Go to the Cherokee County Clerk’s office and pull the deeds yourself. Five properties, bought by the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma in 2025, adding up to $13.15 million, sitting in a filing cabinet anybody can walk up to.
Now go find the paperwork that says the Band was allowed to buy them.
One purchase has it. Diamondhead, 63 acres, closed Jan. 24, 2025. Council voted on it, 7-2, in executive session, and that vote’s in the minutes from Dec. 7, 2024.
The other four don’t have that page in the file, at least not one we've found yet. Highway 82, $5.8 million, signed under Chief Joe Bunch on his way out the door. Willis Road, Park Hill Road, Mimosa Lane, all signed after Wacoche took office. No resolution turned up for any of them in the records reviewed so far.
Federal rule 2 CFR § 200.317 says a tribe can run its own procurement rules instead of the government’s competitive-bidding process, on one condition: the tribe has to have a written policy, and it has to use that same policy for its own money too, not just federal money. No adopted policy on file means the federal rules kick in automatically. UKB members haven’t seen that written policy, or the bid records, or an explanation for why there weren’t any.
Then there’s 2 CFR § 200.439. If federal award money — ARPA money — pays for land, the federal agency has to approve it in writing first, before the purchase, no matter the price tag.
According to a source with direct knowledge of UKB financial operations, ARPA funds were exhausted in December 2025. That same source says directors were told in July 2025 the Band was running a shortfall approaching $3 million, and that by late fall, staff were directed to use ARPA codes for purchases rather than return unspent funds. A person who worked directly in UKB accounting, in a written account reviewed for this story, described weekly transfers of $60,000 to $100,000 out of the general fund to cover accounts without enough money of their own, and biweekly payroll pulling $120,000 to $150,000 out of a $250,000 general fund account to cover the gap.
The Constitution’s By-Laws lay out what the Chief’s job actually is: preside over Council, general supervision of Council affairs, perform the duties of the office. Nothing about signing off on land purchases. That’s a Council-and-Treasurer job on paper. Somebody’s still been doing it alone.
Council voted at its August 2025 meeting, in open session and livestreamed publicly, to transfer funds from the Corporate Board to representatives’ discretionary accounts. District Representatives received a share of that transfer. Roughly a week and a half later, one of those Representative told an Adair County family affected by storm damage and power outages he had no money available to help. Fortunate, a Representative from a different district stepped in instead.
Council found time in August to vote, in public, on camera, for representatives’ discretionary spending money. Transparency, apparently, is available. Just not for the thirteen-million-dollar kind.
Here’s what UKB members might not know: the Band already has a law for this.
Section 406 of the UKB Crimes and Punishment Act makes it a crime for anyone charged with the safekeeping or transfer of public money to handle it “in a reckless or wasteful manner which significantly risks loss,” or “in a manner not authorized by law.” Restitution required. Section 405 covers any public servant who “performs an act in excess of their lawful authority.” Both have sat in the tribal code this whole time.
The Constitution doesn’t require a criminal conviction to remove someone from office over it, either. Article IX lets Council remove any officer for misconduct after a hearing, on a two-thirds vote. Articles of Impeachment were filed against former Treasurer Sonja Gourd this year over financial recordkeeping failures, the same category this story keeps circling back to. She resigned before the process concluded. The mechanism moved, months before any of this.
Nobody’s said whether Section 406 applies here. Nobody’s said whether it doesn’t. Nobody’s said anything at all.
That’s the question worth asking at the next Council meeting, or the next time you see your district rep at the store, and it’s smaller than “did the Chief spend too much.” The Band already put that mechanism in motion once this year.
Why is everybody else still waiting on theirs.
SOURCES
Cherokee County Clerk, deed filings, five UKB property acquisitions, 2025. United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma, Monthly Council Meeting Minutes, Dec. 7, 2024. Video recording of the August 2025 UKB Council meeting, livestreamed publicly, reviewed for this story. United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma Constitution and By-Laws, Art. I, §§ 1, 4. 2 CFR § 200.317, Uniform Guidance. 2 CFR § 200.439, Uniform Guidance. United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma Crimes and Punishment Act, §§ 405-406. United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma Constitution, Art. IX. Articles of Impeachment against former Treasurer Sonja Rae Gourd, filed July 15, 2026. Anonymous source with direct knowledge of UKB financial operations. Written account from a former UKB accounting employee, reviewed for this story.