Native American Press/Ojibwe News

Public Statement by Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors re: Indian Health Board

April 26, 2002
On April 9, 2002 the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors (MUID) passed two motions related to issues of the conflict at the Indian Health Board (IHB).

As the Chair, I do acknowledge the motions are fundamentally in conflict with each other. Yet, I believe this is not due to poor decision-making, but rather, they speak to the confusion of what are the relevant issues and the limited information individually and collectively the MUID group had access to in making some reasoned process decisions.

Motion One: Spoke to the creation of a MUID Taskforce to address the primary issues presented through testimony from the April 8, 2002 community meeting. The issues are; 1) Restoration of Services and 2) Process for Board Representation, and

Motion Two: Spoke to the reinstatement of the released Doctors and asking for the resignation of the IHB Board of Directors

The conflict is present when any effort to implement the second motion thereby, cancels the intent of the first motion. If we were to promote the second motion and ask for action it will negate the first effort by pre-determination on issues and actions based thereon. As the MUID Chair, I must promote a process that allows both motions to exist until a future determination can be made. We will address the first motion as stated in this document, by creating a taskforce and accepting their work plan and efforts. This still allows the second motion to exist and may be utilized through later efforts

American Indian community members and past/present IHB staff addressed the MUID group and requested our leadership to address their concerns with governance at IHB and the impact on services to the community. In response, we have created a MUID taskforce. We are also stating, today, that for this to be an effective and successful effort, the community, greater MUID members, staff and governance at IHB must trust and adhere to the process and accept the extensive history, knowledge and abilities of this chosen group. This taskforce will be the vehicle to address and develop information and actions that lead to future decisions and necessary change.

The MUID IHB Taskforce is comprised of the following MUID members:

Gertrude Buckanaga, (Chair)

Rose Robinson

Justin Heunemann

Laura Waterman-Wittstock

Jerry Northrup

Bill Means

Frannie Fairbanks

Rich Antell

Marlene Helgamo

Clyde Bellecourt

Tony LookingElk, (MUID Chair)

The Taskforce will address the two key points derived from the community meeting held on April 8th, 2002, They are:

Restoration of Services
Process for Board Representation

Under the leadership of Gertrude Buckanaga, this taskforce has created key first steps in accepting the community concerns and applying our leadership to the issues. The taskforce has agreed on establishing a relationship with the current Board of Directors and new CEO for basic reasons of accessing information and discussion.

The MUID IHB Taskforce as an ad hoc committee of the overall MUID group and has been given the charge of developing a process to resolve the previous mentioned two points. At no time or action did the MUID group authorized our efforts to be exploited or utilized for rallies and any other actions regarding IHB outside the scope of this taskforce efforts. We also ask no other activities be developed utilizing MUID actions without the expressed support of the MUID group as a whole.

We ask any entity either American Indian or other to respect that this is an American Indian community issue and the American Indian leadership has been asked to resolve it and will take the necessary steps to do such. We also realize our efforts may not succeed based on the acceptance of our efforts by the Board of Directors or Administration at IHB and we will convey any future action related to that. We also reserve the right to invoke other measures to ensure our community health needs do not go unmet. But I need to be very clear that there is an American Indian community process developed by the MUID group and no other efforts are recognized by MUID and should be viewed as outside the community leadership wishes and may be detrimental to the efforts of the taskforce.

As stated previously, simple steps of building the avenues of discussion have been accepted by the taskforce in effort to gather necessary information pertinent to developing lasting, effective solutions. The following points guide the task force efforts until they run their course or the taskforce adds other necessary beliefs or values in this effort.

The interest of the task force and the points that will guide their efforts are:

Restore community trust and use of the Indian Health Board Clinic
Restore the integrity and position of the Indian Health Clinic in community and abroad
Affirm the mission and purpose of the Indian Health Board Clinic
Ensure the future stability in all aspects of the Indian Health Board Clinic (Board, administration, staff, services, financial….)
Develop working relationships with Indian Health Board and all appropriate entities
Respect and adhere to a process that ensures positive, productive and last solutions

The taskforce has identified their initial steps and these steps will conclude with a report at the June 2002 MUID meeting.

Tony LookingElk
Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors, Chair

Friday April 19, 2002

Editor’s note: Mr. LookingElk provided Press/ON with a copy of this letter, originally sent to the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council.