2015 Tribal Council Candidates and Note about Per Cap Initiative

Please excuse the missing punctuation and non-capitalization of titles in the article below.  I copied this from the Red Arrow website.  It contains the names of all those running for the 4 available seats this year.  I also left the comments made by "4 new councilors are needed in 2015 make your own decisions".  The comments (don't elect past Chairs and/or Vice-Chairs, past Council members or those current Council members running for re-election) contain my sentiments exactly.

From what I gather, common consensus is that Tribal Council is corrupt.  This corruption is ruining our Tribe!  They spend money like water going through a person's fingers and have no accountability to Tribal members.  I could add more but I won't.  Just think about the definition of corruption and you get the idea of what I'm talking about.  Our Tribe needs change and the first place to start is with new Tribal Council members who are not corrupt, at least not yet, and will look out for Tribal members' interests and needs.

NEW COUNCIL CANDIDATES THIS YEAR (2015):
(give these citizens a chance )

1} Douglas Wylie Emery
2} Frank Bernard
3} Allan Wayne Kesick
4} John Angus Kawegoma
5} Virgina May Lewis
6} Jesse Lewis Boda
7} Dollie Keway
8) David M. Harrington
9) Warren Donald Petoskey (he has dropped out)

Past Councilors & Chairs & Vice Chairs :
(they had the chance to help the ltbb citizens but did not.  Who wants to give them another chance?)
They all were not good but the ones who were on Council were corrupt, along with the other Councilors.

10) Ken Harrington - chair - recalled
11) John Louis Gasco - councilor
12) Dexter Marsh McNamara - councilor & vice chair & chair
13) Kevin Alexander Gasco -councilor
14) Debbie De Leon -vice chair - recalled in 2014
15) Fred Kiogima- chair - recalled in 2014

Present Councilors and Present Chair
They have had 4 years or more years, some up to 12 years, to give back to our tribal citizens but instead voted to spend money on a day care, spent money on buying land for another casino and put themselves on more council committees and the last one they all voted yes to buy a farm and pay out $750,000.00 for and really close to 1 million dollars so far has been spent on it.
So everyone one states they have done economic development has anyone in ltbb seen really any change except to spend our monies on travel and buying land that is never used a day care that was shut down after a few months of buying it.
All they do is talk and spend money that is not theirs but the tribal citizens money and then when we try to ask questions at our own community meeting they hide behind a bad spokes person that is in with their games of not answering any questions.

16) Regina Gasco Bentley
17) Winnay Jolene Wemigwase
18) Jon W. Keshick, lll (another one that goes by John, Jon and sometimes puts lll (sic) in his name and other times not)
19) Bill A. Denemy (this time not putting Jr. in his name, hoping you think it's his father running- sneaky)
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An initiative to raise the per cap to $2,500 is currently going around for Tribal member signatures.  If the group handling this matter get enough signatures, it will go out to the general membership for election in June 2015 when voting for Council members.  Should the per cap be approved by the Tribal membership, we may get a portion of it this year but, next year, we will get the whole $2,500.  Council will have to budget at least $12,000,000 to fund this raise next year.  The reason I'm saying we may get a portion of the amount this year is that the budget has already been made and Tribal Council did not foresee the initiative going around for Tribal member approval.  The nice thing about this initiative is that it will force Tribal Council to do what has to be done if they come back and say there's no money for a raise.  This initiative did go around for signatures a couple years ago by Tim LaCroix and wasn't approved because Council told the elders that there was no money for the raise and they were told a couple other things so that went out to members through word of mouth and it did not get the required signatures.  The current initiative is exactly the same one as Tim put out, nothing was changed in it whatsoever.  Judy Feathers is the one who started this initiative going and she and Judy Field are the main ones collecting signatures but there are others in the Tribe who are collecting signatures too.  I was told that the group WILL get the required amount of signatures this time and they believe that Tribal members will approve this raise.  Good luck to them! 

People are saying the per cap will put them in a new income category and also a new tax category.  It may also affect a person's Social Security amounts received too and the member should check with the local Social Security office for clarification on this matter.  You should be aware that a person DOES NOT have to accept the per cap raise!  He or she can donate the amount back to the LTBB Tribe or some other agency for charity, elder or youth programs in LTBB, and claim that on their taxes.
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