Thoughts on Lytton
EDITOR: Our own local band of Pomo Indians are coming before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in the coming weeks. I expect the committee will make it’s recommendation to the full Senate to place the Lytton Tribe’s Windsor land holdings into trust, which means sovereign nation status like a state within a state.
A non-Indian developer working with the tribe suggested the town appear in Washington D.C., sort of waiting in the hall to advise the committee of the town’s position on the subject. Well, I beg ignorance as a sitting council member, I really don’t know the town’s position.
Years ago the tribe indicated they would pledge to finance an aquatic center in Keiser Park to the tune of $12 million in return for the town extending sewer and water to the tribes’ proposed 140 homes. As Windsor has a mandate that any extension of services outside its urban boundary has to be approved by a vote of the people, over time the pledge seems to have changed to a decision the tribe will make once their lands come into trust.
Does the town support or oppose the lands coming into trust? Some time ago the town did support the county’s agreement with the tribe, which included a prohibition of gaming like a casino anywhere north of Highway 12 in Santa Rosa.
Windsor was not a participant to that agreement and the agreement was very much based upon the then-completely accepted proposition that tribal status through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was inevitable. Well, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the tribe’s sovereign nation status with the BIA was not inevitable and basically has left the tribe with the path of House and Senate approval, hence the upcoming Senate Committee hearings.
I have always supported the Lyttons establishing a homeland in and adjacent to Windsor. There is little comparison with our actions against U.S. citizens of Japanese descent in World War II as the result of our inherent racism and the small reparations made for our acts and the atrocities against our Native Americans in America’s history.
I feel the only position the town can take is to ask the committee to hold the tribe to its commitment to the town to place the pledge of the aquatic center in return for water and sewer service on the ballot as a condition of tribal sovereignty and let us Windsor voters decide whether we wish to reach out and welcome the Lyttons to our community. I don’t see waiting in the hall of the Senate will do much to move the ball forward. Perhaps letters to the committee would be helpful.
Sam Salmon
Windsor
