Michelle Montez
RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA -- In a position of transition, turmoil has broken out at the United Sioux Tribes Development Corporation in Rapid City. According to program participants and a loyal employee of the USTDC a state of confusion has happened and is ongoing, all seemingly with the implicit permission of the board of directors, comprised wholly by the elected chairmen of the Sioux tribes in and around South Dakota. The executive director, who is the direct administrator of USTDC, is elected by popular vote by the board of directors. Currently, the elected executive director is Clifton Skye, whose father, Clarence Skye, was a long time director of USTDC but resigned in February of 2011. United Sioux Tribes employee of ten years, Michelle Montez, has concerns about not only her own employment within the corporation, but that of the clients who are seeking employment through one of the services provided by USTDC, the Workforce Investment Act, which replaced the Job Training Partnership Act. WIA offers a range of workforce development through statewide and local organizations. The concerns Montez has are with the recent flurry of memos received by her office, which she occupies as a general bookkeeper as well as WIA caseworker. The memos that she has received have delivered such news as workforce reduction, including that which will affect her own employment, as well as executive director changes, specifically from Clifton Skye, the person most recently elected and supported by the USTDC board of directors, to Martin Skye, a former administrator of a Rural Development grant held by USTDC, which expired in September of 2011 and which was not refunded or continued. Montez maintains that her greatest concern about the memos is the fact that they are all reportedly signed by Clarence Skye, using his signature stamp, considering his resignation, which was announced on February 11, 2011. His last day at the office was February 22, 2011. Another memo that directly affects Montez was received on November 3, 2011, and was issued by Martin Skye, which informed her of her dismissal from her position. She was informed that her last date of employment would be Friday, November 18, 2011, and that her time between Nov. 3-18 would be unpaid and would be seen as volunteer work. No action has been documented or reported to current employees by the board of directors of USTDC that gives authority to Martin Skye to determine employment issues within the corporation. Since this memo was received, the police have been called to the Rapid City location of the USTDC, and why they were called has never been explained to Montez or the WIA participant who is employed by the office as a front desk clerk and general secretary. During this incident involving the police, the locks were changed. Montez informed Clarence Skye, who promptly had the locks changed again to ensure the security of the offices since no keys had been left for the working employees. Montez maintains that at no point during any of this upheaval were the participants of the WIA program in any danger of dismissal, but the concerns were there about the support available to them through the Pierre offices. Requests for GED testing costs, as well as financial support for various employment trainings, were slow in being received, processed and returned to the Rapid City office. This created a backup of client requests which has had to be dealt with on a daily basis to ensure the proper running of the WIA program. Montez has repeatedly reached out to the proper channels of complaint, mainly through the board of directors, relaying her growing sense of concern about the chaos that ensued within the USTDC on a local level since Clarence Skye’s resignation. It appears to her that there is a power struggle between Martin Skye and Clifton Skye over the directorship of the corporation. “Clifton was coming in with good ideas, from making sure that people who are on payroll are doing their jobs when and where they are supposed to all the way to offering tutoring services in the front office area for all students, Native, white – it wouldn’t matter,” said Montez. “He was going to really clean house and make sure that the funding from the grants were being used right and the reporting was done right, and that more grants were being brought in.” Again during the incident when the police were called, Montez relates that she was informed by Martin Skye that she was no longer going to be employed due to her “loyalties to Clifton Skye.” “I was amazed,” Montez said. “I have been here for eleven years – my loyalties are obviously to the corporation,” she said. Each of the eleven members of the board of directors of the USTDC was mailed a letter detailing every incident and expressing every concern by Montez. To date, she has yet to receive even the merest acknowledgment that her letters were received by any of the chairmen’s offices. The greatest concern shared by Montez and the people she is working with to establish job security is that the governing body, the board of directors, has been made aware of what has been going on, but has yet to take action. Montez is in great distress, not only at the loss of her own employment, which jeopardizes her own family’s wellbeing, but also the potential loss of funding and grants if anything overtly illegal is being done in this apparent power struggle within one family. If WIA is discontinued through USTDC, the loss of a valuable resource for the urban Indian peoples in Rapid City will be greatly felt by many, especially those seeking to place their trust in an organization that will empower them through employment opportunities not readily available in mainstream organizations throughout this region. Repeated phone calls to each and every chairman’s office have gone unanswered. As of press time, Native Sun News has made calls to all eleven tribal offices and tribal chairmen’s offices, but none have responded to the calls. Montez is only looking for answers at this point and wants to have the tribal chairmen take a stand and either uphold their responsibility to select and support Clifton Skye as USTDC executive director or to realign that position in a proper manner. She feels that to maintain a complacent silence contributes to the overall confusion and chaos that is found in an entity that is so vital to the Rapid City Indian community. (Contact Karin Eagle at staffwriter2@nsweekly.com)
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