have been fixed to make the company hire the required 75%.

The construction season is just starting up and you’re going to see projects all over the place and how many of our workers are going to be on those jobs? Under a TERO, it would have been Jeff’s job to make sure that at least 75% of the workers on all those jobs would have been tribal members, those 38 unemployed housing and development workers.

I asked Little Guy why he voted against the TERO. He said it was because there was no money in the budget for it. Think of the huge benefit this would be for our tribe to keep these guys working, and to protect any future workers. This ordinance wouldn’t just include construction jobs, but all jobs and it could be used to insure anyone owning a business within reservation boundaries start hiring tribal workers. How much is that worth?

Mic Isham said in the meeting that a TERO office wasn’t needed because our tribal attorney Jim Schlender could take care of this. How can a supposedly busy tribal attorney take time out of his schedule to enforce a tribal employee rights ordinance?

I hope that you, the membership, are beginning to see the pattern here. Our tribal workforce is the last thing on our leadership’s mind. Mic, Little Guy, Norma and Rusty continue to sit back and watch the attack on our tribal workforce by non-tribal directors and a manager who may be a tribal member, but never grew up on the reservation. I’m talking about Lee Harden and his assault on the workers at the casino. Lee has no idea what life is like for our people. At the meeting yesterday, Lee gave a monthly report to the council claiming that employee morale is higher than ever. I had to laugh to myself because if this is true, it’s simple really… It’s because he has eliminated all the Indian workers that he wanted to now and has a majority of non-tribal members working in that casino. I went to lunch there on Friday and in the buffet, there wasn’t one Native female server. Supposedly there are a couple of Native girls working in the kitchen, but not out in front where Lee’s non-Native customers will see them. I had the gut feeling when I was there that this is intentional. Hide the Natives! Call me crazy, but that’s the way I see it. Our group of five immediately pointed out the lack of Native workers in the buffet. And, someone from another group mentioned it to me the next day, without me even bringing it up. So, our tribal people are taking notice to this.

With a TERO office, this is the kind of thing that Jeff could investigate, the amount of Native workers at the casino, and fight to get our people back to work there. I would really like to know right now what the percentage of non-Native workers to Native workers is at the casino. How many of our people are suffering with homelessness and unemployment right now? And our tribal council leadership consisting of Chairman Mic Isham, Vice-Chair Rusty Barber, Sec-Treasurer Norma Ross and Little Guy Clause are standing aside and not doing a damn thing about it, as evidenced by their willingness to vote down a much-needed program here at LCO, the TERO office.

I leave you with this information from the Keweenaw Bay Tribal Community’s website about their TERO:

What are the characteristics of TERO?

The core characteristics of the program provide additional and valuable insights into why the law and enforcement program are needed and applied. The following are three vital characteristics of TERO.

TERO is a true act of self-determination. The decision to enact a Tribal Employment Rights Ordinance is based on each individual tribe's needs and priorities.

TERO programs are action oriented. TERO offices are a no-nonsense, hands-on, result-orientated, and process driven compliance programs.

TEROs are systematically structured programs. Key elements of the structure include:

Legal Framework: TERO utilizes a sound and comprehensive framework that encompasses the use of Tribal, Federal, contract, and, where applicable, State employment law.

Administrative Structure: TERO programs have a well developed administrative structure which utilizes a thorough enforcement process.

Synergistic Partnering: TERO programs apply synergistic partnering principles in relationships with employers in an effort to develop relationships that benefit both parties.

What are the basic TERO requirements?

All covered employers operating a business within tribal/village jurisdiction are required to provide Indian and Native preference in employment, training, contracting, sub-contracting, and in all other aspects of employment. Below are several specific examples employers are required to comply with. Employers must:

Submit an acceptable compliance plan detailing the steps they will take to ensure compliance with the TERO requirements. Note: TERO compliance plans are closely fashioned after those used by OFCCP for affirmative action compliance.

Utilize the TERO skills bank for all referrals and consider Indian/Native applicants before interviewing or hiring non-Indian/Natives.

Agree to hire no less than a specific number of Indian/Natives in each job classification and cooperate (where feasible) with tribal training programs to hire a certain number of trainees.

Eliminate all extraneous job qualification criteria or personnel requirements which may act as barriers to Indian/Native employment. EEOC guidelines on legal BFOQs are used by TEROs.

All employers who have collective bargaining agreements with one or more unions must secure a written agreement from them indicating they will comply with TERO.

Agree to acknowledge and respect tribal religious beliefs and cultural differences and to cooperate with TERO to provide reasonable accommodations.

All contractors claiming preference must file for certification as Indian owned businesses.

FILEGATE: LCO Tribal Council won't tell those whose medical records were taken!

At their weekly meeting this morning, the LCO Tribal Governing Board, under the advice of the tribal attorneys, will not be releasing the names of the individuals whose medical records were taken home by an employee of the clinic. They won’t even be telling the persons on a one-on-one basis informing them that their HIPAA rights have been violated.

The tribal attorney, Jason Stark, said that under HIPAA, certain things don’t need to be said. The tribal council went along with him and pretty much said they are not going to even tell each member that they should be protecting themselves from possible identity theft. Those nearly 200 records had social security numbers and personal signatures on them.

I asked our chairman in the meeting why he doesn’t set the record straight if these are all just rumors going around…about what exactly happened. That’s what he is claiming in the meeting, that it is all just rumors on how it went down. But, maybe, they won’t release names, or tell us what happened because they know that we might see a pattern if we saw all the actual names of individuals whose rights have been violated. We might actually see a pattern that specific people were targeted.

First, I’m going to recap what we allegedly know so far. Remember, this information is from some pretty good sources, but, hasn’t been verified by the health center director, any member of tribal council or tribal police.

A couple of years ago, a clinic employee took home 187 patient medical records and, allegedly, some doctor and employee resumes. She claimed that it was because she was overworked and decided to take them home to get caught up, even though this is a major HIPAA violation. This story does change later, though.

A couple of years go by and quite possibly she forgot that she had them at her residence. She and her boyfriend have some problems at home, whereby, she moves out. A relative of the boyfriend comes to the home to help him move her stuff out and discovers the records. The relative, a former employee of the clinic, knew immediately that she shouldn’t have had those records at home. The relative calls police and it is at this point the story becomes murky. At first it was alleged that a conservation warden came to the residence and picks up the records and personally delivers them to the tribal office. The warden claimed that he was never involved and claimed that he doesn't even know how he was brought into this story. I believe him. So, what did happen at this point. Either the police themselves came to the residence and picked up the files and brought them to the the tribal office, or they returned them to the clinic. This may or may not be true, but like I said, rumor has it.

At any rate, where the records went, who saw them at this point, or if they even got delivered to the tribal office, can’t be verified. I asked the council members at the meeting today if the records were delivered to the tribal office and each one said they hadn’t seen them, not denying that they came there, just that they hadn’t seen them.

From what one poster said on a very lengthy Facebook thread in regards to these records taken is that LCO Police had to return these files immediately upon receiving them and that the police said they didn’t look at the records. So, were the records initially received by someone at the tribal office and then turned over to police, or were they brought directly to the police. Either way, our tribal leadership refuses to address this and put to rest the rumors. Our chairman should be out there publicly making a statement about this whole situation. He should be out there reassuring our clinic clients that they have nothing to worry about and that we are doing everything we can to make sure this never happens again. But no, total silence on the whole issue in the hopes that it just goes away. Not going to happen!

The poster also said that there are people who do know that it was their records that were taken and they’ve filed complaints with the Indian Health Service who responded that it was still under investigation and couldn’t do anything about it right now.

