Senator ABOUREZK. The next witness is David Katzeek. David, would you describe what your position is?

STATEMENT OF DAVID KATZEEK, VICE PRESIDENT, TLINGIT AND HAIDA COMMUNITY COUNCIL

Mr. KATZEEK. My name is David Katzeek and I am a Tlingit person and I hold a couple of responsibilities. One, is being the vice president of the local Tlingit/Haida Community Council, and also an ANB member, and also a Shun-Goo-Kay-Dee tribal person.

First of all, you caught me kind of flatfooted. I am a little nervous and normally that's the situation that always develops with me. I kind of get a little nervous before I try to say something profound or whatever.

Senator ABOUREZK. We're all the same way up here, so don't feel bad. Mr. KATZEEK. I would say that I am Tlingit and I'm not Indian and I would say it's basically from the fact that from the time I was taught as a young person, everytime I said I was an Indian, my grandmother and my grandfather and my uncles and different ones told me I was not Indian, that I was Tlingit, that I was an individual and that Indian came from a different place.

When I went to school, I found out that Columbus sailed across the ocean blue, he was looking for India, found America, and called the aborigines, or the people that were in America, Indians. I don't personally in my own-just as an individual, don't consider myself an Indian, any more than an Eskimo would say that I am Eskimo/ Indian, or an Aleut would say Aleut/Indian, or an Athabascian would say Athabascian/Indian. It's possible they probably do say that, but one of the things I would just like to express is

Senator ABOUREZK. What does "Tlingit" mean?
Mr. KATZEEK. "Tlingit" means people.

Senator ABOUREZK. Just people, that's all?

Mr. KATZEEK. Yes; and the thing that I would like to express some concern about is something that I have kind of been watching first of all, one, as a person who is self-employed. I'm a management consultant who had a number of jobs to work in the rural communities with, one, the State Department of Community and Regional Affairs; two, the Bureau of Indian Affairs; three, a lot of the regional, nonprofit Native corporations that are existing within the State of Alaska, the Tanana Chiefs Conference, the Bristol Bay Native Association, the Northwest Alaska Native Association and quite a bit of the State working with over 120 to 130 Native communities working at levels with respect to second class municipalities when the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was being implemented.

One of the things the Department of Community and Regional Affairs—or at that time was more known as the Local Affairs Agency under the Governor's office-implemented a program whereby they would work with the Native communities in developing second class municipalities because of a condition that was in the Alaska Native Claims Act.

One of the things that I saw that concerned me when I went to the bush areas and rural areas was the fact that it seemed to me like the

Federal Government and State government was more or less encouraging the development of a multitude of corporations at the community level. One, there was the IRA council; two, there was the second class municipalities; three, there was the various Native traditional councils; four, you name the different types of independent nonprofit type of corporations that were in the communities.

The majority of the people that were in these communities usually would change their hat when they were going to sit down and be—if they were going to be an IRA council member, or they would change their hat if they were going to be a village corporation member, or they would change their hat if they were going to be a first class or second class municipality.

The thing that concerns me concerning this thing is the fact that whatever the law has ended up doing, to me it seems like we have taken a piece of meat, so to speak and this may be a very crude example, and hung it up in front of all our people to fight for the bucks, for the dollars, the different ways in which they might be able to meet the social needs in their communities. I know and I realize that this is your concern as men who are responsible for legislation and so forth so that you would not cause this type of thing to be happening.

And the other thing that I am kind of concerned about, at least with southeast Alaska, the Tlingit and Haidas were before IRA councils were. Tlingit and Haidas were before ANB was. Tlingit and Haidas were before Tlingit and Haida Central Council was. The thing that concerns me is that we began to develop all these corporations and things of that nature-even at this stage, in order to meet some of our needs we develop the Tlingit and Haida Housing Authority, we develop the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Corp., we develop a variety of other organizations that are to meet various needs in the community.

