Siletz.Net

Lynette Warren, Candidate for Tribal Council

I wish the best to our membership in 2010. I hope that tribal members, near and far, will reflect on the events of 2009 and will be encouraged to act upon them and their desire for a better tribal government. I believe that, with your support, we can reform this government. There are many areas that will be improved or resolved if we move to institute the following five measures toward accountability, wise investment, and greater transparency.

1) Increase Per Capita From 40% to 70% of the EPR

2) Cost of Living Adjustments for Chinook Winds Casino Employees

3) Term Limits for Tribal Council and Tribal General Manager

4) Internet Video Streaming of All Tribal Council Meetings

5) Detailed Profit and Loss Statements for all Tribal Businesses in Nesika Illahee

Per Capita - Excess Pledge Revenue or EPR, is the money that is left over from the gross revenue of the casino after expenses. Every year, 60% of the EPR is used in government programs. Much of it is wasted on bad investments, boondoggles, and huge pay raises for elite tribal managers. Only 40% of the EPR is distributed to the members via their per capita checks.

It has long been my position that per capita is the most equitable means of promoting the general welfare of the members of this tribe. Casino profits belong to the members, not to the Tribal Council. Leaving only 40% for the members is effectively a 60% tax on tribal members' money. If the Federal and State government charged us 60% tax on our money we would be up in arms, so why should the Tribal Government get away with levying such an exorbitant tax on our membership? The majority on the tribal council will pretend that this cannot be done, but don't believe it. Members, as individuals know how best to benefit themselves and their families with their incomes, therefore we must move forward now to increase per capita to a more reasonable level.

There are a number of ways the current government programs can be readjusted to return 70% back to the members. One thing that can be done would be to roll Economic Development and Investment into one category, since both have been marked by severe overspending and loss due to unwise and self-interested policy decisions on the part of the current tribal council majority. Limiting their funding and returning it to the membership would no doubt make the government more efficient and frugal when it comes to spending casino profits.

It's time to lower the 60% income tax on tribal members' casino income.

Chinook Winds Employee Cost of Living Adjustments – Our tribal government has, for too long, forgotten the workers at our only reliably profitable business, Chinook Winds Casino. In tough economic times our Casino employees are always the first to be expected to do more with less, while political insiders in tribal administration do less with more.

The Tribal Council majority votes for exorbitant pay raises for management in Siletz. Between 2006 and 2008, it appears that the tribal Administrative Manager Sharon Edenfield, received a 13% pay raise, Human Resource Manager Michele Rowan got 49%, and Assistant General Manager Tina Retasket took a whopping 73% pay increase. I got the figures for these positions through the Freedom of Information Act. These are matters of open public record as far as the federal government is concerned but they are heavily guarded state secrets within our tribe. And I've heard from a reliable source that Brenda Bremner's top managers received very generous raises again in 2009.

This should not be happening. We lavish fat cats in the tribal administration with high salaries while our casino workers produce the lion's share of our revenue. It's time to re-evaluate our pay raise policies and open it up to the light of day by reporting administrative salaries to the members of this tribe so that we don't have to go to Federal government agencies to obtain that information.

Term Limits – It doesn't take much of a review of what has happened over the last few years to see that conflicts of interest are becoming an insurmountable problem in our tribal government. In 2004 when Bud Lane took his seat on the tribal council, in violation of the ethics ordinance which, at the time, prohibited him from doing so while he held a tribal job, he was the only Tribal Council member with a tribal job.

From 2004 to 2009 we've gone from having one Tribal Council member with a tribally paid position to seven! Where are they now when it comes to tribal jobs?

Lillie Butler is reportedly no longer receiving pay for her WEX job with the tribe. Bud Lane and Robert Kentta enjoy full time high paying careers in the Culture Department. Loraine Butler is in Enrollment. Sharon Edenfield is among the very highest paid managers in the tribe. Jessie Davis manages the Hee Hee Illahee RV Park near her home in Salem, although she will not disclose her income to the membership who pay her. Since Tina Retasket left her $96,000/yr tribal job, she has been quietly taking temporary tribal jobs from her old boss, Brenda Bremner, refusing to disclose exactly when this work occurred or what she is being paid. She told me at a June meeting in Brookings, Oregon that it was none of the tribal members' business what she gets paid.

Reggie Butler points out that five members of the Tribal Council are supervised by Chairman Piglsey's niece, General Manager Brenda Bremner - who they in turn supervise themselves! The conflict of interest is appalling – they are their own boss's boss, and so is Bremner. One hand washes the other, washes the next, washes the next...

