Lisa Goree

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Lisa Goree
Chair of the Shinnecock Indian Nation Council of Trustees
Incumbent
Assumed office
2024

Lisa Goree (born 1963/1964) is a Native American politician currently serving as chair of the Shinnecock Indian Nation Council of Trustees, the first woman elected to the position.

Contents

Biography

Goree was born to a single mother and raised on the Shinnecock Reservation (the first, and so far, only federally recognized tribe in Long Island) in Southampton, New York. [1] Later moving northward to Riverhead as a young preteen, [1] she went to Riverhead High School. [2]

In the late 1980s, Goree married Kirstin Goree, a carpenter, and they moved back to the tribal territory in the early 1990s [a] to raise their children. [1] [2] In 1994, she became one of the inaugural community health workers at Shinnecock Indian Health Services medical center. [3] In 2007, she became deputy assessor of the Town of Southampton, [4] and in 2013, she was promoted to tax assessor. [2] She has also served as a board member for the New York State Assessors Association. [2]

After the early resignation of Bryan Polite, the leader of the Shinnecock Indian Nation Council of Trustees, due to exhaustion, [1] Goree ran in the 2024 Shinnecock leadership election. [5] She was elected as Polite's successor, winning with 133 votes over former predecessor Randy King. [5] Goree later explained to WLIW-FM that she decided on a shorter term to "make sure it's the right fit, and make sure people want me in there". [6] She later announced that one of her goals is to settle the tribe's land dispute with Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. [1]

Although women had already served as trustees, with three of them in the council at the time, [1] she became the first woman elected to the position since the state government's 1792 establishment of the Shinnecock trusteeship. [5] This milestone had been celebrated by her supporters as "a return to its matriarchal leadership roots." [1]

She has three daughters; one of them, Kesi, played NCAA Division II women's basketball for the NYIT Bears and later became the first Native American woman in the Southampton Town Police Department. [1] [7]

Election results

2024 Shinnecock leadership election [5]
PartyCandidateVotes%±%
Nonpartisan Lisa Goree 133
Nonpartisan Randy King 103
NonpartisanKeith Arrindell Jr.38

Notes

  1. ↑ Sources vary on the exact year: the New York Times says she moved in 1990, [1] while Dan's Papers says she moved in 1992. [2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Kilgannon, Corey (June 10, 2024). "First Female Leader in Centuries Returns a Tribal Nation to Its Roots". New York Times. Retrieved October 14, 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Bolger, Timothy (April 12, 2024). "Shinnecock Nation Elects Lisa Goree as First Female Chair". Dan's Papers. Archived from the original on December 17, 2024. Retrieved October 14, 2024.
  3. ↑ Witherspoon, Gary (October 21, 1994). "Shinnecocks Get Medical Center". Newsday (Suffolk Edition). p. A35 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ↑ "Two new hires to handle development". Newsday (Nassau Edition). January 3, 2007. p. 39. Archived from the original on December 17, 2024. Retrieved October 22, 2024– via Newspapers.com.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Harrington, Mark (April 5, 2024). "Lisa Goree elected as first woman chair to lead Shinnecock Indian Nation". Newsday. Retrieved October 14, 2024.
  6. ↑ "Lisa Goree Elected To Be New Chair of Shinnecock Council of Trustees, First Woman In Tribe's Trustee System History". WLIW. April 11, 2024. Retrieved October 14, 2024.
  7. ↑ "NCAA DIVISION II WOMEN'S BASKETBALL EAST REGION TOURNAMENT" (PDF). New York Institute of Technology. Retrieved October 14, 2024.
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