Recall petitions take aim at 2 Ute leaders

FORT DUCHESNE, Uintah County — Recall petitions are being circulated to remove two leaders of the Ute Indian Tribe.

Constituents of Maxine Natchees and Richard Jenks Jr. maintain their representatives are only concerned about carrying out the directives of controversial financial adviser John Jurrius.

Disaffected tribal members also allege the two leaders are keeping them in the dark over crucial financial dealings involving tribal assets.

"Mr. Jurrius is disrupting our tribal government. It is kind of like a conspiracy," said Mary Carol Jenkins, a tribal member who claims she lost her job at the tribe's laundromat after Jurrius found out she had contacted the Larimer County recorder's office to obtain paperwork on ownership of a mall Jurrius said the tribe purchased in Cheyenne, Wyo.

"He told us when he first came here in a meeting right before the referendum vote on his financial plan that he was going to 'divide and conquer.' That's exactly what he is doing," said Jenkins.

Families are fighting among themselves, divided along lines of those who support Jurrius and his stated plans for the tribe to gain financial independence, and those who say his only goals are to make himself and his friends richer. The tribe pays Jurrius $50,000 a month, and tribal leaders also have allowed him to take 10 percent of the returns on any business venture the tribe is involved in.

In April, the Business Committee approved six payments to a Denver law firm that Jurrius brought in shortly after he was hired by the tribe in 2001. The Business Committee is now refusing to disclose to tribal members how much it is paying the firm of Davis Graham & Stubbs, said former Business Committee member Luke Duncan.

Duncan was one of two tribal leaders ousted from his elected position by his counterparts on the governing Business Committee when he filed a lawsuit that had the potential of damaging Jurrius' business dealings with the tribe.

"The main problem with the tribe since Jurrius arrived on the scene is that no one knows what's going on except Jurrius, the Venture Board (a group of tribal members approved by Jurrius) and the Business Committee — and even the Venture Board and B.C. are only given as much information as Jurrius and his lawyers want them to receive," Duncan wrote in a letter to the editor, which the tribally-owned newspaper declined to print.

Tribal members say their list of grievances is growing longer and includes: