Would You Trust this Man with $600 Million Part 2

Yesterday we talked about Bill John Baker’s new pick to assist the best CPA in Vian, Lacey Horn. The Cherokee Nation now has some help from another Sequoyah County CPA, Jody Reece-- who just happened to be in charge of either the finance department & grants administration in the 1990s when the Nation got busted for not auditing its own books, for using federal program funds illegally, and using tens of millions of dollars improperly. The details are in yesterday’s blog, and you will find the list is very long and very embarrassing for the Nation.

How embarrassing? Well, the result way back when of all the financial shenanigans during the Byrd/Baker/Reece era was that the Cherokee Nation wasn’t trusted with its own money and had to be put on an allowance, like a third grader.

According to the Tulsa World, because the Nation was in such bad financial shape and the feds had “substantial concerns about the tribe’s financial systems” so they gave the money to the nation “month-by-month until the tribe restores its financial credibility…”

That made Cherokee Nation officials upset at the time.  The Tulsa World quotes one as saying: “While it’s embarrassing and uncomfortable for us to have lost credibility by having weaknesses pointed out everywhere, we’ve got a plan in hand,” said the tribe’s executive director of finance and administration in a November 6, 1998 interview with the paper.

So who said that he was so embarrassed about what happened either under his own watch as the top finance guy or the controller, Jody Reece, who moved over to administer grants, which then somehow got used for purposes they weren’t supposed to be?

None other than Charles Head. Remember him? He was recently appointed by Baker to be the new Secretary of State for the Cherokee Nation.  Head and Reese were in charge of the Cherokee Nation’s finances during the worst financial crisis in the history of the Cherokee Nation.  And now Baker has brought them both back.

Justice Darrell Dowty (left) administers the oath of office to the newly confirmed Secretary of State Charles Head while Frances Head looks on.
Photo Courtesy Cherokee Nation

Would You Trust this Man with $600 Million?

Jody Reece (Photo Courtesy Indian Country Today)

According to a news release on the Cherokee Nation's web site, "the Cherokee Nation has a new controller to manage its finances.  Jody Reece, of Muldrow, took on the job in late February."

Part of Reece's credentials are that, according to the news release, he worked at the Cherokee Nation from "1991 to 1997, starting as an accountant and eventually being promoted to controller, and again from 1998 to 1999 as director of grants administration and land management."

Well, those weren't exactly the glory years for the Cherokee Nation's accounting department and quite frankly-- those might be lines most people would leave off a resume!  Saying you were in charge of the Cherokee Nation finances during those years is a little like saying you were the guy in charge of the checkbook at Enron in 2000 or Worldcom in 2002.

But back to our point today: Mr. Reece (who is the second small town Sequoyah County CPA to be hired by Baker to run the Cherokee Nation's finances) has a pretty scary track record.

Mr. Reece was the financial boss during the years when Baker was chair of the executive and finance committee in the 1990s and Baker says "the Cherokee Nation will greatly benefit from his (Reece's) talents and expertise."

According to the Tulsa World, when Mr. Reece was the Controller in the 1990s (and while Baker was Chair of the executive and finance committee), there was quite a laundry list of financial misdeeds:

• The Nation did not have "prepared financial statements for 1997 and 1998..." according to a federal audit conducted because the Nation didn't do any audits itself.  
• An HHS audit of Reese's previous time concluded that the feds should have "substantial concerns about the tribe's financial accounting systems" and "used $1.9 million of IHS funds to cover deficits in other programs."

You should probably just read the articles in the Tulsa World yourself (after all, they were on the front page at the time and are hardly a secret), because they reveal too many financial screw-ups to list here, but we will provide some highlights during the Baker/Byrd/Reece financial era:

• Incurring legal costs without contracts
• Using taxpayers' dollars to fight the federal government
• Improperly placing $16 million of federal funds in its general operating account
• Improperly charging $88,000 to the (Interior) Department for legal services
• Transferring federal funds of at least $16.1 million to the (tribe's) general operating fund without assurance that federal program expenditures had been incurred previously and were owed.
• Inaccurate financial data in the financial status report submitted to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
  

Like we said, not exactly resume material, unless your next move was to Enron.   

