TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMANCHE BUSINESS COMMITTEE RECONVENED MONTHLY MEETING NOVEMBER 23, 2009, 10:15 A.M. COMANCHE NATION COMPLEX LAWTON, OKLAHOMA __________________________________________________ REPORTED BY: KELLY STOABS, CSR DODSON REPORTING & ASSOCIATES 435 NORTH WALKER, SUITE 102 OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA 73102 (405) 235-1828 ~ (405) 235-1266 (FAX) A P P E A R A N C E S COMANCHE NATION BUSINESS COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Michael Burgess, Chairman Richard Henson, Vice-Chairman Robert Tippeconnie, Secretary-Treasurer Lanny Asepermy, Committeeman #2 Darrell Kosechequetah, Committeeman #3 Clyde R. Narcomey, Committeeman #4 LEGAL COUNSEL: James Burson Hobbs, Straus, Dean & Walker * * * * * * INDEX OF PROCEEDINGS PAGE Meeting called to order at 10:15 a.m. 6 Roll call. 6 Executive session held from 10:19 a.m. 9 to 5:49 p.m. Motion passed to come out of executive session. 9 Charitable Fund Request - Alexander Moon. 9 Motion passed to go into executive session. 24 Executive session held from 6:06 p.m. 25 to 6:48 p.m. Motion passed to come out of executive session.25 Motion/Leave Hours. Motion passes with 25 addition that hours in excess of 365 will be paid for in Fiscal year 2010 from unobligated reimbursements. Lending Leave. 30 Motion passed to approve Resolution 30 Number 175-09/Fire Program 638 Contract. Motion passed to approve Resolution 31 Number 174-09/Amendment to Election Board Compensation. Resolution Number 169-09/Amend Comanche Nation 46 Human Resources policies and Procedures. Tabled. Motion passed to approve Resolution 88 Number 176-09/Indirect Cost application. Motion/Restitution Account. Motion 89 passed to approve. Motion/Payment Requests. Tabled. 89 Motion/Time Keeping and Payroll Procedures. 101 INDEX OF PROCEEDINGS (continued) PAGE Charitable Fund Request. Sandra Tate/ 106 Donation Riverside Indian school. Motion passed to approve $100. Charitable Fund Request. Bacone College/ 108 Donation. Motion passed to deny. Charitable Fund Request. Kristen Onco/ 109 People to People Ambassador Program. Motion passed to approve $400, with guideline that if she is not accepted money is to be returned. Charitable Fund Request. Tashina Ototivo/ 110 Softball Scholarship. Motion passed to approve $100. Charitable Fund Request. Chris Burgess/ 112 School Bills. Mr. Nelson to check with Higher Ed. Charitable Fund Request. Kimberly 116 Old Horn Walks/Financial Assistance. Motion passed to deny. Charitable Fund Request. Tina Emahoola/ 120 Financial Assistance. Mr. Burgess to call her. Charitable Fund Request. Marilyn Hendrix/ 123 Assistance with Funrishing Chapel at Lawton Indian Hospital. Motion passed to deny. Charitable Fund Request. Alan Heminokey. 126 Motion passed to deny. Sekulich/Land. Motion passed to accept 132 offer, but must contain mineral rights. Atauvich/Land. Motion passed to accept 132 offer, but must contain mineral rights. Comanche Nation asked to enter suit, 153 Apache Tribe of Oklahoma vs. Federal Government and the State of Oklahoma for their one-third rights on the Comanche Kiowa Apache Reservation. INDEX OF PROCEEDINGS (continued) PAGE John Moss. 161 Motion passed to approve nomination of 164 Arthur Tommy Johnson as Housing Commissioner representing Elgin-Lawton area. Church Donations. 166 Motion passed to adjourn. 170 Meeting adjourned at 9:45 p.m. 170 Reporter's Certificate. 171 Secretary's Certificate. 172 (Meeting called to order at 10:15 a.m.) MR. BURGESS: Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to go in order here, the reconvened meeting of the CBC. Mr. Tippeconnie, would you call the roll, please? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Michael Burgess? MR. BURGESS: Here. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Richard Henson? MR. HENSON: Here. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Robert Tippeconnie? Here. Edmond Mahseet? Lanny Asepermy? MR. ASEPERMY: Here. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Darrell Kosechequetah? MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: Here. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Clyde Narcomey? MR. NARCOMEY: Here. MR. TIPPECONNIE: We have a quorum. MR. BURGESS: We'll continue. We were on -- MR. ASEPERMY: Did you get the new one? MR. BURGESS: The new agenda? MR. ASEPERMY: Which one are we going to go on? MR. TIPPECONNIE: This brings forward the same things that were on the previous agenda, but things we need to bring forward to complete. Mr. Chairman, I might add, I did add a motion, Number 5, if you look on your agenda, because it's very important to act upon this. And then we have one for -- I was trying to look here. Number 3, we really need to act on that today. That's a grant, 638, which continues the 638 program this fiscal year. We sent in everything relative to the grant and they're just awaiting the resolution. MR. BURGESS: You want to do the resolutions first? MR. TIPPECONNIE: We were in executive session. I think we continue with that and then we can come back. MR. BURGESS: Yes, sir, Clyde? MR. NARCOMEY: That's just what I was going to say. MR. BURGESS: Okay. I have us at Number 10. Mr. Devine was with us in executive session. Let's resume these and let the people be heard and get on with their day. MR. TIPPECONNIE: We haven't heard Number 7 on today's. MR. ASEPERMY: You want to take care of resolutions, old and new, and then go into executive session? MR. BURGESS: We were in executive session. MR. ASEPERMY: Do we need a motion to come out? MR. BURGESS: Let's continue. A lot of these folks are here from whatever employment or work or family items they've got to do. MR. ASEPERMY: And then go back to the resolutions and old and new business? MR. BURGESS: Yes, we'll do that. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yes. MR. BURGESS: So we're at Number 7 on our new agenda. Sorry we don't have it up for you ladies and gentlemen, the new agenda for today, because we went through some items and moved them off our agenda. Number 7, in our executive session, this is Mr. Sandra Toyekoyah. Do you still need to discuss that? MS. TOYEKOYAH: Yes. MR. BURGESS: We're going to ask you to leave the room. One by one, Vern Griffin, our chief, will call y'all in as the subject item comes up. (Executive session held from 10:19 a.m. to 5:49 p.m.) MR. BURGESS: Do we have a motion to come out of executive session? MR. HENSON: I'll make that motion. MR. BURGESS: Made by Mr. Henson. MR. ASEPERMY: Second. MR. BURGESS: Second by Mr. Asepermy. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. Okay. We're into that area of Charitable Funds. Alexander, you're with us again? MR. MOON: Yes, sir. MR. BURGESS: Do y'all remember? Lanny, were you here when he talked to us about his need? MR. ASEPERMY: I wasn't here. MR. MOON: I hope you guys got -- MR. BURGESS: I'm familiar. MR. MOON: I just wanted to say, you know, my name is Alex Moon. This is my mom, Mary Moon. We're both enrolled Comanche members. And I'm here asking you if you would pay for my divorce in the sum of $1,500. I need this divorce to regain full custody of my two small Comanche- enrolled children. In May 2009, my wife left me, but before she did, she called DHS and made all kinds of false accusations about me. My wife is epileptic and bipolar, and so, you know, she wouldn't have had a chance to get custody of them anyway. DHS came and took my children about a day or two later. Some of the accusations my wife, hope to be ex-wife, made were that I was a drug user, that I did drugs every day around my children, that I abused her and I abused my children. The handouts I handed you gentlemen show a hair follicle test that I took dating back a year that I'm clean of anything. They made me take anger management four months. I have absolutely no record whatsoever. I've got, you know, character statements from my landlord, my boss. Anyways, 84 days went by before I could even see my kids, and I got to see them for an hour a week. On October 29th, the Caddo County DA dismissed my case, yet DHS will not release my children to me. And what I've been told by my current lawyer, which I paid for with my per cap, thank you very much, is that basically I have to get a divorce to legally get full custody of my children. And that's what I'm asking you for right now today. I have a job, I have my own car, I have my own place. Like I said, I have no record. It's just been a nightmare the last six months. Nobody's helped me, and I mean nobody. They've delayed my trial three times because nobody from the Comanche Tribe was there because those are Comanche kids. And like I said, no one else will help me. Would you please, you know, find it in your hearts to help me out so I can get my two kids home? And like I said, I'm enrolled, they're enrolled. I just want this nightmare to be over. It's pretty cut and dry. The lawyer I have right now said that -- or basically proved that my wife is a liar when she testified. You know, we have credibility because she's claiming all this, and I have the drug test. Anything they've asked me to do, I've did. And I never made any wild, crazy accusations. That's all, you know -- I'm just trying to get these kids home. They're in the house of my wife's Kiowa parents. I don't know how that happened. You know, in closing, I'd just like to say I am the grandson of Simmons Parker, a Comanche Code Talker. Thank you for your time. MR. ASEPERMY: Do you live on trust land? MR. MOON: No. MR. ASEPERMY: Does your -- well, it wouldn't matter if his wife does. MR. MOON: She lives in a dorm somewhere. I don't know. MR. BURGESS: Do your in-laws live on trust land? MR. MOON: No, they don't. MR. ASEPERMY: I think the requirement to file through the CFR Courts for a divorce is that you live on trust land, if I'm not mistaken. Is that correct? MR. BURSON: That's my understanding. MR. ASEPERMY: So you can't use the CFR Court? MR. MOON: Yeah. And the thing about that, my lawyer knows the case, my current lawyer, and he's $1,500. If we use him, we get the same judge that threw out the case against me. He knows she's a liar. You know, it's pretty cut and dry. That's basically all I need to get them kids back home, is to get this divorce paid for. As soon as I can give Mr. Jason Glidewell the check for $1,500, that day he's going to file and it will be done. This nightmare will be over and I will never, ever, hopefully, have to ask anybody for anything. You know, like I said, I work, I try to -- you know, but I'm just tapped out and no one else will help me. MR. HENSON: Has anybody told you about advertising in the newspaper, lawyers' newspaper regarding divorce, and it could be granted without them not showing up? MR. MOON: No. MR. HENSON: It doesn't cost very much to do it that way. And I suspect a lawyer -- isn't that right, Jim? Isn't there a way to do that? That's a way I've got a divorce by doing it that way. I advertised in the Lawton newspaper. MR. ASEPERMY: That was 40 years ago. It was 50 years ago. MR. BURSON: Did you have any children involved? MR. HENSON: No. MR. BURSON: I don't think that will work for children. Because one of the main things he's interested in is getting some sort of custody rights to his own children, which he doesn't currently have. Visitation, if nothing else. But he's going to petition the court to have the court order his ex-wife to winning custody of the children and probably flip it to where she just gets visitation. MR. ASEPERMY: Have you solicited any other attorneys? MR. MOON: Yes, sir, I have Mr. Steve Busen from Chickasha, and he said it would cost no less than $3,500. I have Tom Cinda in Anadarko, and he charges around $2,000. And like I said, I think we got the best deal with my current lawyer, Jason Glidewell, because he already knows the case. He's already broken her down on the stand, and he's the cheapest. MR. ASEPERMY: Did you say you have a job now? MR. MOON: Yes, sir. MR. HENSON: Where do you work at? MR. MOON: McDonald's in Anadarko. MR. HENSON: And you're getting about $8 an hour? MR. MOON: 7.25. MR. HENSON: Minimum wage. MR. MOON: Yeah. MR. ASEPERMY: Is this attorney willing to accept -- I don't know how often you get paid, a biweekly payment? MR. MOON: He is with the DHS case, which is just over $2,000. I've been paying him ever since it started, but he said for the divorce he needs the $1,500 retainer. MR. ASEPERMY: Up front? MR. MOON: Yes. This all happened a year ago. It wasn't quite as bad. But I had Tom Cinda as my lawyer then, and he told me it was something about $250 just to file, just for the paperwork to file. So, you know, that's why I'm guessing he's counting that and everything else into it. MR. HENSON: How long have you been working at McDonald's? MR. MOON: Almost seven months, just over six months. I've had good jobs in the past and I've lost them because of my wife. You know, she's epileptic. She could die any day from a seizure, you know. And that's basically what we proved in court, is, you know, she's just making these wild accusations because she has no shot at getting custody of them. As we speak, her parents have my kids. No one will help me, no one even cares, and I'm just asking for a little bit of help. MR. HENSON: Jim, I don't understand why he can't get his kids as a parent. MR. MOON: I don't understand either. MR. BURSON: Unless you invoke the -- he's got a recalcitrant ex-spouse. Okay? And short of going over there and causing a scene and probably getting into criminal problems, he has to invoke the powers of the court to order the woman to let him have his children back. Once that happens, then he can get some other help to help him get the custody of his children. But as long as a parent wants to keep children away from another parent, they can until you go get the court to tell them different. MR. HENSON: And then even if he goes through a divorce, it don't guarantee him that he gets the kids, right? MR. BURSON: There's no guarantee, that's true. MR. HENSON: They might just have part -- they might just have visiting rights or whatever? MR. BURSON: It's possible. If what he's telling you, everything he says is true, accepting it all as true, then he does have a better position in the case that he's got now because of the past transgressions of his ex and the way she's handled things up to now. The court will weigh that and say, well, you know, you've called upon the power of the courts to unfaithfully, in bad faith, you know, keep this man from his children, and we're going to take that into consideration when it comes to doling out custody in the future. And if he goes back to the same court, the same judge, the same lawyer, he has a better opportunity, he has a better chance of getting custody. MR. HENSON: They understand the case better. MR. BURSON: Yes. MR. ASEPERMY: Does any of our social service categories fit into his situation? MR. BURGESS: Not for an attorney's fees. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Huh-uh, no. MR. BURGESS: Because you could petition ICW for preservation, but you'd have to be a client of ICW. He's not a client of ICW, because they won't take this on. The issue's already in the state court hands. And not living in trust lands is one of the reasons, I think that's one of the reasons. MR. BURSON: Yeah, that's part of it. And filing the case will be $250 according to the filing fees. MR. MOON: And I just want you guys to know this guy is really a good lawyer. He's the only guy who believed in me, believes me. He didn't paint me as a wife beater, a drug addict. This guy believed me. He told me we need to do this, this and this. I did, they dismissed the case, now this is the last step. MR. HENSON: Where are you living at now? MR. MOON: I live in Anadarko. Do you know where Thunderbird is? MR. HENSON: I should have asked that. Do you have your own place that you live in? MR. MOON: Yes, sir. MR. HENSON: You're not living with anybody? MR. MOON: No, sir. MR. HENSON: You're paying rent, utilities? MR. MOON: Yes. MR. BURGESS: How is this divorce going to help you get your children back? MR. MOON: Because she's living in a dorm. She left me to go to college or something to that effect. She's living in a dorm with her cousin. She has no job, nothing. I think she's suspended from school. I don't know, I don't keep in touch with her. Her family tells me this stuff. And she testified under oath she's living in a dorm. They're going to say, okay, you can't have kids in a dorm. I've got my own two-bedroom place. MR. ASEPERMY: Is she willing to sign a divorce? MR. MOON: I don't know. She went so far as to file an order of protection against me, and that's why DHS just swooped them up. You know, I can't have any contact with her, like the gentleman said. MR. BURGESS: Somebody's coaching her. MR. MOON: Oh, yeah, it's her dad. It's just like I said, it's a nightmare. I just want it to be over. MRS. MOON: They didn't let this boy see his babies for 84 days. And then when they finally did, he had to do it at the Safe House in Apache. I mean, the Apaches were running it in Anadarko. He got to go over there for an hour and see them babies. They were watching him like hawks. MR. MOON: They once ended one of my visitations with my kids because I didn't have the right "aura" around me. So, you know -- MRS. MOON: What does that mean, "aura?" MR. MOON: My lawyer is the main one that said it, the hand's been stacked against me from the beginning. I'm 99.99 percent sure this is the one way I can get this done, and like I said, I'll never bother you guys again. MR. ASEPERMY: It sounds like she's not going to agree to you getting custody of these children. MR. MOON: Yeah, that's fine. The court's going to see I have a job, I am drug free, I have a place, I have a car. She has none of that. Like it was already proven. You know, she's just making stuff up because she has no shot at it. Besides that, she's epileptic and bipolar. Okay? Now, I know I messed up by even getting with her, but the thing is, I'm trying to turn the corner. I'm just trying to get my life back together and give those kids a chance. MR. ASEPERMY: There's no doubt in our mind of these things and there's no doubt in our mind of your love for your children. The doubt in our mind is how are we going to do this to stay within -- MR. BURGESS: Our guidelines on Charitable Funds, explain that to them. MR. HENSON: Why don't we just leave this alone right now and tell him we'll call him, because there's a lot of things involved in there that we haven't talked about. MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: And your children are on the Comanche roll? MR. MOON: Yes, sir. MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: I don't have my papers. What are their ages? MR. MOON: Mary is two-and-a-half. She can't talk, she's not potty trained. This is the second time she's went through this because they're stunting her growth. They don't care, you know. I want to get her back, I want to get her potty trained. MR. ASEPERMY: How old is your daughter? MR. MOON: Two-and-a-half years old. And my son, Isaiah, is turning a year old the 30th of this month, and I haven't seen them since -- MR. BURGESS: If you get them back, how are you going to provide child care while you work? MR. MOON: Actually, Lindsey's aunt, my wife's aunt, she's kind of neutral in this. She's basically taking care of them right now, and she told me she would be more than happy to keep caring for them while I'm at work. So, you know -- and that's all I can tell you, you know. I mean, I've tried to figure it out the best way I can. It's going to be hard, I understand. MR. BURGESS: Have you tried to borrow money? MR. MOON: I've tried. I have -- owe a lot of people, you know, just because of the $2,100 for the DHS case. You know, I mean, that was a burden on my shoulder, a boulder on my shoulders that I just needed to get off. You know, I mean, they accepted Anadarko. There's so many that do beat their wives, they don't give a crap about their kids. Okay, you're not going -- you're a scumbag, get out of here. I had to prove I wasn't like that to everybody I met. Every single cop, every single BIA worker, anybody I went and saw that knew her, they just gave me horrible looks, like I'm the scum of the earth. And, you know, I had to prove it was wrong. And not for me, you know. I don't care what people think, but those kids, you know, they need a dad. They need somebody who cares, you know. And that's all I'm begging you guys for today, is -- MR. HENSON: I'm going to ask you some personal questions, and you don't have to answer them if you don't want to. MR. ASEPERMY: Mr. Chairman, I think that we need to cut her off right now and we need to ask them to leave because it is getting rather personal, and I don't think that this should be public information. This is not a soap opera. MR. HENSON: If y'all would step out just a minute. MR. ASEPERMY: Do we need to go back in executive? MR. HENSON: I think so. MR. MOON: The day before DHS came and took my babies from me, I went and talked to Ramona Perea, I believe her name is. MR. BURGESS: Motion to go into executive session? MR. HENSON: I'll make a motion. MR. ASEPERMY: Second. MR. BURGESS: All those in favor signify by saying "aye" (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. We'll go back in. Thank you, Kelly. (Executive session held from 6:06 p.m. to 6:48 p.m.) MR. BURGESS: Motion to come out of executive session? MR. HENSON: I make it. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Mr. Henson? MR. HENSON: Yes. MR. BURGESS: Who seconded it? MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: Second. MR. BURGESS: Motion's been made. Call for the question. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. MR. HENSON: Let's go ahead and do the motion on the leave so we can get it out of the way, since we've got it here. What I'd like to do is make that motion that we go ahead and carry over whatever it is, 360, and then pay the rest out, find the money to pay the rest out. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Read the way this is written. MR. BURGESS: Read the motion. MR. HENSON: I read that, and it's 360, isn't it? But it needs to be added to that, if we find -- we need to find the money to pay the balance over 360. That's what I was -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: It's 365 here, the way this is written. MR. HENSON: Okay. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Just for this fiscal year. If we liquidated this fiscal year and pay it out, you know, it's handled. Then beginning next fiscal year, it's only 260. MR. HENSON: Here it is. Resolution 164-09, Adopted Comanche Nation Policies and Procedures, placed 260 hour cap on accrued leave. Some employees, upon approval of these policies and procedures, have leave in excess of 260 hours; therefore, it is approved to allow these employees to carry over 365 hours for the Fiscal Year 2010, but no more than 260 hours for years beyond 2010. Added to that, we should say something about paying the rest of the balance in cash by funds that we find or something in that manner. Everything over $365, we need to buy. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You mean over 365, pay for that, you're saying? MR. HENSON: Yeah, everything over 365, we need to pay for and get it off the books. And I guess Willie needs to start talking to his directors about letting these people go, get off. MR. BURGESS: Additionally, I think the motion, if I may, we could say unobligated reimbursements. MR. HENSON: That will carry the funds. MR. TIPPECONNIE: That's the fund from which we'll use it. MR. BURGESS: That's all those reimbursements that are coming back. We've obligated some of it already, so we have to find those that are unobligated. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Fund from unobligated reimbursements, those hours in excess of 265? MR. HENSON: Yes. 365. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I mean 365. MR. HENSON: And I make a motion we pass that. MR. ASEPERMY: Will someone please say the motion clearly from start to finish? MR. BURGESS: Bob's writing it down. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Okay. The way this is written, it all stands, but then we add, you know -- MR. HENSON: That we get the funds from -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: We add that hours in excess of 365 will be paid for in Fiscal Year 2010 from funds unobligated, or unobligated funds. MR. BURGESS: Unobligated reimbursements. MR. TIPPECONNIE: From unobligated reimbursements. MR. ASEPERMY: So as is, with what you just said at the end? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yes. MR. ASEPERMY: Okay. Thank you. MR. HENSON: I'll make a motion we accept that. MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: Second. MR. BURGESS: Motion's been made and seconded. Motion by Mr. Henson and seconded by Mr. Kosechequetah. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. MR. HENSON: You can notify your employees, we took care of them. Just some advice, Willie, what you need to do is start talking to your directors about not keeping these people away from their vacation time. They need to take it. MR. NELSON: Sure, sure. We've been advocating, we have. MR. HENSON: So right now we're covering them for 365, and if they go above that they're going to be out on their own. It's going to be the director's fault. MR. NELSON: Okay. MR. HENSON: Good. Thanks, guys. I'm really glad we got that out of the way. MR. TIPPECONNIE: We need to be sure and act on the 638, Resolution 175-09. It needs to go in -- MR. NELSON: A big if, Mr. Secretary/ Treasurer, about lending leave to some folks that have a certain situation. MR. BURGESS: Is that in the policies? It has to be in the policies. You've got to bring a motion forward for an amendment. MR. NELSON: I think we just opened the door to Pandora's Box. That's how it was in the past. Let's just leave it alone. MR. HENSON: There's been people that have been talking about that, griping about that. MR. BURGESS: I'll just mention that other agencies we have are doing it, that's why they're asking. Housing does it. MR. BURSON: Gaming does it. MR. NELSON: It's up to you, Mike. MR. BURGESS: No, it's up to the employees. We're going to 638, the fire program, Resolution Number 175-09. MR. HENSON: Are we supposed to hear from y'all? MR. BURGESS: They're on the agenda. MR. ASEPERMY: There's a resolution that's got blanks. Well, let's take care of them, then. They've been here forever. MR. BURGESS: Well, this was just a vote to approve it. This was the grant. They need this resolution to go out tomorrow? MR. ASEPERMY: I'm going to e-mail the motion since all of y'all -- I mean, we don't have one here, with those filling in these blanks. I hate to say what the numbers are, but I think I remember. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You want to close this one first? All we need is a vote on this. MR. ASEPERMY: Which one? MR. BURGESS: 638 firefighters. Let's vote that one in and then -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: I make a motion to approve it. MR. HENSON: I'll second that. MR. BURGESS: Motion made by Mr. Tippeconnie to approve Resolution Number 175-09, Item Number 3 on our agenda, seconded by Mr. Henson. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. The ayes have it. Now, Resolution 174-09, Lanny, that's the one you had. MR. ASEPERMY: I'm looking for my coversheet. Oh, here it is. MR. HENSON: That's right here with the numbers. MR. ASEPERMY: Yeah, with the blanks. MR. HENSON: No, this is the one that's got the numbers in it. MR. ASEPERMY: Is that the numbers that I mentioned? I think we changed that bottom one to 250 per training session to be conducted once a year locally. MR. TIPPECONNIE: And once away. MR. ASEPERMY: And then one outside of Comanche Country. And $250 per meeting with no more than one called monthly meeting, and $500 for primary and runoff elections. To be honest with you, I don't know what those numbers were that I showed y'all on the General Council meeting and the Special General Council meeting for recall. Are you sure? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Are you looking at this one? MR. ASEPERMY: Are you sure what the numbers were? They sound like they are. I think this 100 for an eight-hour thing, I think we agreed to make that 250. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yes, that one was the one that -- but are these others -- MR. ASEPERMY: I'm trying to think. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Show him your figures. MR. ASEPERMY: Well, I don't think the 400 was for that. MR. HENSON: Correct me if I'm wrong. You guys came up with a figure of 250 per General Council meeting and -- MR. WELLS: No, it was 500 for General Council. MR. TIPPECONNIE: That's the figure we have now. MR. HENSON: And 400 for primary runoff. MR. ASEPERMY: No, 500. MR. HENSON: So these figures that we're talking about are over on the left-hand side -- MR. ASEPERMY: Let me just read these. This is not a motion or anything after our conversation there, young lady. You know what the numbers were before. These are the numbers that we plugged in, was $500 per General Council meeting, $500 per primary and runoff elections, but you're not going to get paid. That's going to cover your pre-meetings also. You know, how you come in. $400 for Special General Council meetings for recall or nominations to file. Now, I don't think I put 400 down there. I thought I used the amount 250. MR. WELLS: What was it? MR. ASEPERMY: Well, I know it was 100. I think it was 250, is what I said on that. MR. BURGESS: I think, because there was a vote on the floor, we don't run an election ballot, just voting that day. MR. ASEPERMY: Did we say 400 or 250? MR. WELLS: I thought it was 400. MR. ASEPERMY: Of course you're going to say that. Does anyone remember? MS. ATTOCKNIE: According to Gwen's notes, General Council, 400. MR. ASEPERMY: General Council was 400. Primary and runoff? MS. KERCHEE: Primary and runoff general election, 500. MR. ASEPERMY: And Special General Council meetings for recall or nominations? MS. KERCHEE: I didn't have that. MR. ASEPERMY: I thought I blanked in 250 on that. I tell y'all what: The best thing to do is let me pull it up. I'll e-mail it to you tonight. Mike, I'll e-mail it to you tonight. But the original -- let me see this. What we had originally passed, Charles, what we had originally passed, it would have been an annual stipend for the entire Election Board of $18,000. With the changes -- MR. HENSON: There's your recommendations. MR. ASEPERMY: With the changes, that 18,000 is tripled to 60,000. We're still going to keep in no compensation for special ordinance, emergency CBC pre-election or any other meetings. No office duty pay, no meals, travel and supplies. Now, here's the only thing on meals. We meet, we eat. I think that we need to -- MR. BURGESS: Hang on. The meals we have are for our open meetings, community meetings. That's part of our budget. So we budgeted that for CBC meetings, General Council. And sometimes, like today, was just a snack, because we didn't know it was going to go this long. So the luncheon we got from Joe, I guess I'm going to buy it. MR. NELSON: He said that's free. MR. BURGESS: Free? Donated? Okay. So the meals we have, we feed the public. Are you referring to meals when they bought things, got reimbursed or what? MR. WELLS: Yeah, I was referring to -- because a lot of people come straight from work to our meetings and stuff. They don't have any chance to eat and stuff. We were serving sandwiches and stuff like that for the members when they attended. MR. BURGESS: Housing pitches in and buys. They don't have it on budget. Others are doing that, too. MR. ASEPERMY: What about a $100 meeting meal? That's not going to break them. MR. BURGESS: No. For when you meet? MR. WELLS: Yes. MR. ASEPERMY: There's 12 of y'all, that's $8 a person. You can eat pretty good for 8 bucks, I think. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Is that for every meeting? MR. ASEPERMY: Every meeting, that would equate to 1,200 more dollars. That would jack up their expenses to $61,200 from 18,000. MR. WELLS: And I assured the chairman that we would be well under, you know. MR. ASEPERMY: Willie, we'll plug in these numbers tomorrow on this resolution. I know you did a payment request for their -- for whatever, and I'll send that to you, Mike, Robert, and Darrell, I don't have your e-mail. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You have mine. MR. ASEPERMY: Yeah, I have y'all's. So we'll plug in the numbers. So can we go ahead and -- MR. WELLS: Pass the resolution? MR. ASEPERMY: Well, you don't know one of them. There's one I'm not sure of, and that's the Special General Council. If I'm not mistaken, I said 250 on the revised. MR. WELLS: I think we had a heated discussion about that and it went back to 400, because General Council might be many things. It may be a recall, but then again it may not. It may be like where we -- MR. ASEPERMY: Well, I put on here Special General for recall or nominations to fill vacancies, for recall or nominations to fill vacant CBC positions or any other matters presented. MR. WELLS: Because you may have to bring in voting machines or something like that for Special General Council that, you know, then we're going to be planning the voting machines and stuff like that, and it may take a longer process. MR. BURGESS: Speaking of that, doing this, moving the budget for these expenses, how much money is left over to buy machines for Special Council so we don't have to rent them? MR. WELLS: Okay. Under your request, we kept all of our stipends in our proposed deal was 150, and now we're reducing it down to like 61 or 62. So there originally is $250,000 in the budget, so 100,000 of that would go to rental of machines, if we wanted to use it for that. Now, you guys would deem fit whether or not -- MR. BURGESS: Sometimes I just don't like it. I keep thinking whatever would be better. What if we bought our own machines just for that? MR. WELLS: The machines that cost themselves like $25,000 apiece. MR. HENSON: So 150,000 would buy six. MR. WELLS: Right, and that's all we utilize, is six. MR. HENSON: That's all we utilize? MR. NELSON: Where are you going to store them at, Charles? MR. WELLS: Well, that's another thing. We haven't crossed that bridge yet. MR. ASEPERMY: It would pay for itself in two years. MR. BURGESS: I'm just saying we wouldn't have to rent one at a special-called council meeting. MR. ASEPERMY: Can we -- I hate to ask y'all this. Can we -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: We'd have to modify the budget, because if we bought the machines, then we have to have someone responsible, to, you know, operate them and know all the procedures of the -- MR. WELLS: Well, that is the Election Board itself. That's what the Election Board is elected to do, is to do the election process, and that is the election process. MR. BURGESS: Let's hold that for the future, then. MR. ASEPERMY: This would be a budgetary thing that we put on next year's budget. What I'm going to ask y'all is, can we reconvene before we even start our meeting tomorrow and pass this with the correct numbers? MR. WELLS: Can you just pass it and put the numbers in there? MR. ASEPERMY: And, Charles, if you give me a good phone number, I can call you tonight. I can go over those numbers with you, and then I'll bring the numbers back to y'all. None of us have a copy of that motion? MR. BURGESS: What do you guys think? Save this as the only item tomorrow? MR. TIPPECONNIE: If we just keep it to one item, yes. MR. HENSON: I don't understand why we can't do it tonight. The only thing in question is the 250 per month meeting with more than one month call -- I mean, sorry. $400 Special General Council meeting. That's the only thing that's involved. The rest of it's -- MR. WELLS: $250 for the meetings was already decided on. The $400 for the Special General Council is the one that's up in question. Lanny said he thought it was 250 and I thought it was 400, so that's the only one that's in question. MR. BURGESS: Because y'all met a week ago on Tuesday night? Jim was down here with y'all. MR. ASEPERMY: Jim, do you recall what number was plugged in there? MR. BURSON: No, sir. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Nobody recalls that number. MR. BURGESS: I thought we wiped it out, myself, at the prior meeting. MR. WELLS: We went back with 250 and we had a discussion over it. To make a long story short, if we want to go with 250 at this point, let's go for it. Let's just go ahead and change that to 250. MR. ASEPERMY: Well, wait a minute. I hate to be argumental. The recall and the nomination process don't take long. Any other matters presented, we had a Special General Council that wasn't a legal one because we didn't have the quorum, right? But we were there all day. Okay, why don't we do this: Why don't we say 250 per Special General Council for recalls and nominations, 400 for Special General Councils on other matters. MR. WELLS: That works for me. Does that work for you guys? MR. BURGESS: Because we'll have a few of those. MR. ASEPERMY: But at the same time, remember, the rest of this resolution states you will not be compensated for any special ordinance, emergency, CBC, pre-election or any other meetings. You will not be compensated for office duties, travel or supplies. You will be compensated $100 per board for the Election Board for meeting meals. Do you want me to say the whole motion? MR. WELLS: And you've added the travel in there, one in-state and one out-of-state travel? MR. ASEPERMY: We can't do nothing with that, so the final line is, $500 per General Council meeting, $500 for primary and runoff elections, $250 per Special General Council meetings for recall and nominations, $400 for Special General Council meetings for other matters presented, $250 per monthly meeting with no more than one called meeting monthly, $250 per eight- hour semiannual training session to be conducted once a year locally. And we can't put a monetary limit on your training outside of Comanche Country. It doesn't have to be in Las Vegas, it can be in Oklahoma City, it can be in Albuquerque or whatever. There will be no compensation for special ordinance, emergency CBC, pre-election or any other meetings, office duties, travel and supplies. No more than two Election Board members will be paid per polling site during the primary and runoff elections. That's my motion. MR. TIPPECONNIE: So the motion on the travel, I mean training, excuse me, is 250 for the local and then we leave the out-of-area blank? MR. ASEPERMY: Yes, because we don't know what it's going to be. MR. WELLS: Yeah, you don't know where it's going to be. MR. ASEPERMY: Now, young lady, tell me your name again. MRS. ATTOCKNIE: Dana Attocknie. MR. ASEPERMY: Is this fairer? MS. ATTOCKNIE: Yes. MR. ASEPERMY: And you know why? What you said that night to us, we listened. MS. ATTOCKNIE: Thank you. MR. ASEPERMY: You made sense. MR. HENSON: I'll second the motion. MR. ASEPERMY: We have cut your budget considerably. We cut it in half. MR. TIPPECONNIE: No more election. MR. BURGESS: All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. The ayes have it. Motion passes. Thank you. MR. WELLS: Thank you. MR. BURGESS: We did have a lot of important stuff. MR. HENSON: Sorry for keeping you guys so late. MR. BURGESS: We covered a lot of important stuff, guys. MR. WELLS: We appreciate y'all taking care of our business. MR. BURGESS: Y'all notice that now, we stay late. We don't keep bankers' hours because we're bankers. MR. HENSON: Let's go back up to Number 1, Resolution Number 169-09. MR. WELLS: Mike, I just wanted to mention to you on the ordinance, I think I already talked to you about that. We're still working on the ordinance. We'll be meeting the 30th of November with Mr. Burson again, and so we'll be probably one more meeting after that and we should be at our final step on it. MR. ASEPERMY: Then have a joint meeting? MR. WELLS: Yes, then we have a joint meeting with you guys and go over it. MR. BURGESS: 6:00 p.m. on the 30th? MR. WELLS: Yes. MR. BURGESS: Thank you, Jim. Wait a minute. 