All the while, the Council members are voting to run the very programs and businesses which affect their tribal income. They may abstain from token votes when it comes to some budget questions which are most obviously affecting their income stream, but remember, this year we have a tribal council with a six person majority - the Pigsley voting majority consists of Dee Pigsley, Bud Lane, Robert Kentta, Tina Retasket, Sharon Edenfield, and Jessie Davis. They identify themselves each year in their letter supporting their candidates – this year Kentta, Retasket, Davis and Edenfield endorse Pigsley and Lane. If they get their way then next year Pigsley, Lane, Davis, and Edenfield will endorse Kentta and Retasket. You see the pattern. This block can be relied upon to vote in lock step with Chairman Pigsley's desires whenever necessary, but they also engage in political log rolling. Each of them can be confident in the support of the other five with regard to their increasing their own salaries, their family member's salaries, and funding their programs. They use this tactic to easily circumvent our ethics laws, which were intended to rein in conflicts of interest and political crony-ism And this corrupt process - “I'll fund you, then you fund me...” - has turned our tribal government into exclusive private club funded at your expense. This must end, and term limits are a way to end it.

Term limits will require a Constitutional vote and that's no small feat, but we will never see this Tribal Council allow members to vote on term limits as long as Dee Pigsley's majority remains firmly entrenched - we must first break the stranglehold of the Pigsley majority. We have the opportunity to that this year - by sending Dee Pigsley and Bud Lane back to their private lives and giving their seats to representatives who will not do the bidding of their political machine.

Video Streaming of Tribal Council Meetings – There can be no effective and long lasting reform of tribal government without an informed membership. For years the Tribal Council has been keeping the members in the dark about much of the business it conducts. The reports they pass on to members are full of sunshine and lollipops while, in reality, they continue to lose money hand over fist. When it comes to press releases and articles in our official tribal media, the information our public information officials distribute is long on fluff and short on relevant data.

Dee Pigsley has said that she wished more members would attend the Tribal Council meetings, but it's very difficult for most members to attend meetings because they don't live in the area. Imagine how discouraging it is for an out-of-area member taking special efforts to attend meetings and then being made to stand in the hallway for hours outside the council chambers waiting for the Tribal Council to come back from executive session. Most of the time the Tribal Council do not even give an adequate reason for going into secret executive sessions, much less an estimate for the amount of time they'll be there.

Over the course of her latest term, Chairman Pigsley has been asked to spend less time in executive session. Her response has been to further limit information to the members and to spend more time in secret meetings. As Reggie Butler points out, this is done to prevent even Tribal Council members from telling members what the Council is really doing.

Even when business is conducted in open session, there is the worsening problem of the minutes, which do not reflect what actually occurs in the meetings. I know this because I have attended Tribal Council meetings where relevant discussions are often glossed over or entirely omitted by the minutes.

Concerned members have urged the Tribal Council to provide accurate minutes in a timely manner, but the Tribal Council remains unresponsive and uncooperative. The best solution to this problem is to provide video streaming of the meetings - as they occur - to the members. This can be done in the Members Only area of the the CTSI website. These sessions should then be archived on the web and made available for members to view at their convenience.

Our leaders cannot make informed decisions and act in the best interest of this tribe unless they have input from an informed membership. The present situation with the lack of openness at the meetings and untimely transmittal of information to tribal members is intolerable. The technology to stream videos or audio files to our members in any part of the world as the meetings happen is now inexpensive and easily available. It is imperative that we implement it.

Profit and Loss Statements in Nesika Illahee - Every year we receive incoherent and misleading financial statements which are so difficult to decipher, even Chairman Pigsley couldn't explain the meaning of the figures in the tribe's annual report when I asked her to do so at the November 2008 General Council meeting. If the STBC Chairman can't make heads or tails out of the STBC financial report to the members, who can?

It doesn't take a PhD in accounting to understand honest financial reports, but the reports we tribal members get are not meant to be understood. What we get is a vague and confusing overview, along with a smattering of cherry-picked highlights. The reports the Tribal Council receive on our businesses throughout the year are not the same ones they distribute to the membership. You deserve a fair and honest accounting of how your money is spent.

As the owners and investors in these businesses, tribal members deserve nothing less than comprehensive, investment-grade information. This can easily be distributed to the membership in the quarterly Nesika Illahee.

