Update #122
The views, opinions and commentary in this update are those of Congressman Red Corn. They are his alone, and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the Osage Nation Congress.
Osage LLC capital contribution gets wide Congressional support
The Osage Nation Congress voted 9-2 Thursday to appropriate $7.5 million to Osage, LLC as a capital contribution. Only Congressmen Supernaw and Revard voted against the measure.
I believe the strong support arises from the recent concerns that the three Osage casinos are not on trust property. The recent adverse court decisions in the reservation case have highlighted the need for diversification of our income base.
The presentation made by the LLC board on April 8th was unflinching, and showed that the board faced serious challenges after inheriting some of the Nation’s troubled businesses. The profits from the passive business investments, however, were on target, averaging a 9-10% return. The Nation is now drawing around 1%, on average, on its reserves.
The LLC’s Airpark property, the purchase of which was opposed by some members of Congress, is nearing 100% occupancy. New leases and the income they produce will help offset the operating expenses of the LLC, enhancing profits.
Congress re-votes all confirmations from Spring Session.
After notification that the secret votes of April 7th and 9th were in violation of provisions of the Open Meetings Act, the Congress rescinded and expunged all confirmation votes, followed by a re-vote of several confirmations.
Three members of Congress had advocated for recorded votes on those dates; Congresswoman Atterberry, and Congressman Freeman and myself. The new votes brought individual positions on Gaming Enterprise Board appointments to light. All three went to a tie vote, broken by the Assistant Principal Chief, John Red Eagle.
Voting for Gaming Board appointees George Pease III, Frank Oberly, and Elizabeth Homer were Congresspersons Red Corn, Atterberry, Edwards, Freeman, Shackelford and Mason. Voting against all three were Congresspersons Supernaw, Simms, Red Eagle, Branstetter, Anderson and Revard.
Breaking all three ties was Assistant Chief Red Eagle, who voted only for Frank Oberly. This still leaves the Gaming Enterprise Board without a quorum to conduct business.
All other re-votes had the same result – confirmation.
Have you applied for your absentee ballot yet?
If you wish to vote in the upcoming elections and cannot be present to vote on June 7 in Pawhuska, you need to apply for an absentee ballot. There is a deadline (about a month from now) for sending in a request. All who intend to vote are encouraged to request now to allow adequate time to (a) send in the application, (b) receive the absentee ballot from the Election Board, (c) fill it out and mail it in time to arrive in Pawhuska no later than June 7th. Here is a link to the official absentee ballot request form:
http://raymondredcorn.com/forms/finlabsntbllt1-27.pdf
You can print it off, fill it out, include the appropriate documents and mail it in.
As always, please share your opinions and thoughts with me at your convenience.
With respect,
Raymond Red Corn
Osage Nation Congress
918-287-7400
[email protected]
Loading ...
“This still leaves the Gaming Enterprise Board without a quorum to conduct business.” So this is the fault of the Congress? Where is the Chief with others to nominate for this Board because that’s how it works. He is responsible for supplying the nominees. He drops the ball with no one for the Congress to consider in the event that the current nominees are not appointed and the Congress is expected to take the blame? You’re a member of Congress not a member of the Executive Branch. Why aren’t you holding Gray accountable for not taking care of business on his end by supplying additional nominees for you and the other members of the Congress to consider so that the situation hasn’t come to this?
“This still leaves the Gaming Enterprise Board without a quorum to conduct business” is a fact, not an opinion. You then ask “So is this the fault of Congress?” That’s for each reader to decide for themselves.
You ask “Why aren’t you holding Gray accountable for not taking care of business on his end by supplying additional nominees for you and the other members of Congress to consider…..?” To what end? We’ve spent four years waiting, sometimes interminably, for nominees to be named. The Election Board took a year, and that was with constant goading and legislation demanding the Board be nominated. If that was holding Chief Gray “accountable” it didn’t do a bit of good. After the Board was finally nominated, one nominee didn’t get confirmed. It took another six months to get an alternate named, and that was a couple of weeks ago.
So, name for us a member of Congress that, when voting no on the existing board, believed the Principal Chief had backup nominees waiting to step in.