Then in March, we here that the employee is appealing her firing from the clinic because she claimed that she was told to remove the files by a tribal council member. Supposedly there may have been two members who told her to remove the files for their pharmacy records to see who is on prescription pills and then to turn those files over to the Sawyer County Sheriff’s department or LCO police, which, we now know, never happened. The files stayed put in her home.

Another part of the story goes something like this…at least one member of the tribal council was also targeted and is part of the long list of 187 people whose records were taken. I don’t know which one. I don’t know which council members told her to take the files either, but we, as tribal members have every right to know.

Just recently, the court case on her appeal to get her job back finished up and there’s no word on what happened, but by the conduct of those in the council meeting, I’m assuming her removal was upheld.

Our tribal council has a duty to answer some of these questions.

Whose files were removed? At least tell the individuals.  

Who ordered this employee to take those records home?

Which tribal council member was targeted?

Were the files ever taken to the tribal office at any time during this whole process?

I think it's important at this time that everyone be well aware of who's actually running things. There are seven members to the tribal governing board, but it only takes four to band together to control the votes. Currently, our chairman Mic Isham, vice chair Rusty Barber, sec-treasurer Norma Ross and Little Guy Clause are the four. They are so in control that they sometimes make decisions by consensus without even consulting with the other members Don Carley, Gordon Thayer and Larry Kagigebi.

When I refer to the "Council" did this, these four members in control are who I am referring to. The other three members, as members of the council, you would think are privy to any ongoings or information that is happening at the tribal council level, but they are so left in the dark, that they don't even know who's medical records were taken from the clinic. They can't even access this information. So, who does know whose records were taken? Allegedly, a conservation warden brought those records from the home of the clinic employee directly to the tribal office, which I'm sure if this is what truly happened, then our chairman received them. So how is it that the other council members are denied access to the information?

I’m repeatedly told that Mic can't do anything without council approval, so then he must have had approval of the council to take the action that they did concerning these records, which is to say nothing at all. So, this is an example of how these four council members are in complete control because the others have no clue what's going on with the medical records issue. All three of the council members who have been left in the dark are up for re-election, making them lame ducks. Only one of the four in control is up for re-election and that's Little Guy. This is why they are so blatant with their misconduct in office right now, because they feel safe in their officer positions.

This is only one wrong in a sea of them lately that this council has perpetrated. Jobs lost, given away, eliminated, created for friends and family, no transparency in regards to tribal finances and attempts to restrict people’s freedoms of speech and the list goes on… I'm just frustrated with the blatant disregard for our people by this "council" that I believe it's time we restore Native pride. There are so many of our people losing their jobs who have been in positions for many years, or so many other people being blackballed, that these guys don't even care who they hurt in their path to fatten themselves up. They get rich while the rest of us miss out on all the opportunities that a healthy tribe could offer.

If the employee is telling the truth about council ordering her to remove those files from the clinic, which I believe she is, then we have a serious violation of their duties as elected representatives, which is basically criminal, and grounds for council removal. Think of the potential abuses of power they could have with those records. They don’t just have your medical history but your social security number and your signature. They could get credit cards in your name, but, to abuse their positions, they could do background checks on you at any time.

When I told you all about Mic approaching my advertisers in Hayward last fall to stop them from advertising with me and starting a newspaper for the tribe, he had shown up to Coop’s Pizza Parlor with a packet of information on me…a background check! Sure, he could get my CCAP information, but from what I’ve been told, he showed up with a lot more than my CCAP. So, how did Mic get my background check information? I’m not saying he was a part of this medical records scandal. I don’t know that at all, but, now I can be suspicious, because I’ve been wondering the whole time how he had all this information about me when he went to my advertisers. You aren’t supposed to be able to get a background check on someone unless that person signs off on it, okaying it. I don’t even know if they have my records, but, this is the point I’m trying to make to you all. He did have my background information and I’m questioning how. My personal information and my signature would be in those records so that anyone could forge my signature. They should tell me if I’m included in those files or not, so that I can eliminate this suspicion. Any one of you could be victim of something like this and you have a right to know if your files were taken!

Start asking questions, people. Start asking who on that council this employee is related to or close friends with. Who would have had the balls to approach a clinic employee and ask her to clearly violate the law?

An Apology to....well, everyone

Dear wise sages of LCO,

I was wrong and you’ve been right all along. I am writing today’s blog to express my sincerest apologies for my behavior over the years in regards to how I’ve conducted my business/newspaper affairs. If I had to write a letter to everyone I owe an apology to, I would be writing a daily letter for the next…well, let’s just say it would be a very long time.

This is to all the people I’ve hurt. I’m sorry you’ve had the misprivilege of meeting me because I’ve been nothing less than a major disappointment.

I’m sorry to my former employees. Many of you I have disrespected, treated unfairly, failed to recognize the awesome work you’ve done, but most importantly, there are some of you that I owe money to and I realize how desperate hard times can be and when shortchanged by your employer, it can make life difficult.

I’m sorry to my former business associates and creditors whom I have defaulted, failed to meet my obligations and failed to honor my end of agreements. This includes the tribal governing board members who signed a contract with me four years ago expecting me to honor a monthly newspaper for the tribe. I let you down and for that, I am ashamed.

I’m sorry to any advertisers over the years who I failed to honor an agreement.

I’m sorry to my relatives for expecting you to be there for me when I wasn’t there for any of you.

I’m sorry to my mother, Florence Ford, for how poor of a son I was. No matter how much love, guidance and direction you tried to show me, I returned nothing but heartache and shame.

I’m sorry to my wife and children for the reckless decisions I made and where those decisions ultimately brought us to, so much so, that I failed to put a roof over your heads and provide for you as a man should. For that, there is no words can describe my shame.

On reflection, I realize that I was wrong to blame others for my mistakes. My behavior was totally inappropriate, inexcusable and disrespectful. I can only imagine the hurt I have caused to many of you and the damage that it has done to your trust in me.  I would appreciate the opportunity to put right my wrongs and prove to you that I have learned from my mistakes. From this day forward, I will work to regain your trust, and though I understand some damages can’t be undone, I hope you’ll accept my apology. I promise I won’t make these mistakes again. I’ve learned from them.

Some will suggest that I’m only writing this letter because I’m running for tribal council. Yes, it’s true that my opponents will soon be throwing everything they can at me so I’m saving them the trouble by sharing it with you today though, it’s not the only reason this letter is being written. It’s a letter that’s been long overdue because these wrongs I’ve committed have been a burden on my soul for far too long. You deserve the truth about me and you deserve an apology.

No matter how much apologizing I do, many of you still have questions about some of the accusations against me so I’d like to address them here. Also, through my new website votejoemorey.wix.com/votejoe, on the Contact Joe page, you can ask me anything through the message form. If you have any further questions after this blog, please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask me about it.

Before I address my faults, I’d like to talk a little about me and my upbringing. I was raised by my grandmother, Florence Ford, who adopted me from her daughter Mary Anne, who was just a teenager when I was born. Florence raised me as her own, so I called her “mom.” I was born in Chicago and we lived in the Zion/Waukegan, IL area until I was 10 years old, at which time we moved to the Rez, living in Whitefish. I went to Stone Lake and Hayward schools graduating in 1990. The first two years out of high school I attended classes at the LCO Ojibwe Community College.

In 1993 I moved to Minneapolis where I met my future wife, Jill. We moved back to LCO in 1995, at which time I began working on writing some news articles for LCO, doing my own thing, but learning the paper business through Mic Isham who was doing the LCO Journal at the time. It was a long grueling process back then of cutting and pasting the printed copies onto grid sheets. Nowadays, it’s all digital, no printing or cutting.

