The total truth from the LRBOI

We all know the Stone family will get loud and pestiferous at the membership meeting whether we want them to or not. Don't be intimated. They and countless other regular loudmouths will make it their job to talk over you. TAKE BACK YOUR MEMBERSHIP MEETING!

Note: you were never meant to see the documents. In fact, approval of funds moved so quickly through council at Israel's urging that you should be really upset with Pat Ruiter and Steve Parsons, who were on council back then too, for being so easily manipulated or getting something out of it themselves.

Here is something that might be of interest to you. Remember that there are two separate issues here: a sunken boat and abandoned fish nets. Both were associated in Manistee with the tribe rather than with the individual fisherman. But that is the Stone family's fault. It seems that they want people to associate the 2005 and 2007 fishing programs with the tribe and not just their family. THIS WAS SET UP TO BE AN INDIVIDUAL ENDEAVOR. THIS WAS SET UP FOR THE FISHERMAN TO TAKE THE REIGNS. SOME HAVE AND HAVE DONE WELL. BUT WHEN A BUSINESS FAILS AT YOUR FAULT, DON'T ASK THE TRIBE FOR HELP. IT'S YOUR BUSINESS NOW. View the below video to see what I mean. The image they project leaves the tribe helpless when they eff up saying they're tribal fisherman. This sucks for LRBOI because they seem to be neither clever nor good businessmen. It is shameful because Manistee people then start holding the tribe responsible for an independent business's actions.

And the money they received to run their "business?" Wasted because the tribe has ALWAYS cleaned up their messes. They never have to dish out any money for it. Thanks a lot guys....always making us look so stupid. I get mad every time I watch this ridiculous video. (Click on the blue to view it.) Notice the "our sovereignty" and such. You're just you. Don't speak for the tribe!!! You're not intelligent or eloquent enough to represent all of us!!!

Below are documents detailing how much the tribe, and not the person who speculatively sunk his boat, cost us in 2005. NOTE: WE PAID ~$6,000 TO MOVE LEVI'S BOAT, ~$10,000 TO REPAIR IT AND THEN, IN A POST TOMORROW, YOU WILL SEE WE PAID LEVI STONE ANOTHER ~$50,000 IN THE 2007 PROGRAM FOR THE CIERRA. WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT MONEY???

This first document is one of the, if not the very last, notice we received from Pere Marquette about getting this boat out of the water. As if it weren't enough that the tribe bought him the boat and set him up with the job, now he has to go and wreck it.





The next document is an appraisal to get his boat FIXED once its out of the water:



Good God. So here is what council did in response. It's always good to have your brother Israel on council when you want a free handout like this.






Here is an assessment of the contract by council's then-legal counsel.


Here is Lee Sprague's solution to the problem, rather than taking judicial action to make Levi responsible for his own mess. We paid to clean up the mess and then, see below, we paid to fix the boat for Levi too. Remember this come next election time.:




Sounds fair, right? Any one of us whose last name WASN'T Stone might have gotten a different response from the ogema. But these guys know who to make friends with to get their tribal welfare.

Contracts are approved and this document goes out to confirm dispersal of monies.

REMEMBER THAT LARRY WILL TRY AND LAY THE BLAME ON PREVIOUS OGEMAS. BUT HE GAVE UNSUCCESSFUL FISHERMAN ISRAEL STONE A JOB WITH LRBOI. IF HE WERE SUCH A GREAT FISHERMAN WHY WOULD HE NEED A JOB FROM US? MORE IMPORTANTLY, WE KNOW THEY ARE DOING SO POORLY THAT THEY WANT MORE MONEY FROM US. WHY WOULD WE HIRE ANY ONE OF THEM AS A "FISHING EXPERT?"

Keeping this in mind, ask Jimmie Mitchell and the Ogema, why Levi was given $94,934.34 and a fishing license in 2007? Jimmie Mitchell's email is jmitchell@lrboi.com. This is of course in addition to the hundreds of thousands of dollars the Tribe has given the Stones for "equipment".

Next, I plan on posting the entire fishing report. There is actually a much larger report with itemized expenditures that you will never see because Judge Daniel Bailey (showing the Tribe why he should not be judge) will not release it to the public. He put a gag order on it. Ask him why, now that the case is over, he will not unlock the fishing report. His email is dbailey@lrboi.com. Don't expect a prompt response. He only comes to work on Mondays because he has a second job at the Forest Service. I always found it so weird that our Chief Judge's only qualification is that he is a Forest Ranger. Remember he is up for election next year. His friends can't reappoint him this time.

A reader posted this in the comments about a story done by Aaron Payment with the Sault Saint Marie Tribe. I moved it up because it is very important to know what our ogema's legal counsel has been accused of since the Currents is reserved for bashing select council members and for recipes. The story is available by clicking here. It is about halfway down the page.

Why is the ogema so easy to manipulate? Great leadership skills. That is the only reason Dan Green is still here. The ogema might say that we don't know the full story, because he's heard it from an impartial source like Dan Green, but surely the tribe in litigation knows. One has to wonder what kind of deal he has worked out here so as to have such a well-ensured job despite these strong accusations. Get out of Indian Country, Dan Green!!! Are you even worth a fraction of that severance???



