CONCERNED CADDO'S RESPONSE TO LARUE'S CAMPAIGN LETTER

Many Caddos have received a multi-page campaign letter (see first two pages here) from current chairman, LaRue Parker, to convince them that she deserves four more years. We urge you to read our responses and to understand that we can not afford four more years of doing business the way the tribe has been run under LaRue. Her letter attempts to

• take claim for some accomplishments during her tenure and explain her view of how the council works
• try to explain away concerns in Laura Jarvis's letter which gives her viewpoint on the status of the tribe.
• take personal and political potshots at the motives of the Concerned Caddos

LARUE'S CLAIMS AND ACCUSATIONS

OUR RESPONSES

• Do all candidates have equal access to addresses of tribal members to send out Campaign letters? NO. Only LaRue has access to our addresses for her political gain.
• In January, she sent a letter to some Caddo friends asking for support on tribal letterhead. Can she be writing these letters on tribal time and tribal letterhead, using tribal computer?
• What did she do in the first 4 years? Successful economic development? A Casino? A Smoke shop? Housing Program? Education funds? Education building? All suspect.

• The Caddo membership deserves to have documentation and proof for those accomplishments. Let's have something of substance and make sure it is not something that was already in the works before the chair was elected.
• We should look at these issues to see whether or not good and sound business judgment has or has not been used and if there is accountability to the members.

• The OATH OF OFFICE states "I, LaRue Parker, do hereby solemnly affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, and will carry out faithfully and impartially the duties of my office to the best of my ability and will promote and protect the best interest of the Caddo Indian Tribe in accordance with the Tribal Constitution and Bylaws".
• She took out a loan for the higher education building without tribal approval, signed it stating that she HAD gotten approval from her membership. She not only broke the Caddo Constitution she has broken the federal banking laws.
• We have seen her disrespect and ignore Caddo people at meetings and other places. We have seen her break confidentiality rules so she could make herself look better.
• At one membership meeting Parker loudly proclaimed that we owe the guy who gave us the casino almost $30,000 and "we are not going to pay one penny of that." We guess this is the way she wants to do business.
• Parker did in fact admit in her opening letter to the Jan. membership meeting that there are illegal class 3 machines operating in the Casino. NIGC shut us down May 28, 2003.

• At the first meeting in June 2003, she announced there would be no meetings until after the election, July 12, She was yelling that the council should ,"get out". When the council showed up for the second meeting in June, she called it illegal.
• She is saying that these council members who were elected by their constituents do not have the right to hold a council meeting, to take care of our business. By not holding the meeting, she is saying the tribal business is not important. The constitution does not read : only if the chairman wants to have a monthly meeting one will be called. This is yet another violation of the constitution.
• Yes, some on this recently elected council have questioned LaRue's actions. No one individual or group has taken on this task to this extent before. Her actions against the constitution have gone into corruption and cannot be addressed without strength of will and firmness of determination. She does not want the council to hold her accountable for the loans she made against the constitution, the opening of an illegal casino, the agreements she made to give away the right to our constitution and seal, etc.
• She uses "the Chair only votes in case of a tie" to avoid responsibility. When a vote comes up that may not go her way, her voting block has left the room to avoid a quorum. When the quorum is against her, she cancels meetings.
• Many of us here have also been attacked by Parker and her gang at the tribe where it involved jobs, personal security, personal information, and personal safety. Caddos know if they talk out against LaRue, they will be hurt in some way. We have already been hurt badly and repeatedly and we are angry about that for sure .
• We Concerned Caddos will not be intimidated. We will do what has to be done to get our tribe back on a firm ground and will keep it there. We believe in making people accountable for any wrongdoing.

