From a story in the San Diego Union-Buffoon, which, per their normal practice, doesn’t involve any actual investigation — just 'reporting' in the most literal sense:
Walter Rosales and Karen Toggery, who have lifelong blood ties to the village but are not officially enrolled, argued that the Jamul tribe has been hijacked by officers and members wrongly recognized by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. The two contend they are the tribe’s rightful leaders, one of several claims they have pursued in a series of unsuccessful suits dating back to the mid-1990s.
Southern California Intertribal Court Judge Anthony Brandenburg, sitting as a circuit judge in the first hearing of the Jamul Indian Village Tribal Court, rejected the plaintiffs' argument that the court lacked jurisdiction to serve as a legal forum for the eviction proceedings.
This is both the bad news and the ugly news. It’s bad (from my perspective, and that of many of my fellow Jamulians) because it means that the casino we don’t want to see built has one less obstacle to overcome. It’s ugly because this intra-tribal fight has turned into a full-blown, very public battle pitting two members of this tiny tribe against the other 30 or so members who support building the casino. It’s difficult for an outsider to imagine what this must feel like, on either side. But it can’t be pleasant for anyone…
Rosales and Toggery contend that land grading and casino construction would desecrate the tiny Jamul reservation, where funerary objects of their family members have been burned and buried near their homes as part of Kumeyaay Indian rituals.
The two cite such objections in an injunction lawsuit against the California Native American Heritage Commission that was filed last month in county Superior Court. They succeeded yesterday in getting a Superior Court order halting crews from dismantling the reservation’s meeting hall until a hearing on their injunction motion takes place March 19.
There’s the good news: one obstacle to the casino has at least gained the standing to be heard before the court, and the building work is, at the very least, delayed until the hearing date in March.
In the old blog, Linda Ivy said:
ReplyDeleteThis really bothers me… Walter Rosales has lived on the reservation since at least grammer school (where he and Robby met and became friends), he may have been born there. He has a son as well as other family members buried in the cemetary. He is a Vietnam Veteran that has worked hard all his life. Outside gaming interests have indeed brought division to this small tribe in the name of “greed'.