30th? On the 30th of what? MR. WELLS: Mike, it's 4:00 p.m. MR. BURSON: Is this with their ordinance subcommittee? So it's just a work session. MR. WELLS: And Jim has been wonderful. He's really kind of straightened us up and got the whip out and everything else. MR. BURGESS: We're on Resolution Number 169-09, so let's read through this, review it, amending our HR Policies and Procedures. MR. HENSON: What was amended on this, Bob? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Well, remember, we had, if you look at 103, the calendar days and then where we advertise it. Must be advertised and all positions are posted on the Nation's Web site and remain open for 14 days. If not filled, they will be advertised in local media with the following time limits. But we also, we're saying they should be advertised not just on the Web, but also -- MR. BURGESS: In other media. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yeah, other media. Newspapers or whatever. That wasn't in there. MR. BURGESS: It's saying we have to do it on the Web site first and a lot of people aren't going to that. MR. TIPPECONNIE: So we're saying it should be amended to be concurrent. Web page needs to have it, but we need to have it in the media at the same time. MR. HENSON: What was the other change? MR. TIPPECONNIE: That was it. MR. HENSON: That was it? MR. TIPPECONNIE: There are some questions that people have raised on this, and I just want to bring them out, you know, that when we go through this preference, you know, a lot of us can say it's good business for the Comanche Nation to do this because we're going to give preference to the Comanches. And other people can raise the question that have other enterprises adjacent to us, like down at the Red River with the Kiowa casino, and they can say oh, we're going to not hire any more Comanches because all they hire are Comanches, so forget it. We won't hire any Comanches. All I'm saying, it could come back to create a predicament for us if we're saying it's always just -- so another thought is, you know, we can show preference to Indian. MR. HENSON: We are showing preference to Indian. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I know it, but I mean just Indian period, not Comanche. MR. HENSON: The Kiowa Tribe has the same preference as we do. They give preference to their Kiowa people, and then the second -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: Are we positive of that? MR. HENSON: Yeah, all tribes are the same. MR. NELSON: Bunky, Mike and I went to the Kiowa Tribe last week, and the TA shared something with me. A KBC member caught wind about our policy and procedures, and I believe it was a KBC member that actually went to the extreme of saying if Comanches are going to do that, we're striking back. We're going to make sure all Comanches that are here will lose their job. Now, that's just an Indian grapevine, but the TA was right on point. And guess what? One person that was, you know, he's a high-falutin' Comanche in our Nation, he did get fired because of that. MR. HENSON: He got fired because of what? MR. NELSON: Because of Kiowa Preference. They did away with their entire gaming board. MR. HENSON: They could sue the hell out of them for doing that. MR. NELSON: It came right out of their KBC meeting, it did. And what Robert is talking about is exactly what a lot of the HRs -- I was talking to Oscar outside. Jill brought this up. If this is brought on throughout the Comanche world, are we subject to be fired if we don't bring Comanches on? And, Burson, you know that that's been the question in one of those sentences on that. MR. BURGESS: What sentence, that we're going to fire somebody? Particularly if a Comanche doesn't apply, or if they do apply and aren't the most qualified, even though they're in the Cert and are not selected, at least they applied. We're not saying hiring Comanches only. It just says Native American Preference, Comanches first, other Indians second. Then after that, everyone else. So the interpretation is going around and it's wrong. MR. HENSON: As soon as we get this policy out, I am going to go out in the community, and also I'm going to hit all our entities and explain this to them so there's not going to be a question about it. Now, I'm willing to tell you that if I take this to Don and say your people are firing our people because of this policy, I'll bet you he's going to change it, and he's going to find out that it hadn't been done, because it sounds outrageous to me. MR. BURGESS: We're not firing people. MR. HENSON: Because I know for a fact that Kiowas got the same -- every tribe has got the same policy. They hire their tribe first and the government allows them to do that. They give their tribe first, other Indians second, and then other people after that. MR. NELSON: It's a well-known, Mr. Vice-Chairman, but this is the first time we've gotten it into written form. MR. BURGESS: Jim, you might -- a lot of times they say Indian Preference and it's inferred tribal members first, other tribes. I think we're the first ones that said Comanche Preference. MR. NELSON: Yes. MR. BURGESS: It doesn't mean non-Indians lose their job or won't be hired. MR. HENSON: No, whatever's on is on. MR. BURGESS: It doesn't mean other Indians can't apply. The general inference is that we're only hiring Comanches. And it doesn't mean if there's no Comanche applied that you have to close it and readvertise it to hire Comanches. It just means if they're Indian and they're highly qualified, they should be given the opportunity. MR. HENSON: What it means is one word: Qualified. That explains the whole thing, qualified. You can't get a job if you're not qualified, I don't care who you are. MR. BURGESS: You're only qualified if you meet the basic minimum requirements. So if you only got that, it doesn't mean you get the job either, so the interview will show it. I think our people are interpreting this the wrong way. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Let me ask this question: The comment you just made there, if they make the qualify, because this is the way I hear Mr. Henson saying it. If they make the qualified, and it's a Comanche, you know, we employ them. MR. BURGESS: You've got to go through the process. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I know, I'm saying the process, but that's what he's saying. MR. HENSON: Yes, that's basically -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: Okay. Let me ask this question, though. This is the question I had. If there's a panel, you know, if there's a panel and the panel says no, you know, we're going to look at this other person. MR. HENSON: No, they don't get to see it. They go through the applications -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: So why do you panel it if you've got the qualified person? MR. HENSON: You've got it wrong, Bob. Let me see if I can explain it right. You've got a stack of applications right here. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I understand that. MR. HENSON: Once you get your stack of applications, you go through it and you pick these people, you pick all the Comanches out. Here's the Comanches. Now, let's see how many of them qualify for this job. If one qualifies, then he goes out on the Cert. Do you hear, Bob? If one qualifies, he goes on the Certificate of Eligibles. If there's three that qualify, three goes out on Certificate of Eligibles, but they don't see the other people. They don't see the applications, they don't see anything. They just see the persons of Indian descent first. If there's none of those, then other Indians in that application -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: If they're determined to be qualified, they're given the job. MR. HENSON: That's what this says. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yeah, they're given a job. So why are we paneling it? MR. HENSON: Paneling it? MR. TIPPECONNIE: That's what he said, is we would panel it. MR. HENSON: We're not going to panel it. It's up to HR to find out who's qualified for the job and who's not. We're not going to be involved in that. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You said we have the Comanches, you know, that's all they see. So then they interview the Comanches. You don't interview anyone else. MR. HENSON: That's right. MR. TIPPECONNIE: See? See what I'm saying? MR. BURGESS: Well, wait a minute. MR. TIPPECONNIE: That's the thing that I'm -- MR. HENSON: What the preference is all about is to get our Comanche people working, if they're qualified. First you go through the applications, just like I'm explaining. And what you do with them applications, you pick out Comanches. I don't care if there's five, 10, 15 or one, you pick them out and find out if they're qualified for the job. If they're not qualified for the job, you set them over here and then you go into other Indians. If other Indians are qualified for the job, make a Cert these guys are qualified and you send that out. You don't send anything else. They don't see who's applied for the job, they don't see nothing. That makes no problem for nobody. Because the way it's going, the way it has been going, if they look at all these applications and they say, oh, well, I'm going to hire this guy, they'll jump right over Indian Preference. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I don't know if that's true or not, but the point that comes about is, you weed them out. Say here's one Comanche qualified, here's one other tribe qualified, here's one non-Indian qualified. They're all qualified. You know, those could be paneled, just because the point you're making, you know. MR. HENSON: If you panel those three together, you got a chance of jumping Indian Preference. You do not put those people in situations like that. If we're going to do Indian Preference, we take our Indians and we put them, if they're qualified, to be selected. Okay? It's that simple. We don't look at any other thing. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I hear what you're saying. I hear something differently from the chairman. MR. BURGESS: My understanding of Indian Preference and it's -- I've survived it -- is that while you're a Native American, you are given preference based on your qualifications and meeting the requirements through application, review of your resum, verification of your experience, and then going through the interview process. And as I said, I met these standards with the Seminole Nation, the Kaw Nation, the Delaware Nation, the Caddo Nation. And they did not select their tribal members, because as it came out through the interview process, I became the most qualified, and I was a nontribal member with those four other tribes. MR. HENSON: That's exactly the way the government does it. They put all Indians in one pile that are qualified and they send them out. But this is HUD, IHS, BIA says Comanches, you can have this other preference. You can have preference on your Comanches being done first. So that's what this is about, period. We're taking it one step further and employing our Comanche people. MR. BURGESS: However, what if there's 10 people highly qualified and five of the Comanches meet that high qualification? It's only our responsibility to take them through the process. And as they go through that process, at least the three steps that I spoke about, that in the interview process, which is generally the final factor of a person being selected, because that supervisor should be in there with the other program or the other people who understand the Indian process. If that majority say that this most qualified individual is individual C, they may not be a tribal member, they might be other Indian, but at least the application process was followed. The interview process defines that. MR. HENSON: You don't follow Indian Preference by doing that, Mike. The process that you're explaining the same process if we get 10 Indian applicants and they all were qualified. Them 10 would be sent to the individual that's on the qualified Cert and they would run through the interview, they would run through everything and pick the one that they want. If there's highly qualified, you take them and give them the highly qualified people, and the same process that you're working at, the same process that you're talking about is going to happen. MR. BURGESS: So if we only have one Comanche and three other people that are non-Comanche apply for the job -- MR. HENSON: They only get to see the Comanche. If they don't want to hire that person, they got one way out, ask for readvertisement to get more people. MR. BURGESS: That's what puts us in the bind, because when we don't hire Comanche we get our butts chewed, but yet they're the least qualified. On the other side of it, if we're saying bring them in because they're Comanche, then we're hurting the opportunities for these other people, Comanche and non-Comanche. MR. TIPPECONNIE: It's not fair. MR. HENSON: Again, if you're working out in public, you got your own company and somebody says you have to hire a person and you only get one applicant in there, are you going to hire that person if he's not going to make you a dollar? Hell no, you're not going to hire him. I won't hire him. MR. TIPPECONNIE: But you're saying he's qualified. That's why he came forward. MR. HENSON: He gets to be looked at because he's qualified. That doesn't mean that he's going to get hired. That means that I, as the owner of the company, should get my damn butt out there and recruit highly qualified people for that job. That's all it means. They have an out. If they don't want to hire one individual, they have an out. But if they got three or more qualified Indian Comanches, they have to make a selection or close that job down. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Let me back up one step. We went through the 103, that's what we want to be sure is done well, advertisement. You know, we're going to advertise 14 days on the Web, but we're concurrently going to advertise in other media. MR. HENSON: Yeah. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Okay. That's going to be out around the world so everyone, whomever, has a chance to apply. We give them all due process, so to speak, whomever they are. MR. HENSON: Yes. MR. TIPPECONNIE: So then when they come in and there's only, say, one Comanche, we're going to say, no, we're going to readvertise. That doesn't sound very smart to me. MR. HENSON: Let me remind you, Bob, that when you advertise all over the world, that advertisement's going to say that we have Comanche Preference. It's going to tell you Comanche Preference, it's going to tell you Indian Preference, it's going to tell you other applicants. It's going to be on all the advertisements. So when them people apply, they're going to know exactly -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: I understand that. I'm just saying the point, though, if we did this, see, then we have one Comanche, and he didn't look sharp. Even though they're qualified, they met all the criteria of the PD and of the advertisement, you said, no, we're going to readvertise. That raises a question. MR. HENSON: Well, let me give you a better question. What if that person qualified and they gave them a certificate and said we don't want you so we're going to readvertise. They give the manager an out. What happens if they readvertise and that same person is the only one that they can get for the job? Do we hire him there or do we close down the job? MR. BURGESS: BIA closes the job down until they get the person they want in there. MR. NELSON: That's true. MR. BURGESS: That's happened to me three times in the past two years. MR. GRIFFIN: I understand it's our money, it's our gaming dollars we're hiring and, you know, funding the positions by. But when we go out with grants and we're hiring with grant dollars, we have to follow EEOC. MR. TIPPECONNIE: We can't be discriminatory. MR. BURGESS: No. MR. HENSON: All our grants are Comanche Preference, every one of the grants we get. They understand when we apply that we can give that preference. MR. BURGESS: That's what he's referring to. We sign off on the assurances, but under EEOC we have an out as a tribal government. Jim, am I wrong? MR. TIPPECONNIE: It depends on the grant. MR. BURSON: It depends on that little phrase that they slip in on you. If they really do mean EEOC, there is a built-in out for Indian Preference. I've seen wording in some of these assurance contracts that give you wiggle room. MR. TIPPECONNIE: They're binding. MR. HENSON: That's separate. If we go out after a contract and that contract or that grant says we have to abide by not Indian Preference but EEOC, then we abide by that grant or contract. There's nothing wrong with that. MR. BURSON: There's an out here for that, that's true. Your current policies say that you only apply this Comanche Preference if it's not prohibited by federal grant or any kind of grant obligation. MR. HENSON: All that's covered. MR. NELSON: Mr. Vice-Chairman, we have argued this same for eight hours before and we're still here. MR. BURGESS: It all has to do with how someone's going to interpret this. That someone, how it's going to be interpreted, invariably falls on HR, because if you go down -- MR. HENSON: Let me say it again, Mike. As soon as we pass this and as soon as we get it out, I'm going to go out there personally to every one of our organizations and everybody that this involves, plus even the people out in the field, and explain this. We've already had several meetings. We've already had several meetings on that with our council people. MR. BURGESS: I say that because I'm afraid you're going to be misquoted. I want you to refer to Page 2, Item D.: Human Resources will adhere to Indian Preference hiring, Indian Preference procedures. Kind of covers us, kind of covers our butt to state we comply with the law that we have Indian Preference in hiring. The first section, 103, or whatever it was, back to the front page. MR. TIPPECONNIE: That was the advertisement, 103. MR. BURGESS: So 104, when we talk about Comanche Preference, it doesn't mean we're not having Indian Preference. We've clearly told the world we have Comanche Preference in hiring, and all other Indians and all others after that. So our interpretation from HR and the statements on our advertisement should say the Comanche Nation practices Indian Preference, and just state that. So this interpretation that we're only going to hire Comanches is going to cost us a lot of time. MR. HENSON: Mike, there's no interpretation here that says we're going to hire only Comanches. MR. BURGESS: I agree with you, I understand that part of it. MR. HENSON: There's nothing here, and I'll guarantee you right now that if this is out there, and it's happened already, and we sat and we listened to the damn case, and we told the Gaming Commission to correct it. Did they correct it? Hell, no. That kid's working over here in HR right now because they overlooked Indian Preference. They didn't want to hire him. They didn't want nothing to do with him. That's what brought all this about. MR. BURGESS: There's others. MR. HENSON: We hear cases down there all the time that they're doing that. All this does is govern the way that it's supposed to be done. That's all it does. There's nothing wrong with it. It tells everybody we, as a CBC, are backing Indian Preference for Comanches. It doesn't say they have to be hired. All it says is that they have to be qualified before they can be hired for the job. MR. BURGESS: See, I think that was one of the interpretations that came out. Am I right, Mr. TA? We got word here that Human Resources said, well, there's no Comanches who applied so we have to close it down and readvertise, wait until we get a Comanche hired. MR. NELSON: We already had that litmus test. MR. BURGESS: That's a misinterpretation. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You said they'd have to readvertise. MR. HENSON: No, I didn't. I only said that if they had one person and that person wasn't selected, they had an option to readvertise if they want. That's the exact thing that I tell everybody. That's what's in these policies. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You didn't say earlier option, you said we have to readvertise. MR. HENSON: I don't think so. MR. NELSON: The only thing I am concerned about, sir, somebody can come up to our HR, even our constitution says in written form they can access any information from us if they're a Comanche member. I would hate for this to go out and then get misinterpreted by another nation, then them come back on us to circumvent our 93-638, you know. MR. HENSON: That's not going to happen, Willie. I'm going to guarantee you that that is not going to happen. MR. NELSON: Bunky, I'm all for it. By gum, I raise my hands and said hallelujah, let's do it. MR. HENSON: You've got a question on everything that's negative about this that you think is negative. It's not negative. It is not a negative document. It's for our Comanche Nation. MR. ASEPERMY: I think the last paragraph is very negative. MR. HENSON: What paragraph are you talking about? MR. ASEPERMY: The last paragraph, 107(d), Penalties. MR. NELSON: This all came from Red River right to my office. They were really concerned. MR. ASEPERMY: It says dismissal of the selected that is not Indian Preference selected will subject that administrative personnel that approves such action to disciplinary action, including dismissal. By god, you know what, they followed the policies, they didn't hire the Comanche, and you're going to get fired. That's how I read it. Why are you going to fire the person -- MR. HENSON: How could they run over the policies and not do the policies right? MR. ASEPERMY: And if they don't do it right, you fire them? MR. HENSON: No, it doesn't say fire, does it? MR. ASEPERMY: It says dismissal from employment. MR. HENSON: Could include, could include. MR. ASEPERMY: I'd be afraid to hire anybody but a Comanche. MR. HENSON: It's subject to the disciplinary actions. MR. ASEPERMY: I'd be afraid to hire anybody but a Comanche. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You're putting everyone on the hot seat, so -- MR. BURGESS: We've been on the hot seat a long time. Remember that now, we've got all this from the gaming for non-Comanches. MR. HENSON: What this means, again, is hiring all people. Every tribe -- I'm telling you, every tribe has their tribal hiring policies. Because IHS, BIA and HUD, all those individuals that are out in Indian Country has gave us the opportunity to use our tribal preference. They have gave us that. You can write and ask any one of those agencies. And they say we have Indian Preference, but you can bring it down to Comanches if you want to. We sit here day after day after day and listen to these people over here: Well, they're not hiring Comanches, they're not doing this. All this does is give them a way to hire Comanches, hire our people. That's all it does. It doesn't say hire them because they're Comanches, it says hire them if they qualify. MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: They already have a way to hire Comanches. Nobody's stopping them from hiring Comanches. MR. HENSON: Yes, there is. MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: It is saying you need to hire Comanches. MR. HENSON: I brought this case up a while ago. That little kid over here, he did not get selected for the job, and another person that wasn't Comanche got selected for the job and he was -- MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: We didn't sit in on that interview. We don't know what took place. MR. HENSON: It doesn't matter what took place. MR. ASEPERMY: Yes, it does matter. MR. HENSON: What it means is this kid did not get hired and he was highly qualified for the job. MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: To bring on, within their best judgment, who we need employed. MR. HENSON: That's not a prime preference. If you sat there and you saw 50 applications and 10 of them was Indian, 10 of them was Comanche, 10 of them was Indian and 10 wasn't, you've got people down there that won't even look at these Indian populations and they're going to go right to the white man. MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: Well, that's opinion. MR. HENSON: It happens. MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: You know, it's -- MR. HENSON: It's already happened. We get complaints every day about it happening down at the Gaming Commission. We had a woman sitting in here, sitting right there telling us they got this woman that was working for bingo, and what is she doing now? Cleaning ashtrays. She probably qualified because she was working, and she probably qualified for another job, and they didn't want to hire her to go into that position. These are examples of what's happening. And with the policy like this, and us backing Indian Preference, I mean, this tells them a way they can do that and we won't have any problems with it. MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: They already have a way they can do it. You say they're not choosing to do that, so we're going to force them to choose. That's what this does. MR. HENSON: This says that this is the way to follow Indian Preference. That's all it is. It's not forcing them to do nothing. MR. GRIFFIN: My only concern is, the way you set it up now, I would only see the Comanches first. I won't see the entire pool. MR. HENSON: If you get qualified people. MR. GRIFFIN: Right. But I won't see the entire pool, so I don't know if I'm selecting the best individual or not. I don't have the option. MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: No. MR. HENSON: You're not going to see the rest of the people, so you have an option to hire the best one that's on that list. They could be highly qualified. If they're highly qualified, you only see the highly qualified list. If you see the qualified, you only see the qualified list. MR. GRIFFIN: I understand the list is going to be selected by HR by matching how well they can write a resume versus how well the thing was advertised. Now, that is one wicket. What about these other things that need to be in consideration? How well does he communicate, what's his appearance? But not everybody's going to be at the board. We're not even going to see most of them. We're only going to see what HR sends to us. MR. HENSON: That's right. You're only going to see the people that are qualified or highly qualified for the position. MR. BURGESS: What we don't have is the operating procedure. We have got policies. In those policies does it say that there is a procedure that if the five most qualified are brought over that the director can request to see the other less qualified? MR. NELSON: Yes, there is a procedure, Mike. MR. BURGESS: Is it in the policies? MR. NELSON: Yes. MR. GRIFFIN: What I have done in the past to be fair is interview everyone who has been qualified. MR. NELSON: You did in-house hiring. MR. GRIFFIN: I did one, one, and it was a Comanche, and I took hell for that. MR. BURGESS: The review of these applications, is it only done by HR or is it done with the HR and then the supervisor and the department head to review applicants together on paper? MR. NELSON: On paper. MR. HENSON: You're talking the applications? MR. BURGESS: The applications with the resumes so they can see on paper how these people present themselves. MR. NELSON: Yes, Mike. They've done the litmus test already. They've followed this. Comanches, and, you know, they've got the director involved. In that one litmus test, it came to, golly, we couldn't even readvertise, you know. They had to send it right back out. MR. BURGESS: When you say "litmus test," what do you mean? MR. NELSON: A test. This has not been adopted yet. We have not adopted this. We're still in discussion. MR. HENSON: We have this same thing in our policies and procedures. MR. NELSON: This addendum has not been adopted. MR. BURGESS: We didn't pass it last month? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yes, we have. MR. NELSON: The P&Ps passed, but this is an actual addendum that you're attaching. MR. HENSON: It's the same thing. There's not anything different in that that's in the policies and procedures that's already passed. The only thing that's different in that is the possible disciplinary actions involved. That's not in the policies and procedures. MR. ASEPERMY: Can I say what happened? I got a phone call, and I'll say who I got a phone call from. I got a phone call from J.J. at PIO. She said, "Mr. Asepermy, I'm trying to hire a reporter, but if I don't hire a Comanche, I might get fired." I said, "Really? Is that in the policies and procedures?" She said, "Yes." I said, "Well, okay. Let me call Shirley." I called Shirley up and I said, "J.J. just called me and said the policies and procedures say if she don't hire a Comanche, she could lose her job," and, by god, it's right here. So I told Shirley to get with you, because I didn't want to touch it no more. You see that? MR. HENSON: You're not following the whole policies and procedures. You're picking out one paragraph. All this does is say you can be -- disciplinary action can be done if you don't follow the policies and procedures. If you follow the policies and procedures, they're right there. That's what you have to do first. MR. ASEPERMY: The way the policies and procedures was interpreted by a director was if I don't hire Comanche, I'm going to lose my job. MR. HENSON: All she had to do was call HR. MR. BURGESS: HR said the same thing. They're confused. MR. ASEPERMY: Bunky, no disrespect, I don't understand, and I've been listening for the last 15 minutes or 20. I still don't get it. Maybe I'm dumb. MR. HENSON: These are the same policies and procedures, except for that last paragraph, that we already approved for the Tribe. There's no change. MR. ASEPERMY: Well, I'm hearing the chairman saying it ain't right, I'm hearing the secretary/treasurer saying it ain't right, I'm hearing my colleague over there, Darrell Kosechequetah, saying it ain't right, I'm hearing the chief of police say it ain't right, I'm hearing the tribal administrator saying it ain't right. MR. BURGESS: The interpretation that's been given is wrong. MR. NELSON: When it comes to 106 and 107, is there a different way to write this? MR. HENSON: I don't understand what you're talking about. MR. NELSON: I wish you would, sir. This is your baby, 106 and 107, coverage and then enforcement. MR. HENSON: 106 says that it's going to be binding on all Comanche entities. 107 is enforcement. There's nothing there that's really hard. It just says that they may be subject to disciplinary action. That's all it says, which could include dismissal. MR. NELSON: Mike asked me and I told him about the litmus test. Yes, Mike, you know, it goes to HR. MR. BURGESS: See, it's even stronger than what I was asking before. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You agree with me. Here's the question. MR. BURGESS: Here's the question, .I should say here's the problem. "Each separate violation of this chapter shall require immediate dismissal." That shouldn't be in there. What it should say is each separate violation of this chapter shall require immediate attention that Indian Preference was not used in the selection and will subject that administrative personnel to disciplinary actions, including the possibility of dismissal from employment. MR. HENSON: This paragraph, I might say, is one that Jim presented us. MR. GRIFFIN: Jim? MR. HENSON: Let me say this: The way he presented it, he wanted to fine everybody that was on this. And I asked him, let me change that and look at it this way. Is this better than that? And he agreed. All it's saying is they'll be subject to disciplinary actions, even including dismissal. And he agreed with it. MR. TIPPECONNIE: The way it's written is too -- MR. HENSON: It's not saying that you have to do that. It's just telling you those are your options. MR. TIPPECONNIE: The way you interpret it, you ask the PIO or you ask some of our directors, they're going to interpret it differently. MR. ASEPERMY: This is a little strong. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I do, too. MR. GRIFFIN: I think it should stop after corrective actions. MR. NELSON: I don't think it -- MR. BURGESS: We're making a law for the rest of the Nation. Remember that. This isn't just the tribe. So we know that other entities have policies, they have corrective action procedures, that for various reasons will include dismissal. So we've got to find the word and now let's open up, what's the suggestion, because we all agree that the wording is very harsh and it's brought the wrong interpretation when, in fact, what we mean is the latter half of it is those individuals involved with not following the processes are subjective to correction action required. Action as presented in the other organizations. We're making something for the rest of the country here, Comanche Country. So, guys, open it up here. What's your ideas? MR. HENSON: The part here on penalties, it says here that they would be a violation of each such action granted. Each separate violation of this chapter shall require immediate dismissal of the selected person that is not Indian Preference selected, and will subject that administrative personnel that approves such action to disciplinary actions, including dismissal. The dismissal of the selective, this is dismissal of the person that's selected not under Indian Preference is what it's saying. MR. BURGESS: Devil's advocate is, I got hired not according to policy, I took the job straightforward. All of a sudden somebody wants me to start giving them a quarter of my paycheck. I hired you and if you want to keep your job, you've got to give me $25 each paycheck. I didn't know I was hired illegally. I thought I got the job on my merits. Am I going to give them $25 or am I going to complain because I might lose my job? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Or you can sue. MR. BURGESS: Or you can sue. This is kind of tough on people if they didn't know that they were being -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: This is very poor. MR. BURGESS: Well, in a way it's poor, but the heart of it means we want to be sure that everybody's following the policies and the law. We're making a big law, now. MR. HENSON: Let me go back and explain the reason. If you were an individual that had a business, and that's the best way to put it, and you were trying to make money, and you didn't follow policies and procedures and you put somebody in that position that shouldn't be in that position, and you only had one position, what are you going to do with that person? You are going to be subject to disciplinary action because you didn't go through and hire the Indian Preference or follow the policies. But the guy that you put in there, what's going to happen to him? Because you only got one position that somebody should be into. That's why that phrase is in there, that you have to remove that guy from that position and put this other one in. That's the only reason why it's in there. MR. TIPPECONNIE: If the person got to the point of being given a job, that's a different circumstance. That individual has rights then, because you put them into a job. MR. HENSON: If they do not follow policies and procedures -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: That's the supervisor or the selectee who did that, not the individual. MR. HENSON: But still, you only got one position. What are you going to do with it? MR. TIPPECONNIE: You're trying to make the individual the victim now. The individual had nothing to do with it. They were selected. MR. HENSON: That's true, but what are we going to do with that individual? Are we going to pay another Indian Preference that should have the job, are we going to pay them the same salary for the one position that we're going to keep the guy into? MR. TIPPECONNIE: I know it creates a box, but I'm just saying you can create a dilemma to the person that was just the victim. They were given the job. MR. HENSON: Well, if you go back through and you see the way that the policies and procedures, the way they go through giving Indian Preference, this should not even happen. And it's going to only happen if one of our directors way up tell our HR people, say this is what I want and this is what's going to happen. That's the only way that that's going to happen. That's the only way that this thing's going to happen to anybody. That's with the director's control over HR or whoever does the job, gives them a direct order and they're afraid to lose their job, so they do it. That's the only way it's going to happen. MR. NELSON: Which comes right back down to -- let's go to 103. See, right there, 103. Some positions may be filed sooner if program needs dictate. Exceptions to normal practice require approval of the TA, the Director of Human Resources, or CEO of respective entities. Do you understand that? Do you truly understand that? All I can see from this, I'll be honest with you, Bunky, we're creating a filibuster here. You know that? You know what a filibuster is? We just keep on talking till someone gives out. Did you ever, did you have this indoctrinated at IHS? Was this in black and white? MR. HENSON: Absolutely. You call them today. It's the same thing. MR. NELSON: Word for word? MR. HENSON: Except it's not Comanche Indian Preference, it's Indian Preference. You could go over there, BIA's got the same thing, and it's not Comanche Preference, it's Indian Preference. It's the same law, it's the same procedures. All that those agencies said to us, gave us the opportunity to apply Comanche Preference. That's all it's done. And if you go and you look at those policies -- in fact, you can call Marty. Marty worked for IHS, he'll tell you. I'm talking about where they can apply that. And HUD does the same thing. On their moneys they give out, they tell the Housing Authority they can have Comanche Preference in their jobs, too. It's the same thing, it's no change. There's no penalty. They are subject to removal from the job, which is in here, the people that's hired, illegally hired, they're subject to removal from their job and the right ones can be put in. But you can change that if you want. I suggest we don't change it, because if we do change it, what's going to happen is, even though that we got a victim there, we've got a policy that hasn't been followed. He may be a victim, but he's in there illegally. So what are we going to do? Are we going to leave him in a position and pay him, or are we going to go over here and pay another person the same amount of money to do the same job when we got one position? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Well, sometimes, you know, if an individual intentionally, willfully, whatever, malfeasance, selects someone who is not Comanche and puts them in that job, then that person is the guilty person. MR. HENSON: That's true. MR. TIPPECONNIE: The individual who was placed there is victimized. MR. HENSON: The language covers that, too. MR. TIPPECONNIE: So leave them there for a while and your first option replace them, but don't make them the victim. Handle the person who did it. MR. HENSON: Well, that's in there, too. They're subject to disciplinary actions. That's what it says. