LOLETA -- The recall election people are talking about in these parts has nothing to do with the governor or the District Attorney.

The Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria will vote soon on a recall of two members of its tribal council -- a dispute involving two half-sisters who live just down the street from each other on the 60-acre parcel these Native Americans call home.

The tribal council was expected to hold a meeting Wednesday so that the recall petition could be handed over to a representative of the League of Women Voters, which has been asked to handle the election.

Brenda Bowie, the recall's main proponent, alleges that her half-sister, Aileen Meyer, and Meyer's fellow tribal council member, Margaret Thomas, Bowie's niece, have overstepped their power by abolishing committees and changing the tribal enrollment procedures.

"It's disbanding the entire way the tribe runs its operations," Bowie said.
On the flip side, Meyer denies any power-grabbing and maintains that Bowie started the recall after the tribal council decided she made too much money to stay in her low-rent tribal house -- one of 19 homes on the tribe's land off Singley Road in Loleta.

"That's what sparked it off," Meyer said. "In 1997, the tribe got a grant from HUD [the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development]. That grant specifically stated it was for low-income people to receive that housing."
Bowie was allowed to move in temporarily at $250 a month, at a time when she was in transition between homes, even though her Caltrans job put her above the income limit. (Her rent has since been doubled.)
The trouble is, she never left.

The council determined that Bowie could buy the three-bedroom house if she wanted (but not the land, held in trust by the tribe). However, they said the sale would require a vote of all 237 members of the tribe, most of whom are scattered outside the Loleta property. Bowie opposes such a vote.
Meanwhile, HUD has told the tribe it must resolve the status of Bowie's house soon, Meyer said. She said future grants, like one slated for development of a 33-unit apartment complex in Fortuna, depend on it.

"If we lose that money, those apartments will not be built," she said.
Complicating matters is a dispute over a casino that the tribe hoped to build. Construction actually started on a site, but stalled after the project hit a legal snag involving the title of the property. The tribe was left with a $3 million debt to investors.

According to Meyer, the debt is the fault of the previous administration -- which includes Bowie, who served as tribal chairperson.
Bowie said she had nothing to do with the casino -- and, in fact, resigned from her position when the project started.

Now, Bowie said, Meyer has alienated tribal members by notifying them that it is their responsibility to pay back the $3 million -- at a cost of about $8,000 a piece.
"The money was mismanaged completely, and now look at us," Bowie said.
For tribal members, the whole thing reeks of corruption.

"There's some crazy things going on up here," said Leslie Bowie Sr., 37, a nephew of Brenda Bowie and Meyer. "We started a pad out there [for the casino], then the backers backed out for some reason. How hard is it to get an investor in here? There's some bad business going on somewhere. Somebody getting paid off."

Like Californians who cringe at the attention the governor's recall has brought to the "fruit and nut" state, tribal members -- including Meyer and Bowie -- expressed regret that outsiders had heard about their internal squabble.
"The whole future depends on the tribe doing their economic development," Meyer said. "The things that come out in the papers make it look bad, that the tribal council can't run the business. You should keep your dirty laundry at home."