Good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome, WelCom welcome any time
now for a very special community connection right here on K one, the one
you trust, you know. Cherry Key Nation has the big election that's coming
up on Saturday, right, yes, Saturday, and we have a Crystal
Saint John who is running for Cherokee Tribal Council. And uh, first of
all, tell us a little bit about yourself, young lady. All right,
my name is Crystal Saint John and I live here in Bardasville, and
I'm married to Matt Saint John. And we have three beautiful children, nineteen,
seventeen and eleven, and they're they're my whole life and purpose for living
and what I do. M I was born in Tallaqua, and I went
to school there at Woodall for two years and moved up here in first grade.
And this is where where I've made my life since then. Now you
you took a little detour and I went to the Army. I did a
little bit about that. I was a bridge engineer in the military. My
sister she joined the army and I followed right after her. We're very close
in age, and we both did the same thing. She got sent over
to Fort Riley, Kansas, and I got sent over to Hanal, Germany.
So it was it was a very nice experience for someone from a smaller
area to get out and see different people in places of the world. So,
what has attracted you to the notion of running for tribal council? We
always asked that of people who were running for office for the first time.
What has attracted me is, you know, in my early twenties, when
I did get back from the military, you start to have a better understanding
of how government affects our everyday lives. And I started really paying attention to
government and the things that happened, legislation that passes, and more so than
any other government, I paid attention to the Cherokee Nation government. I watched
their committee meeting. Um, I've done that for about the past ten years,
and that's ten years ago. Is about whenever I felt like that's what
I was going to be someday, that's what I could do and make a
difference and better people's lives. And so I just have followed the government and
its activities to learn to watch and with my family and I my husband and
my children, we talked about it and prayed about it over the past year
and a half and we decided that God said, now's the time. If
you want to stand up for your people, you go stand up for your
people. We're talking with a Crystal Saint John and she's running for Cherokee Tribal
Council at twelve District twelve. Yes, Okay, District twelve, which includes
Bartlesville, Copan all the way down to just no Wada, just north the
north very northern portion of Skytook and Ramona Ocellata via a little bit of Talala.
Okay. Oh, this is a that's a that's a good land.
It's a pretty big size, Yeah it is, and it's really great.
Now by watching the council meetings over the years, you had about a decade's
worth to take it all in. What are your takeaways from it? How
do you see it as it is and how maybe you think it should be.
What I believe are elected members of government should be is representatives of the
people that elected them, the people from their districts. And I believe it's
a service job. I believe government is not something that you should elected.
Official government is not something you go into without a servant's heart. I am
running because I believe it is a job of service to the people and not
of enrichment of elected officials. Unfortunately, in my opinion, i've seen extreme
pay raises happen in our elected officials over the past four to five years that
I did help get stopped the first time they tried to do it, and
then when COVID happened, they shut down the committee meetings so citizens couldn't be
there and have to face them while making that vote, and then they got
it past. And one of my main things is to try and bring that
number back down because when we haven't made it to where we're servicing services,
basic services to our citizens and making that available to the people in District twelve,
elected officials shouldn't be putting large portions of money in their pocket, and
that's what is currently happening, and I don't think that's what's best for the
people. Now. With the different communities that you'll be serving, should you
get the job, that's a lot of shoe others. That's a lot of
moving around, that's a lot of travel that well, that's right, and
you know, I'll be the District twelve representative. But your job is to
serve all Cherokee people. I will be taking back the concerns that I am
hearing from citizens and that I speak with them about and meet with them about.
And I would like to change it because currently a lot of times Council
brings forth legislation or government contracts and different things like that that some citizens don't
even understand are taken place. And I would like to make sure that that
enough time is there to get some feedback from citizens on how they feel about
it, such as you know mcgurt is a big thing that a lot of
people have heard about. Well, whether you're a Cherokee Nation citizen of District
twelve or not, it affects your life. And we have made a contract
that any Cherokee citizens that are jailed for more than six months, the Cherokee
Nation is sending them to a prison in Texas. And whoa, but let's
back that up here. If you're a Cherokee Nation citizen and you're jailed for
more than six months, you don't serve locally, you go to Texas,
Texas. Do we have a Cherokee presence of than inmates in Texas? Um?
Well, there's some citizens. My sister, she lives in Texas.
But but no, no, no, And so these citizens, if so,
if you're um, fall under the jurisdiction of the Cherokee Nation. So
if you committed a crime something that you need to go to jail for and
it's for more than six months, they're saying they have no space and or
the lack of government relationships between the state and the tribe. So they're contracted
with a private prison in Texas, and our citizens that serve more than six
months go to prison in Texas to finish their term. And to me,
that's not okay. And that's something that the Delaware tribes should be consulted with.
You know, they they live under our jurisdiction of land as well,
but their citizens have to fall under that as well, and we should consult
with our citizens, we should hear their opinions, and we should consult with
our other governments. That it's a very complicated situation with three different tribes living
with under the same jurisdiction of the Cherokee Nation, which is the United Katua
Band the Cherokee Nation, and then we have the Delaware tribe just up the
road here. Wow, this is very interesting. We're talking about some issues
that I don't think everyone has heard before. That's true. I think a
lot of times some citizens don't even understand or know these things happen until it
happens to someone in their family. And I think it's important to communicate with
our citizens the laws that we've passed, the contracts we've entered that will affect
their everyday lives, their family members, their neighbors. And that's what I
want to change in government as being here for the people, speaking with the
citizens, hearing their concerns and letting that affect my yes or no votes in
council chambers, not just other people in council, and making sure that we
all get along by saying yes when everybody feels that's best, but it's okay
to say no if your citizens disagree with that, and you're over all feedback
is please don't pass this, this is not good, or please change that,
make an amendment before it changes to where it serves us better. We're
talking with Crystal Saint John. She is running for Cherokee Nation Tribal Council District
twelve. And when you mentioned that you're going to represent not only the district,
all Cherokees, what does that encompass. A lot of people think,
well, we've got fourteen counties, but there goes beyond that. It does.
