- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
Robinson Rancheria tribal members convene meeting to void constitution, kick out tribal council
CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – After four years of strife resulting from overturned or delayed elections and the disenrollments of dozens of tribal members, a majority of the members of the Robinson Rancheria Band of Pomo decided they had had enough.
Meeting on Sunday afternoon at Elem Colony in Clearlake Oaks, tribal members acted, in their words, to take back control of their tribe by kicking out the sitting council, installing a new one and voiding the tribal government structure.
“It just shows that we're all fed up,” said EJ Crandell, who by meeting's end would find himself among the newly elected council members.
According to the organizers of the Sunday meeting, based on Bureau of Indian Affairs guidelines and the tribe's own constitution, approximately 75 enrolled members – or 51 percent of the tribal roll – needed to take part in the voting to make it valid.
Of the close to 100 people present, it was determined that 79 enrolled members were present, clearing the way for them to move forward on a slate of 12 resolutions.
And move they did, swiftly voting unanimously to nullify a 31-year-old tribal constitution and removing from power the sitting tribal council, which includes Chair Tracey Avila and members Curtis Anderson Jr., Michelle Monlo, Kim Fernandez, Stoney Timmons and Nick Medina.
“It's a new world. It's a new path,” said Clayton Duncan, who was elected the interim tribal chair.
Along with Duncan, the new interim council will include Bruce White, Nathan Solario, Monty Orozco, Rosita Anderson and Crandell, a slate accepted as part of the agendized resolutions.
The new council will spend the next 90 days working to get the tribe's operations back up and running, appointing new committees and setting up an election for permanent officers.
“We're going to go in there and work,” said Duncan, who has experience as a former council member.
Part of the goal will be to investigate the tribe's finances.
Members of the new council alleged at the meeting that late last week Avila had $2.3 million removed from the vaults of the tribe's casino in Nice and put into the care of the tribe's attorney, Lester Marston of Ukiah.
Computers and other equipment also were reportedly taken from the tribal administrative offices late last week, and questions were raised about what had happened to nearly $200,000 in other tribal funds.
Last week, Marston and Avila also went on the offensive, sending a letter to the BIA claiming that the organization of the special meeting was due to the efforts of those disenrolled over the last three years.
Marston's Oct. 4 letter also claimed that some of those same people were living in tribal housing with delinquent rent, and that the tribe had not evicted them due to concerns over violence.
Tribal members received a packet that included, along with Marston's letter, a letter from the casino's human resources director reporting that the tribe's post office box had been closed.
Solario said that the US Postal Service had cut off the mail delivery and was conducting an investigation. That may be due to issues raised at the meeting which included concerns that mail was being taken from members' boxes.
Tribal members on Sunday claimed that Avila and her council have spent years trampling on their rights, refusing to hold elections, invalidating elections in which Avila was not reelected and using tribal resources for their own uses. Her tenure as tribal council chair was compared to a dictatorship.
The BIA in July sent Avila a letter urging her to hold tribal elections in accordance with the tribe's constitution and election ordinances, which as of the Sunday meeting still hadn't taken place.
Questions also arose Sunday about members' per capita payments – which they are paid every two months – that have been withheld from most of the tribe while family members of Avila and others on the ousted council had been paid.
Avila was arrested late last month on charges that she embezzled more than $60,000 from the Elem Colony while she was a bookkeeper there form 2006 to 2008, as Lake County News has reported.
Avila's arrest appeared to galvanize opponents, who passed out copies of her mugshot and articles written about her arrest at Sunday's meeting.
Other votes taken during the two and a half hour Sunday afternoon meeting included lowering the tribal council's weekly salaries from a reported $2,500 to $2,800 per week that Avila and the former council were drawing to $1,000 per week for new council members going forward.
They also voted to remove the gaming commission and replace it with three new members, setting their salaries at $1,000 per week; removed check signers on the bank's accounts and assign new ones; and removed all members of existing delegations, committees and commissions.
The one resolution that didn't move forward was the reinstating of those who were disenrolled from the tribe. After discussion, that matter was tabled, and the interim council pledged to make it a priority to reinstate those members wrongly removed from the tribal rolls.
The last of the resolutions to receive a vote was one to bar Avila and the former council and gaming commission from entering all tribal properties – from the casino and administration office to social services the tribe supports. That same resolution also suspended the membership rights of the former council pending the outcome of an investigation into alleged wrongdoing.
Some people called for Avila and her colleagues on the former council to be disenrolled themselves, but the interim council urged against that action.
The actions on Sunday suggested that the power had shifted.
“It's over for them. They don't have the checkbook any more,” Wanda Quitiquit, who along with her family was disenrolled from the tribe in 2009, said of the former council.
Her sister, Luwana, appealed to the interim council not just to investigate but to fire Marston, who she said has continued to take legal actions against her and many others in an attempt to evict them from their homes.
After the meeting, tribal members hugged and congratulated each other. Many agreed with Duncan that it was a new day, and that it was a time to hold their heads high.
Bernardine Tripp, one of the organizers of the action, thanked the many nontribal members who had offered support in the effort.
She told the group on Sunday that they had the support, prayers and good wishes of many people in the larger Lake County community.
Outside of the meeting two Lake County Sheriff's deputies were on the scene, organizers had asked the sheriff's office to ask for assistance in case a confrontation arose. But the meeting was peaceful and by the time it was over the deputies had left.
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