A U.S. District Court has denied Save the Valley LLC’s motion to intervene in a century-old case related to the establishment of the Santa Ynez Indian Reservation. The motion called for enforcement of the case’s judgment, which Save the Valley said prohibits the Chumash tribe from commercial development on the reservation’s land.
The motion to intervene was the most recent in Save the Valley’s series of attempts to bar an expansion of the Chumash Casino Resort, which will add 215 hotel rooms and 584 parking spaces to the facility. The tribe claims the project is exempt from county regulations because it is on reservation land. Save the Valley, a land-protection organization, disagrees.
“The land they are building on has never officially become a federal Indian reservation, and so their claimed exemptions from all environmental laws, building laws, etc., is incorrect,” Save the Valley attorney Matthew Clark said.
As evidence of this, Save the Valley cited the 1906 judgment on The Roman Catholic Bishop of Monterey v. Salomon Cota et al., in which the landowning Catholic Church allegedly restricted the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians’ use of the parcel to “occupancy only” and its water access to occasional “domestic use.” Save the Valley’s motion to intervene demanded enforcement of this judgment, which would halt the tribe’s casino construction.
The motion to intervene was originally filed in Santa Barbara County Superior Court in August 2015 and removed to the federal district court in October. On Friday, Jan. 8, U.S. District Judge John F. Walter denied the motion, citing lack of timeliness and significant protectable interest.
Walter also noted in the denying order that the Chumash property “was classified as Indian land or a reservation as early as 1909,” when the department now known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs evaluated whether the land was subject to alcohol prohibition laws that were specific to Indian reservations.
Vincent Armenta, tribal chairman of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, declined to speak to the Sun but referred to his statement in a press release concerning the motion’s denial.
“Not only was this yet another frivolous lawsuit brought on by the local tribal opponents,” Armenta said in the release, “but it stands to undermine every land title that can be traced back to the Catholic Church.”
His statement further claimed the motion could have threatened other landowners in the Santa Ynez Valley rather than singling out the Chumash tribe.
However, Clark said that because the judgment in question only applied to a specific area, the motion would not have affected other landowners.
“The particular piece of property that they have their casino on is subject to a judgment, and no other piece of property in Santa Barbara County is similar to that,” he said. “Our case was very specific and pointed to the particular piece of property, not any other piece of property in California.”
Previously, Save the Valley had filed a complaint against the tribe for declaratory judgment and permanent injunction on the casino expansion project. A U.S. District Court approved the tribe’s motion to dismiss Save the Valley’s complaint in July.
The court based its dismissal on a lack of subject matter jurisdiction due to tribal sovereign immunity, as well as the tribe’s failure to join the United States, a necessary party to the case.
Save the Valley’s motion to intervene was an attempt to circumvent the court’s grounds for dismissal by using an existing case in which the United States and the Chumash tribe were already involved.
The motion reads: “By relying on sovereign immunity to create their very own ‘catch 22,’ the Indians have actually required Save the Valley to intervene. The United States and the Indians are already parties to this case; both the Indians and the United States submitted to this court’s jurisdiction and judgment as entered.”
However, the court may only grant intervention after judgment if the application is found to be “timely” under the circumstances. Save the Valley’s application failed to meet this requirement.
Judge Walter wrote that the motion was “not timely because it was filed more than 100 years after the entry of a final judgment in 1906.”
Clark maintains that because judgments don’t expire, the motion was sufficiently timely.
“Judgments don’t become stale,” he said. “Judgments are good, especially judgments which restrict land. The restriction on land continues forever.”
Clark added that Save the Valley will continue taking legal action to stop the casino expansion.
“Right now we’re looking at other avenues where we can achieve our goal,” he said, “and we’re also looking at whether we can appeal this decision or whether we can find a better avenue that’s more effective.”
This article appears in Jan 14-21, 2016.