Siletz Tribal Business Corporation (STBC)

I've been asked why I persist in bringing up issues about failed STBC businesses year after year, but these examples are not ancient history. Much of it is still ongoing and all of it falls within the last three years. It's the economic record of the incumbent Chairman and Vice-Chairman who I am running against in this 2010 election.

As Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Tribal Council, Dee Pigsley and Bud Lane have also long been the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Board of the Siletz Tribal Business Corporation which exists for the economic development of the tribe. Three years ago, when Dee Pigsley and Bud Lane assumed their current terms in office, STBC announced it's top priorities for the economic development of the tribe which you can find in the April 2007 issue of Nesika Illahee. The top three priorities were:

1. Siletz Aeroteam
2. River Reclamation Group (RRG)
3. Chemawa Station

STBC invested millions of your dollars in these three projects. So how has STBC performed under the leadership of Dee Pigsley and Bud Lane in their current terms?

Siletz Aeroteam never broke ground in the Siletz area and had to be de-funded by the end of 2007. You think that's bad? River Reclamation Group didn't even survive the month! RRG was shut down in April 2007 when it was discovered that the permits required for it's operation were not in place. The tribe invested a great deal of money in the Chemawa Station project with no return on our investment – the project has been at a dead standstill for over two years. What they told us would be a vibrant shopping center remains a vacant lot - years after spending millions of your dollars.

Upon the shutdown of RRG, it's equipment was used to found a new venture for the tribe: Northwest Maritime. Northwest Maritime appears to be in disarray and perpetually unprofitable. Another multi-million investment of STBC is the Salem Flex Building which has remained vacant of paying tenants (other than the tribe) throughout the entire current terms of Chairman Pigsley and Vice-Chairman Lane. We continue to make huge payments every month for this building we have never been able to rent. The performance of STBC under he leadership of Pigsley and Lane has been absolutely atrocious.

Last year, a tribal member asked Chairman Pigsley what has become of STBC's shares in US Aeroteam? Recall that US Aeroteam is a company that STBC, under the leadership of Chairman Pigsley, bailed out of bankruptcy using tribal members' money. The Chairman responded that US Aeroteam is making a profit and that the profits are being reinvested. But anyone who understands the structure of ownership of US Aeroteam knows that our “partners” at US Aeroteam are simply keeping the money. Because of the way Chairman Pigsley and STBC structured the bailout deal, our US Aeroteam partners own 80% of the company but retain 100% control over the company. Their four votes on the board of directors always trump the tribe's one vote. And I'm told by those in the know that US Aeroteam stopped paying off the balance of its $2,000,000 debt to the tribe a year ago.

It appears US Aeroteam has become the latest in a string of deadbeat partners and tenants. We pay the salaries of high-priced lawyers, some of whom have made millions off the backs the tribe. So what is our crack legal team doing to collect from this parade of deadbeats? Nothing, as far as the Tribal Council will tell us. They would rather hide their losses than contest them, something which our business associates are happy to take advantage of. After all, Tribal Council aren't losing their own money, they're just losing your money.

STBC continues to lose money year after year under the management of Chairman Pigsley and Vice-Chairman Lane. This has been going on longer than just the past three years. There is no reason to expect this to change until we change leadership by voting them both out of office.

Lisa Brown's Expulsion

Last year Lisa Brown was swept into office with a stunning 401 votes, the fifth highest total in our history. She ran a campaign of reform and has worked diligently for the last few years as an advocate for members whose voices would not have been otherwise heard. She was remarkable in her effort to bring transparency to this government. And none of this sat very well with the present Tribal Council majority.

The ink was barely dry on the 2009 election certification when the Pigsley majority set out to undo the election. At her very first regular Tribal Council meeting in February council members Dee Pigsley, Bud Lane, Robert Kentta, Tina Retasket and Jessie Davis voted to initiate expulsion proceedings against Brown. The first notice that tribal members saw in the Siletz News concerning these expulsion proceedings was the notification in Chairman Pigsley's column in April that Lisa Brown had, in fact, been expelled from the council on March 29th. All tribal members in the community and across the country should have had the opportunity to have their voices heard on so grave a matter as the immediate expulsion of a newly elected Tribal Council matter. Instead many tribal members were not even aware this was going on until it was over.

In his letter to voters this year Reggie Butler wrote:

“When the former Chinook Winds Casino General Manager resigned, he should have been a very happy camper. The majority of the Tribal Council took care of that.”

