Leech Lake ordinance could impact proposed Cass Lake school project
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.
June 13, 1999
By Devlyn Brooks
A school computer lab without computers?
That could be the scenario for the proposed $10.8 million Cass Lake-Bena middle school project, according to Superintendent Mary Helen Pelton, if money has to be subtracted to pay inflationary costs and fees for the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe's recently enacted Tribal Employment Rights Ordinance.
Because the state Legislature did not approve emergency funding in the 1999 bonding bill for the middle school, the project will be delayed and probably will cost about 5 percent more to build next year, Pelton said Friday.
That would mean an extra $540,000 would have to be subtracted from the project, in addition to another $324,000 that might have to be subtracted because of the Leech Lake Band's TERO ordinance.
"What we had designed is the school we think we need," Pelton said, "and we'll have to see what we can take out (of the plans)."
One alternative, she said, would be keeping the designed structure of the building in tact, but removing all the computers from the building. She said the district would then try to replace that funding by seeking some type of grant or even asking the Leech Lake Band to donate money for the computers.
Leech Lake Band officials have said they won't waive the TERO fees for the middle school project, but Pelton said she has met with representatives of the tribal council who seemed in favor of coming to an agreement.
Leech Lake tribal attorney Joe Plumer said Thursday the tribe believes it cannot waive the fee on this project because in the future where would they draw the line?
"It's a slippery slope," Plumer said.
Pelton said she is meeting with the project's construction manager and designer June 23, which should lead to more exact figures on how much the school might have to be scaled back. At that time, she suggested she might as for a meeting with the full Leech Lake Tribal Council.
"If we can't work out a compromise, we'll just have to take something out. There's no way we'll ever go back for another referendum," Pelton said. "Because that will look like a referendum on TERO. That's not what we want, the tribe wants or the people want."
Pelton said she still can't help but think of the irony of the tribe asking for more than $300,000 for a job training program when it would be taking away money from perhaps the best training program of all -- a school.
"86 percent of the children we serve are Indian," she said. "If you think about it, if we do our job, will there be a need for a training program?"
Plumer, who in his job as tribal attorney has worked with TERO issue, said it was never the Leech Lake Band's intent to disrupt the middle school project.
In fact, he points to the large amount of support Indians gave the referendum last year -- a fact Pelton doesn't dispute -- as to how much the tribe supports the school district.
However, the tribe wants to make sure that Leech Lake Band members will be hired for the middle school construction project.
"Three or four years ago, when the Cass Lake-Bena High School was built, there was virtually no Indians working on the project," Plumer said. "With TERO in effect, the goal was to have at least some Indians working on the middle school project."
Plumer said he hopes tribal and school district officials can schedule a meeting to come to an agreement.
"We don't want to be a bad neighbor," he said.
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