 by Randy Williams June 09, 2004
The nonsense about keeping the constituents informed is just another grab for a vote, except you are all airing your dirty laundry to the general public. I would rather not be informed my government is dysfunctional than to have to read about it daily in this forum. As a former Chairman of the Tribe it is embarrassing to admit that this is my Tribal Government, I have bragged to many of the Tribes in Washington and Oregon that my Tribe would not act like they do down here with their constant squabbling and in fighting. Ahh, but how Tribal Government has changed since Ester Shay, Mary Jones, Conrad Mather, Carol Williams, and others along with Ed Thomas reintroduced the IRA Tribal Government to the Indian people of Ketchikan. We went from a caring Government that tried to address the needs of the people to what appears to me, to be a group of individuals who cannot get along and seem to have forgotten that they are now the Tribal leaders, all of them were elected to act like and perform the duties of a Government. I read all this nonsense from the leadership trying to point fingers and accuse each other of political mis-doings. You all were elected to perform a duty for your community and not to try to position yourselves for re-election and/or some warped power play under the guise of a caring and concerned government. A concerned Government deals with issues like housing, medical care, education, the welfare of it's people, and in the case of KIC the preservation of the Tribal Cultures. A letter in Tuesday's Forum talks about the Dungeness crabs disappearing, why isn't KIC and more directly its Governmental leadership speaking to that issue? There was a very good herring article a couple of weeks ago, where is that Tribal opinion? The Abalone have disappeared except for collection by the commercial fisherman, why aren't there more tribal leader responses concerning that issue? The preservation of our traditional food sources is as much if not more a part of our culture than singing and dancing and it is certainly more important than arguing with each other and attempting to recall elected officials. Recalls are a tool that should
only be used when a gross act of misappropriation of funds is
involved, not to gain council power. Isn't it time you all stopped
this internal struggle and moved onto the important governmental
issues you were charged with when you took the oath to accept
the office of leadership for KIC and it's people. I would ask
all of you to settle these issues in-house and stop airing them
for all to see, BE A GOVERNMENT, FOR THE PEOPLE, and stop using
this forum to discuss your issues, it's embarrassing. Randy Williams
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