Sunday, December 30, 2007

Pechanga Indian Removal Acts II: Chronology

Got this from Paulina Hunter's My Space Blog: Read More Here

It's about how the first family to be terminated and have their cultural heritage stripped by Pechanga, were started down the path of disenrollment and removal.

Pechanga Corruption UPDATE: Chronology

As my previous post dealt with the beginning of Pechanga's corruption, here is a chronology of the disenrollment of the first family to be disenrolled en masse in the history of Pechanga.

Chronology of Events
1. In December 2001, Yolanda McCarter (niece of Irene Scearce and Ruth Masiel OP: and she is the one on the Pechanga infomercial saying she could die happy if she didn't have the casino money.) submitted a letter to Enrollment Committee demanding the Committee research several families including ours. The request stated that "this (be) straightened up before the next election in July." (So that there would be less votes, a clear sign that they wanted to disenfranchise "several families")

2. In June 2002, Enrollment Committee Chairperson Mary Magee is removed from the Committee for divulging confidential information. (She was caught talking about other families. Her sister is Gloria Wright, who is CPP) A petition is justified to amend the Disenrollment Procedures. A vote to approve or deny the petition is set for July 2002. (Petition is not brought forth until February 2003.) The newly built Pechanga Resort and Casino is opened. This is a permanent structure which replaced the original Casino structures which were in modular and sprung structure. In October 2002, 2 new members are elected to Enrollment Committee to bring membership up to required 10 members. (A member retired from Committee in September 2002). Olivia Walls is elected Committee Chair, and we request an audit of Enrollment Committee activities for the previous years and advice from our legal counsel at California Indian Legal Services on how to address wrong-doings by Committee and Committee members. Our legal counsel is told by John Macarro not to take any action to assist the Committee or answer our questions regarding the wrong-doings. (Wrong doings include enrollment of adult family members of 'certain' enrollment committee members.)

3. November 12, 2002, members of the Enrollment Committee, acting without a quorum and outside the Committee's procedures, serve several other Committee members with disenrollment summonses. The Committee members who took the action were- Irene Scearce, Ruth Masiel, Frances Miranda, Margaret Duncan, and Bobbi Lamere. Those served include John Gomez, Theresa Spears, Olivia Walls, and Sandra Garbani. (Lamere later gets her family members enrolled in the tribe, during the "moratorium"

4. On December 10, 2002, Concerned Pechanga People (These were part of the splinter group, many who were not on the original 1979 membership roll, as the Hunters were) submit documents to the Enrollment Committee questioning the lineal descent of several families including the Manuela Miranda descendents, Paulina Hunter descendents, and Garbani descendents. This action was taken a month after the above action. The Concerned Pechanga people are immediate family and friends of Committee members who initiated the November 12, 2002 action. (See list of Pechanga Enrollment Committee members, Splinter Group and Concerned Pechanga people).

PLEASE CLICK THE LINK ABOVE TO READ MORE

11 comments:

  1. What is the BIA doing to help those who have been disenfranchised by the tribes. It's not really just Pechanga is it? Aren't their other tribes?

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  2. Riverrunner, yes there are about 3000 people who have been kicked out of tribes since gaming came into being in California from tribes all accross the state.

    The BIA takes the stance that they only get involved if they have an agreement with a tribe to do so.

    So say they only get involved in membership issues if they are invited by a tribe.

    You can see how one sided, stacked in favor of the tribes this is as in most if not all cases, the people kicked out of tribes are still recognized as being Native Americans.

    In our situation the tribe says in its ruling against us that they were not making a determination about our Native American status.

    They did not dispute our status and in the decision against us they acknowledge that we have a trust patent for our reservation land as Temecula Indians.

    They just concluded, wrongly, that we are not Pechanga Indians.

    It would seem that if we are still considered Indians that the BIA should do something but so far, no dice!

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  3. The Comanche Nation has Disenrolled one of their members illegally. The BIA ruled in favor of the Tribal member. You can read the BIA findings letter by going to:"comanchenationforum" or "comanchnationforumgroup@yahoo.com.

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  4. The timeline of events is wrong. I can tell you that family of Bobbi Lamere did not get enrolled during the moratorium in 2002.

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