About 25 members of: the Kiteclas
- Indian Band crowded into the band’s:
‘.administration office on’ ; Queensway

eet Wednesday afternoon and vowed to remain

‘ there until-two of the four members of the

elected band council are either removed or - ,
“Tesign. f

Ron Nyce, acting as spokesman for the
. group, charged that chief councillor Ralph
Wright and deputy chief councillor Brian
Seymour ‘had through incompetence lost
the band close to $3. million in funding for

CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE _

The Kitselas Band. Council i is asked to step p aside

housing, social programs and employinent -

grants. - :
Nyce presented a faxed copy of two.
petitions he said had been sent by courier

-to John Watson, director general of the

western region for the federal Department

. of Indian and Northern Affairs. The peti-
tions, which Nyce said were signed by more -

than half the adult band membership, |

- called for Wright's and Seymour’s positions
to be revoked and for a byelection to be
| called no later than May 8.

.. Bob Kennedy, a communications official |
for the DIAND in Vancouver, confirmed: ‘by
telephone that Watson had received the

petitions.

Nyce said the portion of the band mem-

ve bership who had taken the-action did.so -

_ only after appealing through all designated -

bureaucratic and political channels with no
results. "They took a hands-off, stand-back.

: attitude,” he-said. The dissatisfied mem-
‘. bers had also met with Wright and Sey-
-. Mour in February to express their .con-.-
"? eerns, .

he said, but had ‘received no
response.
: The $52-member band has undertaken

- 4 an ambitious housing expansion program —

A call for resignations at the top.

during the past two years, establishing .a”
subdivision. on reserve land near the Kit °

_-selas Canyon. Nyce said the housing is sold
to band members on a rental-purchase

program with payments based on the pur-

- chaser’s income. Financing is extended
‘jointly by the DIAND and Canada Mort-

gage and Housing but annual applications

are required to keep it going. The band

leadership failed to secure the financing

- this year, Nyce said, losing about 20 hous- —

ing starts. |

. Nyce described the band council's
actions, or absence of them, as “irregular-
ities” but expressed hope that the regional
branch of the DIAND could be persuaded
to reconsider the financing even though the

es

Terrace Review — April 24 1992