Stories in this Regional News Roundup are excerpted from weekly newspapers from around the region. This is part one, with part two set to appear in Sunday’s Tribune.
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Fourteen candidates filed to run for the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee positions by the Feb. 16 filing deadline, according to information posted on the tribe’s website at www.nezperce.org/government/general-council/.
Elections are held for three of the nine NPTEC seats each year. In 2021, these will be contested in the April 3 nonpartisan primary election.
Ryan Oatman is challenging incumbent Mary Jane Miles for seat 1. Seven tribal members — Louis Harris, Scherri R. Greene, July Tess Greene, Mary TallBull, Erik Holt, Samuel N. Penney and Tonia Garcia — are contesting incumbent Ferris Paisano III for seat 2. Sheldon R. Allen, James R. Spencer and Chantel Greene are challenging incumbent Shirley Allman for seat 3.
The two candidates who receive the most votes for each seat will advance to the general election, planned for May 8. These dates are subject to change based on COVID-19 health considerations, according to Kayeloni Scott, the tribe’s communications director.
Biographical information for some of the candidates may be found on the Nez Perce Tribe’s website. More information about the candidates will be provided in an article closer to the election.
The remaining six NPTEC members will remain on the council until their terms expire. The terms of Elizabeth Arthur-Attao, Arthur Broncheau and Chairman Shannon Wheeler will continue until 2022, while Rachel Edwards, Quintin Ellenwood and Casey Mitchell won’t face reelection until 2023.
— Norma Staaf, Clearwater Progress (Kamiah), Thursday
Cascade council debates whether to give guns back to former officers
CASCADE — The Cascade City Council on Monday voted to sell at auction five pistols that led to grand theft charges against the city’s former police chief.
Former Cascade Police Chief Ryan Redmon was charged in 2018 with two felony counts of grand theft for keeping his service pistol after he left the city and for telling four other officers that they could keep their pistols when they left the city.
Those charges were dismissed in January after Redmon agreed to give up any claim of ownership to the pistol he kept. Investigators recovered the other four pistols from the ex-officers.
Before Monday’s vote, councilor Cynda Herrick suggested giving the pistols back to Redmon and the four ex-officers rather than selling them at auction.
The suggestion led to a shouting match between council members and an argument about the facts of the case.
“I think the officers that these were taken from should get those firearms back with a letter of thanks for their service to the City of Cascade,” Herrick said.
“I think that the whole thing tarnished all five of these officers, and I think it’s a horrible, horrible thing,” she said.
Mayor Judith Nissula argued against gifting the Glock model 27, 40-caliber pistols back to the officers.
“Are we in a position to say, ‘Screw you (attorney general’s) office, we don’t care what you want.’? I don’t think we want to go there,” Nissula said, referring to the investigation done by the Idaho Attorney General’s Office.
“We need to just put this behind us and move along,” she said.
Herrick was the only council member to vote against selling the pistols at auction. Council members Rachel Huckaby, Denise Tangen and Ron Brown said it might put the city in legal jeopardy to give them to the officers.
Herrick said that she had not read the relevant court documents and facts of the case, and wanted to do so before voting on the decision.
“Do you think that if you read it, you’re going to want to decide if they’re guilty or innocent?” Huckaby said.
Herrick said that the city was “never consulted on whether an atrocity was done” in the firearms coming into the officers’ possession.
Huckaby said that the city was consulted and the council had advised that the matter should be investigated when the guns were found to be missing.
“Because of the nature of what was missing, it was turned over to the prosecuting attorney,” Nissula said.
An investigation by the attorney general’s office determined that the pistols had been purchased by the vity of Cascade, and the officers had no claim to ownership.
— Max Silverson, The Star-News (McCall), Thursday
