On Friday, a Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Council member was indicted by a grand jury for 12 counts of alleged sexual abuse and assault that took place on the reservation. In a special meeting held on Saturday, the Tribal Council moved to place Lyndreth Hemp Wall on unpaid administrative leave indefinitely if he doesn’t quickly resign. They also removed Wall from his appointments to boards and commissions and issued a formal reprimand. Wall is a former Montezuma-Cortez school board member and a well-known figure in the area. If he’s convicted of a felony, he could be removed from the Council by a two-thirds vote that would also bar him from serving on it again. And this weekend, a mainstay of local journalism in southwestern Colorado, the Four Corners Free Press, will print its final issue.
Chris Clements is a former news reporter for KSJD. He had previously covered literary arts as a reporter for The Chautauquan Daily in Chautauqua, New York, and graduated with a degree in English from Arizona State University. At KSJD, Chris has collaborated with KUNC (northern Colorado NPR) on water conservation stories, and had his spots regularly featured on NPR's national newscasts.