Letter to the editor:

Sekon Akwesasne;

With the Tribal caucus less than two weeks away; shouldn’t it be priority for the Tribal Election Board and the Tribal Council to listen to the people? The past referendum was decided by a huge number of absentee ballots cast by Tribal Members who never even lived here or may have visited a couple of times over the past two or three generations. How more often than not do you hear stories like “Yeah my grandmother was Indian.”

Like Pete J. Terrance wrote a few weeks back... it was apparent that those Akwesasronon who live here “full-time” were not in favor of the Sullivan County Casino Project.

Major decisions we as a community must live by and are forced to endure should not be opened up for those that choose not to reside here.

There you go, the tribe claims to be building a better tomorrow, but whose laws and policies are they hand fed and forcing all of our people to live by; New York State and the United States of America.

At lease four appeals were made but the board upheld the January 30th YES vote no matter how the people felt. It wasn’t a close vote and it was definitely not fair. Many people questioned the referendum, and made appeals how could so many be totally wrong?

In retrospect we KNOW that by investigating and correlating documents there is evidence that it was bias and conducted by members of both the Legal and Public Information Office of the Tribe.

Never in the history of the tribal government has a referendum ever been decided by absentee ballots. Neither have the people ever witnessed such dictatorial action of the Tribal Council in the swaying of a referendum. The council used the people’s money and might to swing the YES vote, but why was this action taken so imperative?

The vote which was objected to last November lost by a measly 40 or so votes with a little over two hundred people taking part.

Is it because the Tribal Council has been conducting a fruitless vision of making billions of dollars in Sullivan County licking this evasive billion dollar lollipop that they have taken on for the past fifteen years?

Though the tribal council publicly stated verbally and in writing that they only spent a little less than five thousand dollars to conduct the referendum they imply that they have tons of money to spend.

Let me tell you what they did... the Tribal Council used their monthly publication Kawenni:ios aka Good Words and mailed it to all of heads of families of 13,000 to 15,000 enrolled tribal members. They offered the people a biased pamphlet prompting the YES vote. In their rhetoric they said there were four positive aspects of a YES vote which were money for the tribe, jobs or enrolled members of the tribe and contractors, more revenue for tribal programs perhaps even per capita payments. On the negative end they said the project would involve a separate tribal corporation would be created and if the deal failed the tribe could get a black eye on its credit rating.

Seems like a win-win situation for everyone! Who has gotten what over the past three months?

The Tribe used their Legal and Public Information Office as well as their work time, expenses, employees and mailing costs in their quest.

Their newsletter Good Words is mailed monthly to tribal members. Where do they get the money to produce and send this to people? They get the production from their highly paid employees.

Actually, it’s a compilation of what the tribal council wants you to know about the happenings at the tribe.

It never includes inserts of who took this or that pay-off, who ripped who off, who stole whose land, who’s backstabbing who, who was arrested or who received the latest DWI,

So, in essence how much did all of this cost the people in terms of time and money? It cost a lot more than five thousand dollars.

Funny each month we read the front page article in the tribe’s newsletter which is voiced by one member of the tribal council. They state how lovely the weather is and hasn’t it been such a long winter, but never elude on answering pertinent questions. They can’t or won’t tell us how much we are in deficit. They don’t go into how much the Sullivan County Deal has already cost the people.

Tribal members go to the monthly meetings and ask questions only to be put off for a special meeting. The special meeting is usually held mid week when it’s more inconvenient for anyone to attend.

Yes. People politics is and can be a dirty word. With the Caucus about nine day’s away people should investigate the brave candidates to find out first hand what they truly believe in. But, look to the ones who live here! Look at the ones who speak and act like true leaders; look to those that are there for the people, all of the people and not just the ones who are there to further their own interests or are there simply to pave the roads of gold for their benefactors.

Cynthia Smoke

Akwesasne

613-575-2270