The Bureau of Indian Affairs has denied the San Pasqual Indian band's bid to eject about 60 members, but said the tribe can appeal the decision about the disputed members' ancestry.
Many tribes determine membership issues on their own, but San Pasqual's constitution gives the BIA that responsibility.
It's unclear what the decision means to an ongoing tribal leadership split that is threatening the tribe's government and its ability to operate the Valley View Casino.
“I haven't talked to the tribe yet,” James Fletcher, Southern California superintendent (and Pechanga Tribal Member, which ejected 250 of their own members) for the BIA, said Monday. “My position is going to be the same.”
In June, the tribe told the members whose ancestry is questioned that they would not receive casino profit-sharing payments.
In August, Fletcher said the tribal government had collapsed.
Fletcher has told tribal members that without a government, they can't run tribal operations or operate businesses, including the casino. SHUT IT DOWN!!
He has tried to bring sparring sides together through mediation and negotiation, but a solution is not at hand, he said.
Tribal Chairman Allen Lawson declined to talk Monday about the BIA's latest decision or the leadership dispute.
But one of the tribal members whose ancestry is questioned, Angela Martinez McNeal, said in an e-mail that she was vindicated. However, she said Lawson would not reinstate the ousted members. Tribal leaders have told her that she can't remain as tribal secretary-treasurer because of the dispute.
At issue is whether a tribal member, the late Marcus Alto Sr., was adopted and was not really Indian.
Some tribal leaders challenged his 1991 enrollment in the tribe, plus those of his descendants.
The head of the BIA ruled in 1995 that Alto was Indian and properly enrolled in the tribe.
Last week, Dale Morris, the agency's Sacramento-based regional director, said new evidence presented by the tribe's enrollment committee failed to prove that decision was wrong, and as a result, his descendants are properly enrolled. AMAZINGLY, the BIA wouldn't lift a FINGER for those Pechanga people that were unconstitutionally disenrolled (against the Pechanga Constitution) and allowed a shadow government to take over the Snoqualmie Tribe of Washington.
“It is inappropriate for the Committee to continue to raise this issue of the validity of the inclusion of Mr. Alto and his descendants on the Band's membership roll or to attempt to disenroll his descendants and to continue to seek remedy from the BIA,” he wrote in a letter to Lawson.
Morris said the tribe may appeal his decision to the head of the BIA. And, if the tribe wants to get the BIA out of its membership decisions, it can change its constitution.
But for now, the biggest issue is who the BIA recognizes as the true leadership of the tribe.
The five-member executive committee elected in 2007 split up over the membership issue and Fletcher said he won't recognize any decisions made by anyone else.
“It's going to take me a couple of days to get something together on how we're going to approach this thing,” he said.
Fletcher said he advised the National Indian Gaming Commission of the problem.
A commission spokesman said he was looking into the matter, but couldn't comment until he had more information.
16 comments:
The Feds should shut the casino down. No tribe deserves to have gaming while they are gutting their membership, to increase personal profits.
Iam so sick and tired of all this infighting of these tribes with casinos, they remind me of some disfunctional family who are always battling each other for this and for that.
Bother against Brother and so on..
Instead of being thankful for what they have, they continue to deny each other.
"YOU ARE NOT REALLY FROM OUR TRIBE"
It's no great loss to me If their
casino gets shut down, but they will have to go back to square one
because they behave like idiots.
I will no longer visit ANY TRIBAL CASINO that has disenrolled or denied their own in such hateful
and criminal acts.
SHAME ON ALL OF THEM
FOR THEIR UNBELIEABLE CRUELTY
TO THEIR OWN PEOPLE.
Again, useless James Fletcher with the just as useless B.I.A. is doing nothing.
He is only mouthing the words.
He didn't have anything to say when his own tribe,
the Pechanga Band of Temecula
disenrolled ,kicked out and never enrolled many of the real
Orginal Pechanga Indians.
So what does that make him?
He is in cahoots with the criminal elements in the Pechanga Tribe.
It's just baffling how this guy still has a job
YOU CAN'T TRUST HIM
Butch Murphy was adopted after 1928 and the person responsible for getting him adopted is the Hunter family member SO since the Hunter family was disenrolled and told they were Pechanga Indian but not Temecula Indian shouldnt the adoption of Butch Murphy be null and void? He and his family need to be kicked O-U-T out!!!!
I think that every Family line should have the same standards for enrollment. The criteria for enrollment should be the same for everyone.
The problem is, that some people forget how they were enrolled and under what circumstances.