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the consequences Cherokee Nation faced for the financial mismanagement that took place when Mr. Reece was in charge of the Cherokee Nation checkbook the first time.  Some of you might be surprised by one of the names that pops up - it's a guy who picked up right where Reece left off…

Severed CNB Head Speaks

David Stewart (Photo Courtesy KOTV)

When last we talked, on Friday, CNB’s board was in the process of putting their CEO on leave.  Turns out, this is a very busy board, because they had another meeting today and KOTV Channel 6 was there.

They got a confession from board chairman/funeral service guy Sam Hart saying that CNB “is in great shape, we’re making great strides, we’re in great shape.”

So if we’re in great shape, then why is the CEO taking a leave of absence?   Well, according to Channel 6, the CEO, David Stewart, says he was “placed on a 30 day leave of absence last Friday. He says he hasn't turned in his resignation, doesn't plan too, and he hasn't been asked to resign.”

So if he’s doing a good job and doesn’t want to go, and his boss, the chairman of the board says he’s doing a good job, what gives?

Channel 6 also says “In 2002, Cherokee Nation Businesses had around a thousand employees, this year it has more than 4,500."

"In 2002, CNB's revenue was close to $25-million, in 2012, it's more than $600-million. Stewart says if this is indeed the end of his time with Cherokee Nation Businesses that he's proud of how the company has grown.”

One person who can shed light on this personnel issue, and has, is the speaker of the council, Tina Glory-Jordan, who shared details of the agreement with the media.  She says that Stewart's situation is neither a “termination or resignation but is a ‘standstill agreement between mutual, voluntary partners…”

CNB Head Gets the Scythe

The Tulsa World is reporting that Baker’s new CNB board chairman/mortician is already taking on grim reaper status: Sam Hart announced today, a mere seven days after being named Chairman, that he and the rest of the board told David Stewart, who runs all of Cherokee Nation’s business operations, to leave his office on Wednesday and turned the keys over to Shawn Slaton, who has been with CNB for “more than a decade.”

The World quotes Hart as saying:  “CNB has established the Cherokee Nation as a strong economic engine in the region, and we look forward to continuing that legacy.”

They also point out that CNB made “record profits -- $87.54 million with nearly $600 million in operating revenues…” in 2010.

So if Stewart was in charge of establishing “the Cherokee Nation as a strong economic engine…” and is making “record profits,” why is he gone, exactly?

We've talked about Baker’s habit of replacing Cherokee citizens with a track record of success with his own folks, because, well, they are his own folks.  Among the highlights: having Hart step away from the embalming table to run all of Cherokee Nation’s businesses because he didn’t want the Cherokee who runs a $5 billion bank giving his advice, and replacing the treasurer of the Nation who won awards for excellence with someone who MIGHT be the best CPA in Vian.

It will be interesting to see where he pulls Stewart’s replacement from.

Background Checks Are For the Little People

If you want to go to work for the Cherokee Nation or one of its businesses, you have to pass a background check.  Unless you want to actually RUN the Cherokee Nation Businesses, in which case the Tribal Council doesn’t care whether you can pass one or not.  They only care if you can run funeral home, in which case you are qualified to run a $600 million a year business.

Last week, Jay Hannah, the executive vice-president of a bank with $5 billion in assets, was replaced as Chairman of CNB by Sam Hart, a mortician.  

This all happened because the council changed a law last week that Baker’s newly appointed board members did NOT have to get security clearance.

These guys get background checks; Bakers guys don't

This means that the council thinks that having someone who fails a background check can't clean the carpets at Housing Authority offices, but someone who can't pass a background check running our casinos is just okie-dokie.  It's the little guys that they are worried about, us common citizens, not Baker's hand picked guys at the top. The Tribal Council decided that doing business with the federal government in the defense industry (only a trillion dollar chunk of change, according to the fine folks at Wikipedia) was not worth pursuing if it meant they had to wait any longer to get rid of a Cherokee who knows how to run a multi-billion dollar business with a guy who knows how to run a small town funeral home. 

How the Freedmen Deal Went Down Part IV: Are You Okay With Being Lied To By Your Government?