Jill and I married in 1998. We spent the next ten years trying to have a child, and eventually asked Pastor Marvin at the LCO Assembly of God to bless us to have a child. He anointed Jill in the summer of 2008 and several months later, we believe that blessing led us to Cindy Rice at the Second Street Market who recommended Jill drink Dong Qua tea, a woman’s hormonal tea. Sure enough, within a few months, and six months after Marvin’s blessing, Jill was pregnant. I’m sure many of you remember the editorial I wrote in the Ojibwe Times about it when my first child was born.

Well, that first child born in 2009 has led to three more. Yes, that’s right. We now have four children in just six years. I wouldn’t have it any other way. They are all awesome and it’s a blast watching all the changes in kids as they grow.

Through the years I’ve had some successes but I’ve also had failures when it comes to business. The Ojibwe Times I ran from 2008 until 2012 was very successful and I made a great living doing it, but my reckless and risk-taking ways caused me to make a large investment in a nationwide social media site for Indian Country in 2011, and as that business sank, it brought down the Ojibwe Times as well, which led me to the contract with the tribe I did in order to save the Times. That story coming up soon, but it was also during the Ojibwe Times years that I tried to start a new paper in Columbus, Wis that failed too and is another story coming up. If I hadn’t tried to venture out and expand my business during that time, the Ojibwe Times would still be operating today. Those were mistakes I had to learn from, but unfortunately, at the cost of a great newspaper, the Ojibwe Times, that served our Native communities throughout northern Wisconsin.

Over the past 20 years, I’ve poured out my thoughts for you all, sharing with you my ideas on what I thought was wrong with some of our tribal governance, but, also sharing ideas for ways to fix things in regards to tribal structure, finances and economic development. It’s no secret where I stand on most of the issues we face today, and over the next couple of months I’ll be writing many more of these blogs so you’ll have a clear understanding of where I stand on the issues I haven’t already discussed.

One of my biggest disappointments over the 20 years was when I defaulted on the contract that our tribal governing board did with me in 2011. There were many accusations thrown around at the time that I received the contract as a payoff, but that simply wasn’t true. It was an honest deal between me and the tribe that made perfect business sense and I’ll explain that in a bit, but I’m getting ahead of myself. First, let me explain the two bad investments I made prior to this deal that began the downward spiral of the Ojibwe Times.

In 2009 I tried to start up a newspaper in a small community near Madison that fed off the daily papers in the area.  I spent $5,000 on this venture of my own money and also sold $3,000 worth of subscriptions to 72 different people. The original plan called for selling those subscriptions and also selling advertisements to the local business while we were going along. Our weekly budget, which included three employees, office rental and printing, was nearly $2,000 per week. We spent a considerable amount of time trying to sell the local businesses on the idea of their own community paper, and despite huge local support from the residents, businesses failed to respond. In those first couple of months we printed six weekly papers but we just couldn’t get the publication off the ground fast enough to sustain it.

I came back broken, but during that time, the Ojibwe Times was still going strong.  Slowly, I rebounded.  In the meantime, some of those 72 folks who had bought subscriptions had the Consumer Protection Agency start a civil suit against me through the DA of the county.  On the day of my court I showed up with the $3,000 in hand and offered to pay the subscribers back but the DA refused to accept it and said it was too late and they were suing me for $32,000.  This was now for court costs and other things that blew my mind.  That extra $29,000 was now supposed to go to the state, not the victims who I owed money for subscriptions.  I even pleaded this with the judge.  If there should be any fines or extra money paid, it should have gone to them, not the state.  In the end, the judge awarded the amount to the state for $16,000, he cut it in half.  I felt terrible about owing money to the people of the community because it was them that supported the idea in the first place, but upon advice from my attorney, rather than pay $16,000 that I simply didn’t have, I filed bankruptcy. I made a public apology in the community and that was it.

I also had another lawsuit against me at the time, and this played into the decision to file bankruptcy. The second lawsuit came from the Breeze Lounge and Night Club, a bar that I ran for a little over a year.  On May 1, 2007, I gave up running the bar and leased it out to a young couple.  Sometime in May, while the liquor license was still in our name, the couple showed a fight to 25 people on pay-per-view through their home cable and didn’t pay the licensing fee for a public showing.  The lawsuit came two years later asking for $111,000 for showing the fight to 25 people. 

I went down to Madison in federal court, with Judge Barbara Crabb, and I asked for it to be dropped.  I showed her my copy of the lease stating that we weren’t in the bar anymore, but the liquor license didn’t change over till June 30, so she said I couldn’t win for that reason.  She said get a lawyer to help me reduce the fine. I’m sorry but I didn’t agree with this lawsuit at all, a large corporation asking for $111,000 from a small business operation that was our bar for showing a boxing match to 25 people. It didn’t make sense, but such is the way of the world, I guess.

Both lawsuits were ridiculous any way you slice it.  The state should have taken my money and let me pay those people back rather than going for $32,000.  Even the police and district attorney investigated whether I had done anything criminal and they both said no.  I didn’t commit fraud because I did put out newspapers for a two month period and tried to start a business in their community.  It was a business failure and I had every intention of paying the subscribers back, but the DA refused to accept it once they proceeded with the larger lawsuit.

Two years later I invested $12,000 into a social media site for Indian Country called Rezloop. My mistake with this venture was that at the time, I didn’t know diddly about social media. Since then I’ve learned my fair share, even setting up a social media campaign for a company, but back in 2011, nope, not much. For one, I didn’t have to spend so much on marketing when I could have taken advantage of so many free marketing options that were available. Well, anyways, they were my mistakes and I have to own them. The point is, once I lost that money and debt began to build, all of a sudden, I couldn’t pay my employees of the Ojibwe Times. I had four employees at the time. As I began to struggle, the wiser of my household, the wife, told me to lay them off but I kept the employees working and decided to look for a way to save them. At the time I had been doing a successful monthly newspaper for Lac du Flambeau in addition to the Ojibwe Times, so I decided to present a proposal to LCO to do the same thing and they approved to do one issue to see it. This was six months before the election, so after council saw the one print they said come back after the election.

The idea at the time was to wait till after the election and present it again, which is what I did.  So, the council members that were already on council, which included Don Carley, Little Guy, Bill Morrow and Mic, were well aware of the intentions of this new paper.  Contrary to what some would have you believe, that this contract to do the paper was some sort of political award to me, it never was.  The past council and its new members thought this would be a good idea.  Communication with their membership via a monthly newspaper mailed out to all members. 

The proposed paper, the Lac Courte Oreilles Today, was separate from the Ojibwe Times.  The tribe could use this paper, the LCO Today, to communicate directly with the membership.  Such things as reports from council members and tribal council minutes would be printed in it.  Things that the council wanted to get out to membership that otherwise wouldn’t be printed in the Ojibwe Times.  Also, the Today would be mailed out to membership.

Our contract was for $15,000 over six months.  I give the tribe a monthly publication for six months at a cost of $2,500 per month and then an additional $900 a month for the mailing to off-reservation addresses.  Over the course of a year, this cost to the tribe would be $40,800, which includes all expenses from printing to mailing.  You couldn’t hire a Communications Director/Public Relations Director for less than that.  As part of the contract, I would write articles, make regular contacts with council members for their reports, contact program directors for news, take photos, layout the paper, see that it gets printed, delivered and mailed.  Also, I would put updates on the tribal website and keep it fresh seeing that the site was inactive for nearly five years.

