Residents near the Morongo Reservation protest in Riverside about what they feel are unfair moves by the tribe to remove the residents from non-tribal land.   

Lloyd Fields, 73, is all business when it comes to dealing with land entitlements to spin a chunk of property into gold — with one exception.

The Beverly Hills executive wants to develop 41 acres west of the $250 million Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, but he says he can't because the only road leading to it is blocked by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians' guard shack.
Fields takes this barrier personally. His family has owned the land for 55 years, he said.

And the road — with the Morongo Reservation on one side and the Fields Triangle on which he wants to build 146 houses and duplexes on the other — was named after his father, who built it in 1959.

Fields has filed a lawsuit against the city of Banning, whose legal counsel could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Fields also put up a billboard along Interstate 10 to promote the website www.morongolandgrab.com to call attention to his plight.

On Thursday, he forked over cash to mount a full-fledged protest.
“It's time to expose this land-grab and give due consideration to non-Indian property owners,” Fields said in the protest he staged with Stand Up for California outside the Riverside County Superior Courthouse in Riverside.
Fields' lawyer, Rick Friess, said the city of Banning has filed a motion to have the case dismissed, arguing that the tribe is an indispensable party to the lawsuit.
“Without the tribe as a party to the litigation,” Friess said, the city has maintained they cannot act. “We can't bring in the tribe because it has sovereign immunity.”
Michael Fisher, a spokesman for the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, said Thursday that Fields' situation is a legal issue that will be resolved between the city of Banning and Fields.
“The tribe is not a party to the lawsuit and has not been served, and Mr. Fields' attorney has never been in contact with our attorney,” Fisher said.
As for access to Fields' property, Fisher said all Fields has to do is show identification. That's what all visitors are required to do, Fisher said
Other protesters cite similar issues
Nearly 100 protesters, including other “disenfranchised” property owners who live near the Soboba Indian Reservation near San Jacinto and on the west bank of the Colorado River near Blythe, joined Fields on Thursday.
They carried signs that accused some tribes of citing tribal sovereignty under the fee-to-trust system to take their land or property and, in some cases, evict them.
Under the fee-to-trust system, land is transferred, often from individual tribal members' property, to the U.S. government, which sets it aside for the use of a particular tribe.
They said tribes in California are using their financial resources from gaming and their growing political power to take away the rights — and in some cases the land — of non-Indian private property owners.
Indian tribes, citing sovereignty as a nation, are looking to expand their sphere of influence and size of their reservation through fee-to-trust land practices that infringe upon their private property rights, the protesters said.
Cheryl Schmit, a director of Stand Up For California, said California tribes have about 137 fee-to-trust applications pending before the Bureau of Indian Affairs affecting more than 15,000 acres of state lands that have never been in reservation status.
In Banning, eight applications totaling 682 acres are pending. Along the Colorado River, about 17 miles of state lands are in dispute, Schmit said.
The Colorado River Indian Tribes, which might view the California side of the river as the more lucrative spot to put a casino, have maintained this land is theirs, while Schmit says documents show the property is still considered to be part of the state.
In Hemet, where the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians hope to build a replacement casino hotel, two applications to acquire land into trust are pending. If approved, Schmit said, three islands of residents will live within the Soboba reservation.
“Citizens are caught in the middle,” Schmit said.
Ray Smith, a spokesman for Riverside County, said the fee-to-trust situations are an issue over federal jurisdiction.
Soboba spokesman Mike Hiles said concerns voiced by residents living near the Soboba reservation are in the hands of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The tribe is participating wholeheartedly in the process, he said, and is aware of the comments that have been made and are recorded to lessen the impact of the proposed casino.
Fields' case is in the hands of a Riverside County judge who has been asked to issue an order to remove the Morongo tribal barriers from the west side of Fields road.
“If they did that, we could create two 10-foot-wide lanes, one running north and one running south, to create access to my property,” he said. “I've offered to reimburse Banning for all expense to remove the Morongo barriers.”
Like the road, Fields said, “I'm caught in the middle.”