Reggie has to be very careful because of the legal cone-of-silence imposed by Pigsley's majority, but I take this to confirm that they gave Jim Kikumoto a deluxe golden parachute as part of their plan to bury Lisa Brown.

The elections are our last defense against the Pigsley-Bremner political machine. The overturning of the election via Lisa Brown's expulsion is one of the worst acts in our tribe's political history. On this basis alone tribal members should never vote for anyone who worked to expel Lisa Brown, nor anyone they endorse.

The Election Board's Lawsuit

During last year's campaign I informed voters that Tracey Worman and Kurtis Barker, who were, at that time, the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Election Board, had received pay for serving on the Election Board through three prior elections, when the Election Ordinance clearly said that “Election Board members shall serve without pay.” These are well documented facts. At precisely the same time the Tribal Council was expelling Lisa Brown, their appointees, Worman and Barker – who were still on the Election Board - filed suit against me in tribal court for statements I made during the campaign. That lawsuit continues to this day, even as Kurtis Barker runs for Tribal Council and Tracey Worman manages his campaign on Facebook.

The advantages of suing one's political adversaries will surely be apparent to future candidates. Substantial investments of a candidate's time which should be used to run a campaign must be devoted a legal defense and held in reserve for court dates.

Is this really the way we want to conduct our elections in this tribe?

This isn't a theoretical fear. In November the Tribal Council passed a law making it possible for them to sue tribal members for criticizing them in their official capacities. Please see www.siletz.net for the details of it. Clearly, the Pigsley-Bremner political machine are preparing to go much further down this road and if they are successful, all effective political criticism will be silenced. Your own ability to freely communicate with one another without fearing retribution from litigation happy tribal officials will vanish, as well.

Note that they don't have to win a case to cripple their opponents campaigns, they just need to tie them down in court. In defending myself in Barker's case against me, I have subpoenaed Dee Pigsley, Brenda Bremner, and Tina Retasket as witnesses. They have used the tribal attorney, Craig Dorsay, on your behalf and at your expense, to attempt to quash the subpoenas, denying me discovery in my defense. It's their opinion that I can be sued by their appointees, but they cannot be questioned under oath.

It's important to remember that I'm not suing tribal officials, tribal officials are suing me. Unlike the Tribal Council and the General Manager, I have no access to attorney services on your dime, as the Tribal Chairman and General Manager do, nor am I receiving assistance from members of the General Manager's staff, as the Plaintiffs appear to be.

But this case is not only about me. The mere threat of such suits will necessarily have a chilling effect on free speech in our tribe. The next time it could be you or another candidate that you support.

We are at a crossroads here. Are we going to let public officials haul tribal members into court merely for criticizing them, or are we going to uphold the freedom of speech that was clearly intended for us through our own tribal Constitution? The voters must send a strong message to Kurtis Barker and to his mentors on the Tribal Council that this abuse of the court system for political gain will not be tolerated. And please don't fail to note that the entire Pigsley voting block on the Tribal Council endorsed Kurtis Barker in their letter to voters this year. This isn't an incredible string of coincidences, this is a political team that is using every tribal resource they can get their hands on to crush their critics.

I Need Your Vote

I ask that you vote for me in this election. If elected I will fight to make our government accountable to all tribal members and to break the stranglehold of the Pigsley-Bremner political machine.

I do not agree with some important votes that Lillie Butler cast this year, but I will never forget that she and Reggie Butler were the only tribal officials who stood up for Lisa Brown and voted against overturning our election. On that basis alone she deserves your vote this year. Lillie and Reggie have also been the only Tribal Council members willing to tell us the truth about STBC – that our businesses are floundering. I urge you to vote for Lillie Butler.

I don't have enough knowledge about Melinda Logan to make a solid recommendation, but she has been endorsed by Reggie and Lillie Butler so I encourage you to consider her for your third vote.

Last year we elected Lisa Brown, but the Pigsley-Bremner political machine was able to overturn the election because we also elected Jessie Davis, a loyal member of their voting block. Taking one council seat from them wasn't enough – they simply took it back. We must defeat all three of their candidates this year – Dee Pigsley, Bud Lane and Kurtis Barker – or we leave their political machine with the power to overturn another election.

Please visit www.siletz.net for full documentation and discussion of everything I've said here, and for ongoing coverage of the the election and our tribe. You can reach me via siletz.net if you have any questions.

Please share this letter with other tribal members.

Lynette Warren
email: areswarren(at)gmail.com

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