Early on December 24th, I submitted my candidate statement to the Election Board for publication to the Voters Pamphlet. It was submitted on time, as per the Election Board's rules, but the Election Board refuses to print it. Instead they are publishing the words, "No statement available," after my name in the Voters Pamplet. The following is my statement, as submitted to the Election Board last week.
Lynette Warren Candidate Statement
Our tribal elections are being run by individuals who do not follow our laws. At the last General Council meeting Tracey Worman and Kurtis Barker introduced themselves as the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Election Board. In truth, they were not on the Election Board since their terms had expired. Barker said the Election Ordinance gave the General Manager the authority to to appoint them to the Election Board. The Election Ordinance does no such thing, in fact it requires that the Election Board be appointed by resolution of the Tribal Council. But Worman and Barker were appointed to the Election Board by General Manager Brenda Bremner in October 2007, in direct violation of that law. They either don't care enough about our law to know it, or they don't care about breaking it. In November they were again appointed illegally to the Election Board, this time by the Tribal Council which appointed them to the Election Board for a term ending in June 2009, directly violating the Election Ordinance which requires a term of 1 year.
The relationship between the Election Board and Brenda Bremner has been especially troubling. In October Tracey Worman told me several times that Brenda Bremner was overseeing the Election Board, and that they would go to her first with questions about their duties. This was utterly inappropriate since the General Manager has no legitimate legal role in our elections. But the Election Board has considered Bremner their boss, a fact Worman confirmed in at the General Council Meeting when she admitted they would consult Bremner first on matters of policy.
Just before the 2007 General Election, Tina Retasket was removed from the Election Board because she was caught campaigning for Tribal Chairman Dee Pigsley and Vice-Chairman Bud Lane. Chairman Pigsley whitewashed the incident by failing to disclose that the Election Board member removed was in fact then Assistant General Manager Retasket. Pigsley also failed to disclose that Retasket had been campaigning for Dee Pigsley and Bud Lane. Brenda Bremner told me that she asked Tina to resign and Tina did.
But since Retasket is a political ally of Chairman Pigsley, Vice-Chairman Lane, and General Manager Bremner, there was no paper trail – there is no written record of Retasket's removal from the Election Board, although the Election Board has the resignations of other members on file. This apparently does not seem irregular to Worman and Barker.
In October of 2007 the Tribal Council illegally ducked their responsibility to appoint the Election Board and passed a resolution to have Brenda Bremner appoint the Election Board. The reason given for authorizing this was that some of the Election Board members recently appointed by the Tribal Council had resigned, including Tracey Worman and Kurtis Barker. They resigned because they were not being paid for their Election Board duties. Bremner re-appointed Worman and Barker and initiated a policy of paying tribal staff members for their Election Board duties. This was in direct violation of our Election Ordinance at the time which required that Election Board members serve without pay. The ordinance was changed in September 2008 to allow staff members to be paid, but during our last three tribal elections Election Board members were paid in violation of our law.
Bremner also took the astonishing step of re-appointing Tina Retasket to the Election Board, even though she had asked for Retasket's resignation that same year when Retasket was caught campaigning for Pigsley and Lane. And it's worse than that – Brenda Bremner told me that she appointed Tina to serve only for the referendum election in December 2007, since Retasket planned to run for General Council. Our law forbids anyone from serving on the Election Board if they plan to run for office during the coming year. Worman has stated that Retasket worked only on the referendum election. Why would that be, if Retasket was appointed for a year like all the other Election Board members? Clearly because it was known Retasket would run. And Retasket did run and win, even though she sat on the Election Board for more than a month after the other candidates had declared.
We need to clean up our elections.
There is much more I need to address as a candidate but the Election Board has now imposed a word limit on what you can be allowed to hear in these statements. You can read the rest of what I have to say on Siletz.Net.
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I sent the above statement at 12:53 AM, Dec 24. Election Board Chairman Tracey Worman confirmed that she received the statement at 8:12 AM the same day. Later that day, Election Board member Kurtis Barker sent out the following email. He didn't specify what he thought was a personal attack.
From: Kurtis Barker
Date: Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 12:14 PM
Subject: Re: Lynette Warren 2009 Candidate Statement
To: Lynette Warren
Cc: Tracey Worman
Lynette,
Your Candidates Statement "as is" below will not be approved by the Election Board.
It violates the following rule: "Candidates Statements shall not include personal attacks on individuals."
This rule was approved by Tribal Council November 8th, 2008 with Resolution No. 2008-424.
You have three options:
1. Revise your statement and have it to the Election Board by 4pm today.
2. We can approve the last 2 paragraphs. The paragraph stating "We need to clean up our elections" and the paragraph that follows. (Let us know if you want this by 4pm today)
4. You could withdraw your whole candidates statement from the Voters Pamphlet.
If your statement is not re-submitted by 4pm today, it will not be included in the Voters Pamphlet.
As a friendly reminder- you have until 4pm today to submit a photo for the Voters Pamphlet and ballot, and you have until 4pm December 29th to withdraw your candidacy and not be included in the Voters Pamphlet.
If you have any questions, please let Tracey or I know.
Kurtis Barker
Election Board