As is the case with the past few Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisor meetings attended by Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians Chairman Vincent Armenta, he once again asked supervisors to engage in government-to-government dialogue with the tribe at the first meeting of the new year.
“Do exactly what is good for the community,” Armenta said during the meeting. “I’m hoping that the board will take the time to sit down with the tribe in the coming year.”
Armenta spoke at the end of the public comments portion of the meeting, making his request on the heels of a decision released by the Bureau of Indian Affairs regarding Camp 4. On Dec. 24, 2014, the bureau released a notice of intent to accept the nearly 1,400-acre parcel of Santa Ynez Valley land into trust for the tribe.
Placing land into trust with the federal government would essentially make the property an extension of the Chumash Reservation.
“The subject acquisition will vest title in the United States of America in trust for the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission Indians of the Santa Ynez Reservation of California in accordance with the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934,” the notice states.
An appeal to the decision must be filed within 30 days of receiving the notice, which was sent to interested parties, including the Board of Supervisors and the Santa Ynez Valley Concerned Citizens. In response to the decision, 3rd District Supervisor Doreen Farr—whose district contains the Santa Ynez Valley—sent out an email to her constituents that said the county would be appealing the decision. The county has already appealed the bureau’s October notice of intent to make a finding of no significant impact on the environmental assessment of development plans proposed for Camp 4. That appeal is still pending.
“I will continue to advocate for the health, safety, and general welfare of my constituents, as well as work to protect the environment of the Santa Ynez Valley,” she wrote in the email.
The tribe purchased the Camp 4 parcel in 2010 with the intent of using it to build homes for tribal members. In July 2013, the tribe applied to have the land placed into trust. The tribe’s request to the county for government-to-government conversations about the land’s future have been hanging in the air for just as long, with the county’s decision to not engage in discussion being the repeated answer.
“We have simply run out of room on our reservation to build homes for our tribal membership,” Armenta said in a statement. “The sooner the land is placed into trust, the sooner we can move forward on building homes on Camp 4 for our tribal members and their families.”
The reservation is currently a 137-acre government-issued plot that the tribe said is at capacity and only has enough space to house 17 percent of the tribe’s 136 members and 1,300 lineal descendants.
“Placing our Camp 4 land into federal trust would provide us with an opportunity to build a tribal community that would accommodate current and future generations of Santa Ynez Chumash,” Armenta said in the statement.
This article appears in Jan 8-15, 2015.