LOLETA -- A recall drama pitting sister against sister has divided the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria in Loleta.

Tribe member Brenda Bowie said she has gathered enough signatures on a petition to force a recall election targeting two members of the Tribal Council.
One of them is her half sister, Aileen Bowie-Meyer, the council's secretary. The other is Margaret Thomas, the member at large.

Bowie says the five-person council, led by her half sister, has "stripped our tribe of everything."

This includes disbanding tribal boards and committees to concentrate control of the affairs of the 237-member tribe into just a few hands.

 
And the Tribal Council has imposed a moratorium on new enrollment in the tribe, preventing legitimate lineal descendants from receiving government checks and services, Bowie charged.

Bowie-Meyer said her half sister's motivation for the recall is to hang onto a house the Tribal Council has asked her to move out of.
Bowie, who works for Caltrans, earns too much money to qualify for housing on tribal land, Bowie-Meyer said.

The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has told the Tribal Council that Bowie can't live in or buy the house, Bowie-Meyer added. At stake is tens of thousands of dollars a year in housing money.

The dispute over the recall and how to proceed with it has prompted two emergency Tribal Council meetings in the past week.

 
Sheriff's deputies were called to the last one, Monday, to keep the peace.
Tribal Council Chairman James Moon said Bowie has failed to present the petition to the council at any of the meetings.

"All she's done is talk about it," he said.
This is true, Bowie said.

She said she has not allowed the Tribal Council to see the petition because she does not want her half sister to retaliate against those who signed it.
Because the Tribal Council disbanded the tribe's election board, Bowie said, three members of the tribe have volunteered to form one.
This ad hoc board will review the petition at a meeting sometime within the next two weeks, Bowie said.

If this board decides the petition contains the signatures of at least 45 percent of the voting population of the tribe -- required under the tribal constitution -- it will authorize the printing of recall ballots that will be mailed to members, Bowie said.
Bowie said she hopes her half sister will resign before it comes to that.
"We're all related out here," she said. "There is going to be really bad blood."