Listen to elders’ concerns
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Editor,
Only a few times in life have I ran across anything that is so “unfunny” that it ends up becoming hilarious and I end up cracking up with laughter.
Well it happened to me after reading the Aug. 20 Tribal Council Minutes regarding the proposed $34 million expansion of gaming at both Gray Wolf and KwaTaqNuk.
Last fall the council requested a meeting with the Salish Culture Committee to discuss this. I don’t know why they did, but I suspect it was because they were catching flack from lots of tribal members opposing it. My opinion is they thought the elders would endorse it and that would take care of the opponents. The opposite happened according to the tribal newspaper reporter’s well-written article. This well-written article indicated the elders objected for various reasons including: wrong ethics to teach our youth, high risk investment, better places to expend tribal monies, intrusion on a very traditional area, bringing drug/criminal element here, etc. At any rate it showed a complete consensus by the Salish Elders against the expansion.
I have been following this through the minutes since then. It kept getting more bizarre with the tribal council justifying their original decision while ignoring the elders.
This last go-around had me roaring with laughter at the council. If the council really believes what Lloyd Irvine said then it would appear to me that they would have no problem initiating a tribal council sponsored referendum regarding the issues. Again I am roaring with laughter because I know this isn’t going to happen. It isn’t the nature of this council to relinquish any of their power to the people.
Council men/women please remember (maybe you are too assimilated to understand) bad medicine follows when one does not listen to their elders.
Roy E. Burton, Jr.
Ronan
