on the cover / By Heidi Walters

Elrod’s Rule

The new chairman of the Hoopa Valley Tribe says he’ll banish drug dealers from the reservation. That and other plans have half the tribe cheering — and the other half grumbling

(Aug. 27, 2009)  Inside the chairman’s office, a cool respite from the hot midday sun, Leonard Masten Jr. leans back in a chair by the window and cranes his neck to see if he can spot the source of the caterwauling coming from somewhere on the front lawn of the Neighborhood Facilities building.

“Who is that” he wonders, and laughs — a cheerful, high-pitched “hu-hu-hu” that seems incongruous in this hulking 55-year-old with short, slicked-back gray hair and a heavy new responsibility as chairman of the Hoopa Valley Tribe.

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Outside, several dozen of the hundreds wandering about the lawn, celebrating Sovereign Day, have gathered to watch American Indian Idol unfold on a stage by the building. The tiny tots — some shy-struck into muteness — have already minced onto the stage and off again. Now it’s adults competing, some quite talented and others … exuberant.

Masten — whom everyone calls Elrod — hu-hus again, softly.

He sure doesn’t seem like a hard ass — like the sort of guy who would banish people from the reservation. But that’s what he’s promising to do. That, and make tribal employees pee in a cup, and drastically cut the tribe’s budget.

A lot of people in the valley are feeling apprehensive.

Others, however — a little over half the voting members of the tribe, at least — are pleased as peach pie with their new chairman. Aside from his tough stance on drugs and spending, he has people skills. He says so himself: “I’m approachable.”

One tribal employee, who asked not to be identified, describes the fundamental difference between Masten and the previous chairman, Lyle Marshall, this way: Marshall — lawyer, educator, hangs with lobbyists, worries over national issues pertinent to his tribe — “is smarter, but he isn’t a people person; he is a go-to-Washington guy.” Masten, on the other hand — Hoopa High graduate, former cop and, recently, a council member under Marshall’s leadership — is “an on-the-res guy who can talk to the people. … They’re like night and day.”

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