Over the last week or so (in parts I-III), we’ve established that the Cherokee people are being lied to about how the Freedmen miraculously became citizens just days before last fall’s elections.  Joe Crittenden was asked to supply all the communications he had with the BIA and the Freedmen as he negotiated a deal to make them citizens, but all Crittenden turned over were a bunch of all-employee emails which appears someone else wrote and signed his name to, and receipts for this trip to DC so he could get paid some cash money for going to our Nation’s capital and selling HIS Nation’s constitution down the river.

So, what are you, the Cherokee citizens, going to do about it?  You’ve been lied to, and there is a cover-up going on!  Documents that exist have not been turned over as required by law, and no explanation has been given as to why.

On this blog, we only care about the TRUTH.  And nothing makes us madder than when people lie to the Cherokee people.  Crittenden will get away with the lie and his noncompliance with the law if the Cherokee people let them.

So here’s what you all need to do.  Get out a sharp pencil, a dull crayon, an old IBM Selectric or the writing utensil of your choice and send a Freedom of Information Act Request to Bill John Baker, Cherokee Nation, PO BOX 948, Tahlequah, OK 74464.

Write something like this:

Dear Chief Baker,

One of the pillars of your campaign and pledged hallmarks of your administration was transparency.  In the interest of the Cherokee people’s understanding of how people with no Cherokee blood became citizens of the Cherokee Nation just before September’s election, even though our Tribal Supreme Court had ruled they were not citizens.

Please provide ALL written emails, letters and phone call notes, travel, meeting dates and topics Acting Chief Joe Crittenden, and ANY of his staff, liaisons, contractors or other types of representatives have had with Larry Echo Hawk, Echo Hawk’s staff, BIA officials, DOI officials, Marilyn Vann, Jon Velie (attorney for Freedmen), any other Freedmen plaintiffs or representatives and DOJ concerning the Freedmen, citizenship for the Freedmen, pending Court cases, Judge Kennedy and anyone else associated with this important case for the past six months.  Please include the materials left out by Joe Crittenden in a previous FOIA request, including the letter(s) he sent to the BIA that the BIA acknowledges receiving but that Crittenden refused to disclose earlier.

Please respond to this request as required by LA 25-01, Cherokee Nation’s  Freedom of Information Act."

Or something like that.

Better yet, ask him to put the documents on the web.  Pester the folks at the Cherokee Phoenix about why they are ignoring the story and it’s coverup. 

Write your council members demanding to know what happened.

Write the Attorney General and point out Crittenden’s noncompliance.  It’s AG Todd Hembree's duty to make sure EVERYONE follows the law, including and ESPECIALLY elected leaders.  If our Constitution is ignored, supposedly for the greater good, we have a right to know how that happened.  We have a right not to be lied to and then have the TRUTH covered up.

Do it.  And if no one else will publicize what you find, rest assured we will always stand for the CHEROKEE TRUTH.

How the Freedmen Deal Went Down Part III: Save Your Reciepts

For the last couple of days we’ve been trying to figure out what happened in September when freedmen suddenly became citizens.  Read the intro blog from earlier this week as well as the amazing telepathic communications blog if you haven’t already to catch up.  The short version:  Acting Principal Chief S. Joe Crittenden is hiding SOMETHING, we just don’t know if it’s his ignorance or something more sinister.  He didn’t turn over any documentation of how the decisions were made.

Here are some examples.  On page 12 of the 94-pager, the BIA thanks APCSJC for submitting a letter and the election code to them for review.  WHOOPS!  APCSJC didn’t include that actual letter in the correspondence.  So obviously he was communicating with the BIA, but he won’t tell us what he sent them.  Thanks for being “truthful and transparent” APCSJC!  

On page 82, there is a letter to all employees signed by APCSJC but written and emailed by someone named Sedelta Oosahwee.   There is no reply from him, or nothing saying he got the email, or approved the email.  Maybe this person just had carte blanche to sign APCSJC’s name to any ol’ thing about our sovereignty.  

Finally, were just a few carefully maintained, hand-written documents that APCSJC managed to find that could shed some light on how the freedmen got to be citizens.  Scroll all the way down to page 94… that’s where you see he managed to save his receipts so he could get reimbursed his cab ride and parking for his trip to DC.  You know the one where he single-handedly made the freedmen citizens again, but can’t find any documents or communications to show how it happened.  All we really know is it costs $15 bucks or so to get to the hotel from the airport, and that when it comes to keeping track of pieces of paper so he can get paid, APCSJC is top notch.  When it comes to keeping track of documents that show why he gave away the Cherokee Nation’s sovereignty, he’s not so good.  More tomorrow.

