Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted last week to oppose the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians taking 2.13 acres of land into federal trust.
The parcels make up the Mooney-Escobar properties, located south of Highway 246 and east of the Chumash Casino and Resort. Chumash Government Affairs Officer Sam Cohen said the tribe uses the Mooney parcel for ornamental landscaping, while Escobar houses a tribe-built bridge over Zanja De Cota Creek.
Cohen said the tribe is already responsible for land maintenance on Mooney-Escobar, and taking the parcels into federal trust would have helped smooth the process.
“It makes it easier to maintain the property, and it allows the tribe to better control access to the reservation,” he said.
The Chumash have also implemented a system to use reclaimed treated wastewater to irrigate landscaping on the property, under a permit from the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board.
“It’s part of the tribe’s water conservation strategy to replace all landscape watering with reclaimed water,” Cohen said. “We think the cumulative effect will save thousands of gallons of water.”
The Board of Supervisors made its vote in closed session on March 1. The movement was to direct county counsel to appeal the Feb. 16 Bureau of Indian Affairs decision, which stated intent to accept Mooney-Escobar into trust, to the Interior Board of Indian Appeals, and if needed the United States District Court.
The motion passed 3-2, with supervisors Janet Wolf, Doreen Farr, and Peter Adam voting yes and supervisors Salud Carbajal and Steve Lavagnino voting no.
The Board of Supervisors notified the Chumash tribe of its decision on March 3.
“We received no advanced notice from the county and we got no reason from the county,” Cohen said. “They’re not required to give their reasoning in a closed-session vote.”
This article appears in Mar 10-17, 2016.