Tulalip News

Feds say Native Mob gang dented but work remains

Federal prosecutors say they’ve weakened a violent American Indian gang known for terrorizing people in the Upper Midwest now that an alleged leader and two members have been convicted in one of the largest gang cases to come out of Indian Country.

By Steve Karnowski, Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS — Federal prosecutors say they’ve weakened a violent American Indian gang known for terrorizing people in the Upper Midwest now that an alleged leader and two members have been convicted in one of the largest gang cases to come out of Indian Country.

But investigators acknowledge their work isn’t done in Minnesota or other states where the Native Mob is active, noting that the gang has been around for a long time.

“We have some conservative confidence that we did put a dent (in the gang) but we’re also very realistic and know that law enforcement will continue to pursue gang activity including the Native Mob,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Winter said after jurors handed down convictions Tuesday on an array of racketeering and other charges.

“The verdicts reflect the seriousness of the crimes that were being committed by the Native Mob, which includes not only drug trafficking, but discharging of firearms at innocent people, and trafficking firearms, and basically wreaking havoc through communities throughout the state of Minnesota,” he said.

A federal jury in Minneapolis convicted the alleged Native Mob leader, 34-year-old Wakinyon Wakan McArthur, on drug and weapons charges – but also on a charge of racketeering conspiracy, which is often used to target organized crime.

Two of the gang’s alleged “soldiers” – Anthony Francis Cree, 26, and William Earl Morris, 25 – also were convicted of multiple charges including attempted murder in aid of racketeering. The latter charge stemmed from the shooting of another man that prosecutors alleged McArthur ordered, though his attorneys disputed the claim and McArthur was acquitted on that charge. But only Morris was acquitted on the top racketeering charge.

Defense attorneys said the government’s case was overblown, arguing that while gang members may have committed individual crimes, there was no evidence to support racketeering charges alleging the trio was part of a large, organized criminal group.

The three men were the only defendants who rejected plea deals after 25 people were indicted in the case last year. Several of those individuals testified during the trial, which Winter said should give other gang members pause knowing they can’t trust their co-conspirators.

A sentencing date has not yet been set, but all three men face between 20 years and life in prison, prosecutors said.

“The Native Mob has been a real detriment to native American communities throughout the state of Minnesota,” fellow prosecutor Steve Schliecher said. “Their game plan is to promote fear, and that’s the base of their power, and I think their power is diminished by this jury’s verdict. It’s going to allow people to have the rights to not live in fear, to continue on their peaceful lives.”

McArthur’s attorney, Frederick Goetz, said his client’s acquittal for attempted murder indicates the jury recognized the three defendants’ culpabilities varied.

“It was a mixed result for a mixed verdict,” Goetz said, adding that he would likely appeal.

Cree’s attorney, John Brink, said the verdicts were inconsistent, giving them an issue to use in their appeal.

Morris’ attorney, Tom Shiah, cited the same issue about inconsistent verdicts. He said he was glad Morris was acquitted of the racketeering charge but acknowledged his client was still “looking at a boatload of time.”

Federal authorities say they’ve been investigating the Native Mob, though not these three defendants, since 2004, and have now secured 30 convictions since 2007.

In the latest case, investigators said they were targeting a criminal enterprise that used intimidation and violence to maintain power. Prosecutors said the case was important not only because of its size, but because the racketeering charge is rarely used against gangs.

The 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment called the Native Mob one of the largest and most violent American Indian gangs in the U.S., most active in Minnesota and Wisconsin but also in Michigan, North Dakota and South Dakota. It is made up of mostly American Indian men and boys, and started in Minneapolis in the 1990s as members fought for turf to deal drugs. The Native Mob is also active in prison.

The Native Mob had about 200 members, with a structure that included monthly meetings where members were encouraged to assault or kill enemies, or anyone who showed disrespect, according to the indictment. Authorities said McArthur would direct other members to carry out beatings, shootings and other violent acts to intimidate rivals.

