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Recall effort against Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe treasurer to advance

By Tenner Stening
Posted Jun 18, 2019

Committee certifies petition and will schedule election.

MASHPEE — An attempted recall of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s treasurer, Gordon Harris, is moving forward after the Election Committee certified a petition to oust him.

After falling short of signatures deemed valid by the committee upon their first submission, the three petitioners representing a movement to unseat Harris received an email from the committee stating it had certified 120 signatures — 20 more than required under the tribe’s constitution — and would schedule a recall election in the coming days.

The petition was one of three filed with the committee in recent weeks to expel the tribe’s leadership — Tribal Council Chairman Cedric Cromwell, Vice Chairwoman Jessie “Little Doe” Baird and Harris — over longstanding concerns over their handling of tribal finances, including the amount they receive in salaries.

The certification of the Harris petition comes several weeks after the committee certified 104 signatures on a petition to remove Cromwell from power, which also required two submissions. It also comes after tribe members circulated a robocall urging attendance at a general membership meeting earlier this month, highlighting the more than $500 million in debt owed to Genting Malaysia, the tribe’s financier, and the contention that the tribe “has no money coming in” while its leaders use federal grants to continue to pay themselves inflated salaries.

The Times could not identify the source of the call but confirmed that several tribe members did receive it.

The tribe spent $1 million from its general fund between January and the end of April, leaving it with $281,203, according to a statement of revenues and expenditures for that period obtained by the Times. But the grant fund shows a net loss of $662,849 from that time period, according to a statement for that account. Nearly all of the $679,513 in state and federal grant revenue was spent on tribal salaries and fringe benefits, the statement shows.

Complaints accompanying the three petitions against the tribe’s leadership cited, among other things, the debt owed to Genting and decisions to keep Baird in power after she resigned Jan. 25 as reasons for the recall, according to documents obtained by the Times.

The effort to remove Baird fell short of the required signatures.

The complaint against Harris alleges he missed the February and April monthly general membership meetings and all four Tribal Council meetings held in April — an offense the petitioners believe amounts to “nonfeasance” as outlined in the tribe’s constitution.

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