Category: Marissa Yaremich
Native American Bank To Serve Indian Country’s Economic Needs
WASHINGTON, April 24–When Calvin Tafoya, a Native American businessman of the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico, embarked upon his banking career more than 25 years ago, he discovered that a lack of cultural communication discouraged tribes in his state from interacting with many conventional banks.
“I found that out of a tribe that has a population of about 2,000 you may have about four individuals that had a bank account,” said Tafoya, who is now the CEO and president of the Santa Clara Development Corp., which focuses on diversifying the Pueblo’s business and economic activities.
Though those numbers have increased, Tafoya said, both Native Americans and traditional banks still need to accommodate each other’s procedural and cultural differences as tribes continue to gain better access to capital, especially because the state is home to 19 pueblos, 2 Apache tribes and 1 Navajo tribe.
“We have to learn from the tribal side what the business arena is about and businesses have to understand what our culture is all about — a culture that has existed for thousands of years,” Tafoya said. The way commercial business is handled in most of the U.S. is quite different from the Pueblos “relaxed, slow-paced” approach to the world, said Tafoya.
The Native American Bank, National Association (NABNA), which was launched last October, may help resolve the problems the Mohegans and many other tribes face in obtaining credit and loans from financial institutions. The new cross-tribally owned bank, headquartered in Denver, offers individuals and Native American business entrepreneurs lending opportunities to help them either leverage existing federal funds or establish credit histories for themselves.
“Part of what needs to happenáis increased involvement of Indians in their own economy with the view toward the creation of jobs and a more self-sufficient economy,” said John Beirise, president and CEO of NABNA.
Twelve founding tribes, including the Navajo Nation, and Alaska Native corporations each pledged around $1 million to establish the bank. They hired Beirise, whose experience in the banking industry spans more than three decades, to run the bank and make sure their $12.5 million investment is a success for the larger Native American community.
The Navajo Nation, the largest Native American tribe in the Southwest, supported the bank’s creation by making the $1 million capital commitment to the Native American Bancorporation, the bank’s holding company. The contribution made the Arizona-based investor, which includes a tribe in New Mexico’s northwestern corner, a major shareholder in the NABNA and a member of its board of directors.
“It is my understanding that the concept of the NAB is to establisháa partnership of tribes to align capital that would benefit reservation economies,” said the Navaho Nation’s president, Kelsey A. Begaye, in a State of the Navajo Nation Address in January.
Jacqueline L. Johnson, the executive director of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) in Washington, said the formation of a national bank serving Indian Country has been a longtime agenda item for many tribal leaders, including those of the Navajo Nation, before NABNA launched on Oct. 29.
“Many times Native Americans thought that the standard banking process was horrendous, and quite frankly it was,” said Johnson, who is also a board member of Sealaska Corp., one of the initial investors, which represents more than 16,000 Alaska Native shareholders.
To circumvent the discrimination some Native Americans say they have experienced within the traditional banking system, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee chairman, challenged tribal leaders to come together in 1997 to address the array of economic needs of Indian Country, which is typically plagued by poverty and unemployment.
“If you look at any statistical sampleá, Native American communities end up at the bottom of any demographically identifiable group,” Beirise said, although unemployment rates vary for each reservation.
Between 1997 and 2000, American Indians and Alaska Natives were the nation’s poorest ethnic community, with 25.9 percent of its people classed as poor (blacks were the second-poorest community, with a 23.9 percent poverty rate), according to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s analysis of the 2000 Census.
The Native American Bancorporation received regulatory approval in early October from the Federal Reserve Board to acquire the Blackfeet Nation’s existing bank in Browning, Mont., the first tribally-owned bank in the U.S.. The $18 million Blackfeet National Bank branch is the only depository site serving NABNA customers so far although there are plans for expansion to other sites around the country.
Now that the bank has been chartered its mission is to focus on helping tribes overcome historic economic, cultural and institutional hurdles.
One of the major economic barriers is the difficulty Native Americans living on federal trust land still face in trying to finance home purchases and borrow money for businesses. That’s because the U.S. government holds the legal titles to most Indian lands, according to the. Treasury Department’s Native American Lending Study published in November.
A tribe may occasionally receive authorization for a mortgage lien on a trust land from the Interior Secretary or the state, but, according to Johnson, this approach may cause additional problems.
Johnson said that despite the government’s approval, many Native Americans encountered inflexible bank lending rules and regulations, which do not always address the differences between the federal government and tribal council governments, which can differ from tribe to tribe.
“Many tribes have their own judicial systems, so if you want to foreclose on a property, you need to go through the tribal government,” Johnson said, adding that unawareness of such cultural differences erects “perceived and real barriers” between Native American tribes and traditional banks.
“When corporate America was trying to penetrate Japan, it had to learn the culture before being accepted into the business world,” Tafoya noted. “It may not be as intense, but it’s along the same lines” with Native Americans and standard banks.
Beirise said he believes many reservations are operating “basic businesses” such as grocery and hardware stores that bring in lots of revenue but are not necessarily Indian-owned; that, he said, may also contribute to the lack of income and the high unemployment rates that hamper Native Americans’ attempts to build good credit histories.
“A number that is used in Indian Country that seems to be accurate, but I couldn’t tell you the genesis of, is that there is an 85 percent leakage of the dollar,” Beirise said. “That is, for every dollar that comes onto a reservation only 15 cents stays.”
Though 11 of New Mexico’s 22 federally recognized tribes generate most of their capital from Indian gaming casinos, American Indian and Alaska Native owners as a whole accounted for only 0.3 percent of the nation’s total non-farm businesses, employing only 298,661 people.
The Treasury Department’s November study also identified a “historical absence of trust between tribes and banks” as a primary cause for failed loan negotiations and the reluctance of some banks to underwrite loans. Geography was also listed as a major barrier to capital access because some tribes are situated in remote areas where the closest ATM or bank branch may be hours away.
