BANNING: Landowner calls Fields Road name change retaliation
A landowner says the changing of Field Road to Malki Road is related to his lawsuit over a gate on the road.  A guard shack and gate erected by the Morongo Indian tribe block Malki Road -- until recently known as Fields Road -- at a point where the reservation is on the east side of the road and the city of Banning is on the west. 

Property owner Lloyd Fields believes Banning’s decision to rename Fields Road was in retaliation for a lawsuit he filed against the city.
The city denies the name change was related to the lawsuit, as does the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, whose guard shack and gate on Fields Road is the target of the litigation.
The road was named Fields Road in 1959 for Fields’ father, who donated part of the land that became Fields Road. Part of the road forms a boundary between eastern Banning and the Morongo Reservation.
Lloyd Fields sued the city of Banning this year over the guard shack and gate, which the tribe erected several years ago. He claimed they are on a public portion of the road and block access to 41 acres he owned and wanted to develop. Fields wanted a judge to compel the city to remove the gate and guard shack.
Last week, the Banning City Council entertained a request from Morongo that the city change the name of Fields Road to Malki Road. Malki is the traditional Cahuilla Indian name for the land. There is a Malki Museum on the reservation.
According to a copy of a speech he made at that meeting, Fields told the council that if it was going to change the name, it should impose certain conditions on the tribe, one of them being the permanent removal of all barriers on the road.
He told the council he would withdraw his lawsuit and objections to the name change if those conditions were set.
The council approved Morongo’s request that it rename Fields Road Malki Road and did not set any conditions.
However, Morongo spokesman Michael Fisher said in an email Tuesday that at the request of the city, the Morongo Tribal Council has been reviewing its options regarding the gates, “which could include voluntarily moving our guard station and gates at the tribe’s own expense to further accommodate our neighboring landowner, Mr. Fields.”
In response to the allegation that the name change was in retaliation for Fields’ lawsuit, Fisher said, “This effort has been underway for quite some time and includes far more roads and signs than Fields Road.”
The tribe wants Cherry Valley Boulevard south of Interstate 10 in Beaumont renamed Tukwet Canyon Boulevard, and Apache Trail changed to Morongo.
Meanwhile, Banning attorneys say they are negotiating with Fields’ attorneys on settling the lawsuit over the guard shack. Earlier this year, Banning’s attorneys filed a motion with the court in which they claimed Morongo was an indispensible party to the case, and because the tribe was not named in the litigation, the lawsuit cannot go forward.
The judge agreed with the motion, according to Banning attorney Anthony Taylor. He said this got rid of most of the case but the court did not enter a final judgment, and this is when the parties began settlement discussions.
Taylor said he believes a settlement will be reached by the time everyone is due back in court on Nov. 18.
Fields said he wants to settle the matter and if it is not resolved to his satisfaction he is left with no choice but to try to unseat three of the five council members, whose terms are up in 2012.