Let me explain this $40,800 cost over a year once again, even though our contract was only for six months. If you break this down to the total adult membership who would have received that paper, it’s less than $10 per member over a year.  That’s less than $10 per member for your tribal governing board to communicate with you on a regular basis throughout the year.  Once again, you couldn’t hire a professional marketing or public relations agent to do this for our tribe for less than that, and that’s only the salary of this person and doesn’t include the cost of mailing and printing and other expenses such as mileage that you’d pay a salaried employee.  The tribe didn’t have to pay me for that extra expense. The contract made good business sense for the tribe.

In the end, I received the $15,000 payment from the tribe and $10,000 of that was used immediately to pay off debts to my printer, employees and other expenses incurred over the winter as I attempted to keep the Ojibwe Times going. Once I built up the debt it was a downward spiral and it was too late. Within three months I laid off the workers and closed up the paper. In that time, I did print an issue of the LCO Today, bringing my debt to the tribe down to $12,000. Later in the year, the tribe made another effort to help me by extending me another $3,000 to keep the Ojibwe Times going, but I still failed them, my community and myself.

At this time my debt to the tribe remains $15,000 and there isn’t a day goes by that I don’t wish I could somehow pay that back, but I’ve been unable too. I haven’t worked except to sell tee shirts in the summer time, never getting ahead enough to start paying it back and then suffering through a long cold winter unemployed, blackballed by my own tribe. This is still no excuse not to honor my debts, but as soon as I’m able to, I will. I promise that when elected, I’ll give my salary back to the tribe until that debt is satisfied.

This letter has been a long one, so I’m going to try to wind it down now, but these are things I had to get off my chest. There are a couple of other rumors that are going around that I’d like to address before signing off.

First, there isn’t any member of the tribal council who has ever given me any money for any type of services for the tribe or any individuals. I’ve recently heard that people are attempting to say that I was paid by someone on council to write my book. This is simply not true. I wrote my book early last year and then self-published through an Amazon subsidiary, meaning it cost me nothing to publish and I get paid for every book that sells. Amazon doesn’t print a bunch of books, they only print a book on demand as it is ordered. So, they make a much larger percentage of the book, but I had to put up no investment.

Another sad accusation is about my family and I when we were housed in the hotel last spring. As I said earlier in this blog that ever since my paper, the Ojibwe Times, went downhill, I’ve continued on a downward spiral, dragging my family through hell. I’ve done some work here and there, but never fully recovering. We tried to go to Florida last winter and sell tee shirts, but had no idea the type of market we were facing…in Florida, tee shirts sales at markets are sold at wholesale prices, which we simply couldn’t do. It bankrupted us and we came back home broken…again. For three months we were homeless staying at Jill’s mothers and occasionally, at the hotel. In the beginning, the tribal council, by consensus of five members, Norma, Little Guy, Gordon, Larry and Donny, comp’d our room and this was only on weeknights when the hotel room would have been empty regardless. We never stayed on weekends, and they only comp’d us for two weeks. Then we went back to her mothers. We stayed again for a couple of weeks at the hotel but this time we paid the reduced rate of $35 per night which was the special offered to the community anyways for anyone who stayed two nights. Most of those three months we stayed at Jill’s mothers, but we couldn’t stay there for long either. By the grace of God, we got help from Sawyer County Housing and found a place on May 1.

This was the most difficult and shameful time in my life, to have let my family down. I don’t wish homelessness on anyone and yet there are so many of our people who live with this struggle every day. There are so many of us on the Rez who  do nothing but tear each other down, failing to realize there are real issues we need to address, and this is one of them. We should never leave one of our own out in the cold. We should never turn our backs on our people when they are at their lowest points. You need to always remember that anyone of us could be just one mistake, or one paycheck away from this time of hardship. Just think of all the people who have lost work over this last year. Thankfully, many have found other work, but think about those who haven’t. You never see it coming…I know I didn’t.

At any rate, people have attacked me or council, saying that they housed me at the casino as if it were unfair. Our council does this for people all the time, as they should when a room would be otherwise empty, so what made my family any different that we should have been kicked out into the 20 below temperatures. No matter my disagreements with our tribal council, at least they have compassion, and refused to let us be out in the cold when we had no place to go.

One thing I can say for certain is that through these past few years I’ve learned a lot and I’ve grown up a lot. Being homeless has humbled me. I have children now and I take less risks. I’ve learned to evaluate situations and think things through. Despite how horrible an experience it was, I look at the bright side….I’ve been fortunate enough to see all sides of life…living with a fairly large income and living without one, being homeless as an end result. I never put any consideration into people’s situations in life prior to my own experiences and I strongly believe it’s made me a better person.

Sincerely, Joe Morey

PRESS RELEASE: Morey launches campaign for LCO Tribal Council

Long time Lac Courte Oreilles news editor, Joe Morey, announced his candidacy for the LCO Tribal Council through the launch of his website, votejoemorey.wix.com/votejoe which highlights several key issues affecting tribal membership this campaign season.

Morey said the top priority of his campaign is to focus on improving the health of the LCO community by encouraging investment in business development and creating jobs.

“We need to return jobs to our members who have lost employment under the current leadership,” Morey said. “Some of our employees who held jobs for two decades now drive over an hour away to competitor casinos to work the same jobs they held here. We need to bring those people home and reinstate them without delay. It’s the right thing to do.”

Morey also plans to work diligently to improve the financial status of our business enterprises. “All of our businesses should be turning a profit, but most of them are failing. We need to give our managers more control, but at the same time, we need to make them more accountable for their losses. If they can’t turn it around, then we need to close those failing enterprises and reinvest in ones that can and will make a profit for our tribe. This only makes good business sense and in the long run, will create more jobs and help to improve the quality of life on our reservation.”

His second campaign issue focuses on transparency throughout tribal administration. Morey believes his 20 years as a newspaper reporter gives him an edge on breaking through the veil of secrecy that the tribal council has operated under for the past 10 years.

“I’ll be an open book once elected continuing to write my weekly blog at lcotoday.blogspot.com and I’ll make sure that our tribal membership is well-aware of the ongoing activities of their leadership,” Morey said.

Morey said he has an exciting campaign planned, which includes door-to-door greetings of the members, a couple of parties, a bi-weekly printed newsletter, regular blogs, and more.

“I plan to give it everything I got. Win or lose, I’m going to shake things up a bit.”

The primary election for LCO Tribal Council is set for May 16. There are four seats up for re-election, meaning that the top 8 in the primary will advance to the General Election on June 20.

For more information, contact Joe at 715-558-9807

Casino Bond needs to be restructured...Or we'll default within a year!

Back in November, I wrote a story about the casino bond that currently holds our tribe hostage. Within a year, it is forecasted that our casino will no longer be able to make the payment as it continues to increase beyond our monthly revenues. At that time, we will default and the investment group that owns our bond will be able to come in and remove our management and take it over. Sure, it will still be our casino, but we will have nothing to do with the running of it until the investment group recoups their $28 million. We won't see a dime until they are paid back.

In the November story, I talked about how we could have had a deal with the Shakopee Sioux Tribe to save our rear ends, but our tribal council block of four (Mic, Rusty, Norma and Little Guy) declined to sign on to the deal. I’m going to reprint that article in a few moments, but first, I’d like to talk about where we are at currently.

Our leaders are scrambling to find another investment group to buy out the current bondholders and give us a new restructured deal, but there’s one major problem with this; any reputable investor will want to see that whoever they are investing in, is in good financial shape, and unfortunately, our tribe doesn’t pass the test.

