Addressing Grievances

Recently, Dino expressed concerns about healthcare at home on the WRIR.  He should be commended for his concern for our community and for having the courage to voice those concerns publicly.  He was immediately attacked for voicing these concerns on social media.  I’m curious to find out where these concerns should be voiced.

As Tribal Citizens, we are continually encouraged to take our issues directly to the General Council or to the Business Council.  In a perfect world, I would agree.  However, the WRIR is far from a perfect world, and the recommended process for addressing grievances has become ineffective; it seems to be designed to bury concerns rather than solve them. 

To get on the agenda for the GC, you first have to get past the Chairman.  The larger hurdle is actually getting a quorum to bring the matter to a vote.  Our community has a long history of remaining uninvolved in our democratic process; perhaps out of frustration, perhaps to avoid unwanted repercussions from voicing their concerns in the past (or seeing what happens to those who do)...or perhaps it is because the council often meets at times when people usually work or have other obligations, and transportation is not made available for those who would otherwise come.  The process itself works to disenfranchise those who work, those who are poor, and the elderly. In other words, pretty much everybody who could vote. Our council has devised a process that over the years has allowed them the ability to do what is best for them, not what is best for the people they were elected to look out for.

Taking the matter to the NABC is perhaps even less effective.  Again, the great hurdle of a quorum prevents a vote on most matters.  More importantly, have you seen your councilman lately?  Where have they gone?  More often than not they have traveled far from the WRIR to amazing conferences that tend to coincide with basketball tournaments, finals rodeos, or pow wows.  How much tribal money has found its way to gaming tables in Las Vegas and other casinos?  The best time to find your council member is to hang around on the second and fourth Thursdays; they always show up to get that big paycheck.  To add to our frustration, when resolutions have been passed, the council seems to forget or ignore them.

Faced with these two ineffective options, how should people with courage, like Dino, voice their concerns?  How do these issues become known to tribal citizens?  How do we involve the most important voice in our community, the people?  Social media certainly seems like as good of place as any.

If you are lucky enough to get in front of the council, our people and our concerns face a different issue.  Do these council members represent our interests...or their own?  Ask them what they have accomplished during their time in office?  What is their plan or vision for the Tribe over the next year, in the next three years or five years?  Do they plan and work for our well being...or for their own?  Look for Councilman Fasthorse, he seems to travel much more than he is present.  If he is at home on the WRIR, he is hard to find in chambers, you can often find him down in the parking lot of 789, counting cars.  

As for his accomplishments, he purchased a beautiful new truck using the tribal credit card, after which he was forced to relinquish the credit card.  He has allowed his family to use the car provided by the casino for personal matters.  He voted to allow a current councilman to use per capita funds to pay off a large personal loan - something no other Arapaho can do - just so that that councilman could run for office.  Rather than using money to improve our oldest pow wow or the Ethete celebration, we are now seeing the promotion of a new pow wow with $100,000 in prizes.  All while the workers at the casino wallow in poverty, barely able to survive, with stagnating wages.  Like the other council members, Councilman Fasthorse is paid an annual salary of $80,000; after four years, he will have been paid $320,000 of tribal money, plus all the known and unknown, unspoken perks of being a council member.  The self-proclaimed “People’s Candidate,” makes this money, his family lives in tribal housing where they pay the very minimum rent, while casino workers barely get by with enough money for groceries and rent. 

If these were just the questionable acts of one council member, that would be bad enough, but this is business as usual.  We have to ask again, does the council serve the people, or do they advance themselves at the expense of the people?

We may have gotten rid of Conrad, but the legacy of mismanagement and abuse lives on.  When faced with these ineffective choices, where should we take our grievances, where should we make our voices heard?  Social media seems like as a good of a place as any.  Thank you, Dino, for your courage and your foresight. Thank you for looking out for your community, for our community.

Rusty Gates