The point that I'm coming from is with respect to management of the dollars, the limited amount of dollars, that people have to accomplish specific goals and objectives. And when you take those dollars and you put them to a place where everybody is fighting for those particular dollars and everybody-one person is going this way, another person is going this way, another person is going another direction, and things of that nature, you find that instead of having a common goal and an objective for a group of people to be working toward, you have people within another organization trying to opt for the dollars, to compete with one another. To me, this doesn't seem the people at the community level, at the regional level, and at the local levels as well as the regional levels.

I'm, first of all, one for regional; two, I'm for local government. I think that the responsibility is not only the Bureau of Indian Affairs but also the Tlingit and Haida Central Council. Not only these two organizations but the State of Alaska's various departments and divisions and agencies that they have to work toward a common goal of achieving objectives for the people that have been identified by the people at the community level, at the regional level and at the State level.

I think it is far too soon for us to be walking around saying, "I wonder who the tribal entity is. I wonder if this person is the tribal

entity, or that person is the tribal entity." I think that when people organized the Tanana Chiefs Conference, when they organized the Tlingit and Haida Central Council, when they organized the Northwest Alaska Native Association, when they organized the different corporations that are regional, nonprofit corporations that work and elect people on an annual basis and things of that nature, I would say I would say that these are the corporations to consider as recipients of the dollars that are going to be received.

Now, I have heard the question asked: Do you think Tlingit and Haida Central Council is doing it right? To me, the inference with respect to that question says this to me: What you're saying is, "Do you think Tlingit and Haida Central Council should be doing what they are doing, or aren't they doing it right, or are they doing it right? Do you agree with Tlingit and Haida Central Council?" When I say Tlingit and Haida Central Council, I think of Tlingit and Haida Central Council, a nation within a nation. Just because people disagree with Tlingit and Haida Central Council's policies and procedures does not mean that they want to do away with the organization which they've organized and represented. It only means that just as we are citizens of the United States and can disagree with the system and the things that happen does not mean that we want to do away with the Government of the United States. It means that we disagree with the procedures and the policies and the way things are going.

So, any more of you ask any of us as Tlingits, do we disagree with the policies of Tlingit and Haida, that does not mean that we want to do away with that government. It only means we may disagree with the policies.

And so, I don't know where to stop or what. This is one of the first times I've had an opportunity to come before such a distinguished group of men and appreciate the opportunity to express what I've had in my heart for a number of years. I've been in the management consulting business for 5 years and I've been traveling the States for almost equal to that number of years and I've gone to almost every community and I've seen some of the things that have developed at the community level when there is no coordination of effort to accomplish a common goal.

I think I vote for the regional nonprofit corporation, and I also vote for the fact that the local community council government should also have a voice on what they are doing. It's a big job to do and I don't know what the answer is except I know that if we are talking about who is the tribal council in southeast, who is the tribal government in southeast Alaska, I would say the Tlingit and Haida Central Council is the tribal government body in southeast Alaska. Senator ABOUREZK. I would say it's a very eloquent statement and I appreciate it very much.

Senator STEVENS. I'd have a question to follow up, if I might. From your experience in traveling around, you've seen what we've all seen and that is the proliferation of organizational effort. Have you come across any way that we could set up a framework whereby, again through a self-determination concept, that people of any particular area could consolidate, merge or eliminate on their own some of those duplicating entities that are competing? I know of one that's got four right now, and they are four different boards and they are competing.

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They compete with us for assistance to get various programs, but I don't think we should tell them that they've got to disband any one. I would like to find a mechanism to give them an incentive to consolidate. Have you thought about that problem at all?

Mr. KATZEEK. This might not come very close to what you're talking about. I would like to make this response with respect to that question in this way: When you're talking about a nation, and the Nation of the United States, and you pass a law that will provide certain amounts of appropriations and provide certain kinds of services and so forth and so on, you do not say, "Does North Carolina want to opt out on this thing here? And if you pass a referendum on this particular bill, then you can go and vie for it with your own efforts and things of that nature."

To me, when that kind of question is asked, what you're saying to me is, should Sitka secede from the Nation, should Angoon?

Senator STEVENS. No, no. Don't misunderstand me.

Senator ABOUREZK. That's a whole different concept altogether.
Senator STEVENS. We're not saying that.