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You're saying immediately let this person go. MR. HENSON: Anyway, that's the explanation. MR. TIPPECONNIE: By the way, in 103 I would say, sometime we should do a little more spell check or something, because that says some positions may be filed. It should be filled, F-I-L-L-E-D. MR. HENSON: I've got filled in mine. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Mine says F-I-L-E-D. MR. HENSON: Oh, yeah. You're right. MR. ASEPERMY: So Bunky, you're saying this is okay the way it's written and, Robert, you say it ain't? MR. TIPPECONNIE: I'm just saying the penalty is the one -- you know, little errors here, but I'm talking about 107-B. MR. ASEPERMY: Mr. Chairman? MR. TIPPECONNIE: I'm also talking about the panel -- MR. ASEPERMY: We're taking, ending this argument or debate, whatever you call it. Can you task us, the secretary/treasurer to come up with a rewrite and also the tribal administrator, and we will compare the three? MR. TIPPECONNIE: I'd like to work with Bunky, though. MR. ASEPERMY: That's why I say compare the three before our next monthly meeting and make a decision on option 1, 2, 3. Number 1 would be Bunky, which is as is; Number 2 would be the secretary/treasurer; and Number 3 would be Mr. Nelson. MR. HENSON: We're here and it's late. I don't want to mess with this anymore. I think you guys can make a decision. If y'all want to change that last paragraph some way and everybody agrees on it, majority votes on it, everybody agrees on it, you don't have to have me for that. You can make a decision on this. We need to get it out there and we need to implement it. MR. TIPPECONNIE: We'll bring it to the 5th, two weeks away, a week away. MR. BURGESS: Table it to the 5th and we'll have appropriate language brought forward. Keep it to a 15 minute discussion. Move to table. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Indirect cost, do you want to look at that? We need to get that in the record. MR. BURGESS: Oh, yeah. We got the restitution account. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yeah, I need to make deposits on that. MR. BURGESS: Okay. You want to do indirect cost right now, just going down these four items? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Let's do. We've got to get that in the record so Finley & Cook knows that's what we want done. MR. NELSON: It's already been accepted, right? MR. BURGESS: Finley & Cook? Indirect cost what? MR. NELSON: The office management business. MR. BURGESS: We have to pass a resolution stating that we -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: Fifty percent off-site. This is 50 percent off-site. So we have to have a formal record. MR. HENSON: I make a motion we approve it. MR. BURGESS: Finley & Cook said we have to do this for our audit purposes. MR. HENSON: I make a motion that we approve 176-09. MR. ASEPERMY: Second. MR. BURGESS: Motion made by Mr. Henson to approve Resolution 176-09, second by Mr. Asepermy. MR. HENSON: And the restitution account? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yeah. Well, let's get a vote on this. MR. HENSON: I'm sorry, I'm just jumping over everything. MR. BURGESS: Motion made and seconded. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Okay. MR. BURGESS: The next one, if you can act on it, it would be good, which is the Motion of Restitution Account. This establishes a separate account at Bank First depositing any restitution payment that may be made payable to the Comanche Nation. Oh, these are those persons making payments to us, correct? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Like the one we're getting restitution from, the former chief. We have them, we need to get them deposited. We need to get them in this account which will be titled Restitution. MR. HENSON: I make a motion to pass. MR. ASEPERMY: Second. MR. BURGESS: Motion made by Mr. Henson to accept the motion, seconded by Mr. Asepermy. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. Pass. All right. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Number 6, Payment Requests. I had in absence, you know, I put extended. Absence of the Secretary/Treasurer and Vice-Chairman, an available Comanche Business Committee member will co-sign with the Tribal Administrator. MR. BURGESS: But this is one you didn't do a dollar figure. MR. TIPPECONNIE: No, because I had another one, but we can put it into this one. I had a separate one on the 500. I mean, 5,000. MR. BURGESS: Let's go for further discussion and do the motion now so there's no single person doing it. This establishes exactly what you were trying to do with the former TA. Who's going to make the motion? MR. ASEPERMY: Wait a minute. This is on payment requests now? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yes, so if the secretary/treasurer's away, extended time, like go a week, go down the road, kicked out of office or whatever, you know, the vice-chair will sign with the TA. And if the vice-chair is not there, it will be one of the other CBC. Could be you. MR. ASEPERMY: Chairman, okay. Why don't we -- we put the current policy in place and we all know why, because of the excessive spending. I made a recommendation during our conversation this afternoon that the executive officer or the executive, which includes chairman, vice-Chairman, secretary/treasurer had signature authority to approve payment requests, as long as two of you sign it, anything over $5,000. Anything under $4,999.99, one of the executives, one of the three, and the tribal administrator. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Well, that's what this one says. As you say, we could combine them and put the 5,000 in here. MR. ASEPERMY: Well, Mike said 2,500. I say 5,000. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I had that as a separate motion. MR. ASEPERMY: Well, can we do -- we did the resolution appointing the secretary/ treasurer and the TA. I can't remember the resolution. It had to happen in March or April of '08. I think we need to rescind that resolution, rewrite it, and my recommendation is what I just said, if y'all consent to that. MR. HENSON: I like the way this is written in the extended absence of the secretary/treasurer, the vice-chairman aren't available, a Comanche Business Committee person would co-sign payment requests. That means that if Mike and I and Robert's out, and there's a great possibility that that could happen, that business can keep going by another CBC member. MR. ASEPERMY: Okay. Extend it out then. MR. HENSON: It's already there. MR. ASEPERMY: Extend it out by resolution with the executive body of the CBC in their absence when there's not two signatures, just go right down the line, CBC Number 1, Number 2, Number 3, and Number 4 has that signature authority. MR. HENSON: That's basically what this says. MR. ASEPERMY: But the way it's set up now is by resolution. The resolution says you can't and you can't and I can't and he can't sign anything, any payment request, and Finley & Cook will not approve it unless it bears his signature and his signature. MR. TIPPECONNIE: So what you're saying is we should rescind that resolution? MR. BURGESS: Yes, rescind it and establish a new one. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I think we need to rescind it. MR. ASEPERMY: The thing is, Mr. Chairman, do y'all agree that two of the executive branch, or the executive committee, which is the officers, are required, and that Finley & Cook will not process any payment request over -- and we have to decide 25 or 5,000 -- will not process any payment request unless it has two of the signatures, and in your absence, you filter down in sequence, Number 1, Number 2, Number 3, Number 4. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Well, if there's two, that's two may be there. MR. ASEPERMY: What if all three of you are gone? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Then it has to go to other CBC. You don't have to say 1, 2 or 3. You can just say other available CBC. MR. HENSON: That makes sure that the business is going to get done. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I could do this to help us. You know, I can rewrite so we rescind the initial one, it has to be done, and bring it to the 5th. And then we can change this wording. MR. BURGESS: You're right, we have to rescind the other one. MR. TIPPECONNIE: And I'll combine it with the amount and the numbers of persons. MR. ASEPERMY: Let's get a consensus on the amount. I say $5,000 for the tribal administrator, up to $5,000. The chairman says to 2,500. What do y'all feel? MR. HENSON: Let me say one thing. This $5,000 that we're talking about that he can sign for, basically what you're saying is contracts and stuff like that. But what we were interested in was the little ones that build up to over 5,000, that's accumulation, and we need some way to control that that accumulation doesn't go over that. That's what happened before. Mike put a $13,000 up there when it should have been no more than 5. That's an example. So we need some way to control, and everybody suggested a finance officer to keep track of how much money is going under each contract or each grant that we have. That's where the problem is. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I think down the road we really need to do that, but in the interim, you know, one thing we have to be in remembrance of, or be reminded of is that there are budgets that are approved with line items. You know, so if the line item says we're going to construct something at $10,000, that's what the budget says, so we have to stay to that. Right now, Finley & Cook is helping us stay. MR. BURGESS: Well, see, yeah, but the situation is that there was no line item for that out of indirect costs after October 1. So when you move forward with cost factors prior to that, but the extension of cost went past October 1, and then you use indirect cost money and administrative money, and we sit down with the plan and we're not mapping this -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: On those, see, now, I don't think we should be acting on those that are not in budgets. You know, like on indirect, remember we spent the time on the budget. MR. BURGESS: Was there a budget? We just started doing that, right? We didn't say approve this budget to this X amount of dollars. We just started doing the renovation, correct? MR. TIPPECONNIE: It should have been budgeted. MR. NELSON: The little job down there in Lawton? It's part of capital improvement. MR. TIPPECONNIE: It should be budgeted. MR. BURGESS: It should be budgeted and capital improvements means here, what we own. MR. NELSON: Capital improvements, we did so many improvements to the college, the gaming. MR. BURGESS: That went to someone else's building. We did a capital expenditure improvement. We approved his building quite a bit, and we don't own it. MR. ASEPERMY: But we got a reduction in rent, correct? MR. BURGESS: We can debate that, because I heard two different time lines. MR. NELSON: I'll give you the exact figure. I will give it to you exact. MR. BURGESS: Before we spend money on things outside our own, what we own, we should have that budgeted and planned, and say wait a minute, is this a fair tradeoff or not. MR. TIPPECONNIE: All expenditures should be approved. MR. BURGESS: Any time we build something. MR. TIPPECONNIE: All expenditures should have a budget. MR. BURGESS: And we know that on a daily basis, but when we start doing things outside that normal budget, we shouldn't do it. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Maybe we can have -- we'll work on this for the 5th. Maybe there's something in there. If there's no budget, you know, we can't act. MR. BURGESS: From now on, what we're going to establish is a procedure. We don't have any operating procedures. We do things because we've been doing them historically, but now we've got to set down procedures on how to improve this item, the budget line item, staff time required, time line to start and end production. We don't have that in place. We just started doing things. MR. TIPPECONNIE: See, what we need -- see, we don't have a good budget in capital improvements. We don't. MR. BURGESS: But see, it goes away, remember? We've got indirect costs now. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I'm just saying the way it's been spent, there's no budget. MR. BURGESS: I'll remind you all -- I'm trying not to argue. We want to go home. Capital improvement was never to be a line item on the budget. It was a catch-all for those programs that didn't get approved and didn't go into complex operation and create the big hole, the black hole, as it was called. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Well, I think, you know, there can be capital improvements. And I agree, the way the history is, it was all confused. MR. BURGESS: It's construction under our indirect costs. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Or it can be a separate item if it's like a big, big sewer like we're working on, that can be stressful. MR. BURGESS: But, see, okay, then we have to plan that. Any time we're going to expend more than $5,000 on any piece of equipment, whether we own it or not, and it's our money, we need a plan and a budget. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I agree. MR. BURGESS: That's what we don't have, and that's what this whole idea about let's have these steps in place. So when we start accumulating costs that absorb or exceed, I should say, well, wait a minute. What's it going to? Where's the budget for this? HIP has to do that, Housing. You've got to have a budget. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I don't disagree with that, I believe in that. I believe in budgets like that. MR. ASEPERMY: Until the 5th of December when Robert's going to present a resolution, we stay with the way things are now, correct? MR. BURGESS: Yeah, we have to rescind that resolution. MR. ASEPERMY: And the only thing, Willie, is don't approve nothing over $5,000, or 2,500. I don't know. MR. BURGESS: Well, the thing is, if you're going to do something that requires capital improvement, as purchasing equipment, fixing buildings, unless it's a real dire emergency, you can bring that to us, but if you think you're going to do this and pretty soon it costs you $3,000 but you find out it's going to cost you 3,900, 4,500, you can't do it because you have to have prior approval. You've got to modify to do that. So the only money left is tribal money. But if we start expending money on capitalization of materials and equipment, we've got to know about it because that's how it gets us in the hole again, and we run a deficit at the end of the year. MR. HENSON: I hate to cut you guys off, but in a few more hours we got another meeting. MR. BURGESS: That's for sure. That's tabled. MR. HENSON: We got one more to do, right? We've got timekeeping and payroll procedures. MR. BURGESS: Number 6 is tabled until December 5th. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Timekeeper, we went through that earlier. MR. ASEPERMY: We did? MR. TIPPECONNIE: We modified it; we haven't acted upon it. MR. BURGESS: This is the motion that is interpretation of Chapter 4, Timekeeping/ Payroll Procedures, Section 11. This is to define holiday pay in the Comanche Nation Human Resources Policies and Procedures which reads: "Employee must be in pay status the day prior and the day after a holiday to receive the holiday leave." Not only means that if an employee is on duty the day before and after a holiday, they will be paid the holiday pay, it also should mean that if an employee's on sick or annual leave the day before or after a holiday, they will be granted holiday leave or pay as well as the regular pay. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yes. MR. BURGESS: That's how it should be interpreted. MR. NELSON: We got a problem. MR. HENSON: Well, I've got a problem with that, too. You're going to have an awful lot of employees get sick before the holiday, the day before the holiday. If we're going to do something like you're saying, we need to put in there that the employee should bring in a doctor's certificate or doctor's statement that he's sick. MR. BURGESS: For one day? MR. HENSON: Yeah. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Our Human Resources policy doesn't require for one day. MR. HENSON: If we're going to pass a holiday payment, we're going to have an awful -- I'm telling you, we're going to have an awful lot of employees -- MR. BURGESS: Those who have vacation leave the day before something else had to take vacation day for a federal holiday that we said we recognize. That's a conflict of law, federal law. MR. TIPPECONNIE: It is. MR. HENSON: Yeah, I agree. MR. ASEPERMY: Call for the question. MR. BURGESS: Labor Day? MR. NELSON: Let me give you an example. Vern, I'm going to use your department here. Veteran's Day, November 11th, that was a Wednesday, we were all off. All of his 15 officers were on duty. MR. GRIFFIN: That's my changeover day. MR. NELSON: They got paid for the day. They got paid for the holiday. MR. HENSON: But he's exempt from that. He don't have to pay his officers holiday pay. He's exempt from it. He doesn't have to pay them all holiday pay at all. MR. BURGESS: It's a regular scheduled duty day. MR. NELSON: In the regular workplace, yes, you have to be present to get your holiday pay. MR. BURGESS: You have to be on pay status, that's what you're saying. That's what this says, pay status. What is pay status? MR. NELSON: That is even if it's annual leave, sick leave, your regular day to come in. MR. BURGESS: No, it isn't. MR. NELSON: Guys, have we written it wrong? Was it written wrong? MR. BURGESS: It's been interpreted again to say that you have to pay vacation leave or sick leave when you're on federal holiday leave. Conflict of law. MR. NELSON: You're right. Is it written wrong, sir? MR. BURGESS: Yes. It's interpreted to say you have to be -- what you should have wrote is you have to receive or be on the job actually to receive it. MR. NELSON: All right, Jim. MR. BURGESS: Now, pay status means I'm on vacation the day before Thanksgiving or I got sick in the afternoon and I had to go see the doctor because I'm throwing up on the job, but I don't need a doctor's slip because the policies say I only have to show it for three days or more. MR. HENSON: I agree with you, but just for your information, Willie, there's one way to control this. That if you go back and you look at their absence or sick leave on holidays and stuff and it shows that there's a continuation of this, you can go back and require them to give you a doctor's certificate if it's being abused. MR. NELSON: How to stop the conflict, Mr. Chairman? How should we reword it? MR. BURGESS: Pass this. This is a definition of what pay status means, actual pay status. So that we're not telling them you give us 16 hours of leave for Christmas Day and the day after, because our policies states it's a holiday pay paid leave. MR. NELSON: I agree. That's the way it should be. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I make a motion to pass this one. MR. HENSON: Yeah, I do, too. I second it. MR. BURGESS: Okay. Motion made to accept this motion here of interpretation of the payroll procedure section of our policies. Motion made by Mr. Tippeconnie, seconded by Mr. Henson. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. The ayes have it. MR. HENSON: Now we finished everything except the Charitable Fund Requests, right? MR. ASEPERMY: Yes. MR. HENSON: Can we do that? MR. ASEPERMY: Let's wrap it up. I don't care if we have a meeting. Let's just drive on over there. MR. HENSON: I was just going to make a suggestion maybe we can handle this by voice vote. MR. ASEPERMY: It won't take us but 30 minutes or less. Mike, is that all right with you? MR. TIPPECONNIE: The first ones were already voted on. Number 1 was already voted on. MR. ASEPERMY: I didn't know that. MR. HENSON: The Moons' going to be taken care of. We done that one, right? MR. BURGESS: Yes. