The Nooksack tribe near Bellingham, Washington, has agreed to a federal plan for a special election where it is hoped a tribal council able to govern will be elected. Tied to the election is restored federal funding and reopening the tribe’s casino, which reopened over the weekend.
The tribe has been torn apart by a longtime disenrollment fight that has caused a lawsuit and a collision with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which in June led to the closure of Northwood Casino in Lynden by the National Indian Gaming Commission, which cited “numerous violations” by the tribe.
Under a memorandum of understanding between tribal Chairman Bob Kelly and Michael Black, the temporary head of the BIA, the funding will be restored temporarily while the tribe schedules a special election for December for four council seats.
Kelly and his current council was forced to agree to allow approximately 300 members of the 2,000-member tribe who they disrenolled from the tribe to vote and run for office. They have been dubbed the “Nooksack 306.” The BIA may send an observer to monitor the election. Once the election happens the results will need to be certified by the BIA.
The tribe is also required to use casino profits for specified government expenditures and to immediately resolve issues that were raised by the Environmental Protection Agency. The tribe also agreed that if it violates the agreement that a $13 million fine imposed by the EPA in June will be re-imposed and the casino will be closed again.
The tribe’s three-year internecine disenrollment battle, which has been challenged with several lawsuits, has made it something of a poster child for the battles and power struggles that casino profits can cause across Indian Country.
The BIA called the tribe’s government illegitimate because it allowed several council seats to remain vacant after their terms expired without elections to fill them. Any actions taken after March 2016 were judged illegitimate, it said. That included the November 2016 action removing 289 tribal members from the rolls. The tribe said the members’ blood ties were not strong enough.
Critics of the agreement claim that Kelly has appointed a sister of one of his allies on the council, who is running for reelection—as superintendent of the election. They claim this is a conflict of interest.
A former council member said she fears the current council will “rig” the December election.
Kelly, who claims to have support in the tribe that is both broad and deep scoffed to the Seattle Times: “Those of us in ‘Indian Country’ often say ‘we are all related to each other in some way,’ and finding a qualified candidate that was not somehow related to one of the candidates to serve as the election superintendent would almost be impossible.”
The casino opened ten years ago.
