The Windsor, California town council last week rejected putting a measure n the ballot to allow voters to express themselves on a proposed agreement with the Lytton tribe that would allow the tribe to build a housing project on Indian land in exchange for building the town a swimming pool.
Instead the council voted to ask the tribe to collect signatures to put the measure on the ballot.
Council member Sam Salmon declared, “I just see it as a morass. I see it as fertile ground for litigation.”
The tribe has said its willing to negotiate the size of a future hotel and winery that it wants to locate on the property, along with how much of the land that it owns it will ask the federal government to put into trust, making it reservation land and not subject to local taxation.
The council has undergone considerable criticism for dealing with the tribe over the issue, which has been a local hot button for several days. Many residents consider the negotiations to be a betrayal.
The tribe has also been negotiating with Sonoma County to possibly amend the agreement between the tribe and county so that the tribe can build the hotel and winery, in exchange for the tribe’s promise that it won’t build a casino.
The tribe’s plans to build on property that is home for more than 1,500 oak trees, most of which would be cut, has evoked considerable outrage.
The Lytton Band of Pomos once had a rancheria near Healdsburg. For years it has dreamed of a tribal homeland in Windsor. It has been able to use proceeds from its San Pablo Lytton Casino near San Francisco to fund its land purchases. The casino is about 60 miles from the proposed trust land. Six year ago the tribe applied to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to put 124 acres into trust.
A year ago the County signed an agreement not to oppose that request in exchange for the tribe agreeing not to seek a casino there. Rep. Jared Huffman has introduced a bill in Congress (H.R.2538, the Lytton Rancheria Homelands Act) that would put the land into trust with that stipulation.