Not only is our financial status a mess, but our casino isn’t making enough to cover current payments, so what kind of a deal could a new investor expect?

The reason we are in this mess in the first place goes back to the signing of this bond deal in 2006 and the leadership of that time. Our council members back then included Mic, Rusty, Little Guy along with Brian Bisonette who was secretary-treasurer, and Louis Taylor, the chairman. It is a known-fact that our council didn’t even use a bond attorney when negotiating the terms. The terms included unreasonable interest rates and commissions that have us in all this trouble today, so much so, that our tribal council under Gordon Thayer two years ago, sought litigation in court for wrongdoings in the signing of that bond, in regards to the commissions and interest rates.

Eventually, our tribe won the right to have the case heard in our own tribal court, which means, this was a win-win case…in the amount of $11 million dollars. What happened next? Instead of allowing this to go to court, our current leadership took a settlement offer from the defendants in the amount of $2.3 million back in November, just days after I wrote the article about the bonds, which appears below.

Why would our chairman, Mic Isham, and his three supporters, Rusty, Norma and Little Guy, accept this ridiculous settlement when we had a slam dunk case? And let it be known that the other members of the tribal council were not happy about settling. It may be one of two reasons why they settled, or both. First, could it be that they didn’t want details of the lawsuit coming out in tribal court where it may have made it to the public’s knowledge. Or, secondly, could it be that the $2.3 million was a lifeline for a tribal council that had gone broke back in November and was going to be having a hard time telling the membership that Christmas bonuses for elders and employees were not going to be paid? I’m not sure why they settled, maybe you should ask them. But, I do know it was a bad deal and only a temporary fix for our financial problems. From what I hear now, we will be broke again in a few months. It was like putting a band aid on a gushing wound, and eventually they will have to come to terms with the inevitable, we’re bleeding money and the membership will know soon enough. They will do their best to hide it from us until after the election, hence, part of the reason why there won’t be another General Membership meeting until after the election.

Here is the article I wrote about the increasing bond payment and the missed opportunity when our chairman declined to do a deal with the Shakopee Sioux Tribe;

A deal was struck in September for the Shakopee Sioux Tribe to refinance the $27 million bond on the LCO Casino whereby the tribe would have received a much smaller payment and more favorable conditions.

Terms of the deal required that LCO Chairman Mic Isham sign the agreement on September 27 and forward to the Shakopee Sioux who would have had a full membership vote on it at their November 11 meeting. Isham refused to sign the deal after receiving information from LCO tribal attorneys that may have been false.

According to a tribal official who wished to remain anonymous, LCO tribal attorneys told the tribal council that under the agreement, LCO wouldn’t be able to build another casino that was within 90 miles of their Minnesota operation. They also said that if LCO were to ever build another casino, Shakopee would have final approval over our right to build it. The tribal official claims that this information was false and that these terms were never any part of the agreement.

Prior to Isham denying the Shakopee agreement, an investment banker from Atlanta, GA was brought in to make a presentation to LCO. The individual who set up the meeting between the Atlanta investor, after a background check, appears to have lost his license to operate in the state of Florida. His current office is in his home in Florida which is valued at less than $50,000. The tribal official questioned how the tribe could entrust a $27 million dollar deal into the hands of someone who can’t handle his own finances in the state of Florida.

The tribal official claimed that there isn’t any evidence that the Atlanta investor can even make a deal this large, and yet, our tribe denied the deal with the Shakopee tribe in favor of this other group.

In membership meetings held when Gordon Thayer was still chairman, it was disclosed that at our current rate of declining casino revenues and the increasing bond payment every month, we would be in default sometime in the year 2016.

The current bond payment is over $268,000 every month. Current revenues from the casino are less than that number. In addition to the bond payment, tribal operations must be maintained from casino operations. Another source informed me that there has been discussion among the tribal council to dip into the casino’s emergency reserve fund to maintain operations. This fund is held for unforeseen events that could occur at the casino which could result in the doors closing, such as HVAC systems, or plumbing.

The current bond requirements provide for an increasing bond payment to the investors and a large balloon payment in 2026, which the tribal official said would be impossible for the tribe to make. In 2023, the bond payments will surpass $3 million per year. The bond holders also have a stipulation in the agreement that was made in 2006 that denies the ability for an early payoff. Tribal personnel Scott Allen and Milo Arkema had negotiated with the bond holders to allow for a new deal with the Shakopee Sioux. The bond signed in 2006 was made by a tribal council that included Mic Isham, Rusty Barber and “Little Guy” Clause, all of whom denied the new agreement with Shakopee Sioux.

According to the anonymous tribal official, the Shakopee Sioux tribe would have made a $27 million bond refinance structure without any commissions, while the Atlanta investor would get a commission up to 1.5%, or around $400,000. He questioned why the tribe would forego a deal without any commission payment for such a large payment.

Anonymous sources claim the tribe is currently broke just as Christmas bonuses are arriving. In addition to tribal employee Christmas bonuses, the tribal government awards over $400,000 to tribal elders in the form of a $150 payment right around Thanksgiving time.

As Chairman, Gordon Thayer released information in regards to tribal finances at the time he took over. He stated that in 2011 the tribe had bank loans with Chippewa Valley Bank in excess of $10 million. When Isham took over as chairman, those loans had been paid down to $416,000. The annual loan payment to Chippewa Valley Bank was $1,028,000. By February of 2013, the tribe’s annual bank payment was reduced to $89,000. Also in February of 2013, there was nearly $6 million in tribal bank accounts.

Sources claim that all bank accounts have been exhausted since Isham took over as chairman in July of 2013. Isham refuses to answer my calls about these accusations. At the LCO General Membership Meeting in September he was repeatedly asked about these accusations and never gave a clear answer.

Lost jobs need to be returned to our people!

Some of our members view my blog as being too negative, but when you want to shed light on some things you truly believe are wrong, it’s pretty hard to put a positive spin on it. The truth is, there is a lot of evidence that points to widespread corruption and mismanagement on our Rez, but, for today, I’m going to focus on one issue and what I believe we can do to make it better. The topic is jobs.

First of all, one thing I see is that our current tribal council is spending much of their time acting as a personnel committee. A tribal governing board should be focused on governance, not dealing with employee issues and arguments in the workplace.

We have a firing and hiring committee, or screening and selection committee, whatever it is that they call it. They should be handling these issues, but what often happens is that the employee or the manager takes it the tribal council if they aren’t happy with the outcome. We are a small community where everyone knows everyone and many of us are related, so we have access to our council members, and on the other end, our council members feel obligated to hear everyone out.

In my opinion, the process of filling the spots on this committee and just about every other one is where the problem lies. Whenever the council creates a committee, or a seat becomes vacant, they always post to fill the seats like it was a job posting. What I believe the council should do is that each council member should appoint one member to the committee to be their personal representative on that committee. All committees should be done like this, except for several that should be elected specifically by the people, such as the school board, housing board and the college’s Board of Regents. In either case, the committee’s decision should then be final. Look at it like this; the council member appoints his own representative to the committee in the hopes that the appointee would hold many of the same views, therefore, the person making an appeal would be appearing before his representative.

I’m not sure if this would work, but it’s the closest thing to a person actually appearing before the tribal council. You appear before each one’s personal appointee. Once these committees are given the final say, it frees up the tribal council to focus on business development and overall improvement of the quality of life for our members, by creating jobs..jobs..jobs. If the tribal council didn’t have to deal with personnel issues every day, they would find a lot more time for planning and providing our tribe a direction. They also wouldn’t be beholden to their voters because now they wouldn’t be responsible for the outcome of all these personnel decisions.

