Contentious meeting over Lytton tribe's development plans near Windsor

Opponents of the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians’ plans for a housing and commercial development on Windsor’s western periphery urged Town Council members on Monday to fight the project and not succumb to the lure of a public swimming pool offered by the tribe.

At times angry and highly critical of Windsor Town Council members and the city manager, speakers accused them of “working behind our backs” or having an overly cozy relationship with tribal representatives.

“We have 1,400 (signatures) asking for the town to come out on record against the land going into (federal) trust,” said Eric Wee, a staunch opponent of the Lytton homeland proposal, which would essentially create a reservation for the tribe.

“If people want you to fight this, it’s your obligation to follow through,” he said.

The two-member council subcommittee that has been working toward an agreement with the tribe was defensive and at times pushed back at the interrogatory nature of some speakers, who peppered them with questions.

“You’re acting like a deposition,” Mayor Bruce Okrepkie said to one resident. “I don’t like it.”

“Will you reconsider your stance and do whatever possible to keep the land from going into trust?” asked Wellington Circle resident Cheryl Pabros, whose house backs up to some of the land the tribe has purchased. “I’m begging you to help us. Give up the pool. Give up the money.”

Okrepkie compared the situation to a game of poker. “You try to make the best of the hand you’re dealt,” he said.

In essence, he said, “our hands are tied” with the county having struck an agreement with the tribe to approve the development in exchange for the tribe’s assurance it would not build a casino.

In addition, legislation authored by Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, would create the Lytton homeland on Windsor River Road with a guarantee the tribe could never build a casino.

The audience of approximately 80 people appeared to be unanimously opposed to striking any deals with the Lytton Pomos, wanting the council to fight the tribe’s reservation proposal.

“You may be the loudest - the opposition - but you don’t represent all of Windsor,” Councilwoman Deb Fudge told the audience. “There are other people in Windsor that have different viewpoints from you.”

Despite some of the friction, one resident described it as a productive meeting.

“There were a lot of good questions, a lot of good venting. Council might actually be pressured into doing something for their residents,” said Christine Palmer-Persen, who added her main concern is the water needed for the tribal project.

“We don’t have enough water for residents here,” she said, arguing that the tribe’s projects “will pave over pristine land that recharges the watershed.”

The tribe is seeking water and sewer service from Windsor.

The tribe’s offer to build a town swimming pool- estimated to cost $9 million to $11 million - is contingent on voter approval of extending those utilities to the proposed 147-unit housing development just west of town boundaries.

Voter approval is necessary because most of the tribe’s 124 acres for its housing site are outside the town’s growth boundaries.

Windsor has sought a pool for at least two decades. But after devising a master plan for an aquatic facility in 2007, the Town Council put it on hold, largely due to concerns over a budget deficit projected for its operation.

The tribe has offered an additional $2.5 million to Windsor to offset the impacts of its housing project, which could be applied toward pool maintenance.

Speakers expressed distrust of the tribe’s intentions and questioned why it has bought up so much land west of Windsor with the potential to take an expanded area into trust - as much as 1,300 acres. A hotel and winery also are planned.

For more than a decade, Windsor and the county were on record against the Lytton proposal. But Fudge said that about four years ago, she came to the realization that the tribe eventually was going to get its land into trust.

So she said the best thing the town can do is lessen the impacts of the project.

“We’re stuck. I’m sorry,” she told the audience Monday.

“We’re not stuck,” came the reply from some audience members.

“I wish it weren’t going forward like this, but it is,” she said.

Fudge added that “what Windsor can control is going to a vote of the people.”

Residents have expressed alarm at the prospect of 147 homes and a cultural center being built on the thickly wooded land. The project would remove more than 1,500 trees and have more than nine times the housing density allowed under county zoning restrictions. Opponents are worried about increased traffic and other impacts.

Town officials several years ago began negotiations with the tribe to look at potentially providing the project with sewer and water, considered a better environmental alternative than the tribe’s drilling wells and building its own sewer plant.

Town Manager Linda Kelly said Windsor’s goals in meeting with the tribe have been to prevent a sewage treatment plant from being built and to secure a “no gaming” guarantee in perpetuity for all of Windsor and a large radius around the town, extending from Healdsburg to Santa Rosa.

She said Windsor also wants to ensure that the aquatic complex the tribe is offering to the town would be financially sustainable in the long run.

“These terms have all been advocated for to preserve the town’s quality of life,” she said.

The 270-member tribe, which has operated a casino in the East Bay community of San Pablo since 2003, always has insisted it has no plans to build a casino in Windsor.

The tribe said it wants to provide a place for members to congregate “for governmental, cultural and social purposes.”

The Windsor site where it plans to build homes is close to the tribe’s original base near Healdsburg, before its rancheria was dissolved by the federal government more than 50 years ago.