Tribal members question casino backer’s motives

Erica Werner

Thursday, Feb. 13, 2003 | 9:33 a.m.

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, Calif. -- Juaneno Indians once lived and hunted where the residents of this town now work and shop. Most of their ancestral land is covered over now but an untouched portion remains -- 29 grassy acres by the railroad tracks that were part of a native village called Putiidhem.

Tribal members say Indians from the village are buried there, and a plan by a Roman Catholic high school to build athletic fields and a gym on the site has encountered intense opposition.

"We want the site left alone, we don't want anything built on there, let alone a school," Sonia Johnston, a tribal member, said. "I find it kind of macabre that children will be playing on my ancestors."

Division within the tribe has complicated the dispute, with three self-proclaimed tribal leaders, including Johnston, claiming to represent the true Juaneno people.

Each has a different vision for the site, including one who is cooperating with school backers. They offer different estimates of the number of Indians buried there.

Meanwhile, the issues that contributed to the tribe's division are surfacing again: its decades-old quest for federal recognition, and after that, perhaps, a Nevada-style casino.

"Gaming, casino and money. It's political. It's not sincerity for the remains of the people that are there," said Jerry Nieblas, a tribal member who's loyal to a second tribal leader, David Belardes, and suspects the motives of a third, Damien Shilo. "Mine is sincerity for the people that remain on that land. They're my ancestors."

Shilo, who is being assisted by an attorney and a consultant with expertise in Indian gambling, denied he's pursuing a casino on the property, though he doesn't rule one out elsewhere. He has sued the San Juan Capistrano City Council, seeking to overturn its approval of the high school project. A hearing is set for Feb. 24.

"I'm not going to sign away our right to have what other tribes have, but I guarantee there will never be a casino on that site," Shilo said. "That's a burial ground."

School officials, meanwhile, have been working with Belardes, who said he would prefer no development but can live with playing fields. The plot is privately owned and large-scale projects have been proposed there in the past.

"Compared to what was going to happen there, this is the least intrusive," Belardes said.

School officials plan to leave intact the half-dozen graves Belardes says are on the site and erect a statue honoring the Juanenos. Junipero Serra High School is set to open in the fall, though the athletic fields still need final city approval, and backers are frustrated by what they view as the sudden appearance of opposition.

"Every day the phone would ring and it was somebody else that said, 'I have a stake in this,"' said Marc Spizzirri, a local car dealership owner and school founder. "We're in desperate need of more schools here."

The Juaneno Band of Mission Indians takes its name from the historic church that tribal ancestors helped build, Mission San Juan Capistrano. Famed for its annual return of the swallows, the mission is still the center of this coastal Orange County town.

The school is named after the mission's founder, Father Junipero Serra, a key figure in a system built partly on converting Indians to Christianity and, in the view of many, mistreating and enslaving them. That's added to tribal members' anger.

"It's ironic that it's come back again to destroy our culture," Johnston said.

The background of the current dispute, however, is more recent. The tribe has long sought federal recognition, which would entitle it to health and other benefits and potentially give it more control over sacred sites.

Federal recognition also would let the tribe pursue an agreement with the state to open a casino on tribal land. The Juanenos could then join the 50 California tribes with casinos, who have turned Indian gambling into a $5 billion-a-year industry in the state in recent years.

Tribal members including Belardes pursued a casino in 1997, including partnering with Nevada investors who poured more than $400,000 into the project. Belardes eventually renounced the deal, which generated negative backlash from residents when it came to light and resulted in the splintering of the already divided tribe into three factions. The faction now led by Shilo stuck with the project the longest.

That history has caused school backers and rival factions to eye Shilo's opposition warily, especially as he has allied himself with people known for Indian gambling expertise, including consultant Michael Lombardi and attorney Stephen Otto.

Lombardi and Otto said they are donating their services to Shilo's faction because they want to help the tribe preserve its cultural heritage and attain federal recognition, and are not working toward a casino. Lombardi said he never expects payment while Otto said he would get paid in the future subject to the availability of funds, which he said could come from projects the tribe is pursuing including importing fish from Canada.

School officials and opposing tribal factions are skeptical.

"I can't figure out what they're doing other than they want that property for a casino for gaming," Holly Franks, a school spokeswoman, said.

Shilo and his allies, who like Johnston believe there are 175 graves on and around the site, accuse school officials of spreading misinformation to forward their goals. Shilo said he wants the land preserved as open space except for a Native-American interpretive center. Johnston said she wants the site to remain untouched but does not have the wherewithal to challenge the school plan.

Ironically, some tribal members fear their factionalization could jeopardize one goal they all agree on -- the longed-for federal recognition. Officials with the Bureau of Indian Affairs said the tribe's division should not impede its recognition, which is nearing active consideration. But federal officials will have to consider the claims of all three tribal factions and resolve them somehow.

"If there's no unity, if there's no definite structure to the governing body of the Juaneno people, and there's all these splinter groups being formed and this disharmony, it's not going to happen," Nieblas said.