Fort Belknap holds a meet-the-candidates event in Havre

Five candidates seeking tribal office on Fort Belknap Indian Reservation spoke to enrolled members in Havre at a candidate forum Thursday, five days before enrolled members will cast their ballots in tribal elections.

The candidates spoke to an audience of members who live on and off the reservation about the need for greater transparency, fiscal responsibility, economic development and other issues.

Andy Werk Jr. a candidate for Fort Belknap Tribal president and his vice presidential candidate Gerald "Manny" Healy spoke, as did council candidates John Allen, Brandi King and Jeffrey Stiffam

Werk is a former three-term member of the Fort Belknap Indian Community Council and Healy also is a former council member. They are challenging incumbent President Mark Azure and his running mate Alvin "Jim" Kennedy. Incumbent Vice President George Horse Capture is not running for re-election.

Neither Azure or Kennedy were at the rally.

"Every time I come up to Havre I run into people from Fort Belknap," Werk said.

Two-thirds of enrolled members of the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine tribes live off the reservation, he said, and there is often a disconnect between members who live on the reservation and those who don't. The disconnect, he said, is something that he and Healy hope to fix if elected.

Werk said he recently talked with an enrolled member who lives and owns a small business in Havre, who had been surprised to learn their was a tribal election.

Werk said it is important for the council to keep in touch with members who live off the reservation.

He said the tribe should examine the feasibility of opening a tribal office in Havre that can provide services to members who live off the reservation. Werk said the office may not be able to be open every day, but is something they could possibly share the cost of with Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, who also have many enrolled members who live in Havre.

Television monitors in the Council Chambers and in district offices on the reservation are never used, Werk said. The council, he said, should use the monitors in video conferences and live streaming to connect with the off-reservation population, adding that the council should live-stream their meetings.

The tribe could also look at occasionally holding City Council meetings in Havre, Werk said.

The tribe's website should also have more information and allow members to access forms and services like state and federal government agencies do.

Werk said the tribe also needs to better manage its finances.

"Our concern is their spending," Werk said.

Though the tribe has received money from two settlements with the federal government, Werk said, none of that money has been used to pay off tribal debt.

Council members, he added, need financial training and to establish a financial advisory committee.

If elected, he said, he hopes to get the tribe on a sound financial path.

He said the tribe should also look at forming a business incubator that helps match people with resources needed to start small businesses.

John Allen, a former four-term council member and candidate for an Assiniboine at-large seat, said the current tribal government does not have a true separation of powers.

"We need to separate our court system away from the whole council," Allen said.

Doing so, he said, would involve a secretarial election because it would involve amending the tribe's constitution.

Judges should be elected rather than appointed, he said.

He said council members should be elected in four-year staggered terms rather than every two years.

Allen said the tribe also needs to encourage small business on the reservation.

"We don't have an economy on Fort Belknap. They are all going to Havre," he said.

Allen's opponent for the seat, Brandi King, is a military veteran and now does work in the area of suicide reduction.

She said that while issues such as water compacts and spending are being discussed, people on the reservation are dying from suicide and dealing with substance abuse.

"Our people are dying right in front of us while we are trying to figure these things out," she said.

The quality of health care provided by Indian Health Services is also poor, King said.

She also said many adults are feuding on Facebook and in doing so are setting a poor example for the reservation's youth.

"What kind of hope are we giving them," she asked.

King said alternative sentencing is something that also needs to be looked at by the tribe. She said offenders should be able to help build houses or help elders as part of their punishment.

Jeffrey Stiffarm, a candidate for a Gros Ventre at-large seat on the council, said though he has never served on the council before, he believes his career in reservation law enforcement provided him with experience to serve the tribe.

He said he will be a voice to speak for members of the tribe, especially the elderly and youth, as well as people who live both on and off the reservation.

Greater transparency, he said, is needed in the tribal government.

"A lot of decisions are made in secret," he said.

He said that secrecy feeds the rumor mill on the reservation.

Stiffarm added that the issue of drugs are also a big problem on the reservation, one that is growing. He said many dealers know that the reservation's detention facility can only hold so many offenders and that the federal government will only take dealers arrested on the reservation if they have a certain amount of drugs.

Stiffarm said the one promise he will make as a candidate is that, if elected, he will try his best to do the job and help the people out.

Stiffarm's opponent in the race, Michael D. Fox, was not at the forum.