Tribal family’s rights at risk

DARRINGTON – The Sauk-Suiattle Tribal Council will consider today whether to kick out 15 or more tribal members belonging to a key family, including two members of the council.

The move is unusual. If the family is kicked out, they would lose health care, housing and status in the approximately 200-member tribe.

Judy Joseph, superintendent of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs office in Everett, said she could only remember one other disenrollment case among the 14 tribes in northwest Washington in her 27 years with the agency.

The Sauk-Suiattle’s rift has been building for months, and has fueled bitter emotions. Some say the move is political; others defend it as necessary to protect the integrity of the tribe’s membership.

The tribe is considering disenrolling Emily Jo Bill, who died in 1969. A majority on the seven-member tribal council believe Bill never should have been allowed in the tribe by a previous council in 1988. The family records that showed Bill’s Sauk-Suiattle lineage were incorrect, according to the majority.

Others in the tribe, including Nancy DeCoteau, say the tribe’s oral tradition – which some elders say supports Bill’s inclusion – is more reliable than the documents.

“We didn’t have the English language to rely on” at the turn of the century, when Bill was born, DeCoteau said.

Taking Bill off the rolls would also disqualify her descendants, unless they can show documentation of another relative who is a tribal member, said Gloria Green, the tribe’s chairwoman.

Allowing Bill to remain on the rolls could harm the tribe, Green said.

“It could set a precedent to just allow anyone to join the tribe,” she said.

Green said she did not know exactly how many tribal members would be affected. She hoped today’s hearing would clear that up. She estimated that 10 to 15 adults, plus some of their children, could lose their membership in the tribe.

“Their children, some of them are enrollable,” Green said, based on the tribal membership of other relatives.

Two of Bill’s descendants, John Bill and Gloria George, a brother and sister, are members of the tribal council. Disenrollment means that John Bill and George would lose their council positions. That has caused some to accuse Green and others on the council of political maneuvering.

Green took over as chairwoman in December, after Jason Joseph was voted off the council. Joseph had been chairman in recent years. He would not comment for this story.

Green said politics was not behind the move. “If they want to call it political, that’s their own political agenda,” she said.

If the council ends up disenrolling the Bill family, it could later grant honorary memberships, Green said. That would allow the family to maintain health care and housing benefits, though they could not vote or run for council.

That sounds like politics, said Paula Plumer, a Mount Vernon attorney who is donating her time to defend John Bill, George and four other siblings.

Plumer said she does not know exactly how many people could lose their tribal membership. Her clients have other siblings who have not asked her to defend them.

She said the conflict flared up in early March when DeCoteau’s husband, Ernie, was fired from his longtime position as police chief.

About the same time, a 13-page letter signed by John Bill; Gloria George; Joseph’s mother, Norma; and her sister, Nancy DeCoteau, was sent to American Indian auditors and the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs with allegations of mismanagement, Plumer said.

On March 25, the tribal council voted in an emergency meeting to disenroll several members of the Bill family. They appealed, and the Sauk-Suiattle Tribal Court granted an injunction in April.

The council reinstated the members April 28 to give them a chance to document their membership status. They will get the chance to make their case today.

Plumer said the records on Emily Jo Bill probably contain errors, but so do the records for many Sauk-Suiattle ancestors. Picking on the Bill family was not fair and could leave many others vulnerable, she said.

If the council decides to disenroll any members, the matter could get thrown back to the tribal court.

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