(The Center Square) – In the final few days before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, the Biden administration approved the Scotts Valley Casino Project in Vallejo, CA, on the sacred lands of the local Patwin people. The Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians has been lobbying for a land trust for years because although they are recognized federally as an indigenous nation, they do not have a federally designated reservation.
However, the local Patwin tribe, Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, claims that the area where the casino is to be built is their ancestral homelands and the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians should not be granted a land trust to do what they want to do, which in addition to the casino includes tribal housing, a tribal administration building and associated parking and infrastructure.
Additionally, while the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians do not have any federally designated land, their ancestral homelands are located over 90 miles away from the proposed project site in Vallejo in Clear Lake.
“The California Native American Heritage Commission has designated Yocha Dehe as the most likely descendant of Native American remains found in Vallejo and the surrounding areas of Solano County (itself named for Patwin leader),” reads a letter from the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation to Wizipan Garriott, principal deputy assistant secretary of Indian Affairs with the Department of the Interior. “Yocha Dehe and a sister Patwin tribe hold a cultural easement protecting tribal cultural resources in Vallejo parks. The project site is near Patwin villages and burial sites. And the City of Vallejo, pursuant to California law, has identified Yocha Dehe as culturally affiliated with the site itself.”
The Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians is using its tragic history to justify the 160-acre designation. While they were historically known to be located near Clear Lake in northern California, they were displaced after the “Bloody Island Massacre,” where hundreds of Pomo Indians were murdered by the U.S. Calvary. Most were relocated to the Mendocino and Round Valley Reservations and while they restored federal recognition in 1991, they have yet to have ancestral land restored. The Yocha Dehe claim the area in Vallejo is not their land to have restored.
“There is no defensible legal or moral basis for the United States to ‘remedy’ prior harm to Scotts Valley’s Pomo people by giving them our Patwin ancestral lands,” reads the letter. “Two wrongs don’t make a right. If Scotts Valley is set on pursuing a gaming project in Vallejo, it remains free to use the two-part process set forth in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. Or, if Scotts Valley wishes to rely on the restored lands exception, it can pursue a gaming project in its Clear Lake homeland. What Scotts Valley cannot do is ‘restore’ Patwin lands to which it has no significant historical connection and has never occupied or used.”
The Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians has been trying to claim this land in Vallejo since 2016 and has since been denied three times due to a lack of cultural significance – until now.
The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation is also claiming that the Department of the Interior did not do its due diligence in assessing and mitigating potential negative cultural impacts when conducting the environmental impact statement.
“In fact, despite being informed multiple times, by both Tribes and the State Historic Preservation Officer, that the required and important National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 consultation process had not been completed, the Department knowingly and intentionally proceeded in violation of this bedrock law,” reads a press release from the Nation.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs concluded that there was a Finding of No Significant Impact, stating that “no known historic properties have been identified with the Project Site,” and the benefit to the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians far outweighs any negative impacts.
“Due to the lack of trust lands and tribally owned economic development, the Tribe relies on federal funding to support Tribal government functions and the needs of its members,” reads the findings. “However, federal funding is insufficient to meet Tribal member needs, and future funding of Indian programs are regularly endangered by budgetary considerations and constraints. The Tribe seeks to have the Project Site accepted in trust status to reestablish its homeland and establish a tribal government headquarters.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom is also of the mind that the Band does not have enough significant cultural ties to the land to justify a land trust that bypasses federal law by allowing the construction of a casino.
“As a starting point, federal law generally prohibits gaming on new land taken into trust for a tribe, unless the land is linked to the tribe’s pre-existing reservation,” reads a letter from Newsom to Bryan Newland, assistant secretary of Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior. “The Scotts Valley Band lacks the deep and enduring connection to the relevant territory necessary to invoke the ‘restored lands’ exception. And here again, the nearby presence of specific individuals, late in history, must not be conflated with the Tribe’s collective control over its aboriginal homeland.”
