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Thread: There goes Blythe-

  1. #1
    hbhallett
    Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) Threatens to Evict Waterfront Residents
    By HOWARD MARKLE
    The Desert Independent
    February 16, 2004
    BLYTHE, CA – Recently, letters have been written by the board of directors of West Bank Homeowners Association to its members; to Capt. Dan Ison, Riverside County Sheriffs Department; and Roy Wilson, Riverside County Supervisor, expressing fear that members face eviction from their homes located in what's known as the Colorado River Disputed Area, more particularly "Paradise Point". The association has reason to believe that their landlord, the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT), is about to evict all residents in this and other river-front locations. This area has been disputed, as to ownership, for many years; however, residents who live there pay rent to the Tribe. Residents have an occupancy permit issued by the Tribe and rent is paid based on the amount of water frontage. Residents claim that the Tribe has no right to evict them, epically without due process. Some residents rent from holders of the permits, a kind of sub-let.
    Members were advised last September to remove all personal property from their residences in order "to prepare for the worst". The second paragraph of the latest letter, dated February 9, 2004 reads, "The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to make a decision February 20, 2004, on whether the court will hear our case, with an announcement to follow Monday, February 23. Since the Supreme Court hears less than 10% of cases submitted, it is unlikely that they will hear our case. If the Supreme Court decides not to hear the case, we will have no current legal challenge to CRIT jurisdiction in the disputed area."
    Some letters supplied to us here at The Desert Independent, dated February 20, 2004, are form-letters addressed to Sheriff Bob Doyle asking him to enforce the law against unlawful eviction. Residents are fearful of an abrupt and unlawful eviction that might include an attempt to destroy or confiscate their personal property. The dispute remains unresolved because of "the Tribe's invocation of their sovereign immunity." If an attempted eviction is based on a "citizen's arrest", the Sheriff's department will receive phone calls from residents requesting assistance. Letter-writers are living under permits issued by CRIT and that an eviction must be carried out by due process (Public Law 280), which means obtaining a court order. If a judicial remedy fails, residents ask the Sheriff to enforce the law. Since the Sheriff has not responded to letters written by the association, each resident and permitee is asked by the association to send a letter to the Sheriff, a letter-writing campaign as such. A sentence from one Association letter reads, "Therefore, due to his mute stance, we do not expect the Sheriff to uphold the law." The letter further warns residents to remove all personal possessions such as vehicles, boats, PWC's, and quads; it also reminds residents of the actions taken last year by the Chemehuevi at Havasu when a federal judge ruled against the residents.
    We wonder if issues like this are causes for Blythe’s apparent dysfunction. The once-meandering Colorado River that created boundary disputes and water dispensing problems just might be enough of a deterrent for those who might wish to settle here; the Colorado is not likely to jump its banks again unless a dam fails, but the disputes over land and water continue. Will our farms go the way of the orange groves, and are we ready for some big-time recreation, golfin' and gamblin'? Or should we just leave things as they are, relatively unattractive to the untrained eye?

