By Onell R. Soto, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Tribal leaders said Monday they plan to demolish the homes of two evicted reservation residents this week to make way for a casino, despite a promise that they would wait until Friday.

“The executive committee overrode me,” said Leon Acebedo, chairman of the 51-member Jamul Indian Village. “They’re fed up and they’re tired of waiting.”

Acebedo promised Saturday that he would recommend the demolitions be delayed until after 5 p.m. Friday to give evicted reservation residents Walter Rosales and Karen Toggery time to challenge their removals in state and federal court.

That promise was key to ending an hours-long standoff between tribal members and about 50 community residents after Rosales, Toggery and Toggery’s son were evicted from the reservation.

Work crews began clearing debris from the six-acre reservation Monday morning. Acebedo said he didn’t think they would get to Rosales’ and Toggery’s homes until later in the week.

Rosales and Toggery have lifelong blood ties to the tribe, but are not officially enrolled. They do not accept Acebedo as tribal leader.

They claim the Bureau of Indian Affairs recognized the wrong people as being tribal leaders and members. Rosales says he is the duly elected tribal chairman. Toggery says she is the judge in the tribal court.

Such claims are the basis of lawsuits going back to the 1990s, though courts have not ruled in favor of the challengers.

They also say the reservation land is sacred. They said ashes of their relatives have been spread on the land and, following Kumeyaay Indian rituals, the belongings of dead tribal members have been burned and buried there.

“They really don’t care, they don’t have qualms about tearing up that place,” Toggery said Monday.

Some of the lawsuits are still active in courts in San Diego and Washington, D.C.

Their lawyer said he is challenging the evictions and the demolitions in court and is seeking emergency orders to get a federal agent to tell work crews to stop work, and to let Rosales and Toggery back into their homes.

“There are human beings’ remains in the dirt and they better not be disturbing them,” lawyer Patrick Webb said.

Tribal members dispute that anybody is buried on the reservation, which doesn’t include a nearby graveyard owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego.

And Acebedo said the work doesn’t include any grading.

“We’re cleaning and demolishing,” he said.

He said he’s not waiting for more court rulings concerning Rosales and Toggery.

“As far as we’re concerned, it’s over,” he said.

The evictions, demolition and land clearing are part of a new strategy in which the tribe is planning to go forward with construction of a casino without an agreement with the state.

The tribe entered into an agreement with Gov. Gray Davis in 1999 that allowed it to offer Las Vegas-style games, including 350 slot machines.

That agreement also calls for environmental reviews and mitigation for impacts of the reservation on the nearby community.

The tribe has been seeking to amend that compact to add more slot machines, but has faced opposition from community members, County Supervisor Dianne Jacob and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

After getting nowhere for more than eight years, tribal leaders decided last week to go forward with card games and slot machines based on bingo and poker, and which don’t require a compact with the state.

That will probably mean a scaled-back operation from the last proposal, Acebedo said Monday.

The new casino on the reservation about 20 miles from downtown San Diego would include about 1,000 slot machines based on bingo and poker games, instead of about 2,000 proposed earlier.

“The size of the building, we don’t know yet,” he said. “It’s still going to be a pretty good size building.”

Tribal member and casino supporter Chris Pinto, 29, said efforts to block the casino project have delayed construction too long.

“We finally just put our foot down,” he said. “This is an opportunity for us to move forward out of the life we were living.”

The reservation is too small, and its housing was in such bad shape that he was happy to see the demolition work.

“That is no way to live these days,” he said.

Onell Soto: (619) 293-1280; onell.soto@uniontrib.com
© Copyright 2007 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

Posted on March 12th, 2007 by admin
Filed under: Gaming, News