Open Letter to State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson
Santa Barbara County government and Santa Ynez Valley residents are making every effort to accommodate the Chumash Tribe’s stated objective of 143 houses and a tribal center. At the same, we hoped that the tribe, as our neighbors, would accept the basics of land use in the valley and, as important, agree to pay the costs created by its intended development.
In February, as the county and tribal staffs were discussing ways to resolve the problems generated by the tribe’s “fee to trust” plan for Camp 4, the tribe sponsored in the California State legislature AB 653. As introduced, the bill freed California tribes from property taxes once an “application” was filed with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to take a property into trust.