Lake County tribe suing Department of Interior on 2nd review

FAIRFIELD — The Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians has filed a lawsuit to stop the Department of Interior from reviewing its own decision approving a Vallejo gaming project. The lawsuit for an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order against the federal agency was filed on Tuesday. “This is a shameful decision,” Scotts Valley Chairman Shawn Davis said in a statement.

"We will not allow bureaucrats trample our sovereignty or destroy the opportunities we have fought decades to secure. This land is ours. The law is on our side.



And we will see the Department of the Interior in court.” Davis added, “This is like trying to replay a football game after the final whistle has blown and the score has been posted. We won.

The process is over. We shouldn’t have to replay the game because others don’t like the outcome.” The Department of Interior on March 27 issued a letter indicating its intention to review its Jan.

10 determination. That letter also stated that the land in question – 160.33 acres near westbound Interstate 80 at the Highway 37 connector – would remain in trust.

"The department’s unilateral reversal, based on the submission of materials by a competitor tribe, disrespects the sovereignty of the Scotts Valley Band and is inconsistent with law and appropriate process," Davis said in a prior statement. The Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation and Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation recently sued the federal agency over its January decision. Those tribes contend that the land is in their ancestral territory.

They argued that the Department of Interior, in approving the gaming determination, was sloppy in its decision-making. “For more than a year, we have requested that the Department of the Interior establish a fair, transparent, fact-based decision-making process in which all tribes can participate on equal footing. It’s hard to know why the Biden Administration refused to follow these basic principles, but we’re glad the incoming administration is committed to getting it right.

This is about more than just a single project. It is about ensuring all tribal voices are honored and heard,” Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation Chairman Anthony Roberts has said. “Nothing is more important than our ancestral homelands,” Roberts added, “and to see them stripped away without consultation by the Biden Administration was extremely painful.

We applaud Secretary (Doug) Burgum for beginning the process to right that wrong, and we look forward to working with him to ensure our lands and cultural resources are protected for generations to come.”.