The trial, which began in January, included nearly 1,000 exhibits and 180 witnesses.

—

Associated Press writer Amy Forliti contributed to this story.

We Day concert/rally expected to draw 15,000

We Day, an event to celebrate and encourage local and global action by young people, is expected to draw 15,000 to KeyArena on Wednesday.

By Jack Broom, The Seattle Times

Erika Schultz / The Seattle TimesSixth-grader Aimee Coronado, 12, left, and ninth-grader Emily Barrick, 15, have been fundraising for local and international causes at Federal Way Public Academy and will attend We Day on Wednesday. The event, held in Canada, makes its U.S. debut at KeyArena. — Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times
Sixth-grader Aimee Coronado, 12, left, and ninth-grader Emily Barrick, 15, have been fundraising for local and international causes at Federal Way Public Academy and will attend We Day on Wednesday. The event, held in Canada, makes its U.S. debut at KeyArena.

By themselves, jangly bracelets made from soda-can pull tabs by Emily Barrick, 15, and other Federal Way Public Academy students for a charity fashion show aren’t going to save the world.

Nor will the funky brown scarves made from shredded T-shirts by other Federal Way students, including Aimee Coronado, 12.

Same with the stack of book bags taken to a girls school in India by Bijou Basu, 16, a student at The Overlake School in Redmond.

But taken together — and combined with thousands of other acts by thousands of other students — these individual good deeds begin to have real power.

That’s the thinking behind We Day, expected to draw some 15,000 middle- and high-school students and supporters from 400 schools across the state to KeyArena Wednesday.

“When young people choose to become active for a cause … When they are passionate about serving others, they are not alone,” said Craig Kielburger, co-founder of Free the Children, the Toronto-based charity organizing the event.

Students couldn’t buy tickets to the event, part concert and part pep rally. They earned their way in, by committing to work on at least one local and one global service project.

Performers and celebrities on tap include Jennifer Hudson, Magic Johnson, Martin Sheen, Mia Farrow, Nelly Furtado and Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil-rights leader.

Students will also hear from Spencer West, who despite having had both legs amputated, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, on his hands. And from 9-year-old Robby Novak, better known as “Kid President” in popular YouTube videos (including a recent one in which he picked Gonzaga to win the NCAA basketball tournament.)

Co-hosts are Munro Chambers and Melinda Shankar of the TV series “Degrassi,” who have made overseas trips on Free the Children projects.

This is Free the Children’s 24th We Day, and the first outside Canada.

The organization has been featured on “60 Minutes,” and past We Days have included such notable speakers as former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and the Dalai Lama.

It plans to continue its international expansion with an event in Minnesota later this year, and one next year in London.

Kielburger, now 30, was 12 when he saw a news report about the murder of a boy his age in Pakistan who had been forced into working in a carpet factory at the age of 4.

With his older brother, Marc, Kielburger formed Free the Children, which hosted its first We Day in Toronto in 2007.

Since then, backers say, the events have helped raise $26 million for 900 different causes, and led to 5.1 million hours of volunteer service.

Erika Schultz / The Seattle TimesFederal Way Public Academy students created bracelets made from Starburst wrappers for a charity fashion show. — Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times
Federal Way Public Academy students created bracelets made from Starburst wrappers for a charity fashion show.

“Our goal is to systematically bring service learning into schools … just like reading, writing and arithmetic,” Kielburger said

That’s already happening. Federal Way Public Schools, which is sending more than 1,200 students and chaperones to We Day, has a districtwide focus on service, which includes raising money for an adopted village in Sierra Leone.

In addition, individual schools have projects of their own. Federal Way Public Academy, an academics-focused alternative school, is sending about a third of its 306 students to We Day.

Projects at that school include the fashion show to benefit homeless teens in the Puget Sound area, and an annual carnival to help build a school in a village in Kenya.

At The Overlake School in Redmond, 60 students, active in a variety of causes, are planning to go to We Day. Overlake students are required to put in a number of hours each year on causes they select.

