CKON Controversy Continues

On Monday I sat down with Jerry Cook so the community can be aware of all sides of the struggle at CKON. This interview discusses the June 27th meeting, as well as some of the concerns of the community about the board. Jerry Cook does plan on having another meeting, but there is no concrete date as of right now.

About the June 27th meeting:

The board has made a revised Constitution and By-laws. The lawyer, C. Desrochers was going to go through them at the meeting. These by-laws have been accepted by the board but need approval from the community. Jerry said they may need changes and the board wanted to get input and approval from the community at the meeting. The board also wanted to go over the responsibilities of the board of directors.

Jerry said, “My impression of how the meeting was going to go was the board members, and myself included, was going to give my intentions to stay on the board until all this is cleaned up, and then I am going to be gone.” He says the store eats up his time. He stated, “every one of the interim boards meetings was tomorrow [meaning last minute] and mine was two and a half weeks [notice].”

“Basically we just wanted to move on, lets work together. And the fact that they [interim board] showed up to our general meeting was a good sign that they wanted to be part and get on the board. I thought if we got to that bottom agenda were we had a seat open...another member or two or three, I really don’t know how many board members would have said I’m done, I want out. So the seats would have been open, the community meeting would have been open for them to nominate those seats and I really thought we’d get to that point. The interim board wants to be part of us that’s the signal I got right from the start.”

Why hasn’t there been community board meetings?

“No one cared, it was okay when we had no money, when we had no money in the bank and just paying bills week to week, nobody cared.”

About the new by-laws:

“ We started going over them a year and a half ago, there’s like two or three of them in place, we didn’t change anything we took the best of each one. I don’t think even the original one was ratified by a big community meeting, it was just a handful of people.”

Are the “Terms of Office” on the new Bylaws from the original Bylaws?

“Basically, the original one stated that the board could put their intentions in to stay on.

The old one [constitution/by-laws] says a director shall be elected at the annual meeting for the term of one year, so basically all you do is reinstate your intentions at the annual meeting.”

“What the policy states is an indefinite term because if you declare your intentions to stay on the board and it’s approved by community members then you can be on the board as long as the community wants you on there.”

Is there suppose to be an election for board members every 2 years?

“No it’s supposed to be every year, a board member says I declare my intention to stay on the board. The community, whoever’s at the meeting agrees, and you’re on the board for another year. If there is a seat to be filled then you nominate somebody from the floor, we vote them in.”

How did you get on the board?

“Just declared my intention to be on the board, at a meeting 9 years ago, supposedly a community meeting.” (I said, “Where 23 people elected you?”) Jerry said, “there was more than that there, didn’t even get elected really just the handful of us that volunteered to be on the new board and the old board just walked away. They had no signing authority, they had nothing to do with the management or the operation of CKON. They were a true board they just sat back and handled situations or any grievances from staff, but they didn’t have signing authority like we do.”

Is being a board member a voluntary or paid position?

“It was [voluntary] for 7 ½ years. Everything we did was all-volunteer up to a year and a half ago. We are micromanaging now. $50 per diem for each monthly meeting, no weekly paycheck. The only reason that per diem came is because we were losing members. No one would show up [to meetings] so now we got a per diem, and they show up. We have had monthly meetings and they are documented and all in our files, there were no secret meetings.”

About the lawyer:

“The bank said ‘get a lawyer.’ We established the accounts. We’ve had signing authority for the last four, five, six years all of the sudden the bank says ‘you get a lawyer’. So our appointed lawyer to unfreeze the accounts wanted to talk to the chairman of the interim boards lawyer, and the bank says he doesn’t have one.” The bank accounts are still frozen and Jerry says he’s been trying to unfreeze them.

About Donations:

“The other grievance from the interim board and community members is that we weren’t donating back to the community. Tuesday night bingos, each organization gets 750$.

In 2011 we gave $20,000 to the Diabetes Centre. So money has been pouring back into the community. We’ve got 2 board members that love to golf, like the dialysis center tournament, they get a spot, golf, and donate back, they have never taken prizes for themselves.”

About the financial report Jerry stated, “It [CKON]is non-profit and community owned, so there is no profit. It is called excess over revenue.”

Who owns the building? I asked about the 614,978$ building expense.

“That might have been the cost of the original building. Well supposedly Onake funded the grant. Then there was a 20-year lease on it that the government gave the grant money for a communication building for 20 years, they wanted to make sure that’s what it was used for-CKON and Indian Time. After the 20 years it was supposed to go to the Akwesasne Communication Society. But then you get into the logistics ‘who is the Akwesasne Communication Society?’ We’re the CKON Board of Directors also the Akwesasne Communication Society but we don’t work together with Indian Time and Indian Time should be included in that society. Onake was represented at the meeting, Bernice Lazore, and she said ‘we still own the building’…I don’t know maybe you do?”

The 614,978$ was before his time and he has never seen a bill of sale or title.

Is a board member going on the Rome trip?

“It was brought up at a meeting and one board member volunteered to go with Rene, cause Rene is going to represent and report back. She’s [board member] been on the board for 9 years and volunteered for 7 ½.” The board approved for her to go but Jerry explained that some community members were upset, however, they had no problem if Jerry, as president of the board, went to Rome. He says he has no desire to go.

Who is CKON licensed by?

“We are licensed by MCA and the St. Regis Tribe. We wanted the Nation to come back on board to have the tri-party to keep the radio licensing agencies off our back [FCC etc.] I did go to a meeting at the Longhouse and requested that they recognize and license us and they said ‘we don’t have any input’ and that was it. About the financial report I don’t remember. We never had a financial report.”

Do you need the community’s consent to hire a lawyer?

“I don’t think so, the bank told us to.”

Was CKON fined $10,000 by Canada Revenue Service for not reporting income of a nonnative employee?

“There was paperwork that they were not reporting properly for a nonnative worker but that was taken care of. I can’t tell you 100% there wasn’t a fine, but I don’t think it was 10,000$.”

Do you need community approval to get the $50 per diem?

“No.”