The Pechanga Band became concerned about the question of enrollment in the early 1970’s. Many years of debate and discussion led to the presentation of a proposed final enrollment application and proposed procedures.
Between 1979 and 1981, using the approved process, approximately 456 members were enrolled and given enrollment numbers. During the screening of applications, the Enrollment Committee returned approximately 45 that were incomplete and requested further information from the applicants. There were also about 20 enrollment applications that did not meet the standards set by the Band.
Those standards, found at Article II of the Band’s approved Constitution and Bylaws include the following:
Membership is an enrolled member documented in the Band's Official Enrollment Book of 1979.
Qualifications for membership of the Temecula Band of Luiseno Mission Indians are:
A. Applicant must show proof of Lineal Descent from original Pechanga Temecula people.
B. Adopted people, family or Band, and non-indians cannot be enrolled. Exception: People who were accepted in the Indian way prior to 1928 will be accepted.
C. If you have ever been enrolled or recognized in any other reservation you cannot enroll in Pechanga.
The 20 applications that did not meet the standards involved the descendants of adopted members. People who would not be eligible for membership based on the Constitutional requirement. They included members of the Splinter Group.
The applicants were sent letters stating that their application for enrollment “has not met with the standards approved by the Band” The same letter advised the applicants that there is a provision for appeals to the Band. None of the individuals so notified ever appealed the decision of the Enrollment Committee.
In fact, as far as could be determined at the time, only one member of the Splinter Group, its leader BM, applied for membership in the Band. BM was sent the form letter advising him that he would have to appear before the Band on the issue of enrollment inasmuch as he was the descendant of an adopted member. BM never requested a hearing before the Band.
None of the individuals that were on the Splinter Group’s “council” were enrolled members of the Band.
Instead, you have a small group of perhaps 20 who simply refused to comply with the will of the band as a whole and who refused to apply for membership. Could it be that they knew then, as many know now, that they would not and should not be granted membership?
Instead of appealing to the tribe, those who would not be considered members based on the Band’s membership standards found another way to gain membership. However, this way did not include complying with the Band’s membership requirements as listed in the Constitution.
10 comments:
More good news for Pechanga Tribal members. Journey at Pechanga golf course will be opening July 1st, for Tribal Members!!!!
Way to go !!!
Watch out for snakes!
They live with you!
Go ahead drink the water!!
Drown in our tears.
I wonder how many of the current members mourn for, in the words of chariman Mark Macarro, "the irreplacable resources" that the tribe wanted to protect that Macarro talked about when he testified in front of a congressional committee in 2002 when he stated there would be no change of use in this land, no development of any kind?
Well Macarro used this line to get the land put into trust and now those irreplacable culutural resources have now been destroyed forever and replaced by golf!
What goes on internally at Pechanga is no business of the white man!
Sound familier.
Rewind 20 yrs. Butch M. sends several letters to the Press Enterprise. Several letters are published I am in the process of retyping these letters so they will be viewable on this blog.
Hang with me.
Question for any of my relatives from the Hunter family: in any of your hearings with the enrollment committee did the committee ever say why our documentation didn't prove we are Pechanga.
Did they ever say specifically why our paperwork was lacking?
It is a violation of the disenrollment procedures not to show those under investigation why their documents don't prove citizenship.
All my immediate family was told was there were questions about our qualifications as Pechanga people but we weren't told what those questions were.
We were just told to submit a list of certified or notarized documents within a thirty day period, which we did and we were given some letters and statements written by CPP members that made allegations, allegations by the way that were pure hearsay.
Were those letters and statements from the CPP the evidence that the tribal council claimed showed the disenrollment procedures were followed?
Because if that was what happened, then the enrollment committee's case and claims were never presented against us until the Record of Decision that said we were out of the tribe and by that time it was too late to refute their claims.
But even so in the Record of Decision the committee's reasoning for their decision was often vague.
IN THE VIEW OF ANY OTHER HUNTER FAMILY MEMBERS, DID WE EVER REALLY HAVE OUR DAY IN COURT?
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We Got Screwed!!!!
We followed tribal law!!!
We supplied what they asked for & they believed a child molestor!!
Pechanga knows it, too!!
Laughing all the way, hiding behind Soverignty!!!!
Happy Fathers Day, Mark!!!
Your day will come!
That part really ticks me off also, the way alot of them are LAUGHING about what they did to us.
They think it is so funny.....
That's because the thugs in the back rooms are cruel people.
Bet they pulled wings off butterflies too.
Jail and Prison will do that to some people.
They never followed the procedures, they know it.
They did not have too. Once they knew we had the facts, the corruption spread like wild fire. In our appeal to the Council, the very questions you ask were brought up. Why were we asked to submitt a list of documents and never be questioned as to why were being investigated. The letters of the CPP were disproved by the documents they were requesting.
It took them over a yr. after our intitial meeting to send us a record of decision. The record of decision contained several questions we were never offered an opportunity to dispute. Questions that should have been asked during our initial meeting.
Imagine if you were stopped by the police and given a speeding ticket and a court date to appear. You show up with evidence you were not speeding consisting of a GPS record showing a date/time stamp of your cars speed on that day. You have wittness's that were in the car that gave signed depositions stating that you were not speeding at any time on that route....
A few days later you are convicted of driving a stolen car and sent to prison. You are told it dosn't matter if you have a bill of sale for the car, and the title is in your name. As you were given the chance to provide this information at your origional trial, and can not offer any more documents than you did the first time.
I dont know if I am making sense or not, but this is esssntially what happened to us. We were accused of one thing, asked to bring in evidence (and told were not allowed to offer up any more evidence than what we first bring in). Then convicted on something entirely diffrent, something we were never allowed to address, things that were totally bogus and would have been easly disproved if given the chance.
Article 5 of the Pechanga disenrollment procedures says: "When the individual responds to the summons letter and a meeting is set up and verified by a phone call and/or certified letter then the Enrollment committee has thrity days from the day of the response to set up a meeting date.
At this meeting the Enrollment committee shall SHOW SPECIFIC EVIDENCE THAT WOULD PROVE THAT THE DOCUMENTATION FOR ENROLLMENT DOES NOT PROVIDE LINEAL DESCENT FOR THE INDIVIDUAL.
The Enrollment committee shall advise the individual to provide additional information to prove their claim to membership within a thirty day limit as of the day of this meeting."
All we were told at this meeting in front of the enrollment committee was that there were some questions about our qualifications for enrollment but we were not told what those questions were, A CLEAR VIOLATION OF THE DISENROLLMENT PROCEDURES.
We were then given several letters of pure hearsay from members of the CPP faction of the tribe and we were given a list of cerified documents to turn in, which we did within the thrity day period.
But not only were we not told at our meeting with the enrollment committee why our paperwork didn't prove membership there were documents listed in the Record of Decision against us that we never saw before we were disenrolled.
So we were never really told until the Record of Decision why we were being disenrolled but even then the committee's reasoning was vague.
Sadly, if there were questions about us being true Pechanga people those questions were answered by Dr. John Johnson, the committee's own hired expert as well as by our census records, probate records, and notarized testimony by current tribal elders not part of the CPP as well as from tribal elders from the late 19th century
CAN WE SAY KANGAROO COURT?
At our appeal hearings these concerns about the unfairness of the proceedings as well as the fact that the disenrollment procedures were not follwed were brought to the tribal council's attention but we were still kicked out of the tribe anyway.
There were also other examples of unfairness that I have not addressed here.
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