How The Freedmen Deal Went Down Part II: "Transparent and Truthful"

Yesterday we laid out the preview for today’s blog.  If you didn’t read it you need to.  Take some time and click here before continuing.

There.  That’s better.  Because you need that background to understand where we are today:  diving into a 94 page document that is supposed to be a “transparent and truthful” accounting of how the freedmen got to vote in the election.  Aside from the fact that S. Joe Crittenden (APCSJC) wanted them to because they “voted in June and voted in July and they may have helped put me in office. I believe they are entitled to vote again…” for his buddy Bill John Baker.

During this time, on September 13, APCSJC tells us that he is “pursuing political remedies that are in the best interest of the Cherokee Nation.”

The election is coming up on September 24.  There is a federal court hearing on September 20, when a judge is going to rule on whether the election can even happen, since the freedmen aren’t citizens anymore.  But when September 20 rolls around, Crittenden cuts a deal with the BIA and Freedmen that changes the rules of the elections and lets the Freedmen in.  So obviously that was a busy week for him, between the 13^th when he tells us he is ‘pursuing political remedies’ and the 20^th when those remedies come to fruition.  He even tells us that he is involved in the final nitty gritty of the deal making process: “We are still working out the final details, to be agreed upon among all the parties…” 

So when asked for all the documents, notes, emails, etc. about this deal, and given that he has promised to be transparent and truthful, what does APCSJC give us?  A big stinking pile of jack squat.

In the 94 page response seen here, there are emails and notes from all kinds of people, staff members and the attorney general.  But very few from APCSJC himself.  There are no emails from him to the BIA.  There are no notes of any conversations he had with the BIA.  There is no copy of any correspondence whatsoever between him and the BIA.  There is no correspondence between him and the freedmen of any kind, even though APCSJC himself tells us “we are working out the final details to be agreed upon among all parties…”  Did they communicate telepathically?  Use one of those secret languages only twins understand?  Or did APCSJC lie to us and hide documents?  Or did he never actually do anything at all, but only farm out the work to heaven knows who?

There’s a lot of evidence pointing to the fact that ACPSJC didn’t do anything himself.  For instance, there are several all-employee communications about the freedmen issue, (see pages 38, 39 and 40).  They were all sent by someone other than APCSJC, but they are signed with his name.  But there is no correspondence from APCSJC to those people showing that he actually wrote it!  If this is all the correspondence then someone wrote all the letters for APCSJC and then sent them out with his name on it.  There’s not even an email from APCSJC saying, yes, I approve of this draft you wrote!

But regardless, APCSJC is either hiding documents explaining why he decided to single-handedly agree to let freedmen be citizens even though our Constitution and Supreme Court say they can’t, or he didn’t make that decision himself at all and refuses to divulge who did actually make the decision.

To sum up, here's a short version of the TRUTH:  APCSJC was asked for every scrap of information and documentation.  He did not turn over any information or documentation about why he made the decision, even though he vowed to be truthful and transparent.  He did not even explain why he didn't turn over the information. 

Wow.  More on this tomorrow, but if this is “truthful and transparent” we are in for a long four years.

How the Freedmen Deal went Down, Part I

In a September whirlwind, Acting Principal Chief S. Joe Crittenden (APCSJC) was in the middle of a political firestorm that was more than he bargained for.  The CN Supreme Court kicked freedmen out of the tribe on his eighth day as APC.

A couple of weeks later the BIA told him they weren’t going to recognize PC2011 Election 2.0 if the freedmen couldn’t vote.  And they couldn’t, because they weren’t citizens.

APCSJC immediately sprung into action, working with the BIA, freedmen and everyone else to make a deal so the election could happen and he could become DCSJC, which is what he always wanted.  

In the process, he sold out the Cherokee Nation Constitution by single-handedly agreeing that the freedmen could be citizens even though a vote of the Cherokee people and the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court said they couldn’t be citizens.

A lot of us wanted to know what the hell happened.  How did we get here, as a Nation?  Who talked to whom, how was this deal made and was it really necessary? 