Senator ABOUREZK. In fact, we do that on a Federal level, only we do it by withholding funds. We say any State can stay out of the billboard act, but they lose 10 percent of ther highway money if they stay out of it. We aren't even advocating that to the tribes. We're just saying, "Do you want to be involved in this regional government or not?" We haven't set up regional governments nationwide. We have State governments that were organized by themselves.

The difference between what happens in the Lower Forty Eight with regard to Federal funding of States and so on is that somehow the traditional way of tribal governments or village governments or whatever in Alaska has changed. And we have to figure out a way to deal with that change and that's why we're doing this today. The change hasn't occurred yet in the Lower Forty Eight. One of these days they are going to start trying to establish regional governments and then we're going to have to deal with it.

Senator GRAVEL. Could I add to that? I want to make sure I understood you. One of the punches you're making is that as we correct this definition that we have to mandate, we just can't throw this whole thing to you, and we have to make a decision on structure and you can normally function within structure.

Mr. KATZEEK. I would agree with respect to that because the first thing that I could see with just throwing it out saying this and doing that is what you tend to do is cause brother to fight against brother for dollars. We're all brothers. Mr. Antioquia sitting here is, one way or another, he's Tlingit, he's my brother. It would be hard for us-I can pinpoint anyone. I know Mr. Borbridge's clan background, he knows my background and there's still an intricate-what I'm saying is that some of the things that are happening is you're dealing with a nation. This may have not been said before but I strongly believe that you're dealing with a nation within a nation and right at this regional level is the Tlingit and Haida nation.

Senator STEVENS. Well. I think I've been misunderstood and I don't want to confuse it any more. What I am saying is that one of the ways to eliminate a question of referendum would be to find a way to bring about consolidation of the efforts of all of the existing entities for a

particular type of program so that you would have one applicant for that particular type of program. It probably would work to a lesser extent down here than it would in some of the areas I mentioned up north where they do not have communication facilities, they do not have regular mail delivery, they do not have ferries and airplanes that come in daily and they are trying to find a way to meet the problems of national legislation where applications have to be on file by a particular date. We had this, exactly that problem. Clay will remember it. Applications were all received over a month late although they had been prepared and mailed on time.

Now, I'm saying that because you have traveled around the country and our country, up here, Alaska, so much, have you formed any opinion as to how, if you had the right to do it, you could give someone an incentive to consolidate some of these entities so you wouldn't have the problem of definition of a tribe. And, in effect, you would have self determination of what is a tribe in a particular area.

Mr. KATZEEK. OK. I can understand what you are referring to now. With respect to communities, if I can remember correctly and put them in the right order, such as Grayling, Shageluk and some of the other communities along the Yukon Kuskokwim area, I wouldn't see any problem with respect to these local organizations, be it the IRA council or members within their regional Native corporation, to form a coalition for the purpose of determining their needs in their particular area within their region and develop whether it be JOM program, health program, whatever the particular type of program. I could see them pooling their resources to achieve a greater, maximum impact on the needs and problems that they have in their area. If that's what you're referring to.

I've seriously considered that and in fact one of my reports I made I made a recommendation to that effect. I think it was with respect to the Department of Community and Regional Affairs.

Senator STEVENS. What kind of an entity would come out of your recommendation? Would it have been an entity or just a joint effort? Mr. KATZEEK. I think it would be a joint-our recommendation was with respect to a joint effort by a group of communities that were geographically located-I think the term is contiguous, is that correct, I don't know-whatever. It's a big word. I don't know that well. But the thing is, those communities could come together for the main purpose of establishing at that level a central management for that particular area with their own planning staff, where their own people would be involved in operations and so forth and so on. There are a number of ways that you could do that.

Senator STEVENS. Thank

you very much.

Senator GRAVEL. Would you submit some testimony in writing, if you have a bent to do that, and amplify some of your management concepts and the solutions we're talking about. I think it might be valuable.

Senator ABOUREZK. We would appreciate that very much.

Senator STEVENS. Are you talking about the city and county of Denver, or are you talking about the city and borough of Anchorage. These are the concepts that are on the move now. The question is, is there any way to foster that type of saving that would come about