When I’m elected to the council, I will press for this idea or at least some sort of solution to the overwhelming time spent by our tribal council on dealing with employee issues. The council should be spending more time creating jobs, not babysitting them. They should be focused on improving the quality of life for our members, which is making sure that every one of our members who wants a job, has a job.

And speaking of jobs, it will be my top priority on tribal council to get all our people who have lost their jobs over the past year back to work. A few months ago I wrote about how our casino manager, Lee Harden, has replaced many of our tribal members with non-members in positions that some of them have even held for nearly 20 years. Many of our people who have held jobs at that casino for nearly two decades are now out of work. They are hurting badly, economically and mentally. Imagine feeling secure in your life only to have your security ripped out from underneath you.

Lee is using many tactics to get rid of our tribal member workforce, including strict adherence to guidelines (my cousin was relieved from work because of a point system when she was two minutes late), drug testing, and a lack of education and this in regards to employees who have been on the job at the casino for nearly 20 years. That’s 20 years of gaining knowledge in the operations of a casino, but it didn’t count for much in Lee’s eyes.

As the workforce in the casino diminishes, the work load doesn’t. Who has to make up for these lost positions? The loyal, dedicated, hard-working employees that remain, but, as their work load increases, their pay doesn’t. They are required to pick up the slack that Lee has created, yet, as they work other people’s jobs in addition to their own, they aren’t getting paid anything extra. This is creating a disgruntled work force.

Employee morale at our casino continues to decline. Several years ago it was bad, but since we’ve come under new management, employee morale is at an all-time low.

No matter what it takes, we need to get our people back to work on this Rez. We need to quit handing out the higher paying jobs to non-tribal members. The same goes for all subcontractor jobs as well. Why do we have our college for three decades now? Why did we educate so many of our people over the years only to turn them away from working here and helping to improve our lives on the reservation? Why do we chase them away when we’ve educated them and they could have so much to offer? And, why are we firing our people who have worked for so many years at that casino? Our people shouldn’t have to drive an hour away every day to work at our competitor casinos. It’s just not right!

When I’m elected, I will spend every day working on changing our management at the casino and I won’t stop until it’s accomplished. In order to get our people back to work in that casino, the manager has to go along with the half dozen high-paying positions he created to do work he should have been doing in the first place. A half-million dollars is spent annually on high-priced executive staff at the casino. This is why he had to let go of so many of our employees who had been on the job for many, many years, in order to cover those unnecessary expenses.

We got along for over 20 years without Lee’s executive staff and we made more money without them. Fifteen years ago our casino was consistently making nearly $6 million net every year when Gosh was our chairman. About 10 years ago revenues began to decline down to $3 million net per year and it was blamed on the recession, but now we are down to $1.5 million net and what’s the excuse? We are told we’re doing great! Do you really believe that the gaming industry is suffering that bad that we are only doing 25% of what we used to do? In my opinion, the parking lot is just as full as it always has been.

New management = jobs for our people!

Kinnamon School Project remains yet another tribal secret!

Last Saturday I made some comments in my blog regarding the Kinnamon School restoration project under the coordination of Brian Bisonette. I basically questioned how this project has taken four years so far and still today, there is no opening date set. In that blog I did state the wrong grant total when I said $350,000 when it was actually $789,000. This was a simple brain fart because I also had the new Boys and Girls Club grant in mind, which is near that amount and also under the coordination of Brian Bisonette.

Anyways, Brian did make a comment on the blog in response to my statement that this project was a fleecing of our tribe. He corrected me on the amount and he also made a few remarks about why the project was taking longer than planned. But, then, just as fast as he posted the comment, he deleted it. Why would he delete it?

On Friday, March 6, the day before I wrote that blog, I approached the LCO Grants Department and asked them to see the grant specifications. I was told by the director that she wouldn’t release that information to me and that I had to see LCO Legal. This was expected. I then asked Jason Stark from the legal office if he could get this information released to me. I told him I simply wanted to know each area that the funds were intended for, if there were any add-ons to the grant and if the tribe had subsidized any amount of the project. Also, I wanted to know what the coordinator is getting paid. All of this information is public information because this project is a federal grant.

Jason said he would have to ask the tribal council about releasing the information. He did tell me that I could look it up from the grantor side, which I did, but I couldn’t find it. Without some basic information or numbers, I couldn’t find the grant. Anyways, on Tuesday morning, Stark told me that the “Tribal Council” denied releasing the grant specifications because it was “Proprietary,” meaning under the ownership of the tribe. I asked three different council members if they had been aware of the request by Stark to release this information and all three said no, they knew nothing about it. What really happened was that Jason Stark called Mic Isham and that was the extent of any inquiries. Mic never consulted with the rest of the tribal council, he made the decision on his own once again, and spoke on behalf of the tribal council, as he has done so many times over the past year.

Why is this federal grant such a secret?

Why did Brian Bisonette erase his comment when he did nothing more than to defend himself after I made some accusations? Maybe he just didn’t want to play politics with me. Or, was he told to erase it and not respond.

According to Brian in his comment, the Kinnamon School Restoration Project was a 3-year grant in the amount of $789,000. The award was back in September of 2011, so the completion date was set for September of 2014, but this didn’t happen. Brian explained why in the comment saying this:

“The first year of the grant was NOT the start of the construction phase, the initial phase covered the HUD required Administrative requirements, in addition to the Procurement of Architectural &Engineering services, General Contracting, Asbestos Removal and a host of other Historical Renovation construction project related activities. The actual renovation phase started Oct. 2012 on schedule. While it is true that the grant was intended to renovate the existing structure only, the issue of handicap accessibility needed to be addressed. Consequently, a decision was made to amend the project to accommodate our physically disabled patrons.”

Brian said there were other unforeseen problems that arose when dealing with an 80-year old structure that sat vacant for 40 years. He said that the main problem was the elevator and some issues they had to deal with concerning the subcontractor. He then filed for a one-year “no cost” grant extension which was approved. He stated that none of the project was subsidized by the tribe, but did let them know that there may be extra cost at a later date.

I was glad that he responded with information concerning this project that our community should know, but then disappointed to see that he deleted it. I don’t understand why this is such a big deal, but of course, I’m sure it has to do with me. Maybe they will publish it in their newsletter for you now that the question has been brought up.

Why does this have to be a secret? Why is everything always a secret with our tribal council? Even the simplest of things are kept from us, the tribal membership, and it makes no sense. This is one of the main reasons why I’m running for tribal council, because, I plan to let the cat of the bag. It’s long overdue for some transparency on our reservation. I can promise you, when I’m elected, you will get a weekly report from me and there won’t be any more secrets up there. Like I said before, the only thing that should be confidential are real estate dealings as they occur and personnel issues, which our council members shouldn’t even be dealing with in the first place. You won’t be kept in the dark about our financial status anymore. You’ll know exactly what every one of our tribal businesses is making because I believe that is your right as the owners. They claim by releasing that information it helps our competitors but, I’d like them to explain how that helps them. How can our competitors use that against us if they know how much our grocery store profited last year? Why is that a secret? Everything is a secret and it’s time that ends.

