Speculation has swirled over what the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians has in store for 1,390 acres at the northwest corner of highways 154/246 in Santa Ynez, but at a recent town hall held by the tribe, Tribal Chairman Vincent Armenta squelched rumors of a new casino.
“Absolutely not,” he told a crowd of around 200 people on Sept. 16 in the casino’s Samala Showroom. “We’re simply a tribal government developing tribal land for tribal people.”

The tribe’s town hall meeting was a response to another meeting just two weeks before, during which community groups discussed the tribe’s intention to place the agriculturally zoned parcel known as “Camp 4,” purchased from the estate of the late Fess Parker, into federal trust. Although the tribe now owns the property, it must secure the annexation through the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs or through federal legislation.

Should the tribe subsume the property into the reservation, it would exempt the land from local and state taxes and out of local regulatory control – a fact that has raised fears among many locals that the tribe might build an entertainment center or another project that is incompatible with the Valley’s rural character and becomes a drain on local services.

Armenta says the nearly 1,400-acre chunk of land– about 2 miles east of the casino and about 2 miles in size – will provide housing to ease overcrowding on the tribe’s 137-acre reservation and accommodate some of the aging population of roughly 1,300 tribal descendants living off the reservation, according to figures from the 2010 U.S. Census.

Speakers at the meeting included Armenta; former Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs Carl Artman; Bureau of Indian Affairs Pacific Region Assistant Director Kevin Bearquiver; senior associate at Analytical Environmental Services Chad Broussard; and All Mission Indian Housing Authority Executive Director Dave Schaffer.

Describing the acquired land as an “anchor” for the tribe, Armenta said “Across Santa Barbara County over the last 10 years, there has been discussion about changes of public policy, so the next generation of local families does not have to move away. This is exactly what we’re trying to address.”

“There’s no more land on our existing reservation for tribal housing,” he continued. “Tribal governments, particularly ones with successful economic self-determination programs like ours, have a moral obligation to our membership to acquire land for the long-term survival of our tribe.”

Schaffer said the existing homes “are in current need of expansion due to family-size composition changes and major renovation needs. This is a crucial component of the community planning and a sound vision for the reservation in the future.”

He and panelist Artman laid out several reasons why locals should support the tribe’s effort to place the Camp 4 property into trust. Oversight of tribal land development is the same as non-tribal land development, they contend.

Broussard, who works for the company that would conduct an Environmental Impact Study for BIA, explained the difference between the California Environmental Quality Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, the latter applying to plans or projects falling under federal, instead of state jurisdiction.
NEPA came about with the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and CEQA followed 9 months later. Both statues require comprehensive review of projects to examine their environmental consequences and are, Broussard noted, similar in nature and structure, but there are significant differences in how they work.

If the tribe pursues its plans under county and state regulations, it would be required to provide an environmental impact report to avoid impacts – even if mitigation is feasible. The report must show there are no significant environmental impacts through a “negative declaration” or identify the problems and propose ways to alleviate them.

On the contrary, NEPA provides comprehensive review of projects, but it does not require preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (similar to an EIR). Whereas CEQA requires the state to find ways to reduce or avoid environmental damages, NEPA allows a project to move forward with a statement of overriding considerations (the economic benefits may outweigh environmental impacts).

Although going through the federal process is more procedural and less substantive than the state statute, Broussard said the courts are more deferential to the federal agency, in this case the Bureau of Indian Affairs, when it rejects a proposed project. All things considered, the tribe would not fall under certain substantive measures as, say, a private developer would under CEQA.
This sparked a question from Larry Jett, whose family property rests just a few hundred feet from Camp 4.

“And after I purchased the property, I had to go through a process with the county to build our home,” he said during the question-and-answer session. “I don’t understand why, if you want to be a part of the community, why can’t you go through the same process that the rest of us go through?”
Jett and other critics of the tribe’s fee-to-trust endeavor say it should go the regular route, follow local zoning and building codes, pay local taxes and discuss any expansion plans with local leaders.

Armenta said the meeting was the tribe’s first step in fostering community dialogue and that the tribe is pursuing a federal tack because “it’s a matter of being under different governmental controls.”

Artman, director of the Tribal Economic Develpoment Program at Arizona State University College of Law, said oftentimes the NEPA process is more stringent because land or zoning commissions appointed by tribal governments occasionally disappoint development efforts.

“Environmental laws are stricter than county or federal government laws,” he contended. Artman, once a chairman of a tribe in Wisconsin, said he once oversaw the development of a wireless telephone company his tribe owned that bisected another tribe’s reservation. “Sometimes a tribe becomes another tribe’s worst enemy, because they really want to implement their laws well.”

Artman also reiterated an oft-repeated argument for the fee-to-trust approach: tribal sovereignty, which, though it has been undermined throughout history, has long been recognized by the U.S. and early European settlers.
It was on that note where Armenta challenged the contention that trust land is taken away from local government.

“The claim is not only factually wrong, but shows that individuals don’t understand tribal government,” he said. “Fee-to-trust is about returning lost land to the tribe and returning it to the local control to the one government that was in place long before the county and the cities of this community. So fee-to-trust really is local control.”

The panelists also stressed over and over that the major impetus of the Valley’s concerns were rooted in “lies” and “scare tactics,” and, as Artman put it, “opinions filled with vitriolic disdain, loathing and a lack of comprehension about history” that “remind me of that much more famous California editor William Randolph Hearst who told his photographers, ‘You supply the pictures, and I’ll supply the war.’”

Should the tribe secure the land into trust and propose a casino or some type of entertainment venue, the tribe, the Department of Interior, the National Indian Gaming Commission, and the state would all glom onto the venture, Artman stated, before adding, “And that’s just the beginning.”
Moreover, the jobs created by a new housing development would constitute “the ultimate local stimulus act,” he said.

Armenta told the crowd that though the reason for purchasing the property is for tribal housing, what ultimately becomes of Camp 4 is not a decision he will make, but a decision the tribe’s 140-member General Council will settle. Responding to a question about whether the tribe will build a sewage treatment plant, Armenta said “it’s difficult to say” because it’s early in the planning stages. He also said increased traffic would be mitigated by the tribe.

Al Segal, who owns a horse ranch and home near the property, wasn’t buying it. He told the Journal he expects a large housing development to double daily traffic and obliterate the views of the thoroughbred horse farms blanketing the area.
“This is all based on a big smoke screen. Six or seven years ago when they tried to make this deal with Fess Parker, it was well understood they wanted to put a hotel in, they wanted to put a golf course and a lot of homes,” he said. “The seeds of this deal started then. This isn’t new.”

“We’re going to be moving out of the Valley because they’re going to destroy that end,” he said. “The number of homes that they’re proposing will more than double the number of homes in that entire area.”
Segal’s wife, Orly, was just as frustrated with the tribe’s meeting. “This was supposed to be an open forum so we could put a lot of questions to bed,” she said. “There must have been 100 questions raised, and they answered five or six that have little to do with the concerns.”

Sam Cohen, the tribe’s government and legal representative, said the next step is a discussion of a cooperative agreement between the tribe and the county that is expected to be taken up by the county Board of Supervisors in the near future. The agreement asks the county to support and assist the tribe in its attempt to put the land into trust, in exchange for payments to compensate for any adverse environmental impacts a proposed project would have on the area.
Third District Supervisor Doreen Farr has publicly opposed the effort by the tribe to take the 1,400 acres into federal trust.