No Dismissal of Mendocino County Tribal Lawsuit
Letters Needed for Shellmound Property Development in Bay Area
Caltrans’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the Pomo and Round Valley Tribes seeking to protect their “ancestral, sacred, cultural and archaeological sites and resources” in the Willits Bypass construction area was denied in Federal Court in late January, 2017.
The Tribes prevailing over Caltrans’ challenge allows the legal action bringing to light the failure to identify discoveries and destruction of these sites and resources, giving the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians and the Round Valley Indian Tribes a victory for the time being, as the suit proceeds forward in Federal Court. It is the sole aspect of the long and hard-fought campaign to stop the construction of Caltrans’ highway project through wetlands and archaeological sites that remains, as the wrongly-sited and over-sized road around the town of Willits is now in use.
We look forward to this case having its day in court to hold Caltrans accountable nad give the Tribes the deserved respect and process required by law for cultural resources.
And locally…
You can still submit a comment letter (by Feb. 9!) on the draft EIR for the proposed development on an Ohlone site in Berkeley
A 2.2 -acre construction site that has been Spenger’s Restaurant parking lot at Fourth St. and University Ave., is being reviewed by the Berkeley Zoning Board and the Landmarks Preservation Commission because human remains dating from prior to Eureopean contact were found.
Ohlone people from around the Bay Area and local activists have been fighting the proposed development of a huge 5-story complex to include apartments, a parking garage, and retail.
The site is near the mouth of Strawberry Creek, and the nearby Berkeley Shellmound is said to be the earliest inhabited location in the Bay Area.
Corrina Gould, an Ohlone who is co-founder of Indian People for Change said, “We have an opportunity as people of Berkeley and citizens of the world to do something different, to do what’s morally correct.”
There is a template for a comment letter that you can get points from for your own letter at https://gallery.mailchimp.com/a885e669d195b941e392b9603/files/52414c53-77e5-4a84-ba28-0ebedd799acf/_EIR_Generic_Comment_Letter_v6_20170116.docx
or see the Shellmound campaign Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1328362423841558/
| ShAllen@cityofberkeley.info, or you can bring the letter and/or testify at the final Zoning Board meeting at 7 pm on Feb. 9 at City Hall.
You can find numerous articles from Berkeleyside newspaper at http://www.berkeleyside.com/tag/west-berkeley-shellmound/. |