Basu, an 11th-grader at Overlake, read Kielburger’s book, “Free the Children,” four years ago and was inspired by the idea of helping people but was unsure how to get started.

Last year, she and her mother, who is from India, traveled to that country as volunteers for a Seattle-based organization, People for Progress in India. In West Bengal, they visited a school for children of commercial sex workers.

“No child should have to go through what these girls were going through,” she said. She brought them book bags and other school supplies. “I could see it really meant something to them that there were people out there who cared about them.”

Returning home, she encouraged other students to join Free the Children or other causes.

We Day chose Seattle for its U.S. debut, Kielburger said, partly because of the enthusiasm of Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll, who’ll be there with several Seahawks players. Carroll is co-chair of the event, along with Connie Ballmer, philanthropist and wife of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Carroll heard Kielburger speak two years ago at a Tacoma event honoring retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

“Craig has this tremendous passion and energy about helping people,” Carroll said. “I tracked him down and I invited him to bring it to the U.S., which they were already thinking about.”

Microsoft and Amway are title sponsors of the event. The Seattle Times is among its regional media partners.

Students drawn to We Day already have decided to become active, and this will reinforce that decision, said Federal Way’s Coronado.

“I think everyone has the potential to do something great,” she said. “We Day is like a little shove to help get you going.”

Mitch Albom: ‘Vietnam Vet Deserves a Friendlier Farewell’

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

On Sunday, March 24, Mitch Albom, the award-winning Detroit Free Press columnist and best-selling author of Tuesdays With Morrie, wrote about a Vietnam veteran who recently passed away, alone and homeless. The vet, who served with honor as a Marine in Vietnam, was living on the mean streets of downtown Detroit, struggling with alcohol and poverty and confined to a wheelchair. As Albom asks, “Does this sound familiar?”

For too many vets, it does. This is especially true for Native vets. As ICTMN has reported, the 2010 Veteran Homelessness supplemental assessment report to Congress indicated a disturbing statistic that showed that American Indian and Alaska Native veterans who are poor are two times more likely to be homeless than American Indian and Alaska Native non-veterans who are poor

The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that more than 300,000 vets are homeless on any given night. Here are excepts from Albom’s poignant column on one of these men; read the full article here.

If you knew Sanderious Crocker, please read this.

He died.

He was 67. Folks called him Sam. He was living in poverty in downtown Detroit. A Vietnam veteran who was seriously wounded, he’d been homeless for a while. He struggled with alcohol. Maybe you know this. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you lost touch. Maybe you wanted to.

Whatever the case, you should know that Sam’s body had been sitting at a Detroit morgue for a week before a friend called me and asked whether there was a way to find his family — any family — because a soldier shouldn’t die alone and neglected.

He left behind his papers. I am looking at his discharge form now. It says he served four years in the Marine Corps, in 1964-68. It says he earned badges for pistol and rifle marksmanship. It says he won several medals.

Under “Character of Service” is one word:

“Honorable.”

…

Maybe you knew Sam. Maybe you didn’t. Maybe you feel bad for his ending. Maybe you don’t. I can’t sit here and tell you Sam was a great man or even a good one. But I do know he served when his country called, and he paid a price, and the military sent him off with the word “honorable.”

Maybe we should do the same.

Online classes paired with advocate for at-risk students

Photo: Dan Bates / The HeraldMadison Conlon works at one of three tables occupied by her fellow American Academy students at the Mountain View Diner in Sultan on Thursday. The students meet each week with their Sultan School district advocate, Dayna Monteleon, who helps students deal with non-academic issues to keep them on track with their studies. — Photo: Dan Bates / The Herald
Madison Conlon works at one of three tables occupied by her fellow American Academy students at the Mountain View Diner in Sultan on Thursday. The students meet each week with their Sultan School district advocate, Dayna Monteleon, who helps students deal with non-academic issues to keep them on track with their studies.

