I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.
Aug. 25, 1996
By Devlyn Brooks
Staff Writer
CASS LAKE -- Members of the Leech Lake Band of Chippewa took matters into their own hands Friday to solve the ongoing power struggle between the tribe's councilors and chairman.
More than 60 people gathered Friday at the band's Powwow Building near the Palace Bingo and Casino to form a Leech Lake General Council which will assume all legislative authority at the reservation.
But a Tribal Council member says the action is meaningless and it will be business as usual for the council come Monday morning.
The General Council consists of the chairman from the 12 local Indian councils that represent the communities of Leech Lake Reservation, including the Twin Cities, according to a news release from the Leech Lake General Council.
The General Council voted Friday to assume the legislative authority over the band and designated the existing five-man Tribal Council as the body to carry out approved legislation. The Tribal Council will continue to carry out all duties pertaining to money and business but will no longer be allowed to pass any legislation governing the tribe, according to Richard Schulman, treasurer of the Cass Lake Local Indian Council. Schulman said this was the original duty of the current Tribal Council, which is formally named the Reservation Business Committee.
"They will exercise the executive authority of the reservation," he said.
The General Council and tribal members took action because the tribal constitution makes the Tribal Council accountable only to itself. Under the constitution, council members can only be removed by a two-thirds vote of the rest of the council, but Schulman said the council will never act to remove council members because they are protecting each other.
He said Secretary-Treasure Dan Brown and Councilor Myron Ellis, who were convicted, respectfully, of a felony and a gross misdemeanor involving misuse of tribal insurance funds, should have been removed according to the constitution, but they were not. And now Councilors Jack Seelye and Al Fairbanks Jr. should be removed because of their conspiracy not to remove the other two.
Schulman said Leech Lake members and the members elected to the General Council have the right to form the new government body under their interpretation of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe constitution. According to Article XIII of the constitution, the members of the tribe have the rights of any other U.S. citizen. The people of Leech Lake have been denied a legislative governmental body, and they are now claiming that right through the General Council under the authority of their constitution, he said.
But Seelye, the Leech Lake councilor, says the sitting Tribal Council has been recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the 12-member executive committee of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, and will not accept the self-appointed legislative body.
"As far as we're concerned, the Reservation Business Committee is still in operation," Seelye said in an interview Saturday. "Anything (Tribal Chairman) Eli (Hunt) tries to set up on the side will never be recognized. You can't set up a new government and write your own constitution. ... As far as I'm concerned, Hunt has lowered himself to the level of the other scumballs who are in his crowd."
Hunt said he agreed with the actions the General Council took, and said he supported them "wholeheartedly."
"They do have the right and authority to do this," Hunt said. "Anything they do is better than what is going on right now. What they did was beautiful, and it's about time."
As its first acts of business, the General Council adopted the following resolutions:
* Named itself the legislative authority of the Leech Lake Reservation, making the Reservation Business Committee (Tribal Council) answerable to the General Council.
* Approved pursuing a class-action lawsuit against Tribal Councils Brown and Ellis, barring them from any further tribal authority.
* Approved a motion to have all key management officials of the tribe's gaming operations licensed and backgrounded according to the National Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. This would include the five members of the Tribal Council, which is considered the Leech Lake gaming commission.
* Approved a motion to remove Brown and Ellis from their respective elected offices.
* Authorized Hunt and General Secretary Eunice Fineday to have the signature authority of all tribal checks.
* Approved a motion to peacefully occupy all business offices operated by the Tribal Council, including the reservation tribal office, gaming office and other offices at the Palace Bingo and Casino.
Councilor Fairbanks said the gathering was no more than a Hunt-inspired coup to take over the tribal government.
"They don't have control of the government. The council has control. That's the way it's always been. The authority lies with the Tribal Council," he said. "They're trying anything they can do. They're grasping for straws. They're running out of options."
Seelye said the General Council may have changed the signatory authority, but the Tribal Council doesn't recognize that and still controls the purse strings.
"They've got no checks; they've got no plates; they've got no keys; they're all locked up at the (First National) bank (of Cass Lake)."
Seelye charged that "a gang of riffraff" of 50 to 100 people has been intimidating tribal employees who are loyal to the council. "These people are down to using scare tactics."
He said reservation Department of Natural Resources officers and Cass Lake police officers have responded to protect employees at the gaming office and at Tribal Headquarters in the last few days.
"We don't know what they're trying to do except scare the workers off," he said of Hunt's supporters. "People who work with us (Tribal Council members) and are loyal to us and are good employees, they're all looking for other jobs now."
It will be hard to keep federal authorities out of the picture "when they start messing with gaming funds or RBC funds," Seelye said.
Seelye said he went to work at Tribal Headquarters on Friday and there was no sign of a take-over of the building.
"We plan on going to work Monday morning. We'll see what happens then."
(Staff Writer Nate Bowe contributed to this story.)
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