A bill pending in the California State Senate in Sacramento would allow Native American tribes in the state to remove land from Williamson Act contracts for the benefit of projects such as housing and tribal cultural centers.

 

Third District Supervisor Doreen Farr tried to place a last-minute item on the Board of Supervisors’ agenda Mar. 24 and supported sending a letter from Santa Barbara County opposing the bill, but the motion failed because it didn’t garner four votes of support needed to be placed on the agenda.

Farr said she was very disappointed that she had only learned about the bill March 23. She may write a letter on her own opposing the legislation.

“When I talked with our lobbyists and they asked me about the issues of concern to me, the first (word) out of my mouth (was) the Williamson Act,” she said.

“I did not hear about it from them, I did not hear about it from staff, and I did not hear about it from the tribe. I am very disappointed.”

The board will consider taking a position on the bill at its April 7meeting

Local anti-gaming activists have concerns about the bill, which has also been objected to by the California State Association of Counties (CSAC) and the Regional Council of Rural Counties (RCRC), as well as the state Farm Bureau.

The bill is scheduled to be heard in the Senate April 1.

It was introduced on Feb. 15, and authored by Sen. Dean Florez, the Democratic majority leader from the Central Valley.

Florez did not return a call seeking comment on the senator’s motivations for sponsoring the window by press time.

Williamson Act contracts are 10-year commitments that provide property owners with tax breaks in exchange for commitment to keep the land in agricultural production. In Santa Barbara County, approximately 550,000 acres of land are in Williamson contracts, according to the Agricultural Commissioner’s office.

The text of the bill states that the legislation would presume that tribal cultural centers, infrastructure and housing “are alternative uses that are public concerns that substantially outweigh the objectives of the (Williamson) Act.”

Tribal government and legal affairs director Sam Cohen spoke at a Mar. 23 meeting of the county’s Legislative Program Committee and said that the bill, which is supported by the local Chumash tribe, is a way to add to reservation lands.

The land in question would have to be contiguous to existing reservation property.

“We did not want to include gaming (as one of the proposed uses for the land). When you use the G-word ... it just makes everything so hard,” Cohen said.

In his previous job as attorney for the Tule River Council in the Central Valley, Cohen was an advocate of taking land out of Williamson Act contracts to expand the reservation of the Tule River Tribe.

At the meeting, Cohen said that the Chumash tribe feels it should have the comparable powers of a city such as Solvang or Buellton, although he said the tribe considers the tribe’s sovereign nation status under federal law more comparable to that of an independent state.

If Buellton wanted to annex land that was in a Williamson contract, the city would simply cancel the contract, Cohen said.

County ag commissioner Bill Gillette said that Cohen is mistaken in his description of a city’s power to cancel the contracts.

“To say they’re analogous to what the city could do is not accurate,” Gillette said.

Since the local  Board of Supervisors typically opposes taking land out of Williamson contracts, as well as new annexations of land by individual cities (or in this case, tribes), Cohen said the tribe saw no choice but to try to change the law.

“If you can think of another way to help us get out of this tricky double standard — where the county opposes the annexation, but won’t cancel the contract — I’m open. I’m truly open,” Cohen said.

Those opposed to the bill take this to mean that the layer of development protection created by the Williamson Act would essentially disappear.

“We firmly believe in the sanctity of agricultural preserves and Williamson Act contracts,” reads a letter from the California Farm Bureau Federation opposing the bill.

“Our state’s farmers and ranchers have demand no less because they rightfully deserve protection from incompatible uses that the Williamson Act’s agricultural preserve requirement provides,” Similar legislation was introduced in the state Assembly in 2008, but that bill, A.B. 2860, died in committee.

Santa Barbara County opposed that legislation and sent a letter saying so to the Assembly.

The CSAC and RCRC wrote a letter to the Senate’s Local Government Committee opposing the bill on the grounds that it would have adverse impacts on counties and increase the possibility of lawsuits between tribes and county governments.

“Our small, financially strapped counties would likely not even have the option to rebut because they lack the resources to enter into a costly lawsuit with tribal interests,” wrote Karen Keene, senior legislative representative, and Kathy Mannion, legislative advocate.

 Santa Ynez Valley community activist Bob Field is among those objecting to the bill.

“In my opinion, the county and its agents have pretty seriously mishandled this issue,” Field said, because of the lag time in consideration between Feb. 14 and now.

Field called the bill “sloppily drafted” and said that it includes language that could include not just federally recognized tribes, but “tribal groups,” which may include dozens of would-be tribes in California currently petitioning the federal government for recognition of their status.

Doug Herthel, speaking on behalf of Preservation of Los Olivos, also spoke in opposition to the bill at the supervisors’ meeting March 24. “Agriculture is an urgent situation to deal with,” he said.

“S.B. 170 threatens ag, not only in Santa Barbara County, but in the entire state. You’ve got 160 tribal groups that will take benefit from this.”

If the bill passes through the state Senate’s rules committee April 1, it will next go to the judicial committee.

It also will need to be heard by the Assembly’s agriculture committee.

Cohen said that the bill is one of three in Sacramento this year in which the local Chumash tribe has a vested interest.

One bill would extend the deadline for distribution of gaming money to local jurisdictions impacted by gaming activity, and the other would allow tribes to certify their own teachers of native languages.

 

 

 

Reach Leah Etling at letling@syvjournal.com.