Someone was smart enough to request the documents as part of our open government here at Cherokee Nation.  What they actually asked for was this:  “Please provide all written emails, letters and phone call notes, travel, meeting dates and topics Acting Chief Joe Crittenden and ANY of his staff, liaisons, contractors or other types of representatives have had with Larry Echo Hawk, Echo Hawk’s staff, BIA officials, DOI officials, Marilyn Vann, Velie (attorney for Freedmen), any other Freedmen plaintiffs or representatives and DOJ concerning the Freedmen, citizenship for the Freedmen, pending Court cases, Judge Kennedy and anyone else associated with this important case for the past six months.”

This request came less than a week after the federal court agreement by APCSJC, and less than two weeks after APCSJC himself said this about how he was going to fix the freedmen situation:  “I hereby re-pledge to the Cherokee People that I will be transparent and truthful.”

So what did we end up with?  A 94 page document responding to this public records request that is ASPSJC’s version of being “transparent and truthful.”  Surely this will finally tell us how we got non-citizens changed back into citizens just hours before our do-over Principal Chief election.  And for those of you who think this isn’t relevant, just remember: this citizenship compromise that APCSJC came up with in his 67 days as Acting Principal Chief is still with us now and may be for the rest of our lives.  So how did it happen?  Find out what the public record documents show in tomorrow’s Cherokee Truth.

Who Was That Masked Man? Lone Ranger Edition

There is a Facebook page out there that we hesitate to bring attention to because it is so pathetic-- and telling our thousands of readers about it is about the best favor we could ever do for it.  But sometimes telling the Truth means you have to shine the light on some ugly things.  That’s what we’re doing today.

First, a little about this Facebook page.  One of the first things this page did, after it was started in December, was mimic Cherokee Truth.  And that’s about the best thing it has ever done.  Since then, the page has been blocked from posting here because it refused to follow our rules.  But that shouldn’t surprise anyone once they read a little further.  In three months or so of existence, it has 102 likes.  We got that many in our first week.  So this really is a small fish, but it’s also a bitter, professional fish.

Who is that masked man/recall advocate?

The page is called Recall Cara Cowan Watts.  It mainly spouts hate against her as a council person and tries to convince everyone that she is terrible.  That’s free speech and that’s fine.  But there is something a little more sinister here.  So who is the man behind the mask?  Well, he’s nowhere near as honorable as the Lone Ranger, but he’s just as condescending to Indians.

Remember the DC guy who talked all about how he hoodwinked the Cherokees into voting for Baker after Baker did exactly what the guy told him to do during the Chief election?

That guy was Dane Strother, of Strother Strategies, Bill John Baker’s highly paid Washington DC campaign strategist.  And he is also the guy masquerading online as Recall Cara Cowan Watts.  

How do we know this?  He sent us an email and signed it.  

He wants us to try to spread dirt about Cara Cowan Watts and her husband, but he didn’t provide any documentation.  That fits Strother’s Baker strategy, which was about smokescreens, Cherforce One and other distractions because Smith had done a “good job.” He already bragged about that online, as you recall.

Does anyone else find it creepy that Bill John Baker’s campaign guy months after the election is harassing a council member when she’s not even eligible to run for re-election?  Who is paying this guy (remember, Baker gave him a ton of money)? Is Baker still paying his strategy guy to take down a council member he doesn’t like? Or does Baker’s guy have some kind of weird obsession with Cowan-Watts and he's stalking her as a hobby?  Or worst of all, is this guy on the Cherokee Nation payroll?  Right now, nobody knows-- but regardless, it’s pretty dirty pool and conduct not becoming of a Chief to have employees he pays out of his own pocket, or his campaign funds, to run a hate campaign against a sitting council member.  Especially since Baker is still raising money for the very activities he may be paying Strother to do.  Not cool, Kemo Sabe.  

Look who's back!

To paraphrase a short white guy from Detroit:

“Guess who’s back, back again, Truth is back, Tell a friend.”  It seems so empty without us, right?  Well for a somewhat limited engagement Cherokee Truth is back for this week, and depending on how much fodder our Cherokee elected officials give us, a while longer.  We won’t be going full wall to wall election Truth like last Spring/Summer/Fall, but we’ll be updating more often.

If you want more (and you know you do), we do need your help.  There are (and have been) rumors going around, but we don’t deal in rumors.  In the next few days we’ll have some solid facts with backup documentation that will make some people uncomfortable.  But that’s what the Truth does.