Students at risk of dropping out of high school are taking classes online but also have an advocate who can address non-academic issues and keep them on task.

By Melissa Slager, The Herald

Willem Gmazel had just completed his junior year at Bothell High School when he said he started “acting really crazy.”

Anxiety and depression hit; he was unable to sleep in a regular pattern. The problems persisted into his senior year, so he switched to the Northshore School District’s alternative Secondary Academy for Success.

Attending regularly scheduled classes remained a struggle, however, and Gmazel was close to becoming a statistic — among the nearly 1 in 4 Washington teens who disappear from high school altogether.

But he didn’t want to give up.

“I wanted to graduate, you know? I didn’t want to have to get a GED or anything like that. I wanted my diploma, even though I was going through a tough time,” he said.

With the support of his mother, Gmazel asked school staff about the possibility of online courses. He soon was enrolled in The American Academy, which offers online courses and pairs students with hired “advocates” who help keep teens on task and on course for graduation.

The Northshore School District is in its second year using the program, also called NoDropouts.com.

Since it started, five students — including Gmazel — have graduated with Northshore diplomas through the online program.

The Sultan School District also has used the program for a little more than two years. Three students have graduated.

In February, the Edmonds School District penned an agreement with The American Academy to try the program for one year.

Like other districts, Edmonds already has a range of options for students beyond the traditional high school program, including alternative schools, online classes, Running Start college courses and more.

The American Academy program will target those who have already dropped out and work with them one-on-one to get back on track. “If that helps just one student acquire a diploma who otherwise might not have earned one, than it is an initiative worth trying,” Assistant Superintendent Patrick Murphy said.

Jordan Stengrim, 17, of Gold Bar, is taking courses through the Sultan-based American Academy program and is on track to graduate by next summer.

Stengrim said he was failing classes at Sultan High School, the result of frequent absences and a lack of focus in the classroom. Since switching to The American Academy online courses, his grades have improved dramatically, he said.

Stengrim said he likes doing things at his own pace. “To me it’s easier than regular school because I don’t want to talk to my friends all the time,” he added.

The American Academy is accredited and is on the state’s OK list for digital learning programs. Licensed teachers teach core classes, which are said to meet the state’s learning standards. Tutors are available via live chat, 24/7. Students who don’t have access to a computer with Internet are provided a laptop.

A key component of the NoDropouts program is a “student advocate,” who is not a teacher but someone who keeps regular tabs on students and tries to address non-academic problems.

“I’m available to the kids on weekends, at night. If they have a problem they can call me or text me,” said Dayna Monteleon, the American Academy-hired student advocate for the Sultan School District. “If they’re not getting their work done, I’ll go knock on their door. … I’m basically the only face-to-face contact they have. Everyone else they interact with is online.”

Monteleon worked with youth in Sultan before taking the advocate job. Now living in Bremerton for a second job, she maintains her role with The American Academy and commutes to the east Snohomish County city for weekly meet-ups with students. Her 18-year-old son also still lives in Sultan, completing his studies at the district’s alternative Sky Valley Options program.

In both Northshore and Sultan, prospective students must meet with district administrators first.

In Northshore, Donna Tyo is that gateway. She heads up the district’s secondary alternative programs as principal of the Secondary Academy for Success.

The American Academy is not for everyone, Tyo said.

Students who take online courses must be self-motivated, she said. They tend to be bright students who simply have a barrier to learning in a traditional environment, either because of work schedules, anxiety problems or other issues.

Gmazel, the recent graduate, for example, was already engaged in other aspects of high school life, competing on the Bothell High School wrestling team, and his SAT scores were good enough to pursue college studies.

Tyo has turned to the online classes to convince a professional skateboarder that getting his diploma is still important and for a high-anxiety teen who struggled in the classroom environment.

The online program has become part of “a palette of options” and creative maneuvers Tyo employs to prevent dropouts in the first place. “Whatever works,” she said.