“The challenge of this [Indian] bank is to build brick and mortar sites on the reservations, especially on the first 12 contributing to its start,” said Joely De La Torre, an assistant professor of American Indian studies at San Francisco State University. De La Torre is also the author of the forthcoming book, American Indian Political Power in the New Millennium (its working title), which discusses how tribal gaming can help increase a tribe’s economic and political clout.
Beirise said the NABNA plans to build additional branches, like the one in Browning, to handle more-commercial banking transactions. But the bank must first move beyond its startup phase as well as begin reviewing more than its current handful of loan applications before making decisions on specific branch locations.
“There is a combination of markets we are pursuing,” he said, adding that the bank must determine whether any of the investing tribes even want to establish a branch near their reservations.
The Mashantucket Pequots of Connecticut, for example, invested mainly to benefit the economic power of the larger Native American community, according to James Wherry, who is the executive assistant of the tribe’s bank representative, Kenneth Reels.
The tribe may not need a nearby branch because it owns one of the state’s two Indian gaming casinos that, according to the Connecticut, Division of Special Revenue, generated a combined $965.3 million in slot machine revenues alone from July 2001 to Feb. 2002.
Unlike the Connecticut tribe, the Navajo Nation wants to work toward establishing at least one bank branch near its government’s headquarters in Arizona because it represents 225,000 tribal members in 13 counties throughout the state as well as in Utah and New Mexico, said Edward Richards, who is the executive director of the tribal government’s economic development division.
The tribe may eventually ask the bank to also build a branch in New Mexico, Richards added, because certain parts on the reservation are in remote areas, and some individuals may prefer to continue working on grazing lands rather than participate in casino employment if the state approves the reservation’s current gaming proposal.
A New Mexico branch located so far from Albuquerque, where the majority of the state’s tribes are concentrated, may seem counterintuitive, but people out West do not mind traveling long distances to a final destination, according to Tafoya.
“I can go from my [Santa Clara] pueblo to Albuquerque, which is about 100 miles away, and not think too much about the hour and a half commute that it’s going to take me,” he said.
A Native American’s decision to use a branch will most likely be based on how flexible the NABNA is when considering the needs of its customer base, De La Torre said.
Beirise said other tribes are more reluctant to make investments in the bank because it reminds them of an unsuccessful attempt in the early 1970s to launch the American Indian National Bank, the first bank created by a group of tribes.
Yet nine more tribes have placed their trust in NABNA by pledging to make future investments of less than $1 million each.
“What you have to do is draw the contrast between our approach and the approach of that bank,” Beirise said. “We are actually located in Indian communities as opposed to Washington, D.C., [and] we have more than $8.5 million in capital as compared to one that had less than $4 million.”
Beyond the bank’s intention to stimulate Indian Country’s economy through loans, Beirise said, its holding company founded the Native American Community Development Corp., a nonprofit subsidiary that will provide funds for financial literacy programs and small businesses.
Native Americans are also currently engaged in finding ways outside of the banking and gaming industries that might help stabilize their community’s finances.
The Pueblo of Santa Ana, in New Mexico, for example, partnered with Georgia Institute of Technology and Southwest Indian Polytechnic Institute to improve the tribe’s digital communication by creating a broadband wireless project that will link the Internet to every home, business and government department on the pueblo, possibly within the next two years.
LaDonna Harris, the founder and president of Americans for Indian Opportunity, a nonprofit multi-tribal organization, said her group has been dedicated to educating each presidential administration since Richard M. Nixon’s on Native Americans’ economic opportunities and resources, such as coal and buffalo, because she believes economic power equals political power.
“Why are we the poorest people in the country when we have all of these resources?” asked Harris, who is of the Comanche tribe in Oklahoma and the wife of former U.S. Sen. Fred R. Harris, D-Okla. “It’s because we were poorly managed by the federal government under the Department of Interior.”
For example, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs has a reputation among Native Americans for prolonging applications for tribal recognition as well as other Indian-related requests.
Harris’s organization, which is based in New Mexico, recently expanded its efforts overseas with its American Indians Ambassador Program, which draws on the technical approaches international indigenous leadership uses to survive in the face of economic globalization.
Even with those various efforts, Tafoya said, “it becomes a matter of tribes wanting and learning not only how to choose banks, but how to invest as well. It’s a whole new world for us. We are learning a lot by just being involved.”
Written for the MediaNews Group.
Mail, Package Processing Still Seeing Post-Anthrax Delays The Hill
WASHINGTON, April 13--Constituents who are paying for premium overnight delivery services like United Parcel Service and Federal Express to deliver packages to their members of Congress may be wasting their money.
As a result of the Anthrax-tainted letters that were delivered to the Capitol last fall and shut down the Hart Senate Office Building for three months, the processing of mail and packages has been dramatically altered for all congressional offices.
Now parcels must be delivered to an off-site screening facility at an undisclosed location where they are screened for biological contaminants and test results are sent for laboratory analysis to determine packages are safe.
Once that is accomplished, congressional offices are notified that they have a package ready for delivery or more immediate pick up. This entire process can delay the delivery of packages to congressional offices by anywhere from 3-7 days, but no packages or mail is directly delivered overnight to congressional offices as a result of the increased screening.
"We take very seriously any health concerns Senate [and House] staff bring to our attention. Therefore, I have asked a team of scientific, environmental, medical and postal professionals to evaluate established mail procedures and to seek opportunities for improvement where needed," said Senate Sergeant at Arms Alfonso E.Lenhardt in statement released to explain the change in the handling of mail and packages.
The off-site facility is managed by Pitney Bowes and was established by the Legislative Mail Task Force set up to evaluate the handling of mail in the wake of the Anthrax letters.
