(Fremont County, WY) – Members of the Northern Arapaho Tribe are working to enforce the resolutions their General Council approved last month, which called for the termination of two Tribal employees: in-house attorney Clare Johnson and Wind River Casino General Manager Patrick Lekrone.
The Northern Arapaho Business Council released a statement last week indicating that the directives would not be carried out.
“While we deeply respect the opinions of the General Council, we cannot follow its recent recommendations for personnel action,” the statement says.
The statement cited “federal Secretarial procedures” as the reason why this decision was ”not left to the General Council.”
25 U.S.C. 2710 is federal law allowing Native American tribes the right to operate gaming activities on their land.
Class III, or casino-style games, like slot machines or blackjack, require an agreement between the “governing body” of a tribe and the state, however, what constitutes a tribe’s “governing body” is not defined by 25 U.S.C. 2710.
Title 3 of the Northern Arapaho Tribal Code describes “Secretarial Procedures” as Class III gaming procedures that are prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 2710 (d)(7)(B)(vii).
“In the event of any inconsistencies between the Procedures and any provision of this Code, the Procedures shall govern,” the Title 3 document states.
The Business Council’s decision prompted many responses from Northern Arapaho Tribal Members, like Nicole Wagon, who stated that the General Council is the Tribe’s “supreme governing body,” and any resolutions passed by the General Council “become our law.”
“It’s the highest law that we can have,” she said. “We all know (this). We all know … the hierarchy.””
The General Council includes all Tribal members, while the Business Council is made up of six members who “deal with individual political and business affairs,” according to a paper by Don Aragon that was published in the International Journal of Wilderness in 2007 after being presented during the first Native Lands and Wilderness Council at the 8th World Wilderness Congress in 2005.
“The body of the whole in each tribe, the General Council, is considered by the tribes as the sovereign political power within the tribal governments,” Aragon wrote.
In the 1920 and 1930s, Aragon said governmental agents “sought to make the smaller representative councils (the) more influential” in an attempt to “deemphasize the importance of input from the whole tribe” as part of an “overall detribalization effort by the U.S. government, intended to disengage Indians from their traditional forms of government and to adopt the representative democracy of the larger culture.”
“In some cases, this erosion of Indian culture and government may have been well-intentioned or a result of simple ignorance of tribal values, (but) it has been extensively noted that detribalization was a conscious effort on the part of federal officials to eradicate traditional Indian ways in order to gain control over the tribes and to access the valuable resources and land owned by the tribes,” Aragon wrote. “Over a period of years leading up to 1934, the tribes resisted the pressures of assimilative procedures instituted by reservation agents and embraced their own as they saw fit and which met their needs. … To this day, (both Wind River tribes) continue with their General Councils as the supreme body of the tribes.”
Public protest
When it became apparent that the NABC was “overstepping their authority” by ignoring the General Council resolutions, Wagon said she organized a public protest, which occurred last Thursday, Sept. 26.
She believes the event, which attracted coverage from multiple local media outlets, prompted the NABC to release its Sept. 27 statement indicating that the two employees wouldn’t be terminated.
“We … ruffled feathers, (and) we’re getting louder,” she said.
Moving forward, Wagon says she now plans to embark on a public education campaign, encouraging Tribal members to vote for a new slate of NABC representatives in this year’s election.
The Northern Arapaho Primary Election will take place Thursday, Oct. 17, and the General Election is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 21.
“(Let’s) vote better, vote wiser,” Wagon said, pointing out that, when they take the Oath of Office, elected Tribal officials pledge to “uphold and protect the sovereignty of the Northern Arapaho Tribe, against all enemies foreign and domestic,” and to “support and defend all law and policies, all customs and traditions and all treaties of the Northern Arapaho Tribe.”
Wagon is also working on several other initiatives related to Tribal governance, including a petition to replace all of the current members of the Northern Arapaho Election Committee.
Previously, she said the NABC was responsible for appointing representatives to the Election Committee, but the General Council voted last month to take over that task.
“We’re taking the power back,” Wagon said. “So now NABC cannot select (the Election Committee). Now it goes back to the people. … That was a win.”
One resolution that didn’t pass last month was the proposal to recall and remove NABC Chairman Lloyd Goggles for allowing the recent “referendum vote for staggered terms” to proceed, Wagon said – but now, “people are so upset, they wanted me to start another petition to throw all of (the NABC officials) out.”
That kind of petition “would take (some) work,” Wagon said, but “it can be done.”
“I’ve got a lot of help (and) a lot of support,” she said.
Upcoming events
The Arapaho Voice group will hold a rally 1-3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 6, in Riverton City Park to continue protesting NABC “power grabs” and calling for “transparency and accountability,” among other issues, according to a flyer for the event.
“We’re rallying because of the action of (our) elected officials,” Wagon said. “They have stripped the General Council of their authority as a supreme governing body of the Tribe. That definitely affects our Tribal sovereignty.”
The NABC will hold an informational meeting for enrolled Tribal members ages 18 and older at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 9, in the Blue Sky Room at the Wind River Hotel and Casino, another event flyer states.
For more information call the Northern Arapaho Tribe at (307) 332-6120.