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.

From "One Fire" to Several Fired

Thanks to a reader, we now know a little bit more about who is out and who is in with the new Baker administration.

Baker sent a memo to Cherokee Nation employees late Friday, letting people know who was in charge of health, human services, human resources, community services, communications, and something called management resources.  We’re not sure if these are people filling in for the six people Baker let go permanently, or some of the ones put on "administrative leave."

 

So here is how it looks to shape up:

Health: Melissa Gower is out, Gloria Grim is in.

Human Services: Norma Merriman is out, Marsha Lamb is in.

Human Resources: Michael Botello is out, Bill Foster is in.

Community Services:  Charlie Soap is out, David Southerland is in.

Communications:  Sammye Rusco is out, Randy Gibson is in.

Management resources:  Angie Drewes out, Pat Gwin is in.

Interesting note-- the person stepping in to take over health is someone Baker has accused of violating federal law! We wrote about that way back in June. Maybe when the U.S. Attorney cleared Dr. Grim immediately, Baker realized he was wrong.   

Anyway, most of the other folks are Cherokees whose jobs don’t really have much to do with political policy, but they are gone anyway, mostly replaced, from what we can tell, with internal temporary folks.

Baker also issued a memo saying Secretary of State Melanie Knight has his signature authority “except for policy changes, attorney contracts and items specifically prohibited by Cherokee Nation or federal law.”

Baker says he’s got a lot more changes to make.  He told Channel 6: "I want to put together the best of the best, and that have the same vision of the Cherokee nation that I have and the people who voted for me have… Other people have to go or they shift to a different position and we're looking at that as well. We've asked people to put resumes together and we'll put people where they'll be best for the Cherokee Nation."

Remember, it wasn’t that long ago that Baker talking about how the Cherokee Nation was “good”  but needed to be “great.” So it looks like he’s getting rid of the people who were doing a good job (and some might argue that they were, in fact, doing  a great job) and either replacing them with subordinates or bringing in folks from the outside whose resumes are unknown.