Yuroks to have new chairman

Incumbent loses in primary voting

The Yurok Tribal Council will have a new chairman come December.

After the Yurok Tribe certified its primary election results this week, a six-person race for the council’s chairmanship revealed that incumbent Maria Tripp did not receive enough votes to make it to the run-off election scheduled in November.

Tripp has been the chairperson for the past three years — one term. But in that short time she has seen the Yurok Tribe reach some lofty milestones.

She was there when the Yurok Tribe secured more than $90 million through the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act,  worked with various stakeholders toward an agreement to remove four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River, and developed a plan and received congressional support to expand the tribe’s reservation.

“Working together these last three years has been a pleasure and honor,” Tripp said via text message Thursday. “These accomplishments belong to all of us.”

Now the race to replace Tripp is between Thomas P. O’Rourke Sr. and Dr. Michael Ward.

O’Rourke, the top vote-getter in the primary election with 36 percent of the total 1,043 votes cast, is a 49-year-old cancer survivor who lives in Tulley Creek.

He was the Tribal Council’s Vice Chair for one term from 2003 to 2006, and in his candidate statement said he was “instrumental” in obtaining grant funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the Klamath River Early College of the Redwoods.

“The Chairperson must be able to carry forth the concerns and the issues of the Tribe to many outside entities and organizations,” O’Rourke wrote in his candidate’s statement. “I believe that we should plan and work towards building our future together, while providing the best assistance that we are able to our membership today, without jeopardizing the future.”

Ward, who received almost 24 percent of the votes in the Oct. 14 primary, has a strong background in education.

Born in Eureka, Ward completed his schooling at several universities, including Arizona State, Oxford (England), North Dakota State and Harvard. As a professional, he has been an elementary schoolteacher, director of education for the United Tribes of North Dakota and the superintendent of schools in a suburban Ohio district.

In his candidate statement Ward said he would bring leadership to the Tribal Council and believes it is “time for a change.”

“Our current council leadership has failed to serve those of us who elected them and does not listen to the people that they are supposed to serve,” Ward’s candidate statement says. “As tribal chair, I will work with other council members to develop ways to better serve all people.”

Two other seats on the Tribal Council were up for election on Oct. 14, including the spot for a new vice chairperson.

With six people vying for that seat, a run-off will be necessary on Nov. 12 between the top two vote-getters. That race will involve incumbent Bonnie (Hoddy) Bacon Green, who received about 22 percent of the 1,034 ballots cast, and Marjorie Donahue Buckskin.

Green has been on the council for 14 years, 11 of those as the South District representative, and Buckskin currently holds the North District seat.

After the run-off, the winners of both the chair and vice-chair races will be installed on the council at the Dec. 9 meeting in Klamath.

Orick District representative Larry Z. Hendrix, who beat out the sole challenger for his seat in the primary, Allen D. McCloskey, by a vote of 17 to 12, will be re-installed on the council at its next meeting Oct. 28.

More information about the candidates can be found at yuroktribe.org.