When the matter of county relations with the Chumash went before the supervisors this week, the supervisors already appeared stressed over missing binders from the previous hearing. After a tense meeting, the jaw-clenching subsided some when the supervisors unanimously moved to appoint supervisors Doreen Farr and Peter Adam to formally talk to tribal leaders about properties of interest and waiving their sovereign immunity.
On Tuesday, the angst peaked when the supervisors relived a June hearing of the Subcommittee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs in Washington, D.C., on a federal bill that would expedite Chumash annexation of Camp 4, the 1,400-acre ranch land in Santa Ynez Valley the tribe purchased in 2010.
At that hearing, subcommittee members essentially scolded the county’s CEO, Mona Miyasato, who represented the board, and ordered the county to go to the table with the tribe to talk as they would with another government entity like a city. “They are a sovereign nation. And for any institution in the United States not to recognize that is backward,” California Representative Raul Ruiz (D-Palm Desert) said in June.