The filth that has spread and festered is the cancer that will be Pechangas downfall.
Let's get real, and have an open book. Why not have an unbiased group of indians look at everyone in the Temecula band of mission indians, and see what happens?
WE ARE BEING HEARD...
WE ARE ON THE RADAR...
READ THE ARTICLE ON INDIANZ.COM
DO THE RIGHT THING PECHANGA TRIBE
OR SOMEONE ELSE WILL DO IT FOR YOU.
WE WILL NEVER GIVE UP OUR HERITAGE
AND YOUR DENIAL MAKES US STRONGER.
WE WILL FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHTS
FOREVER NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES
Anonymous of December 2, 2008, 2:36 PM has the right idea but the wrong facts.
Yes a Hunter family member did assist Butch Murphy and his family to have their appeal of the enrollment committee's decision not to enroll them to be heard by the general membership, but it was the general membership who voted them in, in 1986.
However, the tribal council in allowing the disenrollment of the Hunters to go through in 2006 after the tribe had voted to end disenrollment as a part of tribal law on July 18, 2005 said the following in the council's letter to the general membership dated March 14, 2006, page 2, article 11:
"The General Membership, through its own authority, may not interrupt or question the actions of the Enrollment Committee concerning enrollment or disenrollment. This is illegal and in violation of established precedent in Tribal law."
So if that is the case and the General Membership cannot question the Enrollment Committee's actions, then since the General Membership can't question the disenrollment of the Hunters in 2006, that means it couldn't question the committee's decision to not enroll the Murphys in 1986.
So according to the tribal council's own reasoning Butch Murphy should be retroactively disenrolled!
Conversely, if the General Membership could vote the Murphys in after the Enrollment Committee had turned down their membership in 1986, then the General Membership could stop the disenrollment of the Hunters in 2006 according to the petition that was passed in 2005 to end disenrollment as a part of tribal law.
So it is either both the Muprhys and the Hunters are out or they both have to be in the tribe!
One more thing, Anonymous of December 2, 2008, 2:36 PM had it backwards regarding Pechanga and Temecula.
Pechanga acknowledges the Hunters have a land patent for their allotment from the Federal Goverment as Temecula Indians but Pechanga maintains, wrongly, that the Hunters aren't Pechanga.
One interesting point that Anonymous brings up about Butch Muprhy has to do about whether adoption could take place after 1928.
The agenda for the special meeting of April 20, 1986 says:
"Heirs of Rose Murphy Enrollment appeal. Dicussion. Vote needed."
Was Rose Murphy herself adopted in the Indian way prior to 1928, a constitutional requirment?
After all, if she wasn't, her descendants enrollment should be null and void.
Whatever the case is, the tribal council's ruling in 2006 said that the general membership couldn't question enrollment decisions because it, in their words, "violates established precedent in tribal law."
What tribal law precendent does it violate?
Because we clearly have a tribal law precedent in the 1986 tribal vote that approved taking in the Murphys after the enrollment committee had turned down the Murphy's enrollment.
Or is it only good for CPP famlies and no one else?
Butch Murphy came to our family and asked for support when his family was attempting to enroll in 1986. He surely forgot this when we sat in front of him during our appeal. Then he allowed us to be illegaly disenrolled after the band voiced it opinion.
What happened Butch?
The bottom line is since Pechanga has no agreement with the BIA to look into these matters that James Fletcher, who seems so intent on justice in the San Pascual case, just turns a blind eye on what is happening in his own tribe.
As I said, the petition to end all disenrollments was passed in July 2005 but the tribal council waited until March 14, 2006, two days before the March 16, 2006 letter informing us, the Hunter family family that the petition did include us and we were being disenrolled anyway.
It is understood that the council, Butch Murphy included who reportedly voted against our membership, had made their ruling long before that March letter but they waited until we couldn't respond to their ruling to send the letter to the general membership.
A travesty of justice all around!
I meant to say that the council said the petition to end disenrollment did not include us, the Hunter family, was only two days before we were disenrolled and we were not able to respone to their ruling because we were kicked out of the tribe.
Here is a hypothetical exchange between a "millon dollar" Pechanga tribal attorney and a Hunter family member or attorney if we ever get our case heard in a real court of law instead of that kangaroo court that railroaded us out of the tribe.
This exchange centers around our argument that the petition to end all disenrollments that was passed by the Pechanga tribal general membership in 2005 should have kept us, the Hunters, in the tribe and that our disenrollment in 2006 was illegal.