Some members noted that although they feel safer with the process, they may not receive an express package from between three to seven days past a constituent's original ship date.
"This is the best the Senate and House administrations can be doing at the moment," said U.S. Connecticut Rep. James H. Maloney, D-5th. On the other hand, he added, "I pride myself on constituent service so it's very frustrating when someone says; 'I sent you something FedEx a week ago' and (me or my staff) have to say that the reason we haven't responded is because we haven't gotten it yet."
Although many people were originally disturbed at not being able to get things to members of Congress more quickly, spokespeople for both FedEx and UPS said customers' complaints have tapered off since more information about the screening process has been made public. However, they have not lowered prices for delivery to the Capitol even though it cannot be guaranteed to arrive in member's offices overnight.
David A. Bolger, the director of public relations for UPS, said "If this was something we were in control of, we would make sure our customers got the better option in pricing, but since it is something the entire competitive landscape is in we are staying with our current price structure."
Once FedEx delivers a package to the screening facility within a customer's requested time frame, a company spokesperson said, the shipping company is no longer responsible for any delays involved in the package reaching its final destination.
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's staff, which moved back to the Hart building in late January after being displaced for three months after the attacks, has compensated for the delays by having important documents faxed or e-mailed instead.
"Faxing and e-mailing through our web site is the quickest way to contact us," said Casey Aden-Wansbury, Lieberman's press secretary. "Using regular mail also works, it just takes longer - an average of two weeks, and sometimes longer - to reach us."
All U.S. Postal Service mail to the Capitol, as well as to much of the Capitol Hill residential neighborhood, is being irradiated at an off-site facility. A postal service spokesperson said this process is expected to continue indefinitely.
The USPS spokesperson said the screening process adds about an extra two days of delivery time for letters and large, lightweight manila envelopes.
The staff of U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, D-3rd, has also devised other avenues of communication to minimize constituent complaints, including posting a message on the congresswoman's website to inform constituents of delayed mail services, according to Ashley Westbrook, who is DeLauro's press secretary.
Maloney's staff also has large documents and books they are expecting sent to his Waterbury district office and then transferred to Washington. Although district offices also have their own screening process, it is not as lengthy as the one taking place in Washington.
"But this is not for public use because that would subvert the whole screening process," Maloney said. "We have (also) used personal addresses for mail that we knew was secure because we've been generating it ourselves."
Congressional members and their staffs also recommend constituents call or email their offices before shipping an item to alert them of its arrival.
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
DeLauro: The Passion Behind The Scarves
WASHINGTON, April 09--It's 9:45 a.m. on a recent Thursday morning, the last day before Congress adjourns for a two-week district work period, and U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro has a great deal to accomplish before the day's end.
The Easter holiday traffic has made the six-term representative later than usual in arriving from her Capitol Hill home and Ashley Westbrook, her communications director, is briefing DeLauro on what's ahead. It is a moment of calm before the whirlwind of the day begins in earnest. The typically frenzied day won't end until DeLauro flies out of the capital and back to Connecticut almost 12 hours later.
As soon as Westbrook finishes her briefing, DeLauro glances at her watch and darts down the hallway of the Rayburn Office Building toward her first meeting of the day.
Her colleagues don't seem to notice her tardiness in arriving for the hearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development and the Food and Drug Administration and make no effort to edge their chairs forward as she squeezes behind them en route to her assigned seat.
DeLauro, 59, alternates between organizing the scads of legal pads and paperwork set before her and whispering back and forth with Mike Skonieczny, one of two legislative assistants she has designated to help brief her with background information throughout the hearing on the activities of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
She has already missed most of the witness's testimony, and now the subcommittee's senior Democrat, Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, begins questioning the FDA deputy commissioner just as DeLauro settles herself in her seat.
Kaptur wants to know how the FDA plans to prevent the spread of salmonella in eggs and other food. She holds up a plastic, candy-filled egg the Agriculture Department gave to the subcommittee as an early Easter treat, and addresses the witness, who has been skirting around her questions.
"So you're recommending that people don't have eggs easy up?" Kaptur asks, prompting a quick, hearty laugh from DeLauro.
"Thanks, Rosa. I need Rosa here," Kaptur says.
Amused, but not distracted, DeLauro returns to her notes as her colleague continues. She highlights passages with her pencil, and gets so involved in the paperwork that her glasses slip down the bridge of her nose.
"I don't go to these hearings to just sit there," she says later that day. "I think people judge you on your responsiveness and your understanding of what their lives are about, and whether you try to do something about it."
When the subcommittee turns to discussing medication doses for children, DeLauro tells the witness: "I am very, very disappointed with the FDA's announcement that, as I understand it, it is going to suspend the requirements for drug makers to test their products to make sure they are safe and that they are effective for children, children are not little adults·. They require different dosage levels."
Her voice gets slightly louder and more strident, and her face reddens as she questions the witness. DeLauro, who won a bout with ovarian cancer 16 years ago, is well known for her vigorous positions on health issues and in favor of more screening and funding for health programs.
"Thank you for that brief additional question," jokes the subcommittee's chairman, Henry Bonilla, R-Texas. She thanks him for his "indulgence" in allowing her to go over her allotted five minutes. The audience laughs, and DeLauro responds with a slight chuckle that immediately switches to a lighthearted apology.
She immediately confers with Kaptur on her right and Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-NY, on her left, on the FDA's proposed policy. Then another glance at her watch reveals that she needs to be somewhere else.
Like other members of Congress, DeLauro has many demands on her time, on this day - two committee hearings at the same time - which often forces her to make tough choices about where to be and what to be doing.
