Just as Oneida Eye previously had to ask about disgraced former Oneida Business Committee Chair Ed Delgado, Oneida Eye must now ask regarding current OBC Chair Cristina Delgado-Danforth:
Does Tina Danforth have an honesty problem, a brain problem, or both?
In her asinine ‘Chairwoman’s Report’ published in the November 26, 2014, issue of Kalihwisaks, Tina Danforth addresses the successful Complaint filed by Tribe members & Petitioners Mike Debraska, Frank Cornelius and Oneida Eye Publisher Leah Dodge with the Oneida Appeals Commission for a Stay on the illegally scheduled November 22, 2014 Special Election to address a vacancy on the Oneida Business Committee which resulted in the cancellation of that Special Election.
Tina Danforth attempts to justify her violations of Tribal rules and laws at the October 26, 2014, General Tribal Council Meeting by citing something called the “Merriam Dictionary.”
We think that Tina probably means the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary (maybe she has an old version before Merriam and Webster teamed up), but the definition for the word “reconsider” that she cites (“to consider again especially with a view to changing or reversing; to consider something again”) doesn’t prove anything other than that Tina Danforth has severe reading comprehension deficiencies and that she is clinging to the foolish notion that a dictionary definition could somehow trump Robert’s Rules Of Order As Used by the General Tribal Council as posted on the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin website, which says:
Motion to Reconsider
This motion is brought forward by a member wishing to bring a matter back before the body. The matter must be on the agenda and the membership must have received reasonable notice. The motion must be seconded, and it requires a majority vote. If the vote passes, the motion or prior action is on the floor as if the prior vote did not occur. Note: There are circumstances when reconsidering a prior motion is not in order.
Did GTC vote at the October 26 GTC Meeting to “consider again” an option to hold an election to address the OBC vacancy GTC had previously voted to reject during the meeting? Yes, GTC voted by a simple majority vote to reconsider an option they had previously rejected during the meeting.
Did GTC vote to “adopt” that or any other option? No, because no one ever made a motion to adopt, nor seconded, nor voted on whether to adopt the previously rejected option to address the GTC vacancy.
After he was elected OBC Chair in 2011, Ed Delgado was encouraged by concerned Tribe members to take a course in Robert’s Rules of Order so that he could rightly conduct properly held General Tribal Council meetings, but Ed refused to do so saying that he would instead rely on Oneida Tribal Chief Counsel Jo Anne House, who is the lead attorney for OBC – a lower governing body of OTIW – to act as the Parliamentarian for GTC – the supreme governing body of OTIW, as if that isn’t a clear and obvious conflict of interest.
Obviously Tina Danforth and Jo Anne House are in need of that same education in Robert’s Rules of Order that Ed refused (they should both, at the very least, simply read Robert’s Rules Of Order As Used by the General Tribal Council), and Tina should eliminate the unnecessary conflict of interest created by having OBC Chief Counsel Jo Anne House act as Parliamentarian for GTC meetings.
This is especially true given (A) Tina Danforth’s claim in her column that Jo Anne House agreed with Tina’s perversion of Robert’s Rules Of Order As Used by the General Tribal Council, and (B) the undeniable disregard for Tribal laws and the political will of General Tribal Council as made abundantly clear in Jo Anne House’s October 27, 2014, Opinion demonstrating her contempt for GTC-approved amendments to Oneida Election Law and the steps required by Robert’s Rules of Orders As Used by the General Tribal Council to amend or even temporarily suspend previously adopted Tribal laws by a two-thirds (2/3) majority vote of GTC, which is as follows:
Two-Thirds Vote – used to overturn a previous action as identified in the Ten Day Notice Policy. Requires two-thirds of those voting to take action, excluding those who choose to abstain. The total number of votes, divided by three, multiplied by two. Fragments are included in the ‘yes’ votes as that is where two-thirds of the vote lies.
It is Oneida Eye’s understanding that Jo Anne House volunteered to step down as Parliamentarian for GTC meetings and Tina Danforth declined that offer, despite the fact that there are Tribe members who have been trained in Robert’s Rules of Order (at the Tribe’s expense) who are not Tribal employees and therefore don’t have the same conflicts of interest as Jo Anne House does.
Tina Danforth’s column also says that Linda Dallas, who made the motion to reconsider the option to hold an election to address the OBC vacancy “agreed with [Tina’s] assessment and [GTC] moved forward” to hold an accelerated Special Election, but the option that Tina Danforth falsely claims that GTC voted to adopt would have illegally contravened the Oneida Election Law which requires that a primary be held 60 days prior to the Special Election if there are 16 or more candidates as there eventually were, and Linda Dallas has filed a request for a Declaratory Ruling with the Oneida Appeals Commission affirming that legal requirement of a primary.
Tina Danforth’s column also patronizingly says, “…I just hope the petitioners are filing claims for the benefit of the Tribe and not simply because of personal reasons and preferences.”
Wait. What? Is she nuts?
Apparently Tina Danforth believes that her own subversion of Tribal rules and laws is somehow “for the benefit of the Tribe” even though it is made very obvious by the video of the October 26, 2014, GTC Meeting that Tina was acting as part of a coordinated effort with her 2014 General Election running-mates David ‘Fleet’ Jordan and Leyene Orosco to bum rush GTC by falsely claiming that a motion to reconsider is the same thing as a motion to adopt and then use that lie to illegally hold a caucus and schedule an election in the hopes that one of her friends (namely Tina’s personal preference Fleet) would be elected to the Oneida Business Committee since everyone else on the current OBC seems to be against Tina and she needs a friend.
If Tina Danforth, or any other OBC member, actually cared about doing something “for the benefit of the Tribe” during the Tribe’s current financial crisis they would ask GTC to impose the same kind of ‘hiring freeze’ on OBC that OBC has already imposed on the Tribe and require that OBC share their work amongst the eight (8) members they have now (just as OBC is requiring of Tribal employees) thereby saving the Tribe the cost of a primary and the expense of the salaries of an OBC member and their assistant, as well as several other unnecessary costs, by advocating for GTC to vote to leave the unoccupied OBC position vacant which is a Constitutionally valid option:
For Tina Danforth to even dare to question other people’s motives, especially Tribe members who are expending their own time and resources fighting to make sure that the Oneida Business Committee, the Oneida Election Board, and the Oneida Law Office actually follow the Tribal laws adopted by GTC, only shows that Tina doesn’t give a damn about the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin or that Tina simply can’t wrap her warped mind around the fact that GTC is the supreme governing body and she better get used to GTC members demanding that the OBC Chair, OBC, OEB, & OLO learn and remember their place.
