Tribal Council Meeting 09-10-2025

Attendees: Bil Bailey, John Hunt, Brittany Beck, Jill Cresey-Gross, Dan Coutu, Deanna
Edwards

We focused on the document related to eligibility for TC. The proposed requirement for six
consecutive meetings is too onerous. Most people can’t do consecutive meetings, there
are many reasons why someone might miss a meeting that have nothing to do with their
commitment to the tribe. It seems better to ask for attendance of some meetings, perhaps
6, over the past year. A decision was made to change the number to 4 and to remove the
need for consecutive attendance.

There’s a proposed requirement to have knowledge of culture, ceremonies, etc. It is really
vague. It’s important that the requirement be expressed in way that makes it clear that
there’s a desire that candidates have some depth of knowledge and exposure to our
culture. They need to demonstrate their intent to help the tribe by serving on the TC and a
willingness to learn greater depth of our culture. This is because it is critically important
that policies, procedures, and decisions made by the Tribal Council are in alignment with
our own culture rather than colonial culture.

“It is important to recognize that we all have different pieces to the puzzle that is
knowledge of our culture and it is only by working together that we bring those pieces
together in order to see the whole picture.”

We had some discussion about the idea of an election committee. The process can be
complex. The purpose of having an election committee is to provide
If the TC has the ability to reject candidates for election then that could be seen as
inappropriate and self-serving. If the election committee operates completely
independently then they might approve candidates that are not suitable for the position for
a variety of reasons. We can also see the possibility that any method of vetting candidates
could be seen as veiled favoritism or nepotism.

How can the election process be set up so that people that are not functionally capable of
fulfilling their duties serving on the TC are not eligible candidates?