Remember:  Truth is back, tell a friend!

Happy Birthday Chief Baker!

How did we know it was his birthday?  Linda Gray Murphy, Baker’s campaign spokesperson sent us an email inviting us to his 60^th birthday party tonight in Tulsa.

All we had to do is bring a gift, preferably that was something like $xx60. Seriously, she suggested donations to Baker’s campaign depending how awesome you think Baker is. If you want to be Visionary, you could give the Chief $4960. If you want to be a Dream Maker, you could give $2560. If you want to be a Guardian, you could give him $1060. If you want to be a partner, you could give $560.  If you want to be a friend you could give $60.  

At Cherokee Truth, we’re just normal folks trying to get by.   

And we really thought our elders would be getting their $200 checks before the Chief came asking us for $4960 checks.  But we were wrong about that. 

Regardless, it gives us a good idea.  Cherokee Truth will be celebrating its first birthday in May.  We’ll get a paypal account set up so you can pay us for being such ‘visionaries.’ 

Process of Elimination

In a story you can’t find in the Cherokee Phoenix or the Tahlequah Daily Press, Bill John Baker was sued more than two weeks ago for allegedly firing employees illegally when he came into office.  Channel 6 and Channel 8 are covering it, with Channel 6 even digging up and old interview from one of Baker’s first days in office talking about how he’d probably have to get rid of some folks.

We wrote about that one before, about how Baker cleaned house on day one, but the firees, and the lawsuit lays out some details of Baker’s first day, saying he called employees in, fired them in front of a crowd of campaign supporters and had reporters from the tribal newspaper there on hand to watch it all.  The employees say they were fired because they supported Smith for chief. You can read everything they say by reading the lawsuit on Channel 6’s web site, but it boils down to this:  the employees say their rights and the Cherokee Nation constitution were violated. 

The Cherokee Constitution says: “No employee, who having served in a position at least one (1) year, shall be removed from the employment of the Cherokee Nation except for cause, and only after being afforded pre-termination due process.”

Even the chief has to follow the law.  Especially the Constitution of the Cherokee Nation.  It’s up to the court to decide if he did or not, but it’s clear that he’s got some ‘splainin’ to do.  Baker’s got to prove that in the 12 or so hours between the 9pm when he got done getting sworn in at the courthouse and 9am when he started firing people, he not only found cause to fire them, but he also had time to afford them  “pre-termination due process.”  

If he can’t, it may end up costing the Cherokee Nation a lot of money. 

Second Chance

Joe Byrd hopped in the way-back machine and dialed up 1991 --- getting elected to the Tribal Council again 21 years after his last council election, and 16 years after winning his last election of any kind.  Byrd beat four other candidates, getting nearly two out of three votes.

We’ve chronicled Joe Byrd’s comeback before and it’s clear the people in Cherokee County (and part of Wagoner County) are ready to give Byrd another chance.

We’ve spent some time talking about Byrd’s pro-freedmen stance, his felonious former campaign manager/housing authority director, and all the turmoil know as the Constitutional Crisis that turned out so well that his Byrd’s buddy Bill John Baker joined him as a Deputy Chief candidate in the 1999 election, in which they were both skunked.

So Byrd is back. We assume that he learned from his mistakes.  The question is, did he learn not to make them, or did he just learn not to get caught? We’re sure we’ll all find out in the next few months and years.

Candy and Nuts

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts... 
and a big IF from a gaming commissioner.

Thanks to a tip from a reader, and some information that came up in the rules committee meeting, it looks like the guy who is singlehandedly responsible for keeping the UKB’s casino open (even though the state wants to shut it down), is now being appointed by Bill John Baker to be a gaming commissioner for the Cherokee Nation.  

A few years back, John Garrett was a judge in Adair County. The state of Oklahoma was threatening to shut down the UKB’s casino. And John Garrett signed a document, that to this day, is the only reason the casino is open.  He signed an order, since appealed in the federal court, that said the state couldn’t enforce the law, and that even though the UKB’s casino wasn’t on trust land, they couldn’t be shut down.

For that, John Garrett was awarded a seat on the UKB’s Supreme Court, which is a pretty good gig, we guess.  He kept that job up until the time that something better came along: a chance to be gaming commissioner for Cherokee Nation.

