Selwyn Whiteskunk was elected Ute Mountain Ute tribal chairman, according to unofficial results announced Oct. 10. Whiteskunk, a former chairman, joins a new Tribal Council.
In addition to Whiteskunk’s anticipated seating, Gwen Cantsee replaces Malcolm Lehi as the representative for the tribe’s White Mesa community in southeastern Utah, while Councilman Conrad Jacket is reinstated. The election board is addressing a tie between council candidates Evelyn Lopez and Marilynn House.
But it is outgoing Chairman Manuel Heart, the longtime tribal leader retiring from his seat, whose departure marks the biggest transition for the council and the future of the entire Ute Mountain Ute collective.
“I hope that at some point in time, our chairman, Mr. Heart, can look upon his tenure as the tribal chairman and how he got us to where we’re at today,” Whiteskunk said of the chairman whose role he is expected to assume.
Heart’s retirement comes after nearly three decades on council, with half that time as chairman, spanning five distinct terms.
Chairman Heart spoke to The Journal in Towaoc following the Oct. 10 election results. He offered a broad perspective on the tribe’s current state, future direction and his decision to retire.
Editor’s note: the following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
From what you’ve learned during your time on council, do have any words of advice for stepping into the chairman role?
I've been on the council about 27 years, actually, but it started 31 years ago, and I’m finally stepping down to let a new, younger generation come in. The incoming chairman has been my vice chairman, and he ran for chairman at one time, and I was his vice chairman, so we know each other pretty well. But the thing that is going to happen right now is the transition from chairman to chairman. We have some projects that are (broken down into) five priorities.
Health care: Because we have the highest rates of diabetes and cancer out of any ethnic group.
Housing: We have a waiting list, a huge waiting list, of about 250 to 300 people that need housing, and money from the (Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act) funds needs to be pushed more for tribes across this country.
Education: Our current (Kwiyagat Community Academy). It's the first charter school on an Indian reservation in the state of Colorado. We created our own curriculum on language. We went from kindergarten, second grade, and we’ve added a grade, all the way up to fifth, every year. So that's a real plus for us, especially with what happened during the boarding school era, when they took away our language and culture and assimilated us to the Europeans and how they live today. And we have assimilated, that’s the way we're dressed today. We still want to keep who we are.
Economic development opportunities. We need to not depend on the federal government for funding. We need to be able to become self-sufficient. But give us opportunity, open doors for us in economic development.
The fifth is natural resources. They've taken our land away. We have a small reservation here, about 600,000 acres expanded into three states: Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. But we really want to look out for our natural resources. There’s the water. We’re in the Colorado River Basin. Right now we’re in a 25-year drought. We really need to protect our water rights so that we as the original inhabitants of this country have that right to utilize our water for whatever use we want to use it for – including storage.
So we want to be able to protect all of these five priorities and any other priorities that the new chairman or the new council incoming are going to look at for the next three years. That's what we're asking, for the transition to really help us out and move forward together.
In terms of what made you decide not to run again as chairman, you said it was because you wanted to give space to the next future generation?
We have new ideas, and we're in a new technology age right now where technology's really moving forward fast. AI is something moving at a fast pace, so we need to keep up with everything that's going on. And just giving new ideas out there. It’s a new council. I’ve been through a lot of administrations. I've had five terms as a chairman, and other terms was as a councilman. So that’s 27 years total. But I just want to see if there’
s things that are out on the horizon. Me right now, I want to rest a little bit. I’m a little bit tired from being with council so long and I want to spend some time with family: grandkids and great-grandkids and my wife and I.
Is all of your family on the reservation?
We have two daughters up in Salt Lake City, one daughter in Albuquerque and the rest are here. Nineteen grandkids, three great-grandkids.
Wow. You look like a young guy, I wouldn't have expected that.
(Laughs)
Is there anything you’ve accomplished or experienced looking back that you feel the most proud of?
There's a lot. There’s a lot over the years that I’ve been in council. (The Animas-La Plata Project), that was probably the first one in the late 1900s. We got authorization for that water right over there – the 1868 water treaty. We’re trying to get that water. It's not finished yet. We have the reservoir, and we have 16,000 acre-feet of water there, but we don't have a delivery system. So that's what's lacking in the treaty. And we need to get a delivery system, which is going to cost about $500 million to $600 million. So it's something that Congress really needs to own up to and put in a delivery system based on a treaty that we have. But there's just a lot of things.
There's a lot of work to get done, it sounds like. Is there anything that you feel you could have done differently or regret during your time on council?
No, I think everything that we've accomplished working with the council is spot-on. We've moved and we haven't taken two steps back. We've constantly kept moving forward in all of our priorities. I have no regrets in things that we didn’t accomplish. It's not only just at my administration, but past administrations and the Tribal Council, they have to work together as a team. That’s what’s going to move us forward.
