Tribe members from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians have elected Kenneth Kahn as their new tribal chairman, following Vincent Armenta’s mid-term resignation from the position.
Kahn, 39, was nominated for chairman at the tribe’s April 12 general meeting and later voted into the position via absentee ballots.
“I’m honored by the tribe’s vote of confidence,” he told the Sun. “I wouldn’t be able to do this or be able to get the support that I have today without the opportunity to work with all the tribal leaders in the last 13 years that I’ve been on the business committee.”
Kahn said his interest in tribal leadership was sparked at age 19, and he was first elected into a tribal leadership position at age 25, making him the youngest person to serve on the tribe’s business committee.
Now, as chairman, Kahn is responsible for overseeing the tribal government’s daily operations.
“That’s a shared responsibility with my colleagues, the business committee,” he said. “Our tribe is a very direct democracy. We communicate regularly with our tribal members, with our community. I guess the primary emphasis I would have is communicating and educating and collaborating.”
The most important issues he and other business committee members will face in the foreseeable future surround education and housing, he said.
“I think education, just plain and simple, is a big opportunity for us,” Kahn said.
And as far as housing goes, the tribe currently counts on 140 acres of land for housing its members.
“We have no room for housing our tribal community members, so that’s going to be the biggest issue moving forward,” he said. “We can’t provide for our community if we can’t give them access to our government services.”
That’s the motivation behind the tribe’s attempts to take Camp 4, which comprises 1,400 acres of land in the Santa Ynez Valley, into federal trust. From September 2015 to March 2016, tribal leaders met with representatives from the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors to negotiate terms with the county should the federal government take the land into trust.
The meetings were suspended in March, after which Armenta announced his resignation. When the negotiations resume later this year, Kahn will head the Chumash’s side of things.
“I hope that we continue the progress,” Kahn said of the meetings. “We look forward to continuing communications with the county. We come in with an open mind. I just hope representatives from the county perspective also come in with the same kind of openness.”
Kahn will carry out the remainder of Armenta’s term, which ends in March 2017. Elections will take place every two years, and incumbents face no term limit.
The election results leave Kahn’s previous position as vice chairman vacant. He said the tribe will nominate a replacement at its general meeting on May 17, and the new vice chairman would be voted in by early June to carry out the remainder of Kahn’s term, which also ends in March 2017.
This article appears in May 5-12, 2016.