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| Tommy Jones speaking with a voter |
Message from Tommy Jones:
I'm Tommy Jones from Jones, Oklahoma. Until adulthood, I lived in poverty. Now I've earned two bachelor's degrees, a master's degree and am currently working on a Ph.D. My education has been funded entirely through scholarships and I don't take this for granted. My humble beginnings have inspired me to make a difference. My passion is to serve our people and work for our nation's future. It's time for me to give back and use my knowledge to benefit the Cherokee people. Your vote will help me do that. Please consider me when casting your vote for the At Large tribal council seat.
A video message for At Large Cherokees:
Questions and Answers:
1 -What do you think is the
biggest problem facing the Cherokee Nation today? What will you do to
work toward a solution to that problem?
At this point, I find the biggest problem facing the
Cherokee Nation is complacency with business as usual with the
functioning of our government and services. Accountability breeds progress and greater
societal well being for our people. Higher standards provide great
efficiencies, as our citizens depend on our Tribe. We must ensure that
transparency, accountability, and best practices are being utilized
within each and every one of our governmental departments. By requiring
these focal points we can begin to curb cronyism and nepotism and see
great improvement within our service output. Requiring evolving best
practices that improve our services is essential to meeting the needs of
our citizens. Addressing this, we will have a solid base from which to
build.
2- How
will you connect economic growth, cultural enrichment, and ecological
sustainability to prepare the Cherokee Nation for a brighter future?
One of the first actions we need
to do is place in law the protection of our cultural resources. A
zoning approach can be used for important sites around our
jurisdictional area. After this is done, we will know and any future
developer will know what is off limits. I think doing this alone will
ensure that our cultural resources will not face any real or perceived
threats from development. Citizens and decision makers can get behind
projects based on the merits of the development and not worry about what
trade-offs will exist for our resources. With that said, I am a big
advocate for renewable energy. I think there are many opportunities for
economic development and self-sufficiency with renewable energy. We can
develop small scale and distributed relatively easy within jurisdiction
and even large scale. We can also invest in renewable energy projects
around the country or world. Another area for which there is little work
being done is Native-run renewable energy developers. Many tribes pay
outside developers that are typically non-native and I think we could
fill this niche.
3-Current
statistics say we only have 2400 fluent speakers of the Cherokee
language. How will you work to revitalize our language?
Language is a vital piece of our
Cherokee culture; I recognize in myself and others of my generation
that many are unable to speak our language, which is why language
revitalization is important to me. This is an important family
connection and tie to our ancestors. It is something that I am working
on personally so that I will be able to teach my future children. From a
Tribal Counselor standpoint, I would support continued and expanded
funding for language. Expanding the online language classes is a good
starting point. Language revitalization can have many different
approaches (technology, face to face, classes), but what is important to
me is to use language as more than a means of communication; to use
language as a means to have a deeper cultural connection and to honor
our ancestors.
4- Many
citizens of the Cherokee Nation have friends and family who are members
of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. Will you work to
improve our government to government relationship with them? If so, how?
CNO and UKB are intertwined in
history, in family, geographically and with Cherokee blood. We do need a
better relationship. I think that some of the problems that have arisen
such as the UKB casino highlight something critical to the CNO. We need
to diversify our economic development to not be so heavily dependent
upon the casino enterprises. Our long-term sustainability must look past
the windfalls of money from the casinos and consider other forms of
development. The recent proposals to have a congressional act federally
recognize tribes further highlights this. This sort of legislation
could easily spiral into a group having a lot of money, money from
wherever, influencing tribal recognition, and getting land into trust.
Which could mean casino money and whatever else natural resource to
exploit. Working with UKB or even partnering with UKB should be
considered. This way, improved relationships are built, money that is
spent on lawsuits can be used towards needed improvements to citizen
services, and battles that have long plagued the two federally
recognized nations could begin to heal.
5- In
the past, some council members have been slow to respond to emails or
phone calls they received from their constituents. In your opinion, what
is the longest a person should have to wait to get a response from
their council person? What will be your policy on responding to your
constituents’ emails and phone calls, should you be elected?