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Sandra Tate, you have to look at. MR. HENSON: I think I seen that. MR. ASEPERMY: It's in here, Robert? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Should be in here. MR. BURGESS: The letter states: "To whom it may concern. I'm employed at Riverside Indian School." She's asking for a donation to the Indian Club at Riverside Indian School. "Our Indian Club is seeking funding for our activities this year. Due to federal budget cuts, our extracurricular activities did not receive funding for local powwows, field trips to attend performances." What say you, the CBC, oh, you great men of wisdom? We do know they serve a lot of kids, but I couldn't say how many Comanches. MR. TIPPECONNIE: There's getting fewer and fewer Comanches at Riverside. MR. HENSON: I personally think that we need to not do that one. MR. BURGESS: Well, I say we tell them we'll donate 500 if Kiowas, Wichita, Caddos, everybody else donates 500. MR. TIPPECONNIE: It's really Seven Tribes' school. MR. ASEPERMY: How much was that for? MR. BURGESS: Whatever we can. It would be out of our charitable contributions. MR. ASEPERMY: Sharon Tate? Who is she? Anybody know Sharon Tate? MR. TIPPECONNIE: I think they're willing to take anything. I say 100. MR. ASEPERMY: Robert suggested 100. MR. TIPPECONNIE: That's what I suggest. MR. ASEPERMY: I'll say 100. MR. BURGESS: What say so ye? MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: I say 100. MR. BURSON: Put that in the form of a motion and vote on it. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I make a motion that we donate through our Charitable Fund $100. MR. ASEPERMY: I second that. MR. BURGESS: Motion made by Mr. Tippeconnie to donate $100 to Riverside Indian School. Seconded by Mr. Asepermy. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. MR. HENSON: Nay. MR. TIPPECONNIE: One nay. MR. HENSON: One nay. MR. BURGESS: All right. Motion passes. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Let's go to the next one quickly. MR. BURGESS: The next one is going to be Bacone College/Donation. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Same kind of thing. MR. BURGESS: For their roadway or something, right? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Existing road replaced. MR. BURGESS: They want to raise a total of $200,000 in contributions. MR. HENSON: I vote no. MR. BURGESS: We have one no. Let's have a motion denied or just by consensus vote no? MR. HENSON: I make a motion we deny. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You make that motion? MR. HENSON: Yes. MR. BURGESS: Motion to deny. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Is there a second to deny? MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: Second to deny. MR. BURGESS: Motion to deny. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. Those opposed? MR. ASEPERMY: Aye. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You're opposed? MR. ASEPERMY: Yes. MR. BURGESS: Okay. The ayes have it for no donation. Kristen Onco. I think we helped her. MR. TIPPECONNIE: That's the one that bothers me because she has to earn 6,000, remember? MR. BURGESS: It gets reimbursed if she doesn't do it. They needed $400 to file online so she can be a part of this ambassador program. Now she's obligated to raise $6,000, the difference of 6,000, if she's selected through her application. If she's not selected, her money is reimbursed. MR. ASEPERMY: $400? I make a motion that we approve with the guidelines that you just mentioned, that it would be reimbursed if she's not selected. MR. BURGESS: Second? I'll second it. Motion made by Mr. Asepermy, seconded by Mr. Burgess. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. Motion passes. This is by letter again, she's a student in college, Tashina Ototivo. MR. TIPPECONNIE: This is the one over here. MR. BURGESS: She just had a written notice. She's playing ball currently. She's an outstanding student down in Walters. She's trying to raise money to help her program or something. MR. ASEPERMY: This is for $25? MR. BURGESS: Or more. MR. ASEPERMY: There's a number of Comanches that play for the Walters team. I make a motion that we approve this for $100, which is four times what she's asking, and 1/5th of their goal. MR. HENSON: I'll second. MR. BURGESS: Motion made by Mr. Asepermy, seconded by Mr. Henson. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. Motion passes. Mr. Burgess, he came before us and asked for help because higher ed had denied him. MR. TIPPECONNIE: He needed money to pay for his -- let's see. MR. ASEPERMY: Chris Burgess? MR. TIPPECONNIE: He needed to pay his money so he can get his transcripts. MR. BURGESS: It says it can't come out of higher ed because he's no longer in school. They got him on hold, he can't go back to school. He is working, but doesn't have enough to do this, and wants to go back to school and finish his degree. MR. HENSON: So what is he asking for, what amount? MR. TIPPECONNIE: He's asking for 3,244. MR. ASEPERMY: No, the Pell Grant covers $2,365 of that. He's got a credit there for 2,365, correct? MR. BURGESS: Take 3,244 and subtract 1,735. MR. ASEPERMY: Wait a minute. You know what? How come he's not able to get funding from higher ed? MR. BURGESS: There was some confusion over his application, and he didn't get it to them. They said they never received it. He says he sent it. He was counting on them to pay that. They can't pay that out of the past year's funds, and he's not getting funding now because he's not in school. Therefore, they kept his Pell Grant that he applied for. Now he's having to live off of part-time work or whatever. He's got to pay this amount to get this transcript, so he's to apply for another job, something like that. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You know, you read this, his previous balance up there on top, see, 4,979. That's his balance previous. Then he has these credits, like the Pell. MR. ASEPERMY: So is it the debit that he's asking for? MR. BURGESS: I see, yeah. MR. ASEPERMY: So if he's asking for that, that's 240 or that's 390, 490, 590, $630. Is that what he's asking for? MR. BURGESS: No. The debits, those were costs, but the Pell Grant covered that. But he -- the Pell was only 2,365, and it looks like the difference of 4,979 minus 2,365. MR. TIPPECONNIE: If this is the way you do it, but the top says that's what his previous balance was, 4,979. MR. BURGESS: That's what he owed. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yeah, that's what he owed. Then he got the Pell grant. MR. ASEPERMY: Mike, does higher ed have any money left? MR. BURGESS: Remember, we thought they had a $73,000 carryover. MR. ASEPERMY: Is there any way that higher ed -- I know he supposedly didn't get the application in, they didn't receive it. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Remember, if you make the exception, there's a lot of others like that. MR. ASEPERMY: If they have extra money left. MR. HENSON: I have a problem with this because he's a freshman, and he's already went to our people and evidently didn't do something right. Then he's got a $4,000 balance. This guy's only a freshman. I know it's a Baptist theological seminary, but still, you know, as a freshman, I think he ought to make his own way for a while and prove what he's doing. If he's a freshman, he just started his first semester, and we all know that our people, our Comanche people, I hate to say this, go out and just get their money and run. MR. ASEPERMY: Well, not all of them. MR. HENSON: They have to prove themselves as freshmen. MR. ASEPERMY: You have a minority that does that. My question is, who screwed up, him or us? MR. BURGESS: I think it's us, because he was going to school on the promise he was going to get this money, and then somewhere in there there's some confusion that higher ed didn't pay what they were supposed to be paying because they didn't get his paperwork, they're saying. They never received it when he hand delivered it. MR. ASEPERMY: Robert, one thing I did ask Delores about was when you pay all of, you know, your scholarships out and you have excess money and people apply late, do you try to take care of the people that apply late, and she said yes. MR. TIPPECONNIE: She's tried to do that. MR. ASEPERMY: Mike, I think we should check first with higher ed and see has he got an application on file over there, I wonder? MR. BURGESS: I'm not sure if he's got one on file. MR. ASEPERMY: This doesn't fit the charitable criteria, not at all, as an individual. MR. TIPPECONNIE: This is education. We can check with Delores. I'll ask the TA to check. MR. ASEPERMY: Do we have a number for this kid? MR. HENSON: They have an old file on him. MR. TIPPECONNIE: There's something. MR. ASEPERMY: He's going to school in Kansas City? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yes, that's where the school is. MR. HENSON: Historically they probably screwed up on that. I know that can probably be true, because they did my grandson the same way. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Okay. Where are we? MR. BURGESS: Kimberly Old Horn Walks on behalf of students? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Financial assistance. MR. ASEPERMY: Kimberly Old Horn? MR. HENSON: The way his, Kimberly Old Horn's is written, it says he's the grandson of Marilyn Burgess Old Horn, who is an enrolled Comanche member, and he doesn't even mention in here if he's an enrolled Comanche member. Does anybody know? MR. TIPPECONNIE: He's Crow. MR. BURGESS: He's on the Crow roll. MR. HENSON: I don't think this is something that we ought to -- he's a Crow and he's not Comanche. MR. ASEPERMY: Who's Kimberly Old Horn Walk? Is this the person that is asking for the help? MR. TIPPECONNIE: That's his dad. MR. BURGESS: No, it's she, the mother. MR. ASEPERMY: Well, this says to Chairman Burgess from Kimberly Old Horn Walks requests financial assistance. Is there something attached to this? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yes, there's this. MR. ASEPERMY: Is this the AAU thing? MR. HENSON: Yes. MR. BURGESS: Yes, he's a distance runner. MR. TIPPECONNIE: To run in the Olympics. MR. ASEPERMY: Mike, are these -- okay, here it is. MR. HENSON: If he's an enrolled Crow, then they're the ones that should be giving him the money. Knowing the Crow agency, I'm sure they've given him the money. MR. ASEPERMY: Is this guy a Comanche guy? MR. BURGESS: He's not enrolled, but he's a descendant. He must be about -- his grandmother is full, his mother is half, so he's quarter. MR. HENSON: He said he's enrolled with the Crow agency, though. He's not a member of the Comanche Tribe. MR. BURGESS: That's okay, we paid for the funeral of an enrolled Oso Kiowa man a few years ago. MR. ASEPERMY: Who's that? MR. BURGESS: It was up there in Oso. That's the one Wallace paid for. MR. HENSON: But we're not doing what they did in the past. I make the motion that we don't give him any money because he's not Comanche enrolled. If y'all are interested, use the money that would be given to him to some of our own Comanche people. That's my motion. MR. ASEPERMY: His request is for 1,400. MR. BURGESS: That's his need. MR. ASEPERMY: And this doesn't meet criteria either, because this is dealing with an individual, Mike. MR. TIPPECONNIE: We have a motion. We need a second. MR. ASEPERMY: Second. MR. BURGESS: Seconded by Mr. Asepermy. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. Those voting not to send assistance to young Mr. Walk, say aye. The ayes have it. Next is Tina Emahoola. There was one here from Marilyn Hendrix. She was wanting us to donate to Lawton Hospital for the waiting room. MR. GRIFFIN: For the chapel. MR. ASEPERMY: Which one are we on, Number 9 or 10? MR. BURGESS: Number 9, Tina Emahoola's handwritten note. MR. ASEPERMY: I didn't know she had cancer. MR. BURGESS: I guess she goes down there because of the military. MR. ASEPERMY: She's a descendent? MR. BURGESS: So they go down there because of the treatment that she's receiving at the hospital down there, the VA down there. I don't know if it's a specialty thing or whatever, but the doctor who diagnosed her, she's keeping up with him as far as I know. That's the reason they go there. MR. HENSON: Has she went to our assistance program? MR. BURGESS: Which one? MR. ASEPERMY: Social Services? MR. HENSON: Social Services. MR. BURGESS: I don't know. I asked her, and I think that she said in the past she'd been denied, so -- MR. HENSON: She should go through there. MR. ASEPERMY: They offer the mileage thing, one of the -- yeah, they offer. Travel assistance in one of the -- right, Robert? Travel assistance is one thing? MR. BURGESS: Medical. MR. ASEPERMY: Yeah, medical and then they have another one, Mike. It's called medical emergency. MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: You got to be low income, though, right? MR. ASEPERMY: She wouldn't be low income with Parker probably gone, so -- MR. BURGESS: She's got some retirement, too. MR. ASEPERMY: He's got his military retirement. MR. HENSON: And I might remind you guys we just gave out the per cap. MR. BURGESS: And her, she got a military medical discharge. So she's got some kind of whatever. MR. HENSON: If she goes down to a military hospital, they pay mileage and everything. MR. ASEPERMY: No, they don't. MR. HENSON: They do, too. I get it. MR. ASEPERMY: Oh, yeah, like if I go up to Oklahoma City I get mileage reimbursement. MR. TIPPECONNIE: From the VA? MR. ASEPERMY: Yeah, you do, but does your spouse? MR. HENSON: No. MR. ASEPERMY: We're talking about a spouse of a retiree. A spouse of a retiree who is probably on that insurance program. What's it called? MR. HENSON: My wife has a little card that gives her the privilege of everything that I got. MR. BURGESS: This is for gas and motel. It's nothing to do with the doctor. MR. ASEPERMY: Again, Mike, this doesn't meet the criteria. MR. BURGESS: That's why she's coming here. Charitable contributions? MR. HENSON: I would suggest that we send her over to Social Services. MR. ASEPERMY: The requirement is medical emergency, travel, I think. MR. BURGESS: Income guidelines, too. MR. ASEPERMY: I think $200 for the income guidelines again. MR. BURGESS: Yeah. Well, we'll let her know. I'll tell her. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You'll handle that? MR. BURGESS: Yes, I'll give her a call. Marilyn Hendrix? MR. ASEPERMY: Well, what are we going to do with 10? MR. HENSON: Mike's going to handle it. MR. BURGESS: Look to medical assistance with Social Services first. I don't know what Prescription Assistance can do, they might not do much. I'll tell her to go to those other avenues first. MR. TIPPECONNIE: This is furnishing a chapel. MR. HENSON: This is just a suggestion. You might want to go over her own financial affair as far as what she has added -- MR. BURGESS: They're asking for donations of money? Vernon, do you remember? MR. TIPPECONNIE: To help furnish the chapel. MR. ASEPERMY: Who is Marilyn Hendrix? MR. BURGESS: I don't know. MR. ASEPERMY: Is she with the Indian Health Clinic, Indian Hospital? MR. TIPPECONNIE: In the previous, it said regarding a request for assistance in furnishings for the chapel at the Lawton Indian Hospital. This would be a great opportunity for the Comanche Nation to be recognized as spiritual people. So she was requesting -- she said there's a chapel, but it can't be utilized because there's no furniture. So what she's really asking is if we can help give a donation so that they can buy furniture for the chapel in the name of the Comanche Nation. MR. HENSON: Let me ask a question: How much money are we giving our Indian Hospital? MR. BURGESS: Nothing now. MR. ASEPERMY: We gave them a substantial amount one time, 3 or $400,000. MR. BURGESS: Six years ago, back in '03 or '04. MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: Didn't we get this request last year? MR. BURGESS: Then after that we stopped doing it. MR. ASEPERMY: It sounds familiar, Darrell. MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: It does. Somebody has asked us in the past to help with the chapel in the hospital. MR. ASEPERMY: Well, this doesn't fit the criteria, again. Well, it does in a sense, because it would benefit -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: It benefits Comanche people if they use the chapel. MR. ASEPERMY: How much is she asking for, though? MR. HENSON: It doesn't say. MR. TIPPECONNIE: She had some things here -- MR. HENSON: Hobby Lobby, a ledge -- a ledge was $24 and something was $29, a shelf was $29. MR. ASEPERMY: $160 is what she's asking for. MR. TIPPECONNIE: The furniture she has $120. MR. ASEPERMY: I didn't see that. MR. TIPPECONNIE: She wants a table, desk and some chairs, eight chairs. MR. ASEPERMY: It doesn't fit the criteria. I make a motion we deny this request in any amount. MR. HENSON: I'll second it. MR. BURGESS: One last one that's not on our agenda, he came in today, Alan Heminokey. He needs $395 -- MR. ASEPERMY: I had a motion, Mike. MR. BURGESS: Oh, I'm sorry. MR. ASEPERMY: That we deny Number 10. It was seconded by Bunky. MR. BURGESS: Okay. Motion made and seconded. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. Ayes have it. Last one. Mr. Alan Heminokey requesting assistance. He's been helped to the maximum by our higher ed program and our workforce program for tuition to truck driving school. He requires another $395. He's got 200 of his own, so he's paying the balance. He just needs 395 and some odd dollars more so he can pay his tuition for truck driving school and complete it. I asked him how are you going to live when you're doing all that. He said he's living with his mother right now. MR. ASEPERMY: What's his name? MR. BURGESS: Alan Heminokey. MR. ASEPERMY: Who's his mother? MR. BURGESS: I don't remember her name. MR. ASEPERMY: That's not the one -- MR. BURGESS: Higher ed helped him 1,000, and WIA program helped him. MR. HENSON: And that's not enough to do that? They usually buy all of the equipment. MR. BURGESS: Well, that's all they helped him with. I don't know what's going on. I thought they did all of that. MR. TIPPECONNIE: They buy shoes and they buy some clothing. MR. HENSON: They buy everything. MR. ASEPERMY: Is he at -- MR. HENSON: They pay for school. MR. ASEPERMY: Is this Glen? It's got Glen Heminokey on here. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Oh, is it his son? MR. ASEPERMY: No, it's got Glen Heminokey. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I know, the boy. MR. ASEPERMY: The check was made out to the American Truck Driving School, description was Glen Heminokey. MR. TIPPECONNIE: He's got that young boy. MR. BURGESS: When he told me Alan, I think he has a son Glen Alan, you're right. MR. ASEPERMY: Is that the one, Glen, or is that the one Vanessa had? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Vanessa has a younger one. MR. ASEPERMY: That's one of Glen's children. MR. BURGESS: No, he's over here. MR. TIPPECONNIE: The older boy, this must be the older boy. MR. ASEPERMY: Is this the one that straight dances real good? