Batt: Let’s Fix Rift Between Indians, Non-Indians Governor Hears Of Simmering Resentments Boiling Over In North-Central Region

Gov. Phil Batt told Nez Perce tribal leaders on Monday he would work with them to resolve mounting tensions between Indians and non-Indians in north-central Idaho.

And after rejecting a tribal proposal for a federally run community relations session to reduce conflict, the governor announced that he was calling on local government leaders and officials of the tribe to meet next month in Lewiston to discuss their differences.

“Additional dialogue between the various government agencies involved would help alleviate tensions,” Batt said after his regular session with leaders of Idaho’s five tribes.

During their extended 90-minute meeting, Nez Perce Chairman Sam Penney and others told Batt how resentment simmering for decades in the region erupted this fall in a dispute over enforcement of the tribal hiring ordinance for school construction in Kamiah.

That aggravated boundary disputes, sales tax questions and gaming and lottery problems, leading to what one tribal leader said was the worst deterioration of the Indian-non-Indian relationship in two decades.

“These are the issues we know about, but we believe there are more,” Jamie Pinkham of the tribal executive council said.

A recent Lapwai-Kamiah high school basketball game saw 10 police officers present to assure order was maintained.

And Penney suggested Batt join him in asking the Justice Department to send one of its community relations mediators in to help calm emotions.

“There’s no doubt but there’s undesirable tensions on the reservation,” Batt agreed. “But I really don’t think we need to have an outside group come into Idaho to do this. We’re capable of doing it ourselves. I think it would create resentment.”

Penney, citing past failures to civilly discuss issues behind the tension, said it was important to open talks with leaders of 21 local governments that have talked about setting up a legal fund to settle disputes with the tribe in court. He suggested creation of such a fund with public money countered the constitutional duty of those officials to represent the interests of all their constituents.

The governor said the meeting will be held in Lewiston at a time still to be set.

Batt said the state would endorse the tribe’s continuing request for the Bureau of Land Management to conduct a highly reliable land survey that should resolve running disputes over land ownership. He said he would work with the tribe to assure its management of the wolf reintroduction program remains adequately financed by the federal government.

And he labeled as reasonable a nine-point program on concerns of the Alliance of Idaho Tribes that generally focused on assuring that tribal leaders play an integral role in the evolution of welfare reform.

Penney said the regular meetings Batt has held with the tribes since taking office have been a major boost to maintaining an acceptable relationship with the state and urged the governor to keep up the meetings during this winter’s legislative session - something Batt said he would try to do.

But the governor also reiterated his intention to further clarify the issue of gambling, stating as he did last week that whatever is legal for the Indian tribes on their reservations should probably be legal everywhere in Idaho.

The specific point of contention remains the legality of the hundreds of video pull-tab machines the Nez Perce and other tribes are operating in their bingo halls. Batt and the state maintain they are illegal under the 1988 federal law and the tribes disagree, leaving the governor to say simply the issue will have to be settled by the courts.