Oglala Sioux Tribe President John Yellow Bird Steele. Photo by Bureau of Indian Affairs
Tribe continues to borrow against funds they have never received
By Jeffrey Whalen
Native Sun News Today Columnist
nativesunnews.today The Oglala’s finished with casting their Primary Election votes and as of Saturday, Oct. 15, 2016, the election office has decided to wait until Monday, Oct. 17, 2016 to tally the 400 plus challenge votes that they received. My question is; what is the election decision of the Oyate going to do for the next administrations tribal debt and poor economic conditions? It looks like most of the council members are closer to retaining their seats for the new cycle and that only four of them will not make it into the General Election. Ellen Fills the Pipe from Oglala didn’t quite make the deadline to resubmit her petition. Mike Her Many Horses from Wounded Knee decided that he would not run for re-election. Donn Fire Thunder from La Creek appears to have been beat during the Primary and Marilyn Charging Crow from Eagle Nest appears to have been out voted as well. So we still have fifteen current council members who will have a strong potential to continue down their paths of making decisions for the tribal government for the upcoming political season. Right now, they seem to be in a hurry to expend the Ramah Settlement funds of which they have not received yet. It would seem that the pressure is mostly off for the bulk of the council members and maybe, just maybe, they should all slow down a bit and reconsider their positions on spending. They should reel back in their potential for jumping the gun in an ill-advised effort to use up all of the Ramah dollars prior to the end of this administration. They have already borrowed four million of those dollars and still have not received anything from the actual settlement. I’ll bet the interest charges is going to take a substantial amount of money from the settlement dollars which will leave the Oglala tribal members with even less resources once again. It seems like the only real winner is always the First National Bank in Gordon who conveniently agrees to float huge loans to the tribe when the tribe is on their financial knees begging for monetary assistance.
Read the rest of the story on the Native Sun News Today website: Tribe continues to borrow against funds they have never received (Contact Jeffrey Whalen at Jeffery.whalen2@gmail.com Copyright permission Native Sun News
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