PECHANGA ATTORNEY: "The General Membership, through its own authority, may not interrupt or question the actions of the Enrollment Committee concerning enrollment or disenrollment. This is illegal and in violation of established precedent in Tribal law."
HUNTER FAMILY OR ATTORNEY: "What established Pechanga tribal law precedent are you citing?"
PECHANGA ATTORNEY: "The General Membership, through its own authority, may not interrupt or question the actions of the Enrollment Committee concerning enrollment or disenrollment. This is illegal and in violation of established precedent in Tribal law."
HUNTER FAMILY OR ATTORNEY: "We can document a Pechanga tribal law precedent that says just the opposite, that the general membership can make decisions regarding tribal enrollment."
PECHANGA ATTORNEY: "The General Membership, through its own authority, may not interrupt or question the actions of the Enrollment Committee concerning enrollment or disenrollment. This is illegal and in violation of established precedent in Tribal law."
HUNTER FAMILY OR ATTORNEY: "The precedent in tribal law we are citing regards the case of the descendants of Rose Murphy who in 1986 appealed to the tribal general membership the decision of the enrollment committee to turn down their family's applications for tribal membership.
The general membership voted on April 20, 1986 to accept the descendants of Rose Murphy as tribal members, overruling the decision of the enrollment committee not to enroll this family.
AGAIN,WHAT TRIBAL LAW PRECEDENT ARE YOU CITING THAT SAYS THE GENERAL MEMBERSHIP, THE BODY OF THE TRIBE WHO HAS THE FINAL AUTHORITY IN ALL MATTERS OF THE PECHANGA GOVERNMENT, CANNOT MAKE DECISIONS REGARDING ENROLLMENT?"
PECHANGA ATTORNEY: "DUH! DUH! "The General Membership, through its own authority, may not interrupt or question the actions of the Enrollment Committee concerning enrollment or disenrollment. This is illegal and in violation of established precedent in Tribal law."
The point is, all Pechanga tribal officials or their legal representatives do in regards to the disenrolled from their tribe is read a prepared speech without basis in fact.
BIA Riverside director James Fletcher is leading the way to make sure justice is done at San Pasqual but he can't even see what has happened in his own tribe, Pechanga.
All Pechanga officials do is "parrot" lines such as,"after a long investigation involving genealogy research, the tribe has concluded that some families were not legitimate citizens of Pechanga, the disenrollment of these individuals corrected an error in the tribal enrollment rolls.
Due process and fair and impartial hearings were provided for these people."
Well Pechanga tribal officials, what geneaology reserach are you talking about because the only geneaologist that researched my family line, the Hunters, was Dr. John Johnson, who was hired by the enrollment committee and he concluded that according to surviving historical documents we are in fact Pechanga people.
Also, what due process was allowed us and how was the process fair and impartial?
Allowing enrollment committee members who were biased against my family, who had a personal stake in the outcome of my case, and who's family members were most of the people who submitted unsubstantiated allegations against my family's membership was not fair and impartial!
Of course the Pechanga officials or their legal repesentative can always fall back on their old stand by, tribal sovereignty, if they get tired of repeating their prepared statements.
All they say is that "Pechanga, as a sovereign nation, has the right to determine who their membership is."
It is true Pechanga does have that right but who can make them, because of sovereignty, follow their own laws if those laws were not followed?
Because individuals rights were trampled on and all tribal officials do is invoke sovereignty.
When they say things like "Due process and fair and impartial hearings were provided for these people." It makes it sound like we were afforded a fair trial, but just to let people know, there is NO tribal court at Pechanga. They have NO court system. We were brought before those who accused us, and it was our accusers who tried us .
I guess this is what they call "Due process and fair and impartial hearings "
As a full blooded registered Apache Native American, spiritual leader, whose grandfathers, grandfathers walked this earth for thousands of years, and was taught the only true Road was the Red Road to live as a human, I feel these money hungry leaders and tribal members, have lost their way and are no longer human beings, as they act like the greedy men Columbus sailed with onto our lands. In the days of my grandfathers, the tribes shared and traded with each other, they made sure all had something, but these so called true members who want to put others on the street, do not have the hearts of Native Americans, but instead have hearts of white men and evil spirits. You too, shall have your reward when the great spirit passes judegment on your deeds of greed of want. If I have enough to eat, enough to live on through the winter, enough for my family, then you are welcome to what I don't need. Do not forget the Red Road, less you forget your heritage and bond with the past and our elders.
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