BELLINGHAM — Four members of the Nooksack Indian Tribe have launched a joint campaign for election to the Nooksack Tribal Council, saying they want more openness and financial accountability from tribal government.

“I’m tired of our people not being treated the way they should be treated,” said candidate Bernita Antoine, 75, a basket weaver and retired preschool teacher.

Tribal Chairman Narz Cunanan referred The Bellingham Herald’s inquiries to Tribal Administrator Patrick Check and General Counsel Edward Wurtz. Both rejected any suggestion that tribal government is overly secretive.

Four seats on the eight-member council, governing body for the 1,900-member tribe, are on the tribal ballot every two years.

It could not be confirmed late last week whether the four incumbents — Vice Chairman George Swanaset Sr., Treasurer Sandra Joseph and council members Rick George and Candace Roberts-Kelly — are seeking re-election. They did not respond to e-mail inquiries.

Maureen Marshall, challenging Joseph for the treasurer’s position, said she had seen the incumbents’ names on a candidates’ list at tribal election headquarters.

But Election Board Superintendent Donia Edwards said she could not release a list of candidates’ names until the certification process is completed Jan. 25.

Marshall, 51, works in the accounting department at Western Washington University. She said the tribal government should give tribal members a full accounting of income from the two tribal casinos and how that income is being spent.

“We’ve never seen a financial statement from the casino, ever,” Marshall said. “Everything should be open.”

Information on the tribe’s finances has been in short supply for too long, said candidate Jeff Williams, 53, a commercial fisherman.

“We haven’t had information for over 10 years,” Williams said. “Where has all of the tribal money gone?”

Council vice chairman candidate Elvin Cline, 75, a retired airline mechanic, agreed.

“The big thing for me is the secrecy of the tribal council,” Cline said. “They don’t disclose anything of the business aspects, the income or the deficits that they have. … We don’t know how much is coming in, or how big a loan they floated to build the other casino.”

He was referring to the Nooksack Northwood Casino, which opened in November.

In 2006, Marshall said, dissident tribe members tried to exercise their right to call a special council meeting to get answers about tribal finances. The tribal constitution says such a meeting shall be held if 25 tribe members sign a petition requesting such a meeting, and they twice submitted petitions with more than the required number of signatures. But the special meetings were never convened, Marshall said.

Wurtz acknowledged that the special meetings sought by petition were never held, but he said the council had other meetings to discuss the questions raised by the dissidents. He said council members believe they have complied with the tribal constitution’s requirements.

Marshall disagreed. She said the council never gave any response to the petitions. A tribal secretary accepted the petitions and date-stamped them, but that was the end of it.

“We never heard anything else after that,” Marshall said.

Wurtz said tribe members have many ways to get information on tribal government. Minutes of council meetings and property records are readily available, while requests for other records are referred to the tribal council.

“They haven’t turned down a single public records request that I’m aware of,” Wurtz said.

Wurtz and tribal administrator Check agreed that financial records would be made available to any tribe member who asked for them, but tribal officials might not allow those records to be copied in some cases.

“I don’t know if you know this, but the tribe has a lot of enemies,” Wurtz said. “The tribe has to be very careful with its proprietary information because it could be used against them.”

Tribal finances are an immediate concern for many tribal members because of an apparent shortfall in money available to pay medical costs that are supposed to be covered by federal funds administered by the tribe. When the bills are not paid, tribal members sometimes find themselves confronting collection agencies working for health care providers.

About three years ago, Cline said, his own hospital bill was not paid for more than a year. He said he understood that the cash shortfall for health services may not be the tribe’s fault, because the roster of enrolled tribal members has swelled in recent years and federal appropriations may not have kept pace. But tribe members have yet to get a clear explanation of what’s going on, he said.

Check acknowledged that shortfalls have occurred in money available for medical coverage because of the growth of enrollment from 900 about 10 years ago to 1,900 today. Federal appropriations for Indian health care have increased somewhat, but not enough to make up the difference, Check said.

The tribe will put $750,000 from the casinos and other tribal enterprises into health care for tribe members, Check said, adding that tribal business income has also helped build expanded clinics for tribe members.

Marshall, Cline, Antoine and Williams say that the tribe would be well-served by amending the tribal constitution to allow a convening of the entire tribal membership as a General Council to discuss and vote on tribal issues, as Lummi Nation and some other tribes already are doing.

They also want to limit closed-door council sessions to matters of personal privacy, and they want to see council agendas and minutes posted on the tribal Web site, along with information about proceedings in tribal court.

The pay of council members is also an issue. The four say they favor a maximum payment of $150 per council meeting. They say it is hard to get information on what council members are making today for their service, but they believe it is substantially more than $150, and council pay comes on top of what council members earn in other jobs on the tribal payroll.

“I think they should have a watchdog group to administer wages and bonuses,” Cline said.

Check said he could not disclose the pay of tribal council members to the newspaper, but the information is available to any tribe member. Williams disagreed.

“We’ve asked several times,” he said. “People have asked quite a bit, and they just avoid the question.”

Williams said he served on the council in the 1970s, and got $7 a month for attending monthly meetings.

Marshall said she wants tribal members to have a greater sense of control over their government.

“We just don’t have a voice,” she said. “We should be the bosses of the council. They have it backwards.” Antoine agreed.

“I think that’s why we four are running for these positions,” Antoine said, “so that we can swing things around, hopefully.”