Candidate Essay: Pete Jackson

District III Candidate: Pete Jackson

Boozhoo, means hello in Ojibwe. My name is Pete Jackson. I’m bear clan I’m running for District III. My mother is Ramona Jackson a very strong single parent of four kids. We’ve had some rough days. She never gave up raising us up right. I love her very much. She taught me to never give up when life gets hard. If you do have to start over get up and try harder and be stronger then you were before. Everybody needs help once in a while. There are so many programs to help people. Its hard to know what program to use or if the program can help if you can find one. When you do find a program that can help you have to call a million place’s to get your paperwork handed in. It takes months to hear if you are approved or not sometimes you do not hear back at all. We need to help our people connect to the right programs and get help with signing up for them. I like to help people as much as I can and try to add new idea’s to make situations better for everybody.

The homeless need help the most there is nothing for them. We can give some free food to our homeless but its very hard to cook on a campfire. If the homeless look for work who’s going to hire them. They have no way to make it back and fourth.  Where are they going to go and get ready for the next day. The homeless shelter only let’s them stay for 30 days and after that wait 30 days to go back to the shelter. Its crazy to think about but if you get hurt and become disabled or get too old and become disabled or just, disabled. You can easily become homeless walking the streets freezing. We are watching our reservation starve and go backwards and get smaller. The people are window shopping watching the higher ups and appointed ones get fancy items cars, trucks, homes. We all voted for our leaders. It was to get us out of debt, think of new ways of helping the reservation on the path to success.

There are a lot of hard working people living on our reservation. Many have been working for twenty plus years, Hoping for a pay raise or a better title. Nope, they appoint someone with little to no  experience to a high paying job. The experienced worker has to train the new appointed boss in their new job. Many people that have been mistreated and look passed find it easier to say little and do the bare minimum and collect a pay check. There is no incentive for working harder or making the reservation better.

The world is getting crazy. We need to be more self-sustainable. I have many idea’s that can improve our reservation we shouldn’t just rely on our Casino’s. We need to make our own materials and businesses to produce items we can use and sell. My main focus would be small affordable homes to rent for our people, tourist or anyone, the more the better. We can apply for grants to improve our infrastructure on the reservation. We can Build a lot of communities with tiny houses to help house a lot of people in need. There are other grant/programs to help pay for deposits and rent if its needed. The reservation needs more family activites, there’s nothing to do. The reservation needs attractions like a beach with trampolines, zip lines and swimming area’s with pontoon rides. We could have a food vending street. We could grow our own fresh fruits and vegetables and healthy fed live stock. Our elders and people deserve fresh, healthy and cheaper food. In time we can create businesses that can produce our own materials. Windows, drywall, lumber, insulation, used car dealerships, towing, mechanic shops. We can train people for jobs we need on the reservation, and train people on the reservation and use the meeting rooms we already have. They shouldn’t need to go to Los Vegas or far place’s to get training they need. We have equipment that sits and should be used to help our reservation grow and succeed.

There needs to be a different way of thinking. We should want to see our people be better. We are all same we all want to not have to worry about where to stay for the night or how to pay our bills or how to make into town to go shopping and back home.

People who can’t communicate think that everything is an argument and people who lack accountability and self awarness think that everything is an attack.

There are people that forget where they came from and think they did everything on there own. When really it took a village to put them where they are at. I believe there is power in numbers we can all succeed if we help each other. Nothing last forever but it could if we all work together. We are all in different boats we should all put our boats together and build a battleship.