Leaving her coat and bag behind, she quickly scuttles out the exit to another Appropriations subcommittee hearing in a room 60 feet away. In the hallway, senior legislative assistant Sarah K. Walkling spends approximately 10 seconds briefing DeLauro on what has already gone on in the second hearing, which started at the same time as the first.
For the next half hour, DeLauro directs her inquiries to a witness from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on a new media campaign designed to combat the country's obesity "epidemic" by promoting healthy food diets for children 9 to 14 years old.
"I believe kids can lead us to adults. I think our kids did that on environmental issues and they do that on smoking issues," DeLauro says before heading back to spend another 30 minutes at the first, FDA hearing.
Then she grabs her belongings so she can meet some constituents, who are waiting for her in the hallway. She hugs East Haddam resident Eva Bunnell, of Authentic Voices, part of a nationwide movement working to end all forms of child abuse. Bunnell is flanked by several other people whose lives have also been affected by child abuse and neglect.
The small group chats as they take the elevator down one floor to DeLauro's office where they reconvene in her personal office.
The members of Authentic Voices have also brought along the National Child Abuse Coalition's legislative counsel, Tom Birch, in an effort to lobby the congresswoman for federal funds they can apply to child abuse prevention programs, according to her press secretary Westbrook.
Bunnell and her associates leave at 12:30, and DeLauro, who, Westbrook says, usually has only enough time for a cup of soup for lunch as she looks over notes or makes telephone calls, skips lunch entirely this day.
"These are busy lives," DeLauro says, finally taking a moment to sip some water from her electric-blue coffee mug. "It has been for all 435 of us [representatives] who are here. It occupies all of my waking time and I'm pretty sure some of the time when I'm sleeping, but I love what I'm doing."
So instead of lunch this day, she meets with Nancy Gantert Ryan of Branford and Mindy J. Schwartzman of New Haven, the only Connecticut elementary school teachers who were in town to receive the 2001 Presidential Awards for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching.
Sitting on a chair opposite the two teachers, DeLauro leans forward to ask them for the details of their achievement and the state of education and teaching in Connecticut as well as in the rest of the country.
"In the inner city, we are the [students'] mothers, psychiatrists and the whole nine yards," says Schwartzman, who taught her fourth grade class at Clinton Avenue School how to plot and graph the velocity of water by involving them in a hands-on mathematical investigation of the Quinnipiac River
Clearly pleased by their innovative techniques, DeLauro takes the opportunity before the teachers leave to discuss improvements she believes the Connecticut school system can make to help inspire students to learn about subjects outside the norm, including biodefense-related topics.
"Then they will go into the world thinking·on a higher level," agrees Ryan, who taught her fourth graders at Mary T. Murphy School the scientific importance of interactions that occur between an aquarium ecosystem and a "sub-supportive" ecosystem by using soda bottles.
Although running behind schedule, the congresswoman takes a few moments to collect herself before leaving the Rayburn Building at 1:20 p.m. to meet with fellow Democrats to share strategies on forthcoming legislation.
DeLauro will continue with these meetings until 5 pm. Her final meeting is with other members of the Connecticut delegation and the chairman of United Technologies Corp., the parent company of Sikorsky Aircraft, located in both Bridgeport and Stratford.
After a short stop to finally get a bite to eat at a fundraising reception hosted by U.S. Rep. Charles A. Gonzalez, D-Texas, who is running unopposed for re-election in November.
DeLauro is ready head home to New Haven. Typically she boards a plane every Thursday at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport with only herself, a briefcase and several shopping bags brimming with paperwork while leaving behind a closet filled with her array of trademark scarves and colorful attire. Tonight will be no different.
At 8:40 p.m., DeLauro's flight will carry her and her husband, prominent political pollster Stanley Greenberg, back to New Haven where she can temporarily relax until she sets out the following day for multiple events.
Her Connecticut schedule is filled with meetings with constituents. DeLauro's district has been redrawn and now includes three new towns and a crescent-shaped portion of Waterbury.
DeLauro says if she is re-elected this fall she wants to work with these communities and with people such as U.S. Rep. James H. Maloney, D-5th, to address their "specific needs" and their "economic development concerns."
"I enjoy what I do," she said, "and I'll continue to do it for as long as the people will continue to elect me."
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Doonesbury Challenges DeLauro
WASHINGTON, April 02--Charlie Pillsbury never considered being like Ralph Nader when he grew up, but when "daisy cutter" bombs sliced into Afghanistan's human population last autumn he knew that the Green Party's politics suited him.
Horrified by what he saw as the Bush Administration's "violent response" to the Sept. 11 attacks, the 54-year-old New Haven resident launched a campaign in February to wrest the redistricted 3rd Congressional District seat away from six-term U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro.
"After 12 years of watching the world from my vantage point as [Community Mediation Inc.'s] executive director, I am fed up with seeing the failed, pernicious and violent policies of our national leaders come down like a hammer on the good people of New Haven, of Colombia, of Afghanistan, and who knows where next," Pillsbury wrote in a sabbatical proposal he submitted earlier this year to his employer.
Although Pillsbury will continue working as a mediator for people seeking alternative dispute resolutions until the end of August, the Green Party nominee expects to have his campaign staff in place and his fundraising efforts in full swing by May 1.
If he receives enough individual contributions by that date, he noted, "Pillsbury for Congress" will open its office doors with the help of full-time campaign manager Michelle Branam, who is a fellow Green Party activist and member of the Connecticut Bar Association.
But to hire Branam and meet other campaign expenses, Pillsbury said, he must raise at least $20,000 beforehand and at least $100,000 by November in addition to obtaining the 3,000 signatures necessary to place his name on the ballot.
