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Rocky Boy sets special election for chair

Ted Whitford was elected to fill the role of interim chairman until the next election at a Chippewa Cree Business Committee meeting Tuesday.

“At this point, it’s an interim position,” Ted Whitford said. “It could last about 30 days.”

He said that the election board is planning to meet to decide on a date to have a special election to choose the new chair of the Business Committee. He said the elections should be held sooner than 30 days.

He was voted in as vice chair and then was moved to interim chair and Dustin Whitford was voted in to take the vice-chair position. Once the new chair is voted in, Ted Whitford would revert to vice chair and Dustin Whitford would become a regular board member again.

Ted Whitford said he is not sure if he will run in the special election, but said that he and the others on the board are eligible if they want to run. He also said he does not think there would be anything barring former elected chair Ken Blatt St. Marks from running again, but that would ultimately be up to the election board.

There have been multiple special elections held since the last general election for chair was held in 2012. St. Marks has won all of them, but has been removed from office every time due to multiple allegations of various wrongdoings from the committee, including sexual harassment, making lateral movements and executive decisions, misappropriating funds and others.

St. Marks has not been formally charged. However, the business committee does not need to make them formal to vote him off.

St. Marks said this morning that he is not sure if he is going to run for the position again, adding that he still needs to think about it.

“I’m anxious to start working with the new Business Committee members as well as the remaining members,” Dustin Whitford wrote in a message. “I appreciate the Committee’s vote of confidence to serve as the interim vice chair of the Chippewa Cree Tribe and will continue to do my best in my position until I am duly replaced or until my term expires.”

Dustin Whitford’s term ends in 2016 as well.

Last week, the members of the board who were waiting to be sworn in while a complaint about the last elections’ validity was going through appeals court took their seats on the committee.

Beau Mitchell, Harlan Gopher Baker, Calvin Jilot and Jody LaMere were sworn in and the board now has only one empty seat, which will be filled in 2016.

“My thoughts are he is a strong leader and sets the bar high in his expectations of the rest of the Business Committee, which is a good thing,” Dustin Whitford wrote. “I’m excited to see the direction he will lead our tribe, which I know will be forward, in a good way.”

 
 

Reader Comments(1)

rbcitizen writes:

More indictments has marked this new council, not the new members, the past that has been there for the past eight years. These guys need to be dealt with. We just can't have this corruption anymore.

 
 
 
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