My First 100 Days

In national politics, there is always a lot of media coverage and attention put towards our newly-elected president's first 100 days in office. Many believe that our president's first 100 days can define him/her and determine what kind of job he/she will do for our country. I don't believe that to be true especially when taking into account what kind of mess he/she has to clean up. But I do feel that there are issues that can be addressed and, in some cases, resolved in the first 100 days.

As a potential leader of our tribe and our people, I would like to list some of the issues I would like to address in my first 100 days if elected to Tribal Council.

First, I would like to address the ethics and accountability issue. I believe that Tribal Council should set the example and should act in a way that best represents our tribe. I also believe that there needs to be a way that obligates our Tribal Council to be at work. I actually have a couple different ideas on how we can achieve this:

1). Hang a dry erase board in the middle of the Governance Atrium with a list of all council member names with an indication as to whether they are in or out and a reason for being out if they are. This would allow the membership, employees or anyone who needed to speak to council to see who was available and to know who is actually showing up for work and doing their job.

2). Do a roll call every morning and post or publish the roll call on our website, in "Tilixam Wawa" or in "Smoke Signals". We need to make our Tribal Council's attendance public to the membership. (The roll call was actually a suggestion from a current council member and I liked the idea. Making the attendance record public was my idea).

The second issue that I would like to tackle in my first 100 days is communication. I feel Tribal Council can better communicate with the membership. As I've stated many times before, I know what it is like to not have the information. I would like to be instrumental in correcting this. Here are some of my ideas:

1). Take advantage of the communication tools that we currently have. In my opinion, Tribal Council should make daily posts on the tribal website. Whether it is their agenda for the day or news that the membership has a right to know. The "Tilixam Wawa" should come out more often than it does. I would like to see it come out monthly at least. It should also include input from Tribal Council members themselves. I would like to see council author a percentage of the material published.

2). I like the idea of a Tribal Council blog. A way for the membership to ask direct questions to council. Council would then be obligated to responding in a timely manner. This would be a great forum for council to address the membership's concerns without having to organize a meeting.

Please remember that I am not promising that these things can happen in my first 100 days. What I am promising to do is introduce my ideas to council and push to have them implemented within my first 100 days, if elected. I can also keep the membership updated, via my blog, as to the progress I have made and whether or not my ideas were shot down or are being considered.

Thank you for reading and remember, TOBY09.