I wish to congratulate Mark Holsten on being named our new DNR commissioner. It is my hope that his priority will be one of protecting our natural resources and projecting strong leadership in the fashion of one of his predecessors, Joe Alexander.
The focus of this letter is to remind your readers of the meetings House 2B candidate Doug Lindgren spearheaded in the hope of getting Red Lake issues resolved. Doug again lost because of the reservation vote, which continually disenfranchises us Republicans in 2B. I have been active in the Republican Party since the Spannaus-Fraser days when I left the DFL -- never to look back. A point worthy of mention is that we were forced to form a group called Citizens for Truth in Government just to get our opinions published in the Bemidji Pioneer. We had to raise a lot of money for this endeavor, as we needed a paid ad to get our message to your readers.
There has not been one rebuttal as to the validity of our message, except from those whom the ad challenged. The fund-raising effort was the easiest in which I ever participated. We had offers from all communities in our area (Bemidji included): business owners, working class, retired, executives -- all walks of life.
There is a lot of animosity for the status quo up here. The only thing that keeps a lot of people (native Americans included) from coming forward is fear! Fear of retaliation. Fear of being called a racist for just wanting the truth exposed. There are an enormous number of folks up here from both sides of the aisle that want to see this resolved.
Early on, I had proposed that an armada of boats enter the reservation to force the lake ownership and trespass issues to light. We thought the Jerry Mueller incident last summer would resolve things. All we've seen is a lot of stonewalling. The armada is again on the table, and rest assured a lot of media (local and national) will be invited. Now that Chairman Jourdain has announced at a three-tribe meeting that the fishery and netting are going to resume, this should really get traction. This will be done in an orderly way with calm and levelheaded people that respect the law.
ADVERTISEMENT
We just cannot understand why political correctness supersedes the law.
Terry Maddy
Bagley
