With all of the aftermath of the fire that demolished the Tribal Operations Program building, what's been interesting has been to see the blame people have been putting on Principal Chief Michell Hicks. I'm not going to point fingers until I see something that points to a source.
Some things need to be noted. The documents most likely to be used against the chief would've been stored in the Budget & Finance building. Tribal credit card statements that could take him and the vice chief down have even been published on easternband.com. Also, federal agents supposedly left tribal finance offices with boxes of documents, so I'd say there exists plenty to get around any supposed cover up.
That said, this also should be taken into account. Chief Hicks has been incredibly hostile to open government. He violated the Free Press Act twice. He vetoed the public information law, which took a Tribal Council override to become law, and he's not above participating in closed-door meetings to discuss matters that should be public.
The real issue at hand is how little credibility tribal leadership has. The chief expresses his sadness to the media about the damage from the TOP fire, and his constituents call crapola on him. His sentiment was met with immediate suspicion.
I look forward to charges being brought on someone in connection to this act, which police said was intentional. I certainly would like to know the truth, and like many in the Cherokee community, I doubt we'll get it from our elected officials.
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