Indeed, while NoDropouts is billed as a kind of dropout headhunter — tracking down students who have already left and getting them to come back — the program often becomes more of a prevention tool for school districts.

Phil Bouie is the American Academy-hired student advocate for the Northshore School District. Most times, students find him.

“We get a lot of students who get recommended to us through the school district. A lot of our students also have other peers or friends who are in a similar situation,” Bouie said.

As an advocate, Bouie has helped students craft resumes, locate organizations for required volunteer hours and find shelter. “Pretty much anytime a student needs help, I try to help,” he said.

The American Academy is not without its problems.

State auditors have scrutinized online education programs in recent years. The American Academy was at the center of two audit findings, in Sultan and Sunnyside. A lot of the problems linked to bad record-keeping. In Sultan, it means $66,619 of state funding is in question and may have to be paid back, pending a state review.

The American Academy is hired to do the work. “But it’s under our name. So if something gets messed up, we pay the piper,” said Dan Chaplik, superintendent in Sultan.

Only a fraction of students who enter the NoDropouts program earn diplomas. A few are too far behind and are steered to GED programs. Some are brought up to speed, then transfer back to district-based programs. Others drop out again.

Program staff focus on the positive stories, including 200 successful exits last year nationwide — students leaving the program with diplomas or to head back into regular school programs. Roughly 1,100 students are currently in the program, including 600 in Washington.

“We are working with the toughest cases,” said Matthew LaPlante, a spokesman for the Utah-based American Academy. Regardless of teens’ reasons for dropping out, “they deserve a second chance.”

In January, Gmazel donned cap and gown and attended a Northshore School Board meeting to receive his diploma.

Now living in Olympia, Gmazel is volunteering and looking for work while waiting to hear back from The Evergreen State College on his application. He wants to study sustainable agriculture.

Gmazel said he’s sleeping and feeling better. He has a plan and is hopeful about his future.

“I’m pretty good. I feel like before all this happened, pretty much,” he said.

Both sides of gun debate make public appeals

By Michelle Salcedo, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Two of the loudest voices in the gun debate say it’s up to voters now to make their position known to Congress.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and National Rifle Associate Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre claim their opposing views on guns have the support of the overwhelming number of Americans. They are looking at the next two weeks as critical to the debate, when lawmakers head home to hear from constituents ahead of next month’s anticipated Senate vote on gun control.

Bloomberg, a former Republican-turned-independent, has just sunk $12 million for Mayors Against Illegal Guns to run television ads and phone banks in 13 states urging voters to tell their senators to pass legislation requiring universal background checks for gun buyers.

“We demanded a plan and then we demanded a vote. We’ve got the plan, we’re going to get the vote. And now it’s incumbent on us to make our voices heard,” said Bloomberg.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday that legislation would likely be debated in his chamber next month that will include expanded federal background checks, tougher laws and stiffer sentences for gun trafficking and increased school safety grants. A ban on assault-style weapons was dropped from the bill, fearing it would sink the broader bill. But Reid has said that he would allow the ban to be voted on separately as an amendment. President Barack Obama called for a vote on the assault weapons ban in his radio and Internet address Saturday.

Recalling the horrific shooting three months ago at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that left 20 first graders and six school administrators dead, Bloomberg said it would be a great tragedy if Congress, through inaction, lost the moment to make the country safer from gun violence. Bloomberg said that 90 percent of Americans and 80 percent of NRA members support universal background checks for gun purchases.

“I don’t think there’s ever been an issue where the public has spoken so clearly, where Congress hasn’t eventually understood and done the right thing,” Bloomberg said.

But the NRA’s LaPierre counters that universal background checks are “a dishonest premise.” For example, mental health records are exempt from databases and criminals won’t submit to the checks. Background checks, he said, are a “speed bump” in the system that “slows down the law-abiding and does nothing for anybody else.”