• We Concerned Caddos have never been unclear as to what we want. We want honesty in the governance of the Caddo tribe. We demand it. We demand respect and adherence to the Caddo constitution by all Caddo members. We demand free speech for the Caddo membership as well as for the individual Caddo

• LaRue continues to frighten employees with threats of the council and other Caddo members, "firing employees. Laura Jarvis's petition to fire employees is not being carried.
• Yet, under any honest administration, those who are doing their job can relax and do their job. Those who aren't or don't know how, that is something else.
• However, under Ms. Parker first term as chairman, her first move was to terminate several employees. Based on LaRue's comments about them, Laura Jarvis was involved in the termination and later found these employees did not deserve to be terminated but it was her goal to remove them when she became chairman. These are all good Caddo people but had a mind of their own. Now she wants to scream that the Concerned Caddos want to fire Caddo people.
• We do believe we have a few unqualified people including convicted felons, and clerks who don't keep accurate records. For example,
  • there is no excuse for our tribal records to not be updated and entered into a searchable computer database and made available to the Election Board. In the past, we have had family members that did not receive the absentee ballots they have requested. There was a deceased man of 4 years that received one.
  • Caddos are being stopped for not having their car registered properly. We need someone to take responsibility, completing each and every step in the registering of that vehicle to assure when necessary, that the vehicle is currently registered to that Caddo person.
  • We know people in the fire fighting program have gotten into some legal trouble while out on fire business. Are these people involved in these incidents still with the Caddo fire fighting program and was any disciplinary action taken?
• You see, this is the very kind of thing that has caused so many problems under this administration. Does she not know "you have to take care of business" daily. You have to supervise the performance of your employees. Believe that is why we are where we are right now, this administration either does not know or does not care.

• She doesn't defend the issue that Shirley was not eligible to be enrolled into the tribe. Allowing the enrollment of Shirley Howery Gouge (enrollment clerk) is against the constitution.
• This was done after she told the council she had not received any monies from the Comanche tribe with whom she was an enrolled member. There is now a letter proving she did in fact receive money as an enrolled member of the Comanche tribe. She fails to mention that Laura Jarvis voted for the enrollment after Ms. Gouge told the council she received no monies from the Comanche tribe.
• Ms. Gouge's Caddo heritage was not in question. The violation occurs if she was enrolled in another tribe and received a share of land or money from that tribe; if that occurred then she is not eligible for enrollment in the Caddo tribe.

• Do know the finance department were told not to give anyone, other council members included, any information out of that office. Finance needs to remember and realize that the chair has no right to post such a memo. The council has rights to information that pertains to any program in the Caddo tribe. It is hard to get accurate numbers.
• Would you say she may have something to hide? Tell us Ms. Parker - about the BIA review June 30, 2003 and how your four years have got us in debt for our higher education funds. (Documentation to come.)
• Without the council and membership knowing what the chairman has financially obligated us to, the council can enter into new debts- not knowing what we already have.

She says the Concerned Caddos ran off her education director and replaced him with Lavonna Weller

She says funds are available for student education funds. Every single student received a grant for college tuition

• The chairman is now blasting the current education director because she has uncovered some things that were done wrong in that office.
• The report from the BIA audit of the 638 funds will probably show that the tribe can not show where all the money was spent. Documentation of this will appear on this site when available.

• The reason we have no housing program is because the Nahasda director and the Chairman claimed more houses than we actually had, got more money that we had to pay back and refused to give the Gracemont housing authority any money for the maintenance and operation of that housing authority.
• On May 8, 1998 , the Gracemont housing gave them the information which stated 91 homes- the housing director signed for it (we have a copy) and then turned around and claimed 215 homes. Then, with the money they received, the tribe used the money to rehab some homes. One belonged to a seated council member at that time, and who is running for reelection this year. The homes all cost $48,000 plus to rehab. That's enough to build a new home. We have no accountability where the money was spent.
• The Caddo tribe ended up owing HUD over $400,000 for the houses they didn't have.
• The council voted not to continue the HUD program instead of providing documentation to HUD. LaRue was chairman when this happened. She would rather give up "your" housing program than follow the regulations required by HUD. She did cast the deciding vote to not have a housing program. Matter of record.

