Two Santa Ynez Valley community groups have filed their opening brief arguing the merits of their case against the federal government in a challenge to an effort by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians to expand their reservation.

Preservation of Los Olivos (POLO) and Preservation of Santa Ynez (POSY) announced the filing Thursday related to a 2008 decision against the U.S. Department of the Interior regarding a Chumash application for a 6.9-acre property across Highway 246 from the tribe’s Santa Ynez casino.

Tribal spokeswoman Frances Snyder had no comment on the announcement.

The process of making private property part of a Native American reservation is officially known as “fee to trust.”

The 56-page document, filed Feb. 8, argues the groups’ standing to seek an appeal of the Interior Department’s fee-to-trust ruling and challenges the constitutional authority of the secretary of the interior — using recent Supreme Court rulings — to remove any land from state jurisdiction through the fee-to-trust process. The text also contends that the Chumash tribe is not a tribal government.

Kathy Cleary, POLO board president, said the filing is significant in that it is one of the first times — if not the first time — that a citizens group has been able to argue the merits of its case to the Interior Board of Indian Appeals (IBIA).

She also said federal courts are now involved in overseeing what the IBIA does.

The next step in the process is for the government to submit a reply by March 22 to the POLO/POSY filing, Cleary said in a telephone interview Friday.

Unless the government seeks an extension, the appellants will have a chance to respond to those papers by the following month.

On July 9, 2008, U.S. District Court Judge A. Howard Matz’s ruling in Los Angeles found the fee-to-trust process flawed and supported citizens’ rights to appeal.

The Chumash tribe has said it plans to develop a cultural center and museum, a retail building and a park on its 6.9-acre property across the highway from the Chumash Casino Resort.

The fee-to-trust process removes land from local jurisdiction and places it under tribal authority. The sovereign tribal land then becomes exempt from local and state taxes and local planning and zoning laws.

Annexation of the land was approved by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs in January 2005, and the approval was appealed by plaintiffs POLO, POSY, Santa Ynez Concerned Citizens and Women’s Environmental Watch of the Santa Ynez Valley in May 2005.