There's Cherokee citizens all across the United States and they all vote in elections.
They have a vote in the chief and Deputy chiefs race, and they
also have their council representative in an at large candidate. So we serve Cherokees
all over with they don't have the same laws that are passed that they if
they reside outside those fourteen counties you mentioned, they're not under that law unless
they're here and they come back home, then they're under the Cherokee Nation law
as well. But they do get scholarships, they have community meetings, they
like to remain you know, connected with culture, just the same as others
do. And so we still serve them in many ways they can we can
offer new services for them to access that's maybe not just under Cherokee Nation Health
or the Indian Health that we have here locally. Crystals. Saint John is
our guest here on Community Connection. So we've got the election coming up.
I think everybody knows it's June third. We're can folks around here vote,
We're the polling places. Well, this is what I'd like to get out
there. Today is early voting day. If you want to early vote,
you can drive to Talaquall to the Election Commission and vote from seven am to
seven pm. And that's today and tomorrow, and then on Saturday, June
third, you can go vote at your precinct. So if whatever precinct you
have selected, which for our district, it'll be Bardesville or no Wada.
Unfortunately, our sky Took precinct was shut down this year, so those folks
now have to drive to Barnesville to vote. I would like to change that,
make sure they have somewhere closer to vote for them. But Barnesville over
on Virginia Avenue, right at the Cherokee Housing Authority, and that Saturday this
Saturday, from seven to seven Over in Nowada, it's at the Noweta Community
Building right across from the health clinic there in Nowada. Okay. So the
thing is you can early vote in Tallaqua today if you're a Cherokee Nation Tribal
citizen and you're registered. Same on the Saturday, though, on the actual
day of the general election, we go over to the Housing Authority here on
the west side of town in Bartlesville or the NODA Center in Nowada. That's
right, all right? Got it? Clear? I'm old. I got
it. And call your Cherokee family and friends and invite them to come and
vote with you. Take a car pull with you. Make sure your voice
is heard for me or against me. Go make your opinion matter very good.
So what have you seen over the years that made you want to say
this is the time when you you told us you've been watching the tribal council
meetings for over ten years. What was that that moment for you that said
this is the call. Whenever the outrageous in my opinion, pay raises was
coming about, I went and stood in council chambers with a lot of citizens
and we got it stopped. Then COVID happened and they shut down meetings from
citizens to be there, and they passed pay raises that to where now council
members in their fourth year are making ten thousand dollars a month. The chief
of the Cherokee Nation is around thirty thousand dollars a month with those pay raises
that that they had put in place. And after we got it stopped,
I know it could have been stopped if they felt like that was non in
the best interests for the Cherokee people. And when they didn't do that,
that's when I decided this needs to stop. When we're getting into a government
that seems to be more self serving, and we do a lot the Cherokee
Nation government does a lot of great things. I'm not saying that, but
if we still have elders that are passing away unfortunately, like my aunt recently
did while waiting on some housing repairs, I don't think elected officials need that
type of money. If we still have to drive a long distance to get
our basic Cherokee Nations citizen photo IDs. We can bring services up here,
get more jobs for Cherokee citizens to work in, allow them to apply for
all the things that everybody gets to apply for Intaloqua. Let them do that
here in Bardsville. Like you said, we have a pretty big land area
in our district. We need basic service people here working that will create jobs
and allow a local place for our citizens to access applications, human to human
answers to questions if they have them, and we don't really have that.
We have the housing Authority, we have a clinic that does has wonderful people
and has a lot of great things. I'm so thankful that that has come
because I was at a time when we had just a little bus that would
come once a month and that's where you would get your medical treatment. That
was when I was probably eight or nine, ten years old. Wow,
and we've come a long way, but we still have a long ways to
go in making sure that UM District twelve citizens are getting the same services that
Tallequall citizens are also receiving. Crystal Saint John, she's running for Cherokee Nation
Tribal Council District twelve. Do you have a Facebook page or a website that
folks can contact you if they want to know anymore about you before they cast
their vote, either today or in person on a Saturday. I do have
a Facebook page. I don't have a website. I don't have a big
dollar campaign. I'm just a girl that's passionate and cares, but I don't
have big donors and all kinds of stuff like that. I've done what I
could to try and get my word out there. Crystal Saint John twelve at
gmail dot com is my email. My phone number is nine one eight two
one four five six, one three if you'd like to call or text me,
and my Facebook page is Crystal Saint John for Council, Cherokee Nation District
twelve. Wow. Wow, I'll tell you what it's been interesting. I
learned a lot of things. I think a few other people have too,
I hope so. But appreciate you coming in and introducing yourself to the voters
and to everyone who's listening today. Crystal Saint John, Cherokee Nation Tribal Council
candidate for District twelve. Good luck to you. Thank you so much for
having me. I appreciate it. You got it, folks, you've been
listening to our community connection on K one