Indian Eviction

Our local Indian tribe is trying to build a casino that will occupy their entire six-acre reservation. Two members — a significant percentage of this tiny little tribe — disagree with the tribe’s majority, and have refused to move off the reservation. So the tribe’s leadership is having them evicted.

From the San Diego Union Tribune:

The Jamul Indian band Wednesday moved to evict the last remaining occupants of this tiny reservation – two dissidents who oppose the tribe and its casino plans.

Going through a regional intertribal court, the East County tribe issued eviction notices to Walter Rosales, 59, and Karen Toggery, 51, who have longtime ties to the tribe but are not officially enrolled.

The tribe wants them off the land so it can start building a $200 million casino that is fiercely opposed by most neighboring residents.

You can read the rest of the article at the link above.

Just over a year ago, I met and spoke with Walter Rosales (and posted about it here). He’s a quiet and soft-spoken man, and seemed confident at the time that he would prevail and the casino would not be built. Their fight is not over, and (the Indian’s propaganda machine notwithstanding) the casino is still not a “sure thing”. But I can’t imagine that being evicted from his home is a pleasant — or hopeful — even for Walter and Karen. It seems so un-American for anyone to have eminent domain used to toss them out of their houses purely for someone’s monetary gain — though in this post-Kelo world, that’s exactly what all homeowners are now at risk of (though Kelo, of course, has nothing to do with Walter’s situation). The salt in this already awful wound is that the money-maker is a casino, and that the evictors are Walter and Karen’s fellow tribe members — people they all know well, for their community is tiny.

At this point I suspect this matter has gone so far that the Jamul Indian Tribe is never going to be able to heal some of these wounds. If the casino is built as the majority plan, they will, I’m sure, lose Walter and Karen — and they’ll be in for a long-term adversarial relationship with the rest of the community in the town of Jamul (where the vast majority of the residents vehemently oppose the casino). If the casino is stopped, for whatever reason, I’d imagine the Indian community will have a hard time reconciling their differences. If nothing else, being evicted from their homes will be a hard thing for Walter and Karen to forget. And I’d imagine the tribal casino proponents will have a hard time forgiving those who killed their dream of casino wealth. Even if it isn’t one of Walter and Karen’s actions that eventually stops the casino, those two will be associated with the effort.

It’s very sad, isn’t it, to see a community torn apart by undiluted greed? Tribal propaganda aside, clearly the only reason to bring a casino to Jamul is to make money. Equally clearly the tribe hopes to make their share of the profits — why else would most of them agree to abandon their own homes? One could make the argument — as the tribe does — that they’re just pursuing the American dream. But one could also make the observation that usually the American dream is pursued by means that don’t require evictions and the alienation of an entire town.

Of course, I’m writing that as though Kelo didn’t exist. But Kelo does exist. And if Hilton decided that my property was the ideal place to build their East County resort, and could persuade the county government of the tax benefits to them doing so — I could find myself on the wrong side of an eviction notice, thanks to Kelo. Because I live so far out in the boonies, I think — I hope — such an event is exceedingly unlikely. But any of you living closer to civilization are much more at risk…