When he was being questioned in committee, Garrett was part of this exchange (about 45 minutes into the December Rules committee meeting)

Cara Cowan Watts: “How do you feel about the UKB’s claims to land in our jurisdiction?”

Garrett: “If I’m approved as a gaming commissioner, my loyalty is of course to the Cherokee Nation.”

CCW: “So it just depends on who you work for?”

Garrett: “Well….” (awkward pause….)”

Later on, Garrett reiterated his “If’ statement, making it clear that, like any good lawyer, he would be happy to take the Cherokee Nation’s side as long as the council approved him, hired him and paid him.

Garrett admitted to helping the UKB back in the day when he was a judge and at one point acted like he didn’t have a choice but to give the UKB what they wanted in court, even though it was obviously a federal issue and today, more than half a decade later, the federal court is still weighing its options on a case Garrett decided in the UKB's favor in a single day.

In the end, six council members thought the UKB Casino’s best friend (who says he would switch his loyalty “If” the council approved him) was not the right guy to oversee the Cherokee Nation’s casinos.  10 council members, and of course, Chief Baker, thought he would be a good choice.  Oh yeah, one more thing: in the confirmation process, Garrett admitted he gave Baker’s campaign $2,000. Merry Christmas.

Bakers Dozen

Just as 13 is a little more than 12,
Baker is trying to cram 10 board members into 9 seats.

Last week, the Tribal Council approved all of Baker’s nominees for everything, including five new board members for CNB in full council on Monday night, and then five more for four more seats in committee on Friday.  

We’ve already discussed the first five, and their varying range of qualifications.

You can read about the new group online as well, and once again their range of qualifications is broad, from a Harvard educated investment guru to a funeral home director.

But a key line in the news releases, are these little lines: “If confirmed, four of the nominees will fill seats that were previously vacant.  The fifth nominee will be on hold and not start his term until later on in 2012.”  The new person will remain ‘on hold until the new term starts.’

Sooooo…. That’s awkward.  Which of the five draws the short straw and has to sit out?  Obviously Baker knew he was nominating more people than the board could hold, but why?  Did he overpromise board appointments to folks?  What’s the rush?  Is someone on the CNB board on the way out and doesn’t know it yet?  

Regardless, Baker is trying to put 5 into 4 and we’ll see how that pans out.  And we have to ask the council members who voted for these guys (and they are all guys), who they want off the board, or who they want to put in limbo.

Baker Chooses Head

Not Pictured: Charles Head.

Bill John Baker has made his nominee for Secretary of State and it’s a guy named Charles Head.  Head, the current BIA boss in Muskogee, is taking the place of Melanie Knight, who resigned.

Knight, on her way out the door, sent an all employee email saying “The Nation has all of the tools for success and the opportunities with what we have built are endless.  The most valuable resource is each of you; as individual employees and teams your work determine our success as a Nation.”

Baker, nominating Head, said: “With his experience working with the federal government and tribes across this area, Charles Head is a natural fit to be secretary of state…. His talents have served the Cherokee Nation well in the past and they will once again be a tremendous asset.”

Baker points out that Head has a lot of good experience working with tribes in this area, but what might trouble some is his experience with one tribe in particular.  The last we heard from Mr. Head, he was busy telling the Cherokee Nation that the BIA was going to put the UKB’s casino land into trust unless the Cherokee Nation objected. 

We’re sure he was just doing his job. But the Secretary of State for the Cherokee Nation is supposed to stand up for the Cherokee Nation’s sovereignty, and it’s a little scary that the guy Baker is nominating to do that is the guy who was attacking our sovereignty last month.

Head’s nomination is on the Rules Committee agenda for Tuesday. 

Another interesting thing is that Baker’s nomination includes a time frame, a four-year term for Head to serve, from January 2012 to January 2016.  The constitution says each chief gets to appoint his/her own Secretary of State, and Baker’s current term expires August 14, 2015.  If Baker’s re-elected, Head should be golden, but if not, then by the constitution he’ll be out unless the new chief asks him to stay.  It’s silly to try to write a law that says otherwise, but that’s what is before the council.

There are several other important agenda items on the Rules committee agenda for Tuesday.  Be sure and check it out if you can.