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October 19, 2001
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Red Lakers circulate removal petition
Press/ON report
The Red
Lake tribal council adopted an ordinance providing for the recall of
tribal council
members at its general meeting on Tuesday, October 9.
As Press/ON reported last week, there has
been serious
concern about the way that Red Lake treasurer Dan King has been
handling tribal
finances and tribal businesses.
Shortly after the recall ordinance
was enacted, tribal members began organizing a petition drive to remove
Dan
King as treasurer. The removal petition
is published on page 8 of this issue.
It is also available
on line at Press/ON’s website, http://www.press-on.net/ Copies can be downloaded, signed, notarized
and sent to Press/ON for proper submission to the Red Lake
tribal
council.
The recall petition seeks to recall
treasurer King for violation of Section 8, Subdivision 4 of the Recall
Ordinance, “Dereliction of Constitutionally Mandated Duties.” The removal petition specifically charges
King with not providing regular financial statements, as is required by
the Red
Lake Bylaws. It also charges the tribal
council treasurer with spending tribal funds without proper
authorization from
the tribal council by resolution, and with not making complete records
of his
expenditures available to the tribal council and the members of the Red
Lake
band. The Red Lake Constitution
requires that the tribal council treasurer obtain proper authorization
before
spending tribal money, and that he make complete records available.
There have
been several community meetings organizing the petition drive, the
first one on
October 13th at the Red Lake Community Center. Red Lake community members held a second
meeting about the recall petition on Tuesday, October 16th. There was reportedly a “good turnout.” Three hundred petitions were distributed at
the meeting October 16th meeting, to be
circulated in the community
for signatures.
There will
be another community meeting held on Wednesday, October 24th,
at
6:30 p.m. at the Red Lake Community Center. Under
the new Red Lake recall ordinance, about 1,800
signatures will be
required on the petition. The goal of
organizers is to obtain enough signatures and submit the petition no
later than
the next regular tribal council meeting, scheduled for Tuesday,
November 12th.
Press/ON
contacted Archie King, and asked him about the petition drive. Archie, who described his role as, “one of
the voices of the people,” expressed deep concern about the “Negative
rumors
attempt to undermine gaming efforts” flyer that has been circulating at
Red
Lake. He told Press/ON that the
‘negative rumors’ paper—“that letter than Dan King, Harlan Beaulieu,
Fabian
Cook, Delores Lasley and Al Pemberton have put out – all of those
figures in
that paper are lies. If we had that
much money, why would we have to borrow $4 million?
And, now I heard that we are going to borrow another
$3
million. … The figures that Dan King
has quoted there, all of the money he claims we have—we don’t have any
money.”
Four of the
tribal council members who signed the ‘negative rumors’ letter voted
against
the recall ordinance, Archie King explained. He
added, “as far as I’m concerned, that paper they
put out is all lies
and they have something to hide.”
The
petition to recall tribal treasurer Dan King is “moving along
excellent,”
Archie King continued. “If it wasn’t
for Judy Roy, we wouldn’t be this far, we wouldn’t know what they are
doing. This is the first time in 43 years
that the
Red Lake people finally have a voice to answer anyone that doesn’t take
care of
business when they are elected” to the tribal council.
Archie King
also talked about concerns at Red Lake that there could be retaliation
against
people who sign the petition. “All Red
Lake members should not be afraid to sign the petition, because nothing
will
happen to them,” he said.
Archie King
asked that Press/ON clarify that tribal council treasurer Dan
King is
his nephew, not his cousin. |
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