“The shooters in Tucson, in Aurora, in Newtown, they’re not going to be checked. They’re unrecognizable,” LaPierre said. He was referring to the 2011 shooting in a Tucson shopping center that killed six and wounded 13, including former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and the July assault in a suburban Denver movie theater that killed 12 and injured 70. In both instances, as well as in the Newtown killings, the alleged shooters used military-style assault rifles with high-capacity ammunition magazines.

LaPierre slammed Bloomberg for the ad buy.

“He’s going to find out this is a country of the people, by the people, and for the people. And he can’t spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public,” LaPierre said, adding, “He can’t buy America.”

“Millions of people” from across the country are sending the NRA “$5, $10, $15, $20 checks, saying stand up to this guy,” LaPierre said, referring to Bloomberg.

LaPierre said the NRA supports a bill to get the records of those adjudicated mentally incompetent and dangerous into the background check system for gun dealers, better enforcement of federal gun laws and beefed up penalties for illegal third-party purchases and gun trafficking. Shortly after the Newtown shooting, LaPierre called for armed security guards in schools as well.

LaPierre would like to see Congress pass a law that “updates the system and targets those mentally incompetent adjudicated into the system” and forces the administration to enforce the federal gun laws.

“It won’t happen until the national media gets on the administration and calls them out for their incredible lack of enforcement of these laws,” LaPierre said.

In Colorado, a state with a pioneer tradition of gun ownership and self-reliance, Gov. John Hickenlooper just signed bills requiring background checks for private and online gun sales. The legislation also would ban ammunition magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.

“After the shootings last summer in the movie theater, we really focused on mental health first then universal background checks,” Hickenlooper said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I think the feeling right now around assault weapons, at least in Colorado, is that they’re so hard to define what an assault weapon is.”

Hickenlooper said he met with a group of protesters against the bills in Grand Junction, Colo., were “very worried about government keeping a centralized database, which I assured them wasn’t going to happen.” The protesters, he added, view the background checks as “just the first step in trying to take guns away.”

Teenagers can learn outdoor leadership

Source: The Herald

Interested in a summer adventure? Applications are due soon for students who would like to attend the Youth Leadership program.

Students from ages 14 to 22 can apply to spend time in the North Cascades with the North Cascades Institute. The program offers eight-, 15- or 31-day trips focusing on outdoor leadership, service, science, communication skills and public speaking.

Most of the courses are designed for students without previous outdoors experience.

The courses offered are:

•Outdoor Leadership and Stewardship, ages 14 to 16, eight-day course, includes canoeing, backpacking, leadership, public speaking and communication skills, and trail and campground maintenance.

Science and Sustainability, ages 16 to 18, 15-day course, includes canoeing and backpacking, science monitoring and stewardship, leadership and public speaking skills, sustainability practices, and a final ranger program presentation.

Leadership Corps, ages 18 to 22, 31-day course, for students who are alumni of North Cascades or similar programs, includes more in-depth wilderness and leadership work.

Students work on backcountry trail maintenance and restoration work, and learn about natural resource management and careers in public lands. Includes an $800 stipend.

Applications for the program are due April 1. Get more information, including an application at ncascades.org/signup/youth. The fees for the classes are on a sliding scale and scholarships are offered. Scholarship applications are also available on the website.

Children’s Museum offers four spring vacation camps

Imagine Children’s Museum has the answer you’re looking for: What to do with the kids on spring break.

Source: The Herald

It’s called camp. And they have them for every age group. Little ones must be potty trained. Early registration is recommended because the camps fill up fast.

Call 425-258-1006, ext.1012, or email. education@imaginecm.org to register. You can also go to the website and click on the camp you want, www.imaginecm.org.

Here’s the lineup:

The Guild of Geniuses for ages 3 to 5: 9 to 11 a.m. April 1. Build things, experiment and listen to the book “Guild of Geniuses” by Dan Santat. Members, $35, nonmembers, $40 per child.