Answering calls and
returning emails is not hard to do. If an overload of letters came in
there are programs that help you write emails and letters, they put the
header, the greeting, the closing and you personally respond to the
question in the body of the letter. With technology that makes answering
constituents easy and less time consuming, there is no excuse. I
personally find the constituent response and interaction to be the
exciting part to this process. I want to help make a difference and that
means I must be responsive to those that need help or have suggestions
on how to improve our government and services. I have a vested interest
in responding as quickly as possible. It doesn’t seem unrealistic to
respond daily to emails and phone calls. That would be my personal goal.
And the longest a person should have to wait is no more than three
days. That's more than enough time to respond. That’s a huge part of
what counselors are paid to do. But life does happen and getting behind
on tasks is expected. However, making getting behind a habit is
unreasonable and irresponsible.
6- The number of people falsely claiming
Cherokee ancestry is growing every day. Not only do they create a
revisionist history of the Cherokee Nation, they are also a direct
threat to our sovereignty. How do you feel the Cherokee Nation should
address the issue of:
A - Fraudulent Cherokee tribes?
This is definitely a problem
that has to be continuously fought. In terms of partnerships for
economic development or societal improvements (like partnering with a
non-profit) it is critical to not have the Cherokee title associated
with groups that are not legitimate. This can hurt our own progress
through perceived risks of partnering with “Cherokee” or actually
competing for grants. Not to mention the ridiculous romanticized version
of Cherokee culture these groups many times exude. A consortium of the
CNO, EBC, and UKB could potentially help curb many of these groups. A
united effort that helps preserve our Nations, our people, and our
culture could help the cause. For groups attempting to get state
recognition, I think about how the federal recognition process is very
stringent (although it is currently being streamlined to some degree). I
definitely support a task force at the Cherokee Nation that focuses on
fraudulent tribes.
B - State recognized tribes who claim to be Cherokee?
The BIA has blood quantum
certificates, cities having a rich history of the tribe and politically
work together, a continuous governing system, and the tribe has good
lawyers. That's a majority of what federal recognition takes. Some
tribes are looking for re-recognition and state recognition is just one
further step to help the process. Also, several big casino tribes have
disenrolled members based on blood quantum and those people have showed
interest in state recognition. One major reason is they are directed to
federally recognized tribal clinics. I think following along the same
process as federal recognition should be adhered. There are legitimate
cases where the federal government has dragged their feet (i.e.
Shinnecock of New York took some 30 years to be recognized) and state
recognition has stood in its place and helped deserving tribal members.
An extensive process that weeds out free riders should be in place.
State recognition, will need to be vetted to higher standards and that
is something that can be improved with better state-CNO collaboration.
C - High profile fraudulent Cherokees, such as MA Senator, Elizabeth Warren?
Clearly and firmly separating
the Cherokee Nation from these people is needed. However, this should
not be a witch hunt. Research into the background and detailed
explanations for claims by the individual should be a priority. After
this, a statement should be released that addresses the issue and
demonstrates a hard stance against those who falsely claim Cherokee
heritage.
- FOR
AT LARGE COUNCIL CANDIDATES -- How will you work to improve the
relationship between the Cherokees who live inside the jurisdictional
boundary and those who live At Large?
A great way to bridge gaps is to
find areas that transcend politics. I am an avid supporter of healthy
living. Organizing support groups that can merge healthy living with
culturally relevant teachings would be incredible. This would be a great
way to stay connected or to learn the history of the plants, our
language and form a deeper philosophical bond with our ancestors. The
seed collection that is available is one way to start this. Also,
expanding on the Remember the Removal types of events would be a great
way to fellowship. An online forum that showcases that at-large truly do
care about these events and our culture would be a good way to inform
those within the jurisdictional area. From there, greater collaboration
and shared knowledge can emerge. From this collaboration and fellowship,
or networking, we can begin to see increased avenues for at-large
citizens to benefit the nation as a whole and form better bonds with in
jurisdiction citizens.
copyright 2015, Polly's Granddaughter - TCB
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