$2.66 MILLION LOOTED

As Members know, the Tribe is currently in litigation with the former Chairperson - Bernard Bouschor and seven others who conspired to take $2.66 Million from Tribal funds on Election night in 2004. Again, these individual and the amounts they took were:

Name	Amount
Daniel Green	$608,479.97
Daniel Weaver	$519,426.86
Jim Jannett	$452,643.95
Jolene Nertoli	$419,325.36
David Scott	$398,460.62
Paul Shagen	$202,707.48
Joe Paczkowski	$59,091.40
	$ 2,660,135.64

If not for radically reducing our operational costs (without reducing services) we undoubtedly would have to have taken this loss from our Elder Fund or Trust accounts.

Members are surprised when they hear that criminal charges have not yet been filed against these 7 + Bouschor. Our first goal, however, is to recover the $2.66 million through a Michigan civil suit. Then we'll weigh our options for filing criminal charges.

Members are amazed that we do not prohibit such individuals from running for office. After all, we prohibit Members with relatively minor misdemeanors for ‘acts of dishonesty' from being able to run. If taking the $2.66 million ultimately constitutes an act of theft, embezzlement or a criminal act of ‘Abuse of Office' you would think that Members would not want to give such individuals further opportunity or access to Tribal funds.

A reader posted the following and I thought I would honor the request in its own blog:

"Truth Teller can you start a thred for us to ask questions and report what we see going on that the membership needs to hear about. That way we can print it out and bring it up at the membership meeting, that is if the Ogema and Council aren't going to hide and a have the respect for the membership and show up." - Anonymous

If you have a SERIOUS question for the ogema, please post in the comments. Remember, as with anything, if you post your name it will have more credibility with your elected officials. At the end of the month, I can send a copy to the ogema and council. (And you can print your own copy to take to the membership meeting.)

Good idea, anonymous poster. This can really, if used correctly, be an effective tool.

Disclaimer: As any reader can see, some of the comments have been deleted because they are overtly profane or have accused someone of a crime. Those WILL CONTINUE TO BE DELETED ON THIS STRING.

Also, if you have an opinion that cannot be voiced in the Currents, as was the case with tribal members Jolene Osiginac and Nancy Kelsey last month, submit them here. Even if it is completely obvious that I disagree with you, your submission will be considered for posting. Here's the catch: they cannot be anonymous. I want it to be very clear to the reader that they are YOUR opinions and not mine. Just use common-sense censorship and don't accuse anyone of a crime. If you are lying, and I know you are lying, I am not going to post that either.

Hopefully this helps relieve some of the censorship by the Romanelli administration and council.

Oh yeah, she does. If we're going to appease wasting our money this way under clinic director Jessica Burger's pharmacy, then why don't we just save ourselves the time and just burn the money.

Someone from the clinic, but not our health director (a public figure who is not being accused of a crime in this blog,) came before council and asked for the money to continue payment on a precursory pharmacy study for the tribe. It appears she didn't know who it was assigned to a year ago because she just sat in the audience. They came with very little answers to questions from council. Thank God common sense was on council's side and the vote was postponed. There is an upcoming work session on this but here's what you should be aware of.

We know this much right now about Jessica Burger:

1. Can't efficiently run the clinic. A lot of people, including those that are already of the low-income bracket, have to fend for themselves against hospitals because Jessica's office of homely Community Health Representatives are in charge of OUR health care. This is serious. If her office loses your confirmation for services or flat out refuses to pay, (and you can usually tell ahead of time based on your last name) then you are pretty much on your own with bills you probably can't afford.
2. She testified in court that the breast starts at the shoulder. Wow. Even Dan Bailey, who can barely tell his left from right, told her to stop because he couldn't believe she was wasting the court's time with that line of testimony. (And this haughty woman is overpaid to be our medical expert. Ridiculous, Larry. Ridiculous. But I digress.)
3. She wastes A LOT of the tribe's money by being unprofessional and ineffective. Council has been forced at times to allocate more and more money to the clinic because seemingly budgetary-skills-deficient Jessica is incapable of handling her job. She's been whining to all of Manistee for TWO YEARS that council is threatening to hurt the 2009 clinic budget WELL BEFORE that is decided.
   
4. She overpays her employees. Here is my proof. According to salary.com, osteopathic physicians make $149,000 as general practitioners. Ours, the one who runs around in the pretentious native Pendleton jacket and is NEVER in the office when you need her, started out making $200,000. Guess what she makes now? She is up to $300,000. No doctor of osteopathy should be making that much. While she is a licensed physician, this level is sub-par to medical doctors who generally don't even make that much unless they are specialists. This tells us that Jessica has no idea what is commonplace in the medical field in which she is supposed to be an expert. An associate degree does not an expert make.
   
5. THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL SHE DESERVES A PHARMACY WHEN SHE CAN'T EVEN HANDLE A CLINIC. I once heard her say that she could be employed anywhere with her background. Try it Jessica. I dare you. I think we both know what would happen: "Welcome to McDonald's. May I take your order." Maybe that's a little bit of a stretch. But you would be taking a big pay cut if you worked outside the tribe because you couldn't guilt people into feeling like they owed you because of who your father was. (No disrespect intended to your father, as I did not know the man.)