  2. #2
    hbhallett
    Trailer owners evicted
    In November 2000, the Indians gave Booth and 40 other trailer owners at Red Rooster tribal eviction notices, even though they didn't have a California court order to evict anybody except Booth. "The tribe showed up with four carloads of CRIT tribal police, four carloads of Riverside County sheriff's deputies and a federal BIA investigator who told me, 'You're out of here'," Booth said.
    Riverside County Assistant Sheriff Gayle Janes said his officers were at Red Rooster in November 2000 to keep the peace -- not enforce the tribe's evictions. "Tensions were very high on both sides," he said. "I don't believe a tribal appeals process was ever offered to these people at all." Janes added: "It's like being in a separate country: If the tribal court evicts people, that's none of our business."
    Then, on a rainy day the following January, about 20 trailers that hadn't been towed out or were cemented down -- including Booth's -- were bulldozed and set on fire, Booth said. The fiberglass rooster was found dangling upside down over the river.
    Today, all that's left of Red Rooster is a row of rusting metal trailer beds and a massive mound of concrete, broken glass and debris: vacuum cleaner parts, a sneaker, a recliner, a rusty bike, a water heater.
    "That was my income, my livelihood, my only home," said Booth, touring the wreckage. "It tore a lot of people apart. They were firemen, electricians, truck drivers. ... They'd water ski, fish, do their barbecuing, drink a little beer, relax. No dopers, no prison people, just good solid American people."
    The Indians had lived on the river for centuries before the white man came and built the series of dams that ruined it, said Russell Welsh, the 70-year-old vice chairman of the 3,500-member reservation.
    "Before the taming of the Colorado this reservation was a utopia, a paradise where you could gather herbs and basket-making material, fish and game," he said. "The river's been like a mother to us, and it's been abused, it's been polluted, everybody's fighting for it."
    The Mohaves, largest of the four CRIT tribes, call themselves Aha Makavi, "People of the River," Welsh said. The west bank includes several of their sacred sites, he said.
    Priscilla Eswonia, a Mohave elder, remembers swimming in the river alongside giant salmon when she was a girl. Her uncle, a Mohave deer singer, told her the Indians originally came from the Pacific Ocean. "Our creator put the river down here for us to live," Eswonia said. "That's how all our songs begin."
    The tribe gets along fine with the many west bank tenants who abide by their leases, according to Welsh. But, he said, "There's some radicals that don't want to cooperate. I think we have every right to say 'yah-hey, get off my land.' "
    "We don't want to fight those people, but they're trying to make us losers," he added.
    Judge's ruling stuns residents
    The west bank residents feel CRIT has an unfair monetary edge over them: The tribe gets $1 million a year from California casino tribes for being a "non-gaming tribe" in this state, yet operates the Blue Water Casino Resort on the east bank of the river, in Parker, Ariz. That may change soon, however. CRIT plans to build a casino on the California side of the river.
    Some 400 west bank tenants joined forces and raised more than $300,000 to fight the Indians in court. Last fall, U.S. District Judge John Walter ruled that because the Indians have sovereign immunity he wouldn't even consider the legality of the evictions, or the tenants' claim that the Indians don't own the land.
    The ruling stunned the residents. "It's unfair for the tribe to hide behind sovereign immunity to maintain control of property they don't own," said weekender Tim Moore, noting that a judge appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court had found in 1993 that the land belonged to California, not the tribe.
    "If you took the (2002) federal ruling to its absurd extreme, the Colorado River Indian Tribes could erect a toll booth on the Golden Gate Bridge and could not be removed because they have sovereign immunity," said attorney Dennis Whittlesey, who represents the tenants. "If they can go one mile beyond reservation land claiming sovereignty, can't they go 500 miles? Where does it stop?"
    Where sovereignty stops is being debated not just on the west bank, but in Congress. Sen. Dan Inouye, D-Hawaii, recently said Indian tribes at the least "should be as sovereign as any state in the union" and said he will push for a bill giving them control of all law enforcement on tribal lands.
    Jacob Coin, a Hopi Indian who is director of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association, argues that tribes already are more sovereign than states, and always have been. "If you allowed even one state law to govern tribal lands, a huge chunk of tribal sovereignty would be destroyed. Our founding fathers said the United States didn't give them sovereignty, the Creator gave it to them."
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  3. #3
    mike37
    **** the Indians

  4. #4
    Kilrtoy
    **** the Indians
    I think a Famous general said that too,
    I believe it was Custard

  5. #5
    mike37
    Originally posted by Kilrtoy
    **** the Indians
    I think a Famous general said that too,
    I believe it was Custard isent custard a desert

  6. #6
    riverbound
    We took their land once.....lets do it again
    Thank god for deeded land
    http://www.***boat.com/image_center/...cs_031-med.jpg

  7. #7
    mmered8299
    I cant wait to roost those feather head, alcholic, no working, leachin bumbs. I'll cut across the wake and lay down a nice spray big enough to swamp their canoe!

  8. #8
    totenhosen
    That is why I would never buy/lease land on a Indian reservation or in Mexico.

  9. #9
    jackpunx
    This is freaking amazing... These guys evicted a whole group of people because they thought we were polluting the land.. Burned and dozed the land.. And left it just like that for almost 10 years now.. Its the ****ing mafia.. With all the money they get from the casinos.. They don’t even take care of their own people..
    I might be out of left field on this one.. but it sounds like the Indians out there think we are there bitches.. And do stupid shit every now and then to prove it..

  10. #10
    mmered8299
    Soon they will be taking over the Marinas and then not allowing anybody on the their water.

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