From the Leelanau News:
Problems apparent during the last tribal election are among factors spurring the Tribal Council of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians to call for establishment of a “Legislative Drafting Committee” which will review procedures for amending the Tribal Constitution.
Hundreds of GTB members last year signed a petition calling for an amendment to the Tribal Constitution following a highly contentious 2006 election process that delayed the seating of newly elected Tribal Council members until 2007 and resulted in the elimination of two of the top vote-getters from the race.
A proposed constitutional amendment would allow tribal members to vote for the position of Chief Judge and Appellate Judges of the Tribal Court, the Tribal Prosecutor and Tribal Police Captain. Currently, those positions are filled by political appointees hand-picked by elected members of the Tribal Council.
Several of the 305 tribal members who signed the petition last year contended that allegations of impropriety lodged against the tribal Election Board and accusations of improper campaign activities against two of the top candidates in the 2006 race were handled improperly by the Tribal Judiciary. They suggested that tribal members should elect tribal judges rather than have them appointed by the Tribal Council and asserted that judges were dependent on incumbent Tribal Council members rather than tribal members to keep their jobs.
Similarly, petitioners contended that the Tribal Prosecutor and Tribal Police Captain should also be elected by tribal members just as they are in municipalities throughout Michigan – although the tribal prosecutor and police captain had nothing to do with the difficult 2006 tribal election.
At least three of the organizers of last year’s petition drive are running for seats in the tribe’s April 9 Primary Election this year. Brian Napont and Desmond Berry, both employees of the tribe’s Natural Resources Department, are seeking Tribal Council seats. A third NRD employee and petition organizer who ran for Tribal Council in 2006, Thurlow “Sam” McClellan, is a former Tribal Council member and is running for Tribal Chairman in next week’s election.
Although Napont and McClellan were among the top vote-getters in the tribe’s April 2006 Primary Election, their names were left off the Regular Election ballot following a series of bitter Tribal Election Board and Tribal Court hearings that year. Napont was the top vote-getter in two of the tribe’s abortive primary elections in 2006, but was accused of improper campaign activities and was disqualified from running in a Regular Election that was delayed until January 2007.
McClellan was also accused of improper campaign activities by then-incumbent Tribal Council member George Bennett who subsequently lost his bid for re-election.
Months of delay and challenges in Tribal Court subsequently led to the abrupt resignation of Tribal Court chief judge Katherine Scotta in January 2007. The Tribal Council finally replaced Scotta in October 2007 with former associate tribal judge and former Leelanau County assistant prosecutor Wilson Brott. Unlike Scotta, Brott is not a tribal member; and efforts to find a new chief judge have so far been unsuccessful.
The appointed tribal prosecutor is former Leelanau County prosecutor Sara Brubaker who is also not a tribal member. Tribal member Chris Bailey is the appointed police captain. Although neither of those officials was involved in the election disputes, their positions could be affected by a proposed amendment to the Tribal Constitution.
On Feb. 1, the Tribal Council established a Legislative Drafting Committee “in response to a petition to amend several provision of the Tribal Constitution,” according to an announcement appearing in the March 2008 edition of the tribe’s government-controlled newspaper, the GTB News.
The committee will be responsible “for the creation of a tribal statute that will govern the creation of petition language, the process and procedures for the collection and solicitation of signatures in support of the petition, and the presentation of the petition to a certifying canvassing board for the amendment of the GTB Constitution,” according to the announcement.
Tribal members are being sought to serve on the volunteer committee. Those interested have been urged to contact the tribe’s General Counsel, John Petoskey, at 534-7610.
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