"I'm not in a position to self-finance. I certainly have some money, but the most I can contribute is $20,000. If I can raise it and I don't have to, I won't," he said, especially since he will not accept money from political action committees and is not a "stratospherically rich" candidate. Pillsbury has already accumulated $5,000 of his projected total from individuals, including a donation from his old Yale University roommate and cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who partially based his syndicated comic strip character, Mike Doonesbury, on Pillsbury during their campus escapades together in the late 1960s.
Even family ties aren't always a guarantee that you'll receive large quantities of financial support -- even if you are the great-grandson of the founder of the Pillsbury Co. as well as the son of George Pillsbury, a former Minnesota state senator (1970-1982).
"[My father] likes to see his kids involved in politics, but that doesn't mean he has to agree with them or even give them money," he said, before adding that his 77-year-old Republican mother promised to come "all the way from Minnesota" to work on his campaign.
Just as Pillsbury opposes DeLauro's support of increased defense spending as well as her backing of the Defense of Marriage Act, which would deny recognition of gay and lesbian marriages, so do he and his father tend to butt heads over Pillsbury's "love" for labor unions.
He and his father agree on some "significant issues," he noted, which may stem from Pillsbury's former party affiliations, first as a Republican teenager supporting Barry Goldwater and then from 1968 onward as a Democrat protesting Vietnam and military aid to Colombia in its ongoing civil war.
"My father and I are both pro-choice, and we both believe in democratic capitalism. That means, if capitalism is good for a few people than it is good for everybody, and we should be finding more ways to make more people capitalists."
He and DeLauro also agree on some political issues, including opposing tax breaks for the rich, or what he referred to as the "kleptocracy." His stance on less defense spending, however, remains adamantly different from DeLauro's, especially when such spending, he says, takes away potential funds for Connecticut's school systems, health care facilities and urban centers.
"Our cities, like Waterbury, are hurting financially," Pillsbury said. "I would be fighting for more federal assistance instead of putting that money into the military-industrial complex."
He is convinced that the Green Party can help him accomplish his goals as a House member.
"It can restore people's faith in democracy," Pillsbury said, " because· it's politics for people, not politics for the rich and famous."
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Gay Republican Challenges DeLauro
WASHINGTON, April 02--When restaurateur H. Richter Elser talks about his decision years ago to join his family's soda business, he jokes that Atlanta, the home of the Coca-Cola Co., would have been the best place to learn the ins and outs of that industry.
Now that the New Haven Republican is determined to unseat six-term U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, D-3rd, he said, there is no place like Connecticut to figure out how to do just that.
"Realistically, my goal right now is to go out and meet as many people as I can, and meet all of those on the town committees," said Elser, the owner of Tibwin Grill and founder of Richter's CafÚ in downtown New Haven.
It's through the town meetings, he said, that the "bread and butter" work of local politics gets accomplished, and local politics is important to him because Connecticut constituents should be the driving force behind the congressional delegates' agendas as well as a sort of human pulley system that draws members back to local issues if they get caught up in the whirl of Washington politics.
"It's one thing to be a representative from California and not be able to go back to your district on a regular basis, but New Haven is a mere four-hour train ride," he said.
He is also trying to become better acquainted with Republican office holders, who can help spread the word on his political positions as well as give him their perspectives on how to win a tough race. In 2000, DeLauro defeated her challenger, Republican June M. Gold, 72 percent to 28 percent.
"Everyone talks about grassroots campaigning, but grassroots isn't supposed to be a euphemism for low-budget campaigning," he said. "I need to go out, so when (U.S. Reps. Nancy L. Johnson, R-6th, and Robert R. Simmons, R-2nd) run into people and they ask what Rick Elser is all about, they aren't greeted by a blank look."
This networking may benefit his campaign coffers when political action committees decide which candidate they will endorse, but Elser said he is not banking on them contributing to many political newcomers since they are more likely to turn their attention toward politicians who have established a voting record.
By the end of March, Elser raised $26,000 from individual contributors and contributed $11,000 of his own money. Nearly 40 percent of his fundraising success, he said, came from online contributions made through his World Wide Web site, http://www.richterelser.com.
"It may be a little on the high side because we also use the Web site to process credit card transactions," Elser said. On the other hand, he added, it has been helpful in expediting contributions through telephone solicitations.
"It's very easy for someone to say, 'Send me something in the mail.' It's also easy to say to someone to go to the Web site and make an online contribution" while the person is still on the phone, according to the candidate.
"Getting money for a campaign is very much like running or starting a business," Elser added. "To start a business you must be prepared to invest in it, and to start a campaign you must be prepared to invest in it."
If he is elected, he added, he would press for more federal funds for Connecticut for a better transportation system that would help stimulate small-business growth.
"In cities such as Waterbury and New Haven that are trying to rebuild their urban centers, small businesses are the first to relocate in a rebuilding neighborhood. They are the sort of local services that are quick to provide employment to people," he said. "They stabilize the neighborhood."
If an individual "can't seamlessly commute through the district, the ability to live in one town and work in another declines." He added, "We need growth because growth is the only way to stabilize the property tax."
Which is why, he said, he is not happy with DeLauro as his representative.
"For every dollar of federal taxes Connecticut residents pay, we get 62 cents back," Elser said. "What really bugs me is that that number has gone down. If I am going to be represented by anybody, I want them to use their seniority on my behalf."
Even if the state had not been redistricted, Elser would still focus on how federal funds could help him integrate the resources of New Haven's "weird nexus of planes, trains, automobiles, pipelines, cables and a port."
Elser needs to win the Republican nomination and the general election on Nov. 5 before he can get the opportunity to persuade Congress to open its wallet for Connecticut.
When he first entertained the idea of running, he said, he tried "to figure out what kind of climate" he, as a gay man, was getting himself into. He has been pleased, he added, by party members' overall response to his candidacy.
"The Republican Party is much more diverse than people give them credit for being," he said. "At the most basic level, people want to win, so they want a good candidate. Their concern really becomes: is this a person who makes sense?"
