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Claiming to be Cherokee, contractors with white ancestry got $300 million

Two years ago, when the mayor’s office in St. Louis announced a $311,000 contract to tear down an old shoe factory, it made a point of identifying the demolition company as minority owned.

That was welcome news. The Missouri city was still grappling with racial tensions from the 2014 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old, in nearby Ferguson. After angry protests, elected officials had pledged to set aside more government work for minority-owned firms.

There was only one problem.
Bill Buell, the owner of Premier Demolition Inc., has no verifiable claim to being a member of a minority group. His ancestors are identified as white in census and other government records. And his claim to being a Native American rests on his membership in a self-described Cherokee group that is not recognized as a legitimate tribe.

The case highlights a major failure in the nation’s efforts to help disadvantaged Americans by steering municipal, state and federal contracts to qualified minority-owned companies. In many instances, government agencies have not vetted those companies to protect the interests of taxpayers and legitimate minority contractors.
Since 2000, the federal government and authorities in 18 states, including California, have awarded more than $300 million under minority contracting programs to companies whose owners made unsubstantiated claims of being Native American, a Los Angeles Times investigation found.

The minority-owned certifications and contract work were issued in every West Coast state, New Mexico and Idaho, Texas and four Southern states, several states in the Midwest and as far east as Pennsylvania, The Times found.

In applying for the minority programs, 12 of the 14 business owners involved claimed membership in one of three self-described Cherokee groups, according to government records and interviews.

Those three groups have no government recognition and are considered illegitimate by recognized tribes and Native American experts, however.
The three groups are the Northern Cherokee Nation, based in Clinton, Mo.; the Western Cherokee Nation of Arkansas and Missouri, based in Mansfield, Mo.; and the Northern Cherokee Nation of the Old Louisiana Territory, based in Columbia, Mo.

The applications for the other two of the 14 owners were not available. Their businesses were identified as Native American-owned in a Small Business Administration database and in federal contracting records.

For each of the 14 companies, one or more census, birth, marriage or other government records identified the owners’ ancestors as white. The ancestors also do not appear on rolls that government-recognized tribes use to confirm Cherokee citizenship, according to census records and an expert on Cherokee genealogy.

In response to questions from The Times, the governing body that oversees minority contracting certifications for St. Louis held a hearing on June 6 and moved to strip five contractors — including Buell’s demolition company — of their minority status.

Matt Ghio, an attorney who represents four of the five companies, including Buell’s, argued that the city rule defining a Native American as a member of a federally recognized tribe was unconstitutional. He said it set a “stringent” standard that other minority groups don’t face when seeking certification under the minority business enterprise program.
He vowed to sue the city.
Ghio also said his clients could prove their Cherokee heritage, but would not do so at the hearing because the rules did not require it. The city of St. Louis subsequently said it reached an agreement with Ghio to put the decertification of the four companies on hold pending the filing of the lawsuit.

The total awarded to questionable Native American contractors is almost certainly significantly higher than $300 million.

But the Small Business Administration, or SBA, which issues minority certifications for federal contracts, discards records six years after companies graduate out of its program.

Some state and local agencies also frequently destroy records or refuse to release them.
Others, such as the Kansas Department of Transportation, don’t require proof of tribal enrollment, only a signed affidavit swearing that one is Native American.

Under federal regulations, minority contracts are reserved for companies whose owners can demonstrate social and economic disadvantages because of their race or ethnicity. Among the eligible groups are Native Americans.

Each year, the federal government awards several billion dollars in contracts to Native American-owned companies in the SBA’s minority contracting program, often without competitive bidding.
State and local agencies award additional contracts under separate affirmative action programs, using criteria similar to the SBA’s to determine who is Native American.

But the vetting process for Native American applicants appears weak in many cases, government records show, and officials often accept flimsy documentation or unverified claims of discrimination based on ethnicity. The process is often opaque, with little independent oversight.

The contractors are concentrated in the Midwest and none could substantiate claims to Cherokee heritage, according to the Times review of census and other data. The Times worked with the Cherokee Heritage Center in Park Hill, Okla., which is part of the nonprofit Cherokee National Historical Society.

“It’s infuriating,” said Rocky Miller, a state lawmaker in Missouri and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, the largest of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes. “They’re enriching themselves based on a nonexistent recognition.”

“It’s taking those resources not just from our community, but from all communities of color,” said Rebecca Nagle, a community organizer and citizen of the Cherokee Nation. “It’s really problematic.”
Twila Barnes, a Missouri-based researcher and a Cherokee Nation citizen who has written extensively about false claims to Cherokee heritage, said it’s wrong for people to get minority contractor status based on membership in unrecognized groups. “They are milking the system,” she said.

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-na-cherokee-minority-contracts-20190626-story.html?hootPostID=6696bc80cea1396f626b187ebf9d483e