Music Makers for ages 3 to 5: 1 to 3 p.m. April 4. Sing, dance and make a drum. Members, $35, nonmembers, $40 per child.

April Fools for grades one to five: Two sessions 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m. Learn some hilarious pranks, all very scientific, to wow your friends and family. Members, $35 for one session and $60 for both; nonmembers pay $40 and $75.

Crack the Case for ages 6 and up: 1 to 4 p.m. April 4. Help solve The Case of the Strange and Sonorous Song of Spring. Members, $35 and nonmembers, $40.

See free movies at libraries

School’s out for a week beginning April 1. How about free movies at the library?

Source: The Herald

The Everett Public Library Evergreen branch, 9512 Evergreen Way, Everett, is offering a Spring Break Family Film Fest of PG-rated movies at 1 p.m. beginning April 1 (no fooling) and continuing every day next week:

April 1: “Wreck It Ralph”

April 2: “Frankenweenie”

April 3: “ParaNorman”

April 4: “Brave”

April 5: “Madagascar 3”

For more information, call 425-257-8250.

Some Sno-Isle libraries are also showing kid-friendly movies this week:

April 3: “The Odd Life of Timothy Green,” 5:30 p.m. at Coupeville Library, 788 NW Alexander St., 360-678-4911.

April 4: “Rise of the Guardians,” (mildly scary) 4 p.m. at Edmonds Library, 650 Main St. 425-771-1933.

April 4: “ParaNorman,” 2 p.m. at Mukilteo Library, 4675 Harbour Pointe Blvd., 425-493-8202.

April 6: “The Odd Life of Timothy Green,” 11 a.m. at Darrington Library, 1005 Cascade St., 360-436-1600.

April 6: “The Odd Life of Timothy Green,” 2 p.m. at Oak Harbor Library, 1000 SE Regatta Drive, 360-675-5115.

As casinos struggle, tribes seek more federal aid

Once the envy of Indian Country for its billion-dollar casino empire, the tribe that owns the Foxwoods Resort Casino has been struggling through a financial crisis and pursuing more revenue from an unlikely source: U.S. government grants.

By Michael Melia, Associated Press

LEDYARD, Conn. — Once the envy of Indian Country for its billion-dollar casino empire, the tribe that owns the Foxwoods Resort Casino has been struggling through a financial crisis and pursuing more revenue from an unlikely source: U.S. government grants.

The money provided annually to the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation through the Interior Department and the Department of Health and Human Services has risen over the last five years to more than $4.5 million, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act. One former tribal employee says department leaders were encouraged to offset dwindling resources by seeking more federal grants.

The Pequots, who once distributed stipends exceeding $100,000 annually to adult members, are not alone among gaming tribes seeking more federal aid. Several, including the owner of Foxwoods’ rival Connecticut casino, the Mohegan Sun, say they have been pursuing more grants – a trend that critics find galling because the law that gave rise to Indian casinos was intended to help tribes become financially self-sufficient.

“The whole purpose of the 1988 law which authorized Indian casinos was to help federally-recognized tribes raise money to run their governments by building casinos on their reservations,” said Robert Steele, a former Congressman from Connecticut. “I would argue strongly that federal money was meant for struggling tribes. Certainly the Mashantucket Pequots and the Mohegans couldn’t under any circumstances be put in that category.”

As long as they have federal recognition, casino-owning tribes are eligible for the same grant programs as the larger tribes based on large, poverty-stricken reservations in the American West. The grants, which don’t need to be paid back, support tribal governments by paying for programs such as health screenings, road maintenance and environmental preservation.

“The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation is proud of the work they do with the use of federal funds when it comes to assisting the region and fellow Native Americans,” said Bill Satti, a tribal spokesman, who said the grants have supported the tribe’s medical clinic and repair work on local roadways.

Thomas Weissmuller, who was chief judge of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Court until 2011, said that near the end of his tenure the tribal council said they had distributed too much money to members and urged department leaders to pursue more federal grants. He said there was resistance from some council members, who raised questions about the effects on sovereignty, but he was personally encouraged to pursue grants by officials including the tribal chairman, Rodney Butler.