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Environmental Group Endorses Johnson Campaign
WASHINGTON, March 27--As part of its political debut, a new environmental organization has made U.S. Rep. Nancy L. Johnson, R-Conn., one of its first political endorsements for 2002.
WILD PAC singled out Johnson and Reps. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Rush Holt, D-N.J., on Monday for their strong commitment to preserving the nation's wild lands.
Launched only eight months ago, WILD PAC is the first non-partisan grassroots political organization "focused on electing leaders and champions who will protect public lands and wilderness," said the group's executive director, Victoria Simarano.
"Johnson is the lead Republican to protect the Arctic," Simarano said. "She has a very strong record of leadership, and that was the deciding factor."
WILD PAC particularly commended Johnson for co-sponsoring legislation in the House that would permanently protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska from drilling by the oil industry.
The political action committee selected the three House members based on their voting records and positions on particular environmental issues as well as on personal interviews.
"We also look at political viability and who is going to have tough races," Simarano said. "We want to put our resources in the tight races so we can make a difference."
Johnson will face Rep. James H. Maloney, D-Conn., in November for the redistricted 5th Congressional District.
The League of Conservation Voters ranked Maloney as an environmental champion in 2001 and tallied his lifetime environmental voting record at nearly 30 percent higher than Johnson's 58.4 percent. WILD PAC's endorsement decisions, however, are not focused on as wide a spectrum of environmental issues, such as agriculture and energy, as the league's, said the LCV's political director, Betsy Loyless.
"We applaud Rep. Johnson for her leadership on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," Loyless said. "We also recognize Jim Maloney's leadership to clean up brownfields, but brownfields cleanup and other broader environmental issues don't appear to be a major part of WILD PAC's criteria."
The league has endorsed both candidates over the years, Loyless said, and has not made a decision on "specific contributions" in the Johnson-Maloney race.
Maloney, in an interview, pointed to his efforts to preserve open land spaces and the nation's wilderness, including securing $2.5 million during the Clinton Administration for the Weir Farm National Historic Site, Connecticut's only national park, in addition to protecting Candlewood Lake. Maloney is a co-sponsor along with Johnson of the Arctic Wilderness Act of 2001, and has joined fellow Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro as a co-sponsor of legislation that would permanently safeguard the nation's second largest forest, Alaska's Tongass and Chugach National Forest.
Maloney expressed no concern that his campaign war chest would be hurt by the lack of WILD PAC contributions.
"I am confident that my support from the environmental community as a whole is very strong and very deep. I am not new to the environmental cause," said Maloney, who added that he still has the support of an "extensive network" of conservationists.
If it becomes law, the Arctic Wilderness Act of 2001 would continue to prohibit oil leasing and drilling as well as preserve the natural ecosystems in the Coastal Plain area of the refuge.
Several multinational oil corporations have been lobbying Congress to open up the currently protected Coastal Plain area, which accounts for only 5 percent of the refuge's 19 million acres.
"Nancy has a spectacular environmental record," said Johnson's campaign manager, David L. Boomer. "She also passed legislation for the Farmington River to make it a Wild and Scenic River, which gets it more protection at the federal level. And she has helped designate the Connecticut River as a Heritage River."
Based on these and similar accomplishments during Johnson's 20 years in the House, Simarano said, WILD PAC plans to assist her campaign by making direct contributions, coordinating local fundraising events with environmental leaders, providing campaign staff assistance and initiating "get-out-the-vote" efforts.
But as to which campaign activities Johnson might need help with, "that would be something we would figure out as we get closer to elections," Simarano said.
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Maloney To Seek Funds For Hospital Project
WASHINGTON, March 18--U.S. Rep. James H. Maloney, D-Conn., announced Monday he will request about $2 million from the next federal budget for St. Mary's Hospital in downtown Waterbury. The money would be used for a renovation project to expand and modernize the hospital's emergency facilities.
Maloney noted that St. Mary's currently treats nearly 65,000 patients annually at a facility that was originally built for a capacity of 35,000.
"There are limits on privacy," Maloney said. "The staff gets so busy during the course of the day that they are forced to put patients on gurneys in the hallways as they try to make room for [more] people."
Maloney toured St. Mary's Hospital Monday. He said that the $2 million in federal assistance, which he will request from the House Appropriations health subcommittee, will help the hospital reduce patient overcrowding.
"They are really doing an amazing job with very constrained resources," Maloney said. "I will begin to put together a formal appropriations request for this facility for the new budget that is under consideration this year."
According to Martin G. Morrissey, the interim president-CEO of St. Mary's Hospital, the application process for federal finding started "in earnest" last Wednesday when several hospital administrators discussed their preliminary plans with Maloney in a meeting at his Washington office.
St. Mary's Hospital had asked Maloney during that meeting to support its initiative to increase the number of adult and pediatric patient rooms from 16 to 24 in addition to constructing a central core nursing station, "so that all of the nurses can literally have an eye on all of the patients' rooms," Maloney said.
The hospital would also expand its waiting area, trauma facility, and psychiatric and surgical rooms, Morrissey said. The renovation project would also construct more space for large radiation equipment as well as the ambulance arrival area.
"There are parallel needs," Maloney noted. "[St. Mary's Hospital] is right around the corner from the police department, which frequently uses it. It is also in the middle of a cluster of senior housing."
Captain P.M. Bruce, spokesperson for the Waterbury Police Department, said that although Waterbury Hospital is also in the area, approximately 10 to 15 prisoners are brought to the emergency room of St. Mary's Hospital on a weekly basis due to its close proximity to police headquarters.
In addition to prisoners, many elderly patients are often brought to St. Mary's Hospital as well, according to Scott M. Ziegler, chief operating officer of Creative Management and Realty, which houses more than 650 seniors at three of its downtown elderly apartment communities.
