House Passes Camp 4 Bill

The battle to move a 1,400-acre piece of land into the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indian reservation took a step forward on Monday with the passage H.R. 317 in the House of Representatives. It also took a step backward on March 29 when the Interior Department’s Indian Affairs secretary decided to re-review February’s approval with an eye to endangered species. Known as Camp 4, the land had been bought by the tribe from Fess Parker’s estate in 2010, and since 2013, lawsuits, appeals, congressional testimony, and ad hoc county committees have sought to negotiate a means to either block or pass the land into the federal reservation trust. With passage of the House, the bill now faces a Senate vote.

“We are pleased that the House of Representatives voted without objection to pass our land affirmation act bill, H.R. 317, which now moves on to the Senate,” wrote Chumash Chair Kenneth Kahn in an email to the Independent. “This bill includes the Memorandum of Understanding with Santa Barbara County and a perpetual exclusion on gaming. Our tribe is committed to building Tribal housing on our historical homelands.”

Before the unanimous voice vote, Rep. Jefferson Van Drew, of New Jersey’s 2nd District, noted the decade that had passed since the tribe started the fee-to-trust action. He stated only 40 of the current reservation’s 100 acres could be used for homes or offices and that only 17 percent of the tribe could be housed there. The legislation’s chief sponsor, Rep. Doug LaMalfa (D-CA Dist. 1), spoke about the history of the Chumash, who were first mentioned in European records by Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo in 1542 and that Camp 4 was included in the Santa Inés Mission lands that housed and were granted to the Chumash in the early 1800s.