Tribal election process flawed
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Editor,
I am writing to voice my opinion/concerns in regards to our up and coming Tribal Council election. Here’s what I don’t understand and feel it seriously needs to be addressed.
The current system is terrible. For instance, a tribal member can be encouraged to run from a certain district, and gets voted in by the people in this district, but then loses the election because he was outvoted from a different district. Does this make any sense? Ultimately the people in their district don’t end up with the candidate that they wanted. They end up with a candidate that is popular in a different district. This is not acceptable.
Second, why are there two representatives in St. Ignatius and two in Arlee? Especially when for the past several years I have only seen one representative having district meetings in both districts.
I keep hearing the same concerns and platforms being used by the candidates. And it’s always the same ol’, same ol’. What puzzles me is candidates and even current council members speak so passionately about our children and education, yet when you look at the CSKT annual report the smallest portion of the budget pie goes to Two Eagle River School.
The candidates need to remember they are only one of 10 and in order for the changes they desire to make they will need to persuade at least four of the other Council members.
Another concern, on the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes’ organizational chart it shows that the Tribal Council answers to the membership, right? Well then why doesn’t the council listen to the people and the elders? It always seems to me that once a member is elected to Council we never hear about their campaign platform or concerns again — business as usual. I guess this is what we get when we blueprint our tribal government off of the good ol’ United States of America’s government. Looks like we could be headed for a “dam” crisis.
Jonathan Denton
Polson
