Former President Bill Clinton listens as Oglala Sioux tribal member, Geraldine Blue Bird, left, describes her living conditions during a visit to the Pine Ridge Reservation in July of 1999. Clinton drafted legislation in the early ‘90s which ultimately led to the creation of “empowerment zones” in economically disadvantaged areas of the nation, including – as the first federally-designated reservation Empowerment Zone – Pine Ridge in January of 1999. Photo courtesy Journalstar.com.
PINE RIDGE RESERVATION, SOUTH DAKOTA -- Almost two years after the Empowerment Zone program was officially terminated, many residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation have been left wondering where the money went. More than $17 million was funneled to the reservation by the federal government for economic development via the program, according to Jay Fletcher, legislative and public affairs spokesperson for the Rural Development division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which appropriated and oversaw EZ grant funding to the Oglala Sioux Tribe. The Rural Development division also regularly reviewed EZ accountability reports from the tribe during the approximately decade-long period the program was in de facto existence on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which consistently remains one of the poorest regions in the nation. The federal government’s support of and involvement in the Empowerment Zone program ended on Dec. 31, 2009. It is unclear how many business and other economic entities have actually been created by the tribe through EZ program funding. Pine Ridge Reservation’s Lakota Funds, a community development financial institution and key EZ program partner, has loaned over $5.7 million to tribal members for the supposed creation of over 400 businesses and over 1,200 jobs on or near the reservation since its inception in the 1980s, according to information contained on the institution’s website. There is no proof to substantiate this claim. Jeffrey Whalen, a correspondent of Native Sun News, calls these claims “plain baloney.” The bulk of the financial institution’s more recent funding has apparently been secured through federal EZ monies. “Without going back over the quarterly (grantee accountability) reports, which we of course don’t have at our fingertips, once the program ended in 2009…at that point, we don’t have a relationship with (the Oglala Sioux Tribe Empowerment Zone program) now and there were still funds they said they were going to lend to certain businesses at that particular time,” said Elsie Meeks, South Dakota state director of rural development for the USDA. Meeks, who is originally from Kyle, is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. In January of 1999, the Pine Ridge Reservation became the first tribal empowerment zone in the nation following the Clinton/Gore administration’s monumental creation and development of the Community Empowerment Agenda. Under the auspices of CEA, the EZ program was enacted by Congress in 1993. At the time of its passage, the purpose of the EZ program was to “stimulate economic opportunity in America’s distressed communities” and “create jobs and businesses in the most economically distressed areas of inner cities and the rural heartland,” as explicated on the Empowerment Zones/Enterprise Communities website. OST’s EZ program, or Oglala Oyate Woitancan Empowerment Zone, which is administered by the OST Business and Economic Development Committee, has “obtained a lot of federal funding but it is spread out among several agencies,” according to its 2008 annual progress report. The report was prepared by the development committee for Rural Development and is the last available online report through the USDA website. Additionally, a strategic plan to “balance economic and community development” is outlined in the report, but no substantial or tangible evidence of the outcome, or impact, of the federally-sanctioned EZ program on the reservation’s economic infrastructure is included. There are claims by tribal members that more than $2 million has been handed out as personal loans that were never repaid or accounted for. “I think anytime funding goes into a place, there’s ultimately some benefit from that,” Meeks said, in response to the tribe’s lack of EZ program accountability and substantiation. “How much? I really can’t say,” she said. The lack of oversight of the Lakota Funds and EZ monies is one of the major complaints of prospective entrepreneurs on the reservation. “(The OST EZ program is) in a position where they were funded to do a certain thing. (USDA’s) follow-up was pretty much ‘Was the tribe spending it in the manner they said?’.” “We didn’t track impact and don’t, so we leave it up to them, the tribe, whether it was impactful or not,” said Meeks. Based on its 2008 annual progress report, Oglala Oyate Woitancan EZ, which is currently headed by OST member Daphne Richards-Cook, appears to still be in its infancy, or planning, stage – more than ten years after the program received its initial funding. “I think the tribe brought Daphne in too late to make a difference for the Empowerment Zone,” said Karin Eagle, OST member. “She’s only been the executive director since 2010, long after the program was started,” she said. “I don’t ever hear what (the tribe’s Empowerment Zone program) is doing,” said Sylvia Hollow Horn, OST member and over 20-year employee of Oglala Lakota College. “I never hear about how they’re moving ahead. All I ever hear about is the dissension between the two boards claiming to be the real Empowerment Zone program,” she said. A second EZ program faction is in existence on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Tally Plume, an enrolled member of the OST, is purportedly in charge of this group, which many tribal members refer to as “non-legitimate” and claim Plume created out of his personal dissatisfaction with Richards-Cook’s Oglala Oyate Woitancan leadership. “The tribe allocated the money as they said they would, as of two years ago,” said Meeks. “When that ended, we no longer (had) a relationship with them, and they don’t have any current funding from us. We’re not tracking (the OST EZ program) from here on out.” “It is up to the tribe as a whole to determine whether or not the Empowerment Zone program has been successful on the Pine Ridge Reservation,” she said. “My belief is, it had to have had some impact.” What kind of impact is debatable. (Contact Jesse Abernathy at staffwriter@nsweekly.com)
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