Elizabeth Larson Reports: Robinson Rancheria Tribal Members Convene to Kick Out Tribal Council

Our friend Elizabeth Larson has the story of BIG HAPPENINGS on the Robinson Rancheria, a COMPLETE change in the tribal council. You will recall that tribal chair Tracey Avila was just arrested on embezzlement charges.

After four years of strife resulting from overturned or delayed elections and the disenrollments of dozens of tribal members, a majority of the members of the Robinson Rancheria Band of Pomo decided they had had enough.

Meeting on Sunday afternoon at Elem Colony in Clearlake Oaks, tribal members acted, in their words, to take back control of their tribe by kicking out the sitting council, installing a new one and voiding the tribal government structure.

“It just shows that we're all fed up,” said EJ Crandell, who by meeting's end would find himself among the newly elected council members.

According to the organizers of the Sunday meeting, based on Bureau of Indian Affairs guidelines and the tribe's own constitution, approximately 75 enrolled members – or 51 percent of the tribal roll – needed to take part in the voting to make it valid.
Of the close to 100 people present, it was determined that 79 enrolled members were present, clearing the way for them to move forward on a slate of 12 resolutions.

And move they did, swiftly voting unanimously to nullify a 31-year-old tribal constitution and removing from power the sitting tribal council, which includes Chair Tracey Avila and members Curtis Anderson Jr., Michelle Monlo, Kim Fernandez, Stoney Timmons and Nick Medina.

“It's a new world. It's a new path,” said Clayton Duncan, who was elected the interim tribal chair.

Along with Duncan, the new interim council will include Bruce White, Nathan Solario, Monty Orozco, Rosita Anderson and Crandell, a slate accepted as part of the agendized resolutions.

The new council will spend the next 90 days working to get the tribe's operations back up and running, appointing new committees and setting up an election for permanent officers.

Click this link for the rest of the story at the Lake County News

We invite all other tribes to stand up to those corrupt tribal councils that act outside their tribal constitutions.

...Why Disenrolling Tribes Like The Pechanga Tribal Council are UNETHICAL

People have asked me why I use the term unethical in my blog’s banner. Here’s the reasons why.

Recall the five fundamental principles of ethics:

1. Do No Harm - Pechanga has failed miserably in this area. Not only have they caused financial harm to many of their tribal members, stripping them of their per capita, they have left them unprotected in the area of health care. They also have violated the Tribal Constitution and illegally have kept many rightful members out, via a moratorium.

2. Make Things Better - Well, Pechanga started well, with a plan to lift all it’s people from poverty. Many of us weren’t in poverty, but did benefit from the casino. After all, our families’ ancestors were original Pechanga Temecula people. But then, came the moratorium, which kept rightful members OUT and followed that with disenrollments, which made things worse.

3. Respect Others – Pechanga touted elders like Lawrence Madariaga, Paulina Hunter’s great-grandson with rewards like plaques for their service, but then left them out in the cold by kicking them from the tribal rolls and then saying, “go get a job” to 80 year olds. They disregarded their most vaunted elder, Antonio Ashman’s sworn testimony that he knew Paulina Hunter when he was a young man in the 1880’s

4. Be Fair – We will be detailing the unfairness of the tribal council, the disenrollment committee and the CPP, but there was no fairness. The Tribal Enrollment committee did not allow us to question our accusers, did not tell us what was missing in our paperwork, forced us to have red ribbon certified paperwork of over 400 pages and yet accepted a letter of hearsay from an imprisoned child molester as more factual, that the results of their own study.

5. Be Loving – How loving is it to eliminate old people, children, infirm from the tribe? To take away their voting rights, elder care, and educational assistance. The tribal council should have taken their task of looking after the individual tribal members welfare. They did not.

Also, recall that ethical responsibilities apply not just to how we treat others but to how we treat ourselves, too. Although ethics is fundamentally a guard against self-obsession, it is right and good to treat ourselves with respect, fairness, and compassion and to avoid causing ourselves harm. Now, the actions of the CPP are causing harm to the tribe and the tribe is paying the public relations price for what they have done, and that price is already $60 million or more.

Exercise your moral outrage and avoid Pechanga.