Also: Do you personally know anyone who can pass an exhaustive background check and is willing to (a) subject themselves to the scrutiny of the Osage Nation Congress, (b) also subject themselves to public scrutiny and the possibility of being voted down publicly, (c) take on legal responsibility for overseeing a $200 million operation that has an extraordinary level of regulation, and (d) do all of the above for the compensation equal to the lowest paid employees of the Nation, all for (e) the right reasons? By the way, do they have any gaming experience? That’s the real-world question that now has to be answered, and placing blame doesn’t answer it, nor does it gain us the ability to pay slot machine vendors their cut or make a distribution to the Nation.
Blame or no blame, Chief Gray is being paid to do exactly what you have outlined and he has had nearly four years to accomplish this task. By your account, he has failed to do his job adequately, properly or effectively. If we are interested in a results oriented government for the Osage people, and we are, the result is failure. What is the Board doing cutting checks for slot machine vendors in the first place? This should be handled directly under the umbrella of MDE operations. As for distribution, in this eventuality, why isn’t there an organizational structure in place to permit only one board member to cut a check for distribution if necessary? What if it had been discovered with documented irrefutable proof by the Congress that all three board members were on the take and as a result, all of them had to be thrown off of the board at once? Don’t think it hasn’t happened elsewhere before. Where is the organizational plan for damage control in that event? What the hell kind of an operation are you people running over there?
Your series of increasingly speculative questions do not answer mine; Do you know someone willing to serve on the Gaming Enterprise Board? Would you serve, Ms. Lynn?
In direct answer to your last question, the answer is: A profitable one. When the Congress was sworn in in 2006, we had $3 million in the bank. Now it’s around $55 million, with $16.4 million now invested in Osage, LLC and tens of millions re-invested in the enterprise.
And the casinos are debt free. Add in the fact that we have a clean, audited balance sheet for 2009, and that revenue at the casinos actually rose 3% while the country was in a recession, and that we have taken all accounting in-house and are current with our reporting to the NIGC, and one has to ask why we just ran off 2/3 of our Board.
Cathy Lynn, why are you always blaming Chief Gray? He is doing his job like he is supposed to. Quit complaining about everything if you don’t like what is going on then why don’t you run for Congress or Chief? Do you have the qualifications to run a $ 200 million dollar operation? Or to be telling Congressmen or the Chief how to do thier job? Probably not! It looks like you have all the answers and know how to solve all the problems so instead of complaing come up with a solution. Problems don’t get solved with complaining and bickering, come up with a solution that helps!
In answer to Ms. Lynn’s question “What is the Board doing cutting checks for slot machine vendors in the first place?”, here’s the answer; it’s the law. Most, if not all of those checks are over $50,000, beyond the signature authority of the CEO. Why does it matter? No payment, and they can shut down their slot machines (“gaming vendors” are the owners of most of the machines in our casinos) until they get paid.
These duties and responsibilities are directly assigned in the Constitution. It is neither my duty or responsibility to come up with anyone to fill this position or any other. We elect exceedingly high paid officials to take care of this for us and it is their job to do so as well as to come up with solutions but many of those officials behave as if they are in a Brigadoon like fictional place where no one is ever held accountable for their actions or inactions as elected officers relative to their performance record. If you can’t accept the responsibility, you shouldn’t run for office. Sorry Raymond, the rosy picture you paint is not the whole story. Other elected officials of this government would likely accuse you of being disingenuous in relation to the total picture that you are representing here as opposed to what has indeed taken place in the last four years.
No need to apologize. Also not qualifying for the “whole story” are speculative statements and questions that would lead one to believe the Gaming Enterprise Board could easily be improved upon. That’s why I posted, to offer up facts that provide some balance.
Raymond just one question, I was wondering why the Gaming Enterprise Board members are up for re-election after only one year? It seems like it would make more sense to allow them to serve longer shifts, at least taht way they wouldn’t always be on the chopping block. Just a thought………..
Billy, Mr. Pease and Mr. Oberly were at the end of a 3.5 year term. The normal term is 3 years, but the applicable law allows for a 6 month extension. Mr. Slamans was approved at the same time as Mr. Pease and Mr. Oberly (if memory serves), but left the Board last fall. He was replaced with an interim appointment, Ms. Homer. Under the Constitution, an interim appointee may serve without confirmation until the end of the next occurring regular session of Congress. As it was, she was up anyway after assuming the balance of Mr. Slamans term. That put all three up for confirmation at the same time.
Some have pointed out that the Congress should contemplate an amendment to the Gaming Reform Act that would stagger the terms. I would support such an amendment. There is an over-arching bill that addresses all terms (and compensation schedules) for all boards and commissions, but it never made it out of committee.
Thanks for the update Raymond.