Brian also attempted to explain to me how the tribal council works despite the fact I have been writing news for this reservation for the last 20 years which has provided me with plenty of in-depth detailed information on how the council operates, but here is what Brian had to say about it:

“Since you have announced your candidacy for this upcoming election and started your political rhetoric, let me inform you how Tribal Council actually functions. We have 7 elected Council members that serve on the Tribal Council that make decisions on our behalf. In some of your previous posts, you channel your disparaging remarks to individual Council members (mainly Mic so far) for whatever issues you hold them personally responsible for. One Council member DOES NOT have the authority to over-ride the remaining six! Case in point, while Mic may have signed a negotiated settlement or Rusty signing the social media memorandum, they did so under the authority given to them by the majority of other Council. This holds true in my former capacity of Secretary/Treasurer on the 2006 bonds.”

I’d like to point out the flaws in this statement. It only takes an alliance of four council members to make decisions on our behalf, which is what we are witnessing today. These four council members can make decisions by consensus outside the scope of their weekly meetings and then the other three have no idea about the decision. This has happened quite often lately. Take for example, at the beginning of this blog about the decision to deny me the grant specifications. The tribal attorney said “tribal council” made the decision. Yet, three of them are completely unaware of this. I’m sure Mic made the decision on his own knowing that he has the backing of the three council members in his alliance, without even consulting them first.

Back to the topic of secrecy, why does the council consistently feel the need to keep our membership in the dark on nearly every issue? This makes the community suspicious of their activities, and can you blame us? The free flow of information provides for a healthy community. By including our membership in the ongoing activities at the council level, you make them feel a part of this community rather than a servant to it. Just like the new social media policy, it’s all part of the same big picture…hush, hush. You can only keep our people suppressed for so long and they will speak out. Their voices will finally be heard at the ballot box when they decide to, in the words of a former council member, “Throw the bums out!”

Tribal Council passes ordinance to restrict freedom of speech for employees

The Tribal Governing Board passed an ordinance, Section 8.20, Policy Regarding Use of Social Media by Employees, on February 2 of this year. Many companies have a policy in regards to social media use and the workplace, so there is nothing wrong with the idea, but in this case, our tribal council, an elected body, included themselves in the policy.

I called our chairman, Mic Isham, about this policy and how it prevents any tribal employee from freely expressing themselves when they disagree with actions of the tribal council. Basically, this letter is a violation of everyone’s civil right to free speech. Mic said that it was never their intent, but, regardless, the wording is in the policy and you should all be outraged!

Mic explained that there had been a couple of incidents lately that involve employees who spoke out on Facebook about their workplace, either another employee or a manager, and that it disrupts the workplace, which I agreed with him. Sure, we should have a workplace policy, but for the council to put in the TRIBE as well, as if the tribe is a person and no employee should have anything bad to say about their tribe is flat out wrong!

I’m going to reprint the policy here for you all to see. When I come to parts that I believe are in violation of your federal constitutional rights to free speech, I will show it and you can see if you agree with me or not.

While the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians encourages its employees to enjoy and make good use of their off-duty time, certain activities on the part of employees may become a concern if they have the effect of impairing the work of any employee; harassing, demeaning, or creating a hostile working environment for any employee; disrupting the smooth and orderly flow of work within the office; or harming the goodwill and reputation of the Tribe.

Okay, let’s stop right there. That last line…”harming the goodwill and reputation of the Tribe.” So, basically, you can’t say anything that they (the council) don’t agree with. Mic claimed that it wasn’t their intent to restrict anyone’s right of free speech but how does this not restrict free speech? If you, as an employee posted on your Facebook account that you think the council made a bad decision to extend the contract of Lee Harden, casino manager, could this not be construed as trying to hurt the reputation or goodwill of the tribe? Let’s say that you’re not in the good favor of certain leadership, could they not use this statement as a means to fire you at that point? Better yet, it’s election time, so let’s say you, as an employee, posts on your Facebook account just days before the election that you think our leadership are a bunch of idiots. Does that not hurt the reputation of our tribe? Can they not use that to fire you for speaking out during an election? Even though they can claim this isn’t their intent, it’s painfully obvious that the council can use this policy to silence all employees during the election.

Let’s continue on with the policy. This first paragraph continues here and notice how they include print media, such as a newspaper, into the policy as well;

In the area of social media (print, broadcast, digital, and online services such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Plaxo, and Twitter, among others), employees may use such media in any way they choose as long as such use does not produce the adverse consequences noted above. For this reason, the following provisions apply regarding an employee’s use of social media, both on and off duty:

a.      An employee shall be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment, depending on the severity  and repeat nature of the offense, if an employee publishes any personal information about the employee, another employee of the Tribe, the Tribe and its officials, or a tribal member in any public medium (print, broadcast, digital, or online) that:

There it is again. “If any employee publishes any personal information about the Tribe and its officials.” Really? So what would they consider personal information? This is wide open for a broad interpretation. Once again, if you speak out against your elected official, they can consider it a violation of this policy under this wording. Let’s take a look at this…so if I were an employee and I just posted on my Facebook account that the tribe has $250,000 in overdraft bank fees (which back in November would have been true information), they could fire me because I posted the Tribe’s personal information? LOL, is the tribe a person? As a member of this tribe, regardless whether you are an employee or not, you can discuss any financial issue within the tribe. They have no right to restrict this freedom of yours.

Continuing on…

a.      Online that

1.       Has the potential or effect of involving the employee, their coworkers, tribal members or the Tribe in any kind of dispute or conflict with other employees or third parties;

2.       Interferes with the work of any employee;

3.       Creates a harassing, demeaning, or hostile working environment for any employee;

4.       Disrupts the smooth and orderly flow of work within the office, or the delivery of services to tribal members;

5.       Harms the goodwill and reputation of the Tribe in the community at large; or

6.       Tends to place in doubt the reliability, trustworthiness, or sound judgment of the person who is the subject of the information.

Number 5 above is that same line from above about the reputation of the tribe. I truly wonder about the competence of our Legal Department since it is they that are advising our tribal council this is in any way, shape or form, the right thing to do, or even the slightest bit legal.

b.      No employee may use the Tribe’s equipment or facilities for furtherance of non-work-related social media related activities or relationships without the express advance permission of their program director.

Now this line here states that even if your social media use isn’t to harass or disrupt the work place environment, you still can’t use tribal facilities for accessing social media. It’s once again, very vague. This basically means that you can’t go over to the library computers and post on Facebook, regardless of what you’re posting, if they don’t want you to.

c.       Employees who conduct themselves in such a way that their social media related actions toward and relationships with each other interfere with or damage work relationships, disrupt the flow of work or tribal member relations, or cause unfavorable publicity in the community, should be concerned that their conduct may be inconsistent with one or more of the provisions of this policy. In such a situation, the employees involved should request guidance from their program Director or the Executive Director to discuss the possibility of a resolution that would avoid such problems. Depending upon the circumstances, failure to seek such guidance may be considered evidence of intent to conceal a violation of the policy and to hinder an investigation into the matter.

d.      Use of social media that involves any kind of criminal activity or harms the rights of others may result in criminal prosecution or civil liability to those harmed, or both.

e.       Social media access and use involving Tribal equipment and resources are subject to the Tribe’s computer and internet policy at all times.

f.        The provisions in this policy are not intended to restrict communications regarding the terms and conditions of the workplace.

How an employee uses social media is not a matter of concern as long as it is consistent with the aforementioned provisions on this policy. Employees may address any questions on this policy to their program Director.

And there you have it, the tribe’s policy on social media in the workplace. Whether you agree with it or not, you can’t deny the obvious ability of our tribal leaders to use this policy to intimidate employees into silence, especially during this upcoming election cycle.

And for including themselves (an elected body) and the Tribe as a person into this policy, if it wasn’t their intent silence, then all I can say is what a bunch of control freaks! As elected officials, they should expect criticism, they should have some thick skin, and by passing this ordinance, they don’t want any criticism.

