The Dilemma of the California Valley Miwok Tribe

California Valley Miwok Tribe is essentially a landless tribe. All their tribal homelands are gone and the only land that they have as a tribal headquarters is a house in Stockton, California.

However, they face losing that tiny bit of land too, due to the Federal Government withholding the monies owed to the tribe.

Now, there appears to be a major dispute over the tribal leadership and membership. However, the failure to pay funds owed to the tribe is not the way to deal with internal disputes within a sovereign nation.

This is a very complex and disheartening read of the legal issues involved in both the election of the current leadership of the tribe as well as the involvement of the BIA. I agree that all members of the tribe should be involved in the administration of the tribe. But how can this happen if there's no funds available? We aren't talking about a rich tribe here, the California tribes have been impoverished for generations.

No matter which side you're on, this is an ugly situation.

It seems to me that very least that the Feds could do is to pay the mortgage on the property out of the gaming funds while the internal dispute is being resolved. Should it turn out that the membership of the entire tribe decides that the current tribal administration needs to be removed, then the tribe can decide if the funds should be reimbursed to the tribe by the current owners.

In the meantime, the current foreclosure is set for January 15th, 2010.

For details, check it out:
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=2009miwok-house (Note: I have no affiliation with this website, nor do I agree with all their political views.)
http://www.narf.org/nill/bulletins/dct/unreported/miwok.html
http://www.narf.org/nill/bulletins/cta/unreported/cavalleymiwok.pdf
http://turtletalk.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/calif-miwok-tribe-v-kempthorne.pdf