{"id":9278,"date":"2019-09-21T05:10:40","date_gmt":"2019-09-21T10:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/new-dawn-on-rosebud-tribal-electric-utility-voters-triumph\/"},"modified":"2019-09-21T05:10:40","modified_gmt":"2019-09-21T10:10:40","slug":"new-dawn-on-rosebud-tribal-electric-utility-voters-triumph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/new-dawn-on-rosebud-tribal-electric-utility-voters-triumph\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018New dawn\u2019 on Rosebud: Tribal electric utility voters triumph"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For the first time in the 70-year history of the power company, Sicangu Oyate members, pictured at the 2019 standing-room-only election meeting, gained the majority of seats on the board of directors. Credit COURTESY \/ Rosebud Cordier<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

VALENTINE, Nebraska \u2013 Sept. 14, 2019 marked the first time that tribal members gained the majority of seats on the board of directors in the 70-year history of the power company supplying the Sicangu Nation\u2019s electricity.
\n\u201cUnprecedented! Historic!\u201d exclaimed tribal enrollee Rosebud Cordier, a leader of the grassroots citizen action group Oyate For Fairness & Equal Representation (OFFER), which formed a decade ago with tribal government support to encourage reservation residents\u2019 voter participation at the power company\u2019s annual board meeting.
\nIn the wake of an OFFER rally, the Cherry-Todd Electric Cooperative experienced a standing-room-only crowd for its 70th Annual Meeting and Election, held at the Rosebud Casino located between Valentine and Mission on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in Todd County.
\nWhen the ballots were counted, tribal enrollees claimed five of the eight positions on the board.
\n\u201cI strongly believe this win came about from the continued efforts of the grassroots group OFFER, with the support of many, many concerned tribal members who packed the bingo hall today!\u201d Cordier said in a thank-you note to voters who turned out.
\nTodd County is one of three that constitute districts in the power company\u2019s service area. The county is completely under reservation jurisdiction. With another 30 percent of the company\u2019s Melette County district also under the tribal government\u2019s control, some 80 percent of eligible voters are tribally enrolled.
\nCherry County, adjacent to the reservation\u2019s southern border in Nebraska, constitutes the remaining district in the provider\u2019s service area.
\n\u201cWe fought hard to get in the tribal members,\u201d said OFFER Coordinator Ronald Neiss, noting that voters elected the two tribal incumbents running and two new tribal enrollees to the eight-member board, where they joined one other tribal board member whose post was not up for election.
\nWith five enrollees on the board, a history of voter suppression of tribal members under majority non-member boards can now be terminated, Neiss said. \u201cThe days of practicing business-as-usual are over. We had very little control of the board. I always equated it to apartheid. Now it\u2019s not,\u201d he told the Native Sun News Today.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a new dawn on the Rosebud. That\u2019s how I look at it,\u201d he said.
\nIn the vote count, Todd County district tribal enrollee and board chair Shawn Bordeaux retained his position, and Noah \u201cSandy\u201d Tucker won reelection to his seat in the district.
\nTribal enrollee Wayne Frederick won over another enrollee, Tamaleon Wilcox, and over incumbent Dave Assman for the third Todd County district seat.
\nIn the run for one at-large board position, tribal enrollee Glen Yellow Eagle garnered more votes than tribal challenger Robert Becker.
\nThey join tribal enrollee Whitney Meek, who is one of two Melette County district board members.
\n\u201cWe now have five out of the eight seats \u2026 and they said it couldn\u2019t be done!\u201d Neiss exclaimed.
\nThe triumph followed on the publication in 2018 of news feature stories in The Nation and Le Monde about Sicangu tribal citizens\u2019 long struggle to claim a larger role in the decisions affecting their electricity bills.
\nCherry-Todd Electric Cooperative and some 900 other electric cooperatives like it are utilities that originated through community organizing and were then established by the 1936 Rural Electrification Act to provide service where private corporations failed to invest.
\nThe coops are the providers for the majority of the area of the United States. Their structure affords the customers the opportunity to vote for the board of directors.
\nOFFER participants recognized the need to encourage fellow tribal members to take advantage of the system, when they discovered that non-tribal customers received two or more ballots to every one for tribal members at election time.
\nDue to OFFER\u2019s oversight and insistence, that situation is gradually improving, according to Neiss. \u201cWe coordinate and promote tribal voter empowerment,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cIt is good to see that because of OFFER\u2019s efforts over the years, tribal members are now allowed to participate in the vote counting during the annual meetings,\u201d Cordier added.
\nThe tribal government has supported OFFER by providing pre-election candidate forums with food entertainment and prizes, as well as buses to transport voters to the annual meetings.
\nThe tribal government also is fighting a legal battle to establish its authority over the utility.
\nAs a result of more tribal participation on the board of directors, penalties for late payment of electricity bills have been reduced, and \u201cmore courtesy is shown to tribal members,\u201d Neiss said.
\n\u201cThings are changing, which they wouldn\u2019t have, if they didn\u2019t have an open-minded board,\u201d he said. Still, many a bridge remains to be crossed on the road to equity, he noted.
\nSome years back, when an annual meeting in the afternoon attracted a record tribal crowd, the board changed the next meeting time to the morning, forcing customers to board buses at 6 a.m. on the weekend to attend. Neiss considers that a voter suppression measure and he wants it eliminated.
\nAnother he mentioned was the proposal of by-law amendments to voters in this election. The board advertised its proposals without advising OFFER in advance and did not publish OFFER\u2019s proposals at the same time. It posted OFFER\u2019s proposals only after the group protested and accompanied the publication by an explanation of board opposition to but one, he said.
\nAt the annual meeting, enrollee Phyllis White Shield asked the board to table the vote on the amendments to a later date to allow for study and consideration. A show of hands in favor of her request convinced the board to agree.
\nNeiss said he and another participant asked the vote counter for the tally, and the majority in favor was so overwhelming that the answer was: \u201cNot even remotely close.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman(at)gmail.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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For the first time in the 70-year history of the power company, Sicangu Oyate members, pictured at the 2019 standing-room-only election meeting, gained the majority of seats on the board of directors. Credit COURTESY \/ Rosebud Cordier VALENTINE, Nebraska \u2013 Sept. 14, 2019 marked the first time that tribal members <\/p>\n

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