"Unless a resident requests to go to another hospital, they go down to St. Mary's," said Zeigler, who also serves as an Emergency Medical Technician for the Southbury Ambulance Association.
"From my experience as an EMT, I have seen it overcrowded many times. Any expansion will help not only the elderly population, but any population going to the facility," Zeigler said.
Morrissey said the hospital will try to match the $2 million appropriations request through philanthropy and other fundraising sources.
If the monetary goal is achieved, Morrissey said, the hospital would phase in the construction over time in order to avoid denying patient access to medical attention.
"We're grateful for Congressman Maloney's support and we look forward to helping him gain success in this endeavor in whatever ways we can," Morrissey said.
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Maloney Discusses Biodefense Capacity With DOH Commissioner
WASHINGTON, March 14--The unsettling spate of anthrax attacks last fall has prompted U.S. Rep. James H. Maloney, D-Conn., to focus on the challenges Connecticut faces in guarding its residents from a bioterrorist attack.
Maloney met yesterday with the state's Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Joxel Garcia to discuss how Connecticut would spend federal funds to enhance its readiness to deal with a biological threat or attack.
"We had two separate conversations," Maloney said. "There are two pots of money that Connecticut is getting."
Some of the expected $14 million in federal grants would be used for new centers to coordinate responses to bioterrorist attacks, but the larger portion would be spent on improving existing facilities and technologies.
The meeting was one of a series between Maloney and Garcia since the death of 94-year-old Oxford resident Ottilie W. Lundgren on Nov. 21 at Griffin Hospital in Derby. Lundgren was the fifth American to die of an anthrax infection linked to one of the anthrax-laced envelopes sent through the mail since last autumn.
Griffin Hospital Vice President Bill Powanda said that her death put Connecticut on high alert for future biological disasters.
"Clearly the lessons learned were to expect the unexpected," he said. "This was another dramatic reinforcement that you will never know what could happen at the local community hospital."
Because people are likelier to be treated at a local community hospital than at large urban or university hospitals, legislators should reconsider how federal funds are doled out to states that want to upgrade their equipment and overall preparedness.
"Congress needs to rethink allocating resources to community hospitals around the country versus the urban tertiary-care [specialized] hospitals," Powanda said in a telephone interview. "Griffin's experience of handling the case should build the confidence in their local community hospitals' abilities to diagnose and treat illnesses like Lundgren's."
On the other hand, urban areas also need to focus on potential threats, which is why the Connecticut Department of Public Health is applying for two federal grants that would provide the state with more than $14 million to improve its public health infrastructure, said William Gerrish, the department's spokesman.
Gerrish said the state wants to use a small part of that money for two "centers of excellence" that would be used for planning regional coordination, education, clinical care and research on bioterrorism. The centers, he said, would "take a leadership role in response to a large-scale bioterroism event."
He pointed out, however, that more than $12.5 million of the funds would be used to augment the state's approach toward broader areas, including education and training, laboratory capacity, surveillance and disease studies as well as preparedness planning based on the guidelines posted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"Everybody is on a learning curve, and we are still attempting to get something in order," said Dr. Roberto Ferraro, the acting director of Waterbury's Department of Public Health.
Although a lot of the potential improvements depend on federal funds, Ferraro said that Waterbury learned how to gear up to deal with emergency situations during the Y2K scare several years ago and is therefore already prepared to cope with life-threatening biological agents. He added that the city continues to seek out better alternatives to safeguard its residents.
Waterbury has an active Local Emergency Planning Committee, which includes representatives of the city health agency, Waterbury's hazardous materials (HazMat) team, the police and fire departments, the city's two hospitals, ambulance services, emergency medical services, emergency radio communications services, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army.
The committee also recently installed a computer data base listing the street location of every Waterbury facility that stores or manufactures a chemical on site so that the Public Health Department, the fire department and HazMat units can refer to it if an explosion occurred that would require immediate evacuation of that area.
"Remember the Waterbury Health Department's motto," Ferraro said. " 'We are as near to you as you are to your telephone.' Sometimes we can help, sometimes we can't, but we will be able to put people in the right direction."
"People are frightened by all of this," he added. "If we can at least calm them down, then that is of value."
In addition to the Maloney-Garcia meeting, bioterrorism was on the agenda as several biodefense experts gathered yesterday at the Capitol to discuss pilot programs that are trying to address inadequate public health infrastructures, including the Rapid Syndrome Validation Project, an Internet-based software program that lets doctors update information on their patients' symptoms and that alerts local public health officials if the data point toward a possible biological infection.
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Federal Agencies Review Bush’s Budget For Indian Programs
WASHINGTON, March 07--Federal agencies in charge of Indian programs urged a Senate committee this week to review the impact of the Bush Administration's budget request for key services to American Indians and Alaska Natives.
The Indian Affairs Committee heard testimony yesterday and Tuesday from six witnesses on spending for Indian programs involving welfare, job training, education, health care, law enforcement and housing development.
The 2000 Census counted 4.1 million American Indians and Alaska Natives, 1.5 percent of the nation's population, including more than 9,600 in Connecticut.
"I am hopeful we will find the kind of resources we need for these important services," said the committee's vice chairman, Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-CO, the only American Indian in the Senate. "I do want to take the opportunity to convey what I believe is one of the most successful federal programs ever devised: the Administration for Native Americans, or ANA, as we know it."
The ANA is considered to be a unique umbrella program that confers financial assistance to more than 550 federally recognized and 60 state-recognized Indian communities to create and expand their social, economic and governance objectives, which include native language preservation and environmental regulatory enhancement projects.
"The president's budget seeks a straight-line reauthorization of this important program," testified Clarence Carter, the director of the Health and Human Services Department's Office of Community Services.