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Well, both of them straight dance. MR. HENSON: I'll make a motion we don't accept this because it's not -- he's already got help from our programs. I'll make a motion not to accept it. MR. BURGESS: Well, you're just being feisty, aren't you? MR. HENSON: No, we've already given him quite a bit of money. MR. BURGESS: All he needs is 395 to pay the tuition and he can go to class. MR. HENSON: But the programs helped him. He needs to help himself. We can't just be giving money away. MR. BURGESS: It's another $600. He's got 200. He needs that 395 and he's got the tuition covered. MR. BURSON: How much was your per cap this year? MR. BURGESS: After taxes, 800 something. MR. HENSON: Is that the problem, some people got less than $1,100 because taxes got taken out? MR. BURGESS: There was a problem with the numbers. MR. ASEPERMY: Social Security number being wrong. MR. HENSON: He should have got his per cap. MR. BURGESS: He did, but he paid bills with it, as well as try to set aside the 200. MR. HENSON: That's not very smart planning if he wants to do this. MR. BURGESS: Bunky, you were young. You were married early. MR. HENSON: No, I wasn't either. I didn't get married until I was 26. MR. BURGESS: This doesn't meet the criteria of the Charitable Fund. MR. HENSON: If he was only given that much money, that means they probably put him in some kind of other training programs. I don't know whether that's happened or not. MR. BURGESS: Generally they help you and then after that, it's three years before you get assistance again once you get into that type thing. MR. ASEPERMY: I wonder why our vo-tech and higher ed -- what's the date on that check, Mike? MR. BURGESS: This is just the one from Comanche Nation Games WIA. The date is November 3rd. A couple of weeks ago. They made it out to American Truck Driving School. MR. ASEPERMY: Is that from higher ed? MR. BURGESS: No, I asked Donna to give me a copy of hers. I didn't get a chance to stop at higher ed. MR. ASEPERMY: Do you think he could qualify under vocational tech, technical training? MR. BURGESS: Ours here? They've helped him $1,000. MR. TIPPECONNIE: We've already helped him. MR. HENSON: There's a motion on the floor, guys. MR. ASEPERMY: Second. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Mr. Asepermy, you seconded it? MR. BURGESS: Yes, Mr. Asepermy seconded it. MR. TIPPECONNIE: To deny it? MR. ASEPERMY: Yes, that was your motion, right? MR. HENSON: Yes. MR. TIPPECONNIE: We have two more things we needed to act on. MR. ASEPERMY: Call for the question, Mike. MR. BURGESS: Call for the question. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. Motion carries. MR. HENSON: What's the two more things, Bob? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Okay. We've been -- we visited with Veronica on her land sale, we visited with Atauvich on his land sale, and we said we would get back to them. They gave us the offers. And if you remember, Atauvich is 114 or 160 with the mineral rights. MR. ASEPERMY: Which number is that? MR. HENSON: 2 and 3. MR. TIPPECONNIE: 2 and 3 on executive session. MR. ASEPERMY: 2 and 3, what was the offer on Number 2? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Number 1, first of all, was 114. Number 2 was -- MR. ASEPERMY: Wait. Number 1 or Number 2? MR. TIPPECONNIE: No, Number 3. Atauvich is 114. MR. ASEPERMY: 114 for how many acres? MR. TIPPECONNIE: 160 with mineral rights. That's what he's said to us. MR. ASEPERMY: Okay. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Veronica had two. MR. ASEPERMY: What's their offer? MR. TIPPECONNIE: 139. MR. ASEPERMY: For how many acres? MR. HENSON: 160, or just under 160. MR. ASEPERMY: With mineral? MR. TIPPECONNIE: No. They're reserving mineral. That's multiple owners on it, but she's representing them all. Then she had the other tract -- MR. ASEPERMY: Which number are you on? MR. TIPPECONNIE: 142. She had two tracts. One she's offering at 139, or that's what she wants, and the other is 142. MR. ASEPERMY: How many acres? MR. HENSON: 160. MR. TIPPECONNIE: 160. And she's keeping them -- the parties are keeping the mineral rights. She's not the sole owner, but she's representing them, her sisters and herself. MR. HENSON: If we decide to make an offer on this Sekulich land, I would say our offer ought to include, I mean, if we decide to buy it all, it ought to include mineral rights. MR. ASEPERMY: Before I vote on this, I want the strip map. I want to see where this is at. MR. TIPPECONNIE: We had all that. I can get them to you. MR. HENSON: Were you here? MR. ASEPERMY: I guess I wasn't. MR. BURSON: I think you had to leave already. MR. ASEPERMY: Did y'all look at the strip map? MR. HENSON: One of them contains Atauvich or Atauvich contains water or creek, which make it more valuable. MR. ASEPERMY: That's Robert Atauvich? What kind of consensus did y'all come to? MR. HENSON: Well, his land is going to be valuable to us in the future. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Let me draw you a little map on Veronica's. MR. ASEPERMY: You know, I will just concur, but I'll look at these. MR. TIPPECONNIE: And the one we're talking about, Atauvich, his is west of the Red River Casino. It sits over there, isolated. MR. GRIFFIN: Southwest of the Carr property, isn't it? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yes, but you can see where these two are located more or less. MR. BURGESS: Should we close the door? MR. GRIFFEN: I don't think there's anybody here. MR. BURSON: I think we're the only ones left here. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You can see on this map here the 2939 is 160 acres. The other one is 157.430 acres. MR. ASEPERMY: You know what, Robert, we've been through this drill I don't know how many times. MR. TIPPECONNIE: And we've had her sitting and sitting and sitting. MR. ASEPERMY: I'm looking at Alice Martinez 2939. It is approximately three-quarters of a mile off the interstate, which is not bad, and the other one's up in Stringtown? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yes. MR. ASEPERMY: And it's quite a ways. I need to ask these questions. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Sure. MR. ASEPERMY: Damn, we bought all this land, we ain't done jack to one acre of land that we bought. MR. HENSON: That's one thing good about Atauvich's land. MR. ASEPERMY: Atauvich is not on here. MR. HENSON: Yeah, it's not on there, but it's leased. It's leased and it's how much thousands? MR. TIPPECONNIE: He gets 3,800 a year. MR. HENSON: It's already leased to a guy that has requested that he wants to keep the lease, so it will be paid for after a while. At least that's not land that's not going to be used. I mean, it's land that's going to be used and make money. It will pay for itself. MR. TIPPECONNIE: It may come up to $4,000 a year. MR. HENSON: Well, it might be more than that once we take over the property. MR. TIPPECONNIE: Well, I was talking to the people down there now, so it may be. MR. ASEPERMY: Yeah, it will pay for itself in 28 years at that lease rate. MR. HENSON: But at least it's land that's going to start paying for itself. MR. ASEPERMY: You have the Atauvich strip map? MR. BURGESS: Go ahead, Jim. MR. BURSON: Just a couple of pointers and remind y'all again, this land's agricultural land, you've got Sekulich would not tell you what the appraisal was. You don't have to buy it if she won't tell you what the appraisal is, and your duty is to the Nation, not to Sekulich. Even though she's a tribal member, you have 13,998 other tribal members you have to think about. And so you have to be careful when you're buying land that you don't know what it's worth, and how you're going to explain it to your constituents when they come up and say why did you pay that much for that land. Every time you pay more than the market value for land you raise the price against you for every other land that comes to you. MR. HENSON: Thank you. MR. BURSON: You have to keep that back. You're still having to live with the fact that you paid $3 million for the Harris-Hooper property. Now everybody that goes down there by the Red River Casino thinks their land's worth $3 million, and it's not. Also, one thing you should consider as a policy for your land purchases, especially this agricultural land that's out here, is, yeah, the Bureau tells them to keep the minerals. But you're buying for the Nation, and you should require the minerals to come with it if they're still there. It should be a part of your negotiations, because that adds value to the Nation potentially in the future. That's where you've ultimately got to keep your focus, is on the Nation's interest, not little old ladies trying to get some cash for estates. MR. HENSON: That's the kind of things that I expect our lawyers to tell us. MR. BURSON: Well, thank you. MR. HENSON: I appreciate that very much. MR. BURSON: You know, you guys can buy all the land you want however you want, but you need to keep those things in mind when it comes to spending the Nation's money. MR. HENSON: Yeah, there's another thing that we as CBC needs to keep in mind, too, is that if we decide to go out and purchase property and they hear about it, they're going to jack up the price. So there's another way that we can do that. If we ever get interested in property that we want to obtain, we can obtain a real estate agent to go out and represent us to buy that and keep it down at a low appraisal value, which he can do, any kind of real estate person. MR. BURSON: You bought land like that before. The land around the Harris-Hooper property was bought with a third party, and they did not tell the folks that they were dealing with it was Comanche Nation that was fixing to buy it. You actually got that for appraised price. MR. HENSON: Yeah. MR. BURSON: It was fee land. It was the fee land surrounding the Harris-Hooper property, but that's the way that was done. MR. ASEPERMY: Mike, this is what bothers me. We paid a whole bunch of money for that 760-something acres five, six years ago. MR. BURSON: Over the course of four years. MR. ASEPERMY: We've done absolutely nothing. The two-and-a-half years that I've been on the CBC, every parcel of land, to include Felton Dean, we have done absolutely nothing with it, absolutely, positively nothing. So land purchases, when started at Red River in 2004 for the last five years, every parcel of land that we've bought, and it adds up into the 1,500 to 2,000 acres, have a land base. Well, what are we going to use it for? Well, we're going to build a casino, a resort, we're going to build housing. You know, I've heard all this stuff with absolutely no action. So I'm going to say no to all of this. Let them know so they can go and pursue someone else to buy their land. If you look at the location of these, there's one that's -- who would have thought we'd have a casino in the middle of a wheat field two miles, three miles off the main highway? Well, there's one property right here that's just west about three-quarters of a mile off the interstate. If I was to consider anything, it would be the Alice Martinez land, 2939, because of its location. But Atauvich and 463, look how far it is out there, and it would take 28 years to pay for Atauvich's land. MR. HENSON: The value of Atauvich's land is not only because it's land and it's being leased, we're going to get money back because it's leased, but it has water running through it. One of the things we need to do is pass a water ordinance. See, right now the big fight is over water. That's where we're going to be, and this land could be included in that, in our water rights. That's what's valuable about that land. This other land, I think, has just a little small creek running through it, don't it? MR. TIPPECONNIE: But remember, any land that is trust, there is surface and there is subsurface water rights. MR. ASEPERMY: Well -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: And then the state, in the state codes, if you have fee land, you only have subsurface rights. You don't have surface rights. MR. ASEPERMY: What's your feeling, what's your take on -- tell me how you feel about building our land base up. I know what Wallace's was, he'd build it up. MR. BURGESS: Due to the impending sale of water, I say impending in that it's not ours trying to sell, but these other areas around us are tapping water within the reservation boundaries. Two, some of them are trying now to negotiate the sale of runoff water to the city or the county, Tarrant County, Fort Worth. If we don't have a strong position, if we don't show that we have a land base for the runoff or the repairing right, and then the subsurface. Now, I understand the concern about what are we going to do with it, and we've never tried to start the farming of raising the hay and just selling it, or alfalfa, or leasing all of this that is arable or farmable to someone else who can manage it and bring crops off of it. So we need to start looking at that. But we need to buy those that have as much as we can that are nearby or next to each other, so that starts increasing our arable lands, our use for it, or if we're going to put a house tract down there. MR. ASEPERMY: So you're talking about the Atauvich? MR. BURGESS: I'm talking about the Atauvich and I would talk about that -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: Veronica's is like that. It's got some of those -- MR. BURGESS: And it's next to other trust lands. MR. ASEPERMY: What about the other two lands? MR. BURGESS: I would. I'd make a pitch for it. I would buy it. MR. ASEPERMY: At the cost that they say? MR. HENSON: No. MR. BURGESS: We don't have to do it at their cost. MR. HENSON: I would suggest with mineral rights and at the appraisal value. Make an offer on that. MR. BURGESS: It's been appraised without mineral rights because they're telling us they're going to reserve, so therefore, it wasn't appraised. MR. HENSON: That's all right. They can go back and appraise it for mineral rights. MR. BURGESS: His has been appraised with mineral rights, because he's going to give it all to us. MR. HENSON: I don't know if it's going to change that much because it usually doesn't unless there's an oil well on it. MR. ASEPERMY: So the Atauvich land you're all saying that's good to go? MR. BURGESS: I would say it. I recommend it. MR. TIPPECONNIE: At 114. MR. ASEPERMY: Darrell? MR. HENSON: Yeah, I recommend we get that one and then make them an offer -- MR. BURGESS: I think the figure came in just a little above what we thought it was going to be. He told us what it was. MR. TIPPECONNIE: He says he has at least one capped oil well out there. MR. ASEPERMY: Okay. What about the other two lands? MR. BURGESS: Bunky's making the pitch that we go back to her and tell her to include the mineral rights at the appraised value. MR. TIPPECONNIE: On both tracts? MR. HENSON: What she's done is she came in here and I did ask her what the appraisal value was, and she said that she didn't want to say. But she did say that the appraisal value was just over what she was asking, but -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: Just under. MR. ASEPERMY: Look at the darn difference in the two. There's about $25,000 -- I would imagine they all run the same. MR. TIPPECONNIE: When you see the land selling around this area per acre, it's way up there. MR. ASEPERMY: So do we make a motion to accept the Atauvich offer? Can we do that tonight? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Yes. MR. ASEPERMY: Why don't you make your motion. MR. HENSON: I'll make that motion. MR. ASEPERMY: Why don't you make your motion on the Atauvich that we want the appraisal and the mineral rights. MR. HENSON: I make a motion that we accept Atauvich's land at the price that he asked, and the other two properties by Atauvich, that we make an offer to buy it at appraisal value but with mineral rights. MR. BURGESS: All in one motion? MR. HENSON: All in one motion. MR. ASEPERMY: Second. MR. BURGESS: Did y'all hear the motion? MR. TIPPECONNIE: I need to get it. I apologize. MR. HENSON: I make a motion that we accept the offer or to offer Atauvich the amount that he's asking for, and the Sekulich land make an offer to buy those two properties at the appraisal value, but they must contain the mineral rights. MR. ASEPERMY: Second. MR. BURGESS: Motion made by Mr. Henson to accept Atauvich, the way his motion is read. Seconded by Mr. Asepermy to go forward with purchase of one and negotiate the other. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. MR. ASEPERMY: And please, let's follow the procedure so we don't -- we ain't going to pay them jack. We're going to go through the BIA like we're supposed to, right? MR. TIPPECONNIE: That's the way we have to. We get a check and we send it to a lock box. MR. HENSON: While we're on that situation, there's one more thing I want to bring up. We need to turn around, and I suggest by December 5th, to make a resolution that we're not going to buy any land over appraisal value. MR. BURGESS: If we do that, we can't negotiate -- I was going to ask Jim. Is there any way we can put a nondisclosure binder -- MR. ASEPERMY: Mattison land? MR. TIPPECONNIE: We talked about Mattison before. Remember, he has all this ownership, little pieces, they're undivided on undivided tracts. He's just one little owner. Some have 5, 10, 15 owners and he has small acreages, but he wants to sell all of it, all his undivided interest in multiple tracts. MR. HENSON: That means we'll get into undivided ownership with the rest of them, right? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Oh, yeah. It can be a mess. MR. BURGESS: We're already in the possibility of that when we have probate hearings. MR. TIPPECONNIE: You could go into the probate hearing and buy it. MR. BURSON: Don't poo-poo on that concept till you hear this. Whenever the tribe owns any fraction of a piece of property and it goes into probate, under the Land Consolidation Act and probate laws you guys get first crack, pretty much, at buying everybody else out. You're sitting there with an interest. So if you can buy a fractional interest like this guy's got and get the property for a decent price, it's kind of like getting an option on that property in the future. You have to be automatically notified of it whenever there's a change. In other words, somebody else wants to buy it, they've got to notify you because now you're an owner. So it kind of puts your finger on it, and it might be a good thing to think about as a policy, because maybe for a few thousand you can kind of keep your finger on five or 10 pieces of property. MR. HENSON: Let me throw this out and you correct me if I'm wrong. It's just the same thing as putting out a lease if it's undivided, and there's one guy that says, or two guys, that don't want it and it's undivided, the majority rules so they get to buy it anyway. MR. BURSON: Well, the lease goes through under majority rule, yes. MR. HENSON: But our fractional might not mean that much, unless we own the majority of it. MR. BURSON: Well, in order to get the big leverage, you have to own the majority. But you do get some benefit of just owning a fractional piece of that land, because now you're on the notice list or any other activity that may happen to that land. MR. HENSON: But if they decide, the other people decide to sell it and we decide not to sell, sign the sale, they could still sell it out from under us anyway, right? MR. BURSON: But you have -- what that does is gives you first option to refuse it. You get the chance to keep other folks from buying that land if you want to take it. MR. TIPPECONNIE: They're small pieces. Like he has 13 of 360, things like that. You know, he has 13 undivided of 360. They're all very small and they're -- this is the packet. There's a number of them. If you want me to, I'll bring it back and have a little more info on the 5th, if you want that. MR. HENSON: Yeah, I think it's worth looking at. MR. BURSON: It could be there's a gem or two in there that you could buy a piece of, maybe just kind of hold it. Like I said, it's like having an option. MR. HENSON: It's worth looking at. MR. ASEPERMY: Mike, do you still have Tommy Johnson's resume? MR. BURGESS: I'm not opposed to buying it, but because it's 13 of 360, there's a lot like that. When you go through the appraisal process, each of these are going to be appraised. We can't talk about mineral rights, again. Now, you're making -- you made a motion on one. You've established policy when you made that motion and resolution. So we're going to be going over here and he's going to get all of those appraisals done and it's not going to include mineral rights because he can't do that without everybody else, or if he includes it, is it going to be the right price. So we're going to spend a lot of time holding him around, and then are we going to decide which ones we want to buy. He may not want to separate out. He may say I want to sell the whole thing, all or none at all. We go back into another 90, six months down the road. MR. HENSON: It won't bother for us to take a look at it, Mike. We don't have to accept it. Everything's worth taking a look at. MR. BURGESS: I think if we're going to start doing policy, we need to set the minimum rate of 20 acres or 40 acres. We need to show if we're going to go along it must include mineral rights or only at the appraisal price, less mineral rights. We need to have that done, because now you're doing it. MR. HENSON: But if we do that, we're going to tie our hands. MR. BURGESS: You just did when you said we shouldn't go for the Sekulich land. And the big question is water rights now. MR. HENSON: I didn't say not to go for that. I said make them an offer. MR. BURGESS: Well, if they accept it, we've got a policy. If they don't accept it, are we going to negotiate it or do we drop it? MR. HENSON: We negotiate on everything. MR. TIPPECONNIE: The thing I can do is give us some thoughts to think about. One thing I want to add to, just as info, maybe you can, too, add to this, Jim, but the court case between Tarrant County and Oklahoma has been dismissed. But at the same time, the judge, and I haven't seen all of it yet, but the judge acknowledged there are Indian water rights, which is a very good plus. Well, anyway, the attorneys that handled the case for the Apaches called, they just called me and they said they're wondering if the Comanche Nation wants to enter into another suit. Their suit is going to be the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma suing the federal government and the State of Oklahoma for their one-third rights on the Comanche Kiowa Apache Reservation. So he said, he's just asking, he says what's the Comanches think about it. I said I can't answer any of that. We haven't even talked about this. But he just came to me saying that the Apaches are going to file now, given this other case is out, they're going to file on their interest against the state and against the federal government because of the water rights. MR. BURGESS: The State of Oklahoma? MR. TIPPECONNIE: And the federal government. MR. BURSON: It sounds like they want an adjudication of water rights. MR. HENSON: If they happen to do that case and we don't go in with them and the judgment is in their favor, we won't have any -- MR. BURGESS: My assumption is they can't do anything on this reservation. It all has to go back through the former chief. Jim, are they setting the stage here that we'll probably be a class action suit, if anything? MR. BURSON: I would say that, one, the only way those attorneys can get paid is if they quantify the Apache Tribe's water rights and sell them, because they're taking it on contingency. So that's what they have to do in order to get paid for doing anything. They have to go through water rights adjudication, get the Apache Tribe's water rights adjudicated, and they've got X number of acre feet, and then that becomes theirs to be able to sell to probably Tarrant Regional Water District, who happens to be the buyer in the market at the moment. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I ask questions like that. I don't know. MR. BURSON: Follow the money. MR. TIPPECONNIE: The return to them is 40 percent of an award. They set an award. MR. BURSON: Oklahoma's not going to give them any money, the United States is not going to give them any money. All they'll get is an adjudication of water rights for which they can now turn around and lease or sell to some buyer in the market for cash money. That'd be how the attorneys get paid. MR. TIPPECONNIE: I think it's more than that, though. MR. BURGESS: My question, then, where does Fort Sill Apache sit on this water case? MR. TIPPECONNIE: They're not in it. MR. BURGESS: Hang on. MR. BURSON: They're probably going to try get in on some, because -- MR. BURGESS: Because the land that was given to them they're going to try to claim. While it was KCA lands, they were never part of the government, but they have these trust allotments. So are they going to walk in on the Apache side of it or are they going to try to walk in on the fourth side. We have to look at that. MR. BURSON: This is very complicated. It's not been done in Oklahoma. It will be years, decades, before you get to the end of it. There will be lots of wrangling. It could be generations before the thing's settled. There's water rights suits still ongoing that started before I was born, and they're still going on today in New Mexico on a stream that's about as long as from Elgin to here. So you can imagine what trying to adjudicate this whole southwest quadrant would be. I have some of my own opinions about this, how it will shake out, and some of them are not going to be very popular and may deflate some folks' expectations. But when it comes, I tell you one thing, when it comes to water rights, it boils down to a battle of the equities. Equities being the facts and what's fair. That's how they'll all eventually shake out. The whole reason that we got Indian Reserve Water Rights to even have as a shield -- it's not a sword, it's a shield -- to protect Indians was because the non-Indians up on the Milk River had basically diverted all the water so that the Indians on that reservation didn't have any water to divert to grow their own crops. So the court had to come in and say, hey, this prior appropriation, that's the law of the land up here in this part of the country, is a very harsh effect. The non-Indian settlers got in there with resources and diverted all the water, and now the Indians can't grow the crops we put them on the reservation to grow. So we've got to carve out something for them as a shield. Well, there's been Indian tribes for the last 25 or 30, 50 years trying to use the Indian Reserve Water Rights created in the Anderson case as a sword to chop out a lot of water rights for themselves. And so far, it's never worked very well, but it is a shield. It can be used as a shield to protect from harsh circumstances of somebody else appropriating all the water before you got a chance to use it. So with that in mind, I'm not sure what the San Antonio attorneys plan to do up here in Oklahoma except get a lot of people angry at them and make a big thing -- MR. TIPPECONNIE: One thing I might say, when the attorney called me, you know, he was curious what the Comanche Nation -- I said I can't answer that. But he said I just wanted to let you have an update then. He told me about this, so he gave me all that. And at the same time, then he says, if the Comanches become interested, we're willing to come up and just speak to you. Remember, they did already once before. So they said they're willing to come up. Now, one thing they said, they've hired up front a water rights expert and they paid him -- they've had to pay him up front $1 million. They paid the $1 million, so they are very convinced, hearing him, that they can win something. That's what their pursuit is. Just like Jim said, it takes years to do these things. The thing that's going to occur and I think we have to be sensitive to this, Oklahoma has the water planning underway and already that's raising kind of the eyebrows of non-Indian people. Okay, if we come forward with this suit and join in it, you know, if Apaches do and we join it, we're just going to open up all kinds of frustration. And I'm not saying that's good or bad, I'm just saying we have to be conscious of that, because already, if you want to know the facts of it, Grandfield's running out of water, Cache is in bad shape. They drilled two wells and they can't even use them because they're fluoride. They just capped the wells now, they can't even use it. Okay. Cache is running out of water, the Red River, all that area down there is running out of water. So water is becoming very, very precious. If you bring in something, which I think at some point we have to bring forward our interest. You know, we've notified the governor by resolution and all that. But I just think we need to be very aware of that. Because you've been approached by Grandfield talking about something. Well, they're all -- Lawton right now, we don't know it, but Lawton's been moving out, you know, trying to grab all the water here and there. That's why we should be getting some of these lands so we have that. Because there is the question when a trust land goes into fee, there is a question what status does the tribe yet retain on that land. Because under Oklahoma water law, they should have to -- they should put a well down in it. They exercise their interest to drill a well. Well, if they haven't, you know, there is a gray area here as to whether the tribes get to have that. You know, so there's a lot of things that are gray relative to non-Indian land, and then especially when we talk about surface water. You know, on our lands, we have the surface rights. Oklahoma Water Code, no, the State owns it. We own it on our lands, and we own the water underneath. So that's a big difference. As an example, if we were smart way back there, 20, 30 years ago, we should never pay for a drop of water out of Lake Lawtonka, never. We have a right to a lot of that water. It's coming across our reservation off our trust lands, and we should not be paying for that. MR. HENSON: That's still our right. MR. TIPPECONNIE: It's still our right and at some point we have to exercise it. MR. HENSON: It has to be fought. MR. TIPPECONNIE: It has to be quantified. But those are things that I think we have to seriously discuss, you know, and think about. MR. HENSON: Well, some of the cases I've read, it really helps for us to have a water ordinance or water code. We need to do that as soon as possible, even though we're not involved in it. MR. BURGESS: Do you have an attorney water expert within your field, everybody in your office, I mean? MR. HENSON: There's another thing that I want to mention to the CBC. John Moss has been calling me. He's an individual that I met during our trip to Vegas. He has programs that can come in and help our programs and not charge us anything for it. He's been wanting to come in and make some kind of presentation. Bernard Kahrahrah is on their board. So it's something that he's on their board with, and if we need some more information on that, about what they really do, and it sounds pretty good, because they're helping all the tribes in doing things. But we can ask Bernard about it, and if we want to, we can ask this guy to come in and do a presentation. I wanted to see what y'all's opinions was. MR. TIPPECONNIE: There's never a free lunch, and we saw that in Premier. There's no free lunch, there's always a fee, just like on this water. The attorneys aren't doing it for free. MR. HENSON: That's why I'm saying, we need to talk to Bernard, because I know Bernard is on their board. He told me that. MR. BURGESS: What's the name of the company? MR. HENSON: I'm not real sure. I've forgotten. I've got the paperwork somewhere, but he's been calling me quite often about wanting to get with us and make some kind of presentation. It's a nonprofit company, as I understand it, and they don't do anything for profit, but they'll go out and help you get grants, they'll help you do a whole bunch of things. Again, I may not know what I'm talking about, and I think we ought to call Bernard. MR. BURGESS: On water rights? MR. HENSON: No. MR. BURGESS: It's not about water? MR. TIPPECONNIE: It's probably planning, which we're going to have a planner at some point. We really need to get in order on our plan. MR. BURGESS: At this time, Jim -- MR. HENSON: Anyway, I'm supposed to call him tomorrow. What do y'all think? Y'all think I ought to ask him to come here and do a presentation? MR. BURGESS: Well, find out the substance of the meeting. Is there something else on the agenda? MR. ASEPERMY: Mike, do you have Mr. Johnson's resume? MR. BURGESS: Yes. MR. ASEPERMY: Kenneth Gooden was appointed as the Housing Commissioner to represent the Elgin and Lawton area. He resigned in June. That position has been vacant July, August, September, October, November. Mr. Wahnee at the time, and also Ms. Tonips -- well, Ms. Tonips directed Mr. Wahnee to advertise, which is one of the things we decided to start doing for these board positions. She did advertise or they did advertise. They had three applicants for those to represent that area. Two of them were not eligible because they did not have a Lawton or Elgin address. Mr. Johnson here, if you've not read his resume, he is a former compliance officer with the Nation, a resident training and counselor with the Housing Authority, he was a commissioner from '83 to '85 with the Housing Authority, and he was a consultant to the University of Wisconsin Seven- Point Training housing commissioners and executive director for Indian Country. In 1982, he was the only certified -- BIA-certified housing counselor in Oklahoma. With these qualifications and the other two not qualified because of where they live, and the need to fill that position as required by state law to five people, I would like to make a motion, or I would like to nominate Arthur Tommy Johnson as the Housing Commissioner representing the Elgin-Lawton area. That's my -- do I make a motion? MR. BURGESS: A motion is fine. MR. ASEPERMY: That's my motion. MR. BURGESS: Motion's been made. Second? I'll second. MR. ASEPERMY: Okay. MR. BURGESS: Call for the question. We've got to follow the process. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. MR. HENSON: I think what we -- I don't even know who the person is, but I think an interview would be nice. MR. BURGESS: Again, you've only got one applicant, he's Comanche. That's your preference. MR. HENSON: That doesn't mean that you can't interview them. MR. ASEPERMY: Well, vote no. MR. HENSON: I'm not saying that. MR. ASEPERMY: Call for the question, Mr. Chairman. MR. BURGESS: All. All those in favor signify by saying "aye." (Aye.) MR. BURGESS: All those opposed, same sign. All those abstain, same sign. The ayes have it. MR. ASEPERMY: Mr. Tippeconnie, will you please notify Sallie Tonips? MR. TIPPECONNIE: Finish the motion so he signs them. After they're signed, we let them know. MR. ASEPERMY: One more thing, Mr. Mike. Did you read this? MR. BURGESS: Yes, I flipped through it, yeah. MR. ASEPERMY: The way we done the church donations for the last two years was by resolution. MR. BURGESS: That's what he was saying. MR. ASEPERMY: I did the research with the pastor's name and the treasurer. $60,000 last year, we had 19 churches. They were instructed last year if you do not provide receipts, you're not going to get any money this year. I talked to Mr. Nelson. There ain't -- he can't find anything. Because of the transition of the Tribal Administrator, the prior just kind of left everything. So how are we going -- what's their fair share? MR. TIPPECONNIE: I think that's what y'all did, you divided it by 19. MR. ASEPERMY: Well, here's the thing. MR. BURGESS: With the Native American Church you did something. MR. TIPPECONNIE: There were two. MR. BURGESS: Now there's three. MR. TIPPECONNIE: So we have to include it in the total and we divide in the total. MR. HENSON: You guys are talking about going over policies that y'all had set on the receipts. MR. ASEPERMY: It's not the tribal administrator's fault, the current one, it's the one -- I mean, did anybody turn any receipts in? MR. TIPPECONNIE: The churches wouldn't do it. They just wouldn't do it. MR. HENSON: Well, if they're not going to follow what you guys said -- MR. ASEPERMY: Well, we don't know if they did or they didn't. MR. TIPPECONNIE: We called it a donation, and once it was a donation they give us no receipts. MR. HENSON: Ask them to bring in the receipts if they have those receipts. They have to. MR. ASEPERMY: Well, I want to know how many churches we have now. We had 19, we got a new Peyote group. That's 20. That's a $3,000 cut. Here's the thing. Let me tell you what happened two years ago with the Peyote group. That was Thomas' group. Thomas got the money and that's it. MR. TIPPECONNIE: And he didn't give it to the members. They said both of them did that. MR. ASEPERMY: Then last year we broke it down and paid them individually, go south to get their medicine. Some of the people that we paid didn't even go. What'd they do? They put it in their pocket. MR. HENSON: Again, that's the purpose of you guys asking for the receipts. If they're not going to spend the money like you guys are giving it to them, you don't need to give them no money. MR. ASEPERMY: How do you plan to do this? MR. BURGESS: I wasn't here, so by, again, general consensus, I wouldn't give it to individuals like you did with the Native American Church. MR. TIPPECONNIE: How should we do it? MR. BURGESS: I would say call the Native American Church guys and say each of you have a chapter president and a chapter treasurer/secretary. So designate, put both names on there, they have to sign it and then it's up to them to divide it to the people they want to divide it for, because there's three groups. What's 60,000 into 19 or 60,000 into 20? MR. TIPPECONNIE: It's 20 into 60. MR. BURGESS: That's 3,000. So each church is going to get 3,000. With the Peyote groups, they get 3,000. We're going to list it publicly, here's what they received. MR. ASEPERMY: It was by resolution last time. If you want it done by resolution again -- MR. BURGESS: Well, we need to, so that way it's defined and we have it on record. MR. ASEPERMY: But this meeting is the day after we meet. Bunky brought up a good point. MR. BURGESS: We haven't established that yet. Has that meeting been called? MR. TIPPECONNIE: That's something that Willie's doing. MR. ASEPERMY: Presentation of church donation. Do you know about this? MR. BURGESS: No, he just brought it to us today. MR. ASEPERMY: Welcome, Chairman Burgess at 1:30 on Sunday -- MR. BURGESS: This is putting the cart before the horse. MR. ASEPERMY: Is this that communication thing we were talking about? MR. BURGESS: Yes. MR. TIPPECONNIE: That's the first everybody's seen it. MR. BURGESS: The question I have is -- MR. HENSON: What are you going to do with the resolution -- MR. BURGESS: Motion to adjourn? MR. ASEPERMY: Motion to adjourn. MR. KOSECHEQUETAH: Second. MR. BURGESS: Meeting adjourned at 9:45. * * * * * * R E P O R T E R 'S C E R T I F I C A T E STATE OF OKLAHOMA ) ) COUNTY OF OKLAHOMA ) I, Kelly Stoabs, Certified Shorthand Reporter for the State of Oklahoma, certify that the above and foregoing meeting transcribed by me is a true and correct transcript of the meeting; that the meeting was held on November 23, 2009, in the State of Oklahoma; that I am not an attorney for nor a relative of any said parties, or otherwise interested in the event of said action. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set hereunto set my hand and seal of office on this the 4th day of January, 2010. __________________________ Kelly Stoabs Certified Shorthand Reporter for the State of Oklahoma S E C R E T A R Y ' S C E R T I F I C A T E I, Robert Tippeconnie, Secretary- Treasurer of Comanche Nation Business Committee, certify that the above is a true and correct transcript of a meeting of CBC Members held at 10:15 a.m. on November 23, 2009, and that the meeting was duly called and held in all respects in accordance with the charters and bylaws of the Comanche Nation and that a quorum was present. I further certify that the votes and resolutions of the CBC Members of Comanche Nation at the meeting are operative and in full force and effect and have not been annulled or modified by any vote or resolution passed or adopted by the CBC since that meeting. Signed:_________________________ Date:____________ Robert Tippeconnie Secretary-Treasurer 172