• Interestingly enough, she admits the education building was purchased, and that there was $45,000.00 for this project but she borrowed the money to buy a bigger building for $77,000 with $89,000 payoff.
• The fact remains that she borrowed it against the constitution, and at her own doing. Now, who has to pay? We all do. The constitution clearly states that the membership of the tribe are the only ones who can authorize any debt. The council must receive their permission to do so. The chairman, along with the business manager signed this loan, and attested to the fact that a meeting was held to authorize such debt. The chairman of the tribe does not have the authority to borrow money. This is a legal issue.
• Go to the home page of this site and click on "Chairman obligates tribe " then look at page #1 you will find LaRue's signature and read the paragraph above the signature. LaRue never got the tribe's approval. Think about it!

LaRue claims INFCA had value to the tribe. Blames the Concerned Caddos for losing the partnership.

• The Caddo membership was not aware or involved in any of the ground work and most certainly would not have given Mr. Moore the permission to use the Caddo charter, the Caddo seal, the constitution, letterhead, address, etc. (copy available on our site). Look at the INFCA site, tell us what you think of the Caddo constitution they have displayed there.
• If there was value in this partnership, it doesn't justify making the deal against the constitution and without membership approval.

LaRue wants to run a casino to bring economic development to the tribe.

• NIGC (National Indian Gaming Commission)on May 28, 2003 shut down our Casino at the Binger Complex because LaRue insisted on running it with illegal class 3 machines.
• If LaRue had only voluntarily changed out our illegal class 3 slot machines like we asked LaRue to do several months ago, the NIGC would not have shut us down
• LaRue said the casino was actually losing money. Now, twenty-three people are out of a job due to the chairman's refusal to believe that the gaming commission has teeth. This particular incident may cost us money in fines and if the chairman gets her way, these out of work casino employees will be paid out of the Caddo coffers, which is the right thing to do for these people, but totally the wrong thing for the tribe.(Problems with the layoff and payment to the employees will be explained on the site soon.)
• We have problems with the background checks for the employees who worked there. (Documentation to some soon).
• These events are the culmination of the chairman's actions alone. If she had listened to reason and understood gaming requirements and responsibilities and seriously honored them, this mess would not have happened.
• Are we supposed to believe she can be responsible to run a bigger Casino properly?

• Look at some of the current economic projects. Her past success rate has not been good. Smoke Shop gone, illegal casino shut down, no HUD housing, no functional learning center, although it appears that the chairman, made a loan for it.
• The fact the tribe has not had successful projects is something that requires some serious thought about her ability to supervise and be responsible for economic development.
• Understand there may be some problems with the purchase of the Eakley school for $24,000. Did we have to pay the closing cost and is the insurance pretty high? What other costs are there that we do not know about and where is the pre fab housing deal? Did it fall through or does someone else have it? We will provide documentation when we have it.
• Our disagreement with committing to these new economic projects only lies in having a full investigation into the responsibilities of the tribe and having an administration that is capable of running the programs properly.

• These things are what we expect from our tribe. We need a tribe that looks after our interests, but also provides current information about these issues to its members.
• After the Concerned Caddos established their website, thecaddo.com to provide information to Caddo members and to provide an interactive way for members to talk to each other and to talk about their grievances to the administration, the tribe finally set up a website. The tribe's website had been down for several years. It is still not interactive so that members can discuss their concerns on a message board or provide much information.
• During membership meetings, Caddo members with concerns and questions are not allowed to ask for information on how things are being done. True membership meetings are where the people get to speak. If LaRue would simply have an open dialog with the membership that needs to speak, the members would have been able to express their grievances, but as yet we have not, and we have not for over 4 years.

What a way to run a tribe! Sometimes a campaign of personal attacks against someone can make us look like we have ulterior motives. We have the courage of our conviction to support the constitution and we have the documentation to prove what we say. What LaRue has done in her chairmanship is cause diversity within the tribe by acting in illegal and unprofessional ways and against the constitution.

Enough diversity. Its time for unity. Unite to elect LaVonna Weller, Chairman. LaVonna wants tribal unity, programs in compliance with laws, and well thought out economic development. Lavonna stresses education at all levels (preschool through adult and post secondary education). Her credentials are posted under Candidate Position Statements on our Message Board. Feel free to call her for more information (405-929-0952), leave a message and phone number. She will be happy to answer any questions.