Another special election set in Rocky Boy

A special election for the chairman position on the Chippewa Cree Business Committee at Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation will be held to fill the position that has been vacant since 2012.

The polls will open for people with tribal membership at Rocky Boy on June 30, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Old Stone Child College building.

The official list of candidates that will be voted on are Raymond “Jazz” Parker, Ken St. Marks, Warren Paul Small and Ted Whitford Sr..

This is the third special election to fill the position, the term for which is over in 2016, when it will be up for scheduled general election.

St. Marks won the first two special election, after he was voted in during the 2012 general elections.

He was removed from office after each election due to corruption accusations made by the rest of the committee.

According to the committee, he misappropriated funds, harassed employees, made lateral decisions without the consent of the committee and others. The accusations have not been made into official indictments, but the committee does not need them to be so in order to impeach him.

St. Marks maintains that the actions taken against him by the rest of the committee are due to retaliation for him working with Offices of Inspectors General and U.S. attorneys under the Guardians Project, which was created to pursue corruption on reservations and has led to many federal indictments on Rocky Boy officials.

Recently, the U.S. Department of the Interior ruled that the committee had acted against St. Marks for his whistleblowing activities and ordered the tribe pay him back pay, front pay, attorneys’ fees and others. The total came to $648,430.35. The department refused to rule on whether or not he should be reinstated as chairman.

Whitford is the current interim chairman and if he does not win this special election, he will move back down to vice-chair, pushing Dustin Whitford out of the position and back onto the regular committee.