The tribal council should immediately revisit this ordinance and strike any reference to themselves or the Tribe as a whole. You, the members, should expect nothing less. If this law is allowed to stand, then what next from the Hitler playbook?

The many issues we face this election year!

Greetings LCO!

It’s been a few months since you’ve last heard from me, and as you all know, at the time I was putting in an effort to share with you all news that you wouldn’t have heard otherwise. My voice was loud and it was heard throughout the community and our chairman, Mic Isham, didn’t like it, so he responded.

The current administration took a two-pronged approach to squash my attempts to bring you the truth about the wide spread corruption and mismanagement occurring at the tribal council and upper management level of our tribe.

First, Mic had our tribal attorney announce in a monthly director’s meeting that no one is to talk to the media without first consulting the legal department. This was a first. I’ve been writing the news for the tribe going on 20 years now and regardless of my past disagreements with tribal chairs, none have ever instructed director’s to be quiet, forbidding them to talk about their programs. This worked because all of a sudden, all the directors were afraid to talk with me and they started dodging me as I pursued interviews. And these were simple interviews to highlight the positives of our reservation and show the good things these programs were doing for our community.

Secondly, Mic approached potential advertisers to stop them from advertising in the new publication I was starting up at the time. He began with tribal enterprises but then he approached Hayward advertisers and told them that the tribe would boycott their businesses if they advertised with me. This was done by a tribal chairman. Incredible!

This two-pronged attack worked. I couldn’t continue to do a newspaper for you all without being able to pursue stories from the program directors or without advertising dollars to pay for the printing.

But then, just recently, now our tribal administration has gone a step further and taken a page right out of Hitler’s playbook by attempting to silence anyone from speaking out. They sent out a letter, signed by Rusty Barber, saying that no tribal employee is to speak out about their workplaces on social media. Now, this is understandable, but they included wording in that letter that adds the tribe as a whole, which is a complete violation of your federal right to free speech. It basically says that if any employee of the tribe went on Facebook and said “council sucks,” they could fire you, and all this just in time for election season, so that they can hang the threat of losing your job over your heads if you speak out. This is wrong.  I’m going to be writing an entirely separate blog about that letter in the next few days, so I’ll leave it right there for now.

But, it was this final straw that helped me decide that if I can’t offer my services to our tribe as a newspaper man, and bring you the news, then I’ll offer my services as a tribal council member, one who understands that the free flow of information is vital to the health and well-being of a community. So, officially, I’m throwing my hat in the ring and I’m going to give it my all to win a seat on the tribal governing board where I’m 100% confident I can make a difference.

There’s a handful of issues I’m investigating and I’ll be writing about in the coming weeks. Some of them I’ll be revisiting since writing a few months back. These include;

1.       The casino bond restructuring: We had a sweet deal but our leadership didn’t like it, now we are facing a default on the bond in a year from now. What will happen? The investment group will come in and take over management of our casino and we won’t have a hand in running our own casino, nor will we see a dime from it until they get their money.

2.       The Kinnamon Project: How could a remodel take four years? This is another example of the fleecing of our tribe. Originally what started out as a $350,000 federal grant has ballooned into add-ons and tribal subsidization beyond anything you can imagine for a simple remodel. And there is still no date set for the opening. We need to be asking why and in no way is this the fault or responsibility of the workers. It all falls on the project coordinator, Brian Bisonette.

3.       The Clinic records: This should stay at the forefront of issues for our tribe because an employee of the clinic took 180 medical records out of the clinic and into her home. Did she do this for her own benefit or was she working on behalf of someone else, which is what I believe and I will be sharing that story with you real soon. I’m investigating the links to high ranking officials on our reservation. You must realize that this is more than just the simple act of an employee taking home medical records. Those records have social security numbers, addresses and even signatures on them. Either she, or someone else, could have easily taken your social security number and forged your signature to accomplish a lot of things, such as background checks to gather information on you…for sinister purposes. We need to know whose records were taken.

4.       The casino management has to go! They’ve done enough damage to our tribe and they’ve hurt enough of our people through firing. The undue stress they’ve caused on numerous families on our reservation is enough for me to say there is no other option but an entire restructure of the top levels of management at our casino. I won’t even get into the finances and all the other issues for now, but it all needs to be addressed this election season.

5.       The tribal finances and a lack of a Treasurer’s Report: I’ve asked numerous times, are we broke? And I get the same answers that we’re not and yet, leadership refuses to show us where we are at financially. Our secretary-treasurer gave a report at a membership meeting about four months ago that had absolutely nothing about current finances and attempted to focus on an imaginary budget for the upcoming year. Past administrations and secretary-treasurers, which includes Don Carley under Gosh, Brian Bisonette under Louis Taylor and Mic Isham under Gordon Thayer, have all provided an overview of tribal finances, and yet, currently, we are kept in the dark. Why is that?

As we entered the holiday season a few months ago, our tribe was indeed broke. Regardless what anyone tells you, believe it. Our tribal officials were struggling to find a way to even pay for Christmas bonuses. And then a lifeline was thrown in the form of a $2.3 million dollar settlement at the end of November. The financial problems went away…temporarily.  I’m investigating this settlement as we speak. There are a few questions about this. You see, there were some issues with the casino bond that was issued in 2006, signed by Brian Bisonette, which allowed our tribe, under the former leadership of Gordon Thayer, to seek $11 million dollars in damages. We even won the right to have the case heard in tribal court, which means it was a slam dunk! We would have won. The defense offered us a quick settlement and we accepted it. $2.3 million was the settlement, the lifeline that saved our current administration from exposing the truth to you, the community, that our tribe was nearly broke and we weren’t going to be able to pay Elder Christmas bonuses or employee Christmas bonuses. Here’s where the major questions arise…why did our leadership settle so quickly in a case that we most certainly would have won…in the amount of $11 million dollars!!!!

Was it because they were in desperation mode to save themselves from the embarrassment of not being able to pay those bonuses, or is there more to it. Were there some shady activities that took place during the negotiations of those bonds and someone didn’t want that coming out in court? These are the questions you all need to march up to that tribal office and start asking.

And ask them once again, how much money do we have in our bank accounts since we received a $2.3 million settlement less than four months ago? If we weren’t nearly broke when I said we were four months ago, then we should be sitting pretty good right now after receiving that settlement. Unfortunately, that settlement was simply a band aid on a gushing wound. It only slowed the bleeding for a moment, but I’m here to tell you, our tribe will be broke again within a few months. Once again, our tribal leadership is running through millions of dollars. What happens if another life line isn’t thrown to us this time around?

Win or lose, I won’t hold back through this election cycle. I’ll investigate many of these issues and I’ll share everything with you.

And once I’m elected, I’ll continue to write a regular column and share with you everything that is happening at the council level. There’ll be no more secrets and that I can promise you.  For that reason, the powers that be will do everything they can to prevent me from being elected. All the questions you’ve had will be answered, such as simple things like ‘how much does a council member get paid?’ This shouldn’t be a secret, and once I’m elected, you’ll learn the salaries of every council member. I’ve always been a newspaper man, it’s in my blood, and this means that providing the community with information is and will be a top priority of mine.

And please, give me some feedback on what I’m sharing with you and on what you’d like to see in the way of change at LCO. If you want to talk, I’m available. My number is 558-9807. I’m looking forward to hearing from you and I’m looking forward to your support. Most importantly, I’m looking forward to working for you, the membership, when I’m elected to the tribal council.