Court Sides with Scotts Valley Tribe in Vallejo Casino Dispute
In the ever-confusing game of California Tribal politics where internecine legal warfare is just a typical Thursday, the Scott’s Valley Tribe convinced a Federal Court in Washington, D.C., to uphold the trust status of their potential casino site.
The Scotts Valley Tribe is closer to opening a casino in Vallejo CA. © Marco Ribbe, Unsplash
Key Facts:
- The Scotts Valley Tribe would very much like to build a $700 million casino in Vallejo.
- However, other tribes and DOI cite their lack of a historical connection to the area.
- A decision late in the Biden administration gave this Patwin tribal land to the Pomos.
- This is despite three previous instances where DOI denied the same trust designation.
Before Columbus arrived in the Americas, it’s estimated that as many as a third of all indigenous peoples made their home in California.
These golden shores were rich in arable land, easily sourced fish and game, and hundreds, if not more, microclimates where different bands of tribal people could live in somewhat smaller groups amidst relative abundance.
We mention this history lesson to explain why there are more than 100 federally recognized tribes in the state, with more applying for recognition almost every month.
While the tribes were never much larger than a few hundred members, to begin with, disease, Spanish missionaries, and miners all did their very worst to reduce this number even further.
The Federally recognized Augustine Band of the Cahuilla Indians had only seven members when first recognized by the Federal government, while the Yurok and Karuk Tribes, with more than 6,000 members, are the most populous.
However, most California tribes range from several dozen to a few hundred enrolled members. Tracking the historical movements and ancestral lands of tribes that left very little permanent behind can be extremely difficult.
In this case, however, the Scotts Valley Tribe of Pomo Indian’s historical ties are not some contested tribal warfare or natural disaster that forced the Tribe out of some ancestral land hundreds of years before white settlers arrived.
Quite the opposite. The Scott’s Valley Tribe lived for hundreds, if not thousands, of years in the area, almost 100 miles from Vallejo, in Clear Lake, California.
The Federal government recognized the Tribe and its homelands in the Clear Lake region in 1851, although a reservation and treaty were never subsequently ratified by the US Senate.
The Tribe was driven off its land, and some members were forced to work for General Vallejo and his brother in the Bay area in the 1830s and 1840s.
The Tribe has used this rather tenuous historical context to attempt to wrestle 22 acres near I-80 and the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom site in Solano County into a reservation.
The Tribe has also been accused of reservation shopping in the past by other tribes, including the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation and the Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation.
They point out a 2015 agreement between the Scotts Valley Pomo and a Las Vegas-based management group that examined land in Sonoma and Napa counties and the land finally selected in Vallejo for suitability for a casino project.
The Department of the Interior turned down the Tribe’s Fee to Trust (FTT) application in 2012 for a site in Richmond, California, some 12 miles from their current request, citing a lack of historical continuity.
In 2016, they applied for a site in Vallejo but were again rejected by the DOI. They filed a third time in 2017 and were turned away again in 2019 due to a lack of clear tribal roots in the region once more.
The Tribe finally filed suit against the DOI and was granted a 2022 ruling by the D.C. District Court that the case should be sent back to the Department for further review.
Then, on January 10th, just one day before resigning, Wizipan Garriott, the Principal Deputy Assistant Director at DOI, signs the decision approving the Scotts Valley casino site.
This leads the new administration to seek further review and rescind, at least temporarily, DOI’s approval after the somewhat salacious details of the last-minute approval and resignation become public knowledge.
On April 1st, the Scotts Valley Tribe filed suit with its old ally, the US District Court for the District of Columbia, in hopes of quashing this reconsideration.
This brings us to this week’s decision by the Court to toss out attempts by the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, and United Auburn Indian Community to impede the Scott’s Vally Tribes’ plans to build a casino on the site due to their lack of standing, and further confirming that the land is still held in trust status.
While this week’s ruling doesn’t resolve the question of historical tribal ties, it firmly affirms the federal government’s authority to hold the Vallejo land in trust.
That makes it significantly harder for rival tribes to block the project outright and signals that, barring another bureaucratic reversal, Scotts Valley’s $700 million casino plan may finally have its day.
In the opaque chess match amongst California tribal gaming operators, this move puts the Scotts Valley Tribe of Pomo Indians one step closer to breaking ground near Six Flags and I-80, ancestral home or not.
