Some members of the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians - operators of the Soboba Casino and host of big-name acts at its outdoor pavilion - want to throw out the results of the tribe's latest election and hold a new one, tribal members and ex-employees said.

The faction of tribal members plans to present a petition at today's general membership meeting calling for the invalidation of the March election, when voters seated two new council members and re-elected Chairman Robert Salgado. His family has served in tribal leadership for years, and Salgado has been chairman for much of the past 28 years.

Some tribal members question whether the election was conducted properly and complain about multiple employee firings and resignations they say have taken place at the casino and elsewhere since the new council took office.
 
Mark Zaleski / The Press-Enterprise
Bingo is one of many games offered at Soboba Casino, which has aided the tribe financially. The tribe has casino-expansion plans.

If successful, the effort would invalidate the election of three council members and members of the health and school boards, said Scott Cozart, a former council member and ex-bingo manager who signed the petition.

Tribal members who signed the petition believe there were inconsistencies in the election, including the destruction of the ballots afterward, he said. He declined to offer specifics about what problems may have occurred in the election.

Cozart said he did not know how many of the tribe's 453 voting members signed the petition. According to tribal rules, the petition requires signatures of 30 percent of the voting members to be valid, he said.

Becky Salgado Flores, one of the newly elected council members, said she doesn't think the tribe's constitution allows the election to be done over, although she said members can attempt to recall individual councilpersons for problems such as misconduct.

"I know that there were some people that were unhappy. Our tribe has never had a re-election because we didn't like the people who won," she said. "The people, I suppose, have the right to speak. There are no provisions to have this invalidated."

Power struggles
Flores, who is the chairman's niece, said she doesn't want to see her tribe get mired in the kind of election disputes that have divided many other tribes. As far as she knows, Flores said, the tribe's election committee handled the election properly and signed off on the results. She did not have information on what happened to the ballots.

Power struggles and debates over priorities have led to leadership disagreements elsewhere. A hotly disputed effort to oust more than 100 Pechanga members has spilled over into a July 17 election that will decide whether four-term Chairman Mark Macarro continues to lead the Temecula-area tribe.

In the 1990s, tribal leaders among the Cahuilla Band of Mission Indians near Anza opened a casino despite opposition from dissident members, who said the tribal government did not have the authority to represent the tribe in financing arrangements. The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs recognized the pro-casino leaders as the legal authority for the tribe.

No one from Soboba has asked the bureau to get involved in the election, said Frances Muncy with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The bureau sent a letter to the tribe May 3 acknowledging the election's outcome and recognizing Salgado as chairman, Flores as vice chairwoman and Maurice Mojado as council member, she said.

Salgado and Mojado did not return phone calls.
These kinds of leadership disputes frequently center on power and ego as members struggle to control their tribe's direction, said Laura Wass with the American Indian Movement, an advocacy group. Wass has monitored tribal disputes statewide from her Fresno office. She was unfamiliar with the Soboba case.

are to be the power of the tribe. The councils are not supposed to dictate anything. They only represent," she said. "One of the largest traditions in Indian culture is not to have ego and to do good for the whole. ... The things that a lot of these councils are doing now is - it's not the Indian way."

Plans and disputes
The Soboba battle comes as the tribe and local governments discuss plans for a hotel and second casino in the area, as well as other proposed ventures, including improving road access to the existing casinos and purchasing a large lighted sign for the casino. The tribe also hopes to get Congress to make 128 acres in Winchester, acquired as part of a legal settlement with the Metropolitan Water District, part of the Soboba reservation.

 
The tribe has been a frequent donor to political campaigns, athletic programs and community organizations. The Hemet Public Library received a $400,000 donation last year, and football programs at area high schools have benefited from the tribe's largesse. The tribe became the first one to open a Veterans of Foreign Wars post on its reservation earlier this year, and Noli Indian School serves sixth- through 12th-graders from a number of tribes.

The tribe also is notorious for its internal strife, including a bloody feud among multiple factions in the 1980s that left several people dead and prompted intervention from a U.S. Justice Department mediator. Sheriff's deputies conducted tight security on the reservation and searched vehicles entering and leaving. Robert Salgado at that time was among those calling on people to refrain from violence.

A nonviolent dispute erupted in 2002 when the tribe prohibited motocross promoters from holding an event on the reservation after two members allowed the track to be built there. Tribal officials said they never gave permission for Ernest Salgado Sr. and Ernie Salgado Jr. to open the track. The elder Salgado is the father of Chairman Salgado, and Ernie Salgado Jr. is the brother of the chairman and the father of Becky Salgado Flores.

In the latest shakeup, many of the complaints about the tribal leadership seem to be centered on the resignations or firings of tribal and casino employees. The tribal administrator, casino spokesman and education director all have left since the election. Other casino staffers have been laid off, ex-employees say, although most signed confidentiality agreements that prohibit them from being quoted.

 
Reach Michelle DeArmond at (909) 368-9441 or mdearmond@pe.com