Weissmuller said he was not comfortable seeking such assistance for the tribal court system because most of the issues it dealt with were related to the casino, which is essentially a commercial enterprise.

“A billion-dollar gaming enterprise should fully fund the tribal government,” said Weissmuller, who said that he was forced out of the job by tribal officials who told him he did not appear to have the tribe’s interests at heart on other matters.

The reversal of fortunes for the Pequots began around 2008, when Foxwoods completed a major, costly expansion with the 30-story MGM Grand hotel and casino just as the recession began to show its teeth. The following year the tribe defaulted on debt exceeding $2 billion.

Since then, the tribe of some 900 people in rural southeastern Connecticut has ended its member stipends. The Pequots have kept some other benefits in place, covering payments for members pursuing higher education and offering supplemental pay for tribal members taking entry-level jobs at the casino.

The federal grants provided to the Pequots through the Interior Department and its Bureau of Indian Affairs, meanwhile, rose from $1 million in 2008 to $2.7 million in 2011, with partial records for 2012 showing $1.7 million in grants for the year. Grants provided to the Pequots through the Indian Health Service, a division of Health and Human Services, increased gradually from $1.7 million in 2008 to $1.9 million in 2012. That money is to support health care services such as community health, nutrition, substance abuse treatment and pharmacy services.

The federal money opened the door to scrutiny by the FBI, whose investigation of tribal finances led to the January indictments of the tribe’s treasurer, Steven Thomas, and his brother Michael Thomas, a former tribal chairman. The two are accused of stealing a combined $800,000 in tribal money and federal grants. The tribal council has expressed full confidence in its treasurer.

Mohegan Tribe officials said they took pride in refusing federal grants for years, in acknowledgment that there were needier tribes. But tribal officials said they had relaxed that position as their Mohegan Sun casino, like Foxwoods, has faced growing gambling competition from neighboring states.

“It’s a sign of the times. Everybody is” seeking grants, Mohegan Chairman Bruce “Two Dogs” Bozsum said. “There’s some that we qualify for and it helps us to keep everybody healthy and working. At the end of the day, why shouldn’t we apply for it? If we get approved, it’s always for a good cause, usually health or jobs created.”

Tribal officials said they receive modest grants to contribute to the cost of health care for their 2,000 members.

The tribe that owns the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort in Michigan, one of the country’s largest Indian casinos outside of Connecticut, has been aggressively pursuing grants in areas including environmental protection and health services as it struggles with the weak economy, according to Sylvia Murray, grants and contracts manager for the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe.

Sam Deloria, director of the American Indian Graduate Center in Albuquerque, N.M., said he has no issue with tribes pursuing grants for which they are eligible. It’s no different, he said, from the state of Alaska participating in federal programs despite the annual payouts to residents from the state’s oil savings account.

As the federal money reflects financial distress for gaming tribes, however, he does worry that their struggles ultimately could have a ripple effect throughout Indian Country and affect the ability of tribes to participate in the marketplace.

“It has got to raise a set of issues that either in the courts, or in the Congress, or in the marketplace, eventually it will get people looking at tribal participation in business in a different light,” he said.

Marysville names three finalists for school superintendent

Linda Shaw, The Seattle Times, March 23, 2013

The Marysville School Board has named three finalists to replace Superintendent Larry Nyland, who will retire at the end of this school year.

All three are from Washington state school districts: Becky Berg from Deer Park, Carl Bruner from Mount Vernon, and Tony Byrd from Edmonds.

Board members interviewed five semifinalists in sessions that were open to the public. Observers were asked to provide written comments and score the candidates based on a number of criteria.

The finalists are scheduled to visit the district next week, and the district is holding public forums so that parents, students, staff and other community members can meet them. The schedule is posted on the district’s website at: http://www.msvl.k12.wa.us/