I read with great interest your report on the Southern Ute tribal members protesting against SUCAP (Herald, March 6.) What it could have made more explicit was the status and history of SUCAP.
As its full name – “Southern Ute Community Action Programs” – suggests, the initial impetus for SUCAP, as part of the Great Society CAP legislation of the 1960s, was the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. To this day, the tribe both is the official rationale and venue for much of the grant money going to SUCAP, including direct contributions of tribal funds.
Over the years, most of the benefits of SUCAP programs have spilled over to the non-Ute community surrounding Ignacio. I see nothing wrong with this – provided the primary interests of the Southern Ute Indian people are recognized and satisfied.
This, however, has not always been the case, neither in terms of the largely non-Ute roster of SUCAP administrators and employees nor in terms of the often non-Ute direction of many of SUCAP’s programs and benefits.
As I see it, this is a matter of both equity and common sense.
It also is a matter of making sure that SUCAP does not bite the hand that feeds it – the Southern Ute Indian people.
I wonder, lastly, whether the Southern Ute Indian Tribal Council should not be the natural venue for resolving these issues. After all, it is our members who feel short-changed, and it is our name and our money that, ultimately, fund SUCAP.
Pearl E. Casias
Ignacio