Carter also addressed the president's reauthorization of two welfare programs, Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Native Employment Works Program, pointing out that there is no separate financing source for American Indians within the TANF program and that welfare caseloads on reservations are not declining because there's a lack of job opportunities.
On the subject of jobs, Campbell said, "I think we are really missing the boat somewhere in the Department of Labor."
David G. Dye, the deputy assistant Labor secretary for the Employment and Training Administration, said "the federal government and Indian communities must work together" to secure employment and job training resources to enhance the Indian employment rate of 54.1 percent in 2000.
A portion of his agency's proposed $70 million budget, Dye said, would be invested in these kinds of partnership programs.
Thomas M. Corwin, the acting deputy assistant Education secretary for elementary and secondary education, pointed out that compensatory education goes beyond the workforce and also into the classroom.
"Our request for the department's Indian education programs is $122.4 million, an increase of $2 million over the 2002 level," he said. "These programs include formula grants to school districts, competitive programs and national activities to further research and evaluation on the education needs and status of the Indian population."
Dr. Michael H. Trujillo, director of Health and Human Services' Indian Health Services, also requested additional funds to make "culturally acceptable personal and public health services" easily accessible.
Trujillo said his office sought to double the amount of funding the Bush Administration is proposing to meet the health care needs of American Indians and Alaska Native villagers. Trujillo added that said his office planned to deliver better health care services and facilities in addition to efforts to offset the rise in death rates caused by the top killers among tribal members, including tuberculosis, diabetes and alcoholism.
The Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs sent Tracy A. Henke, its principal deputy assistant attorney general, to request that the office's tribal programs maintain its $50.6 million budget to address serious law enforcement problems on reservations and in villages, including substance abuse and domestic violence.
"Some of OJP's programs focus on alcohol and drug abuse, which continue to be major problems in Indian country," Henke testified. To address these problems, Henke asked for $5 million for a new program that would improve substance abuse services by providing better treatment and stepped-up law enforcement. OJP also put in a request for an additional $19.9 million for all of the office's tribal Violence Against Women Act programs.
The committee heard about other federal programs, such as a public housing interagency initiative within the Housing and Urban Development Department that links "18 federal agencies through a single economic development access center" for individual Native Americans, Indian tribes and economic institutions, testified Michael Liu, assistant secretary of public and Indian housing. The department requested that $1.5 million be set aside within the Indian Community Development Block Grant's $72.5 million total.
An oversight hearing to discuss the budget is set for next Thursday.
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
Rep. Martinez Lobbies For Hispanic-Owned Businesses
WASHINGTON, March 06--Hispanic small-business owners have become one of the fastest growing contributors to Connecticut's economic development, and State Rep. John S. Martinez, D-New Haven, made a special trip to Washington this week to try to make certain it stays that way.
Martinez, the deputy majority leader of the Connecticut House, met Wednesday with other Hispanic elected leaders and administrative officials as part of an annual conference sponsored by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to promote federal legislative priorities, policies and programs that would continue to stimulate Hispanic business's access to capital.
The nation's Hispanic population in 2000 was 32.8 million, 12 percent of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. About 9 percent of Connecticut's population, or 320,323 people, are Hispanic.
The Census Bureau's most recent available figures show there are 1.2 million Hispanic business owners nationally, and 6,600 Hispanic-owned small businesses in the state, including 287 in Waterbury, which has the state's fourth-largest Hispanic population.
"The question is: What are the plans of the [Bush] administration in dealing with the economic development of the Hispanic community picture?" Martinez said. "The issue is access to capital and opportunities to minorities, and in this case we are talking about Hispanics."
The chamber has called upon the Bush administration to sustain and expand existing federal programs that provide federal funds and tax credits to employers and small-business owners who hire employees to help strengthen the economy in depressed areas.
The Hispanic chamber also recommended that Hispanic small-business enterprises in low-income communities be able to obtain more venture capital funds from the Small Business Administration, and that more money go into the SBA for its venture capital arm, the Small Business Investment Co., which targets Hispanic businesses.
In an effort to proactively address this question, Martinez and other conference participants plan to lobby their states' congressional delegations today in support of the chamber's policy recommendations.
Martinez agreed with U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass. that in order to maintain that important part of the economy and help it grow, there needs to be more business education and training as part of entrepreneurship curriculums in elementary and secondary schools and colleges.
"The strength of our country doesn't just come out of the muzzle of an M-16 or out of the belly of a B-52. It comes out of the ability to educate our children," said Kerry, who was invited to deliver a legislative briefing at the chamber conference. Kerry is also the chairman of the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship.
Business education, Martinez said, should also focus on Hispanics who already own small businesses.
"People may already have the skills, but they don't know where the resources are," he said. "Part of technical assistance is connecting people to people who can provide them with help on how to access these resources. That is a real positive movement that's occurring right now in the state of Connecticut."
Martinez cited the Inner City Business Strategy Initiative in Waterbury, saying that in light of Sept. 11, the program should expand beyond its four-part training program and add a fifth part that would address crisis training for small-business owners.
"Quite frankly, I think Sept. 11 taught us that we should be doing a better job, particularly in this area, as is [being done] around homeland security," Martinez said. "Crisis intervention, handling and management have got to be one of the goals we need to achieve."
Not all businesses experienced setbacks since Sept. 11. Joel Rosario, vice president of the Greater Waterbury Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, claims many of Waterbury's Hispanic small businesses are prospering from the aftermath of the attacks.
"I don't know if I can fully contribute this to 9-11, but there has been a dramatic increase of New Yorkers moving to Waterbury. Some of them are starting small businesses, but some are just moving here," said Rosario, who did not attend the conference.
Published in The Waterbury Republican-American, in Waterbury, Connecticut.
