Tribal Government & News

Tribal Council adopts trespass ordinance

10.31.2012 Ron Karten Tribal Council, Public safety

Tribal Council adopted a new trespass and exclusion ordinance at its Oct. 24 meeting.

The new ordinance is designed "to protect the integrity and security of the Tribe as a whole, and enrolled Tribal members as individuals and as a community."

The ordinance gives the Tribe's General Manager the authority to issue a trespass/exclusion notice to a person who is on Tribal property that is not open to the public, in violation of a prominently posted notice against trespass, has received notice that the property is not open to him or her or has been requested to leave by someone with actual or apparent authority to do so.

In addition, the General Manager can issue a trespass/exclusion notice if someone is violating three standards of conduct:

  1. Doing or threatening to do any act upon Tribal land which seriously threatens the peace, health, safety, morals or general welfare of the Tribe, its members or other persons on Tribal land;
  2. Doing or threatening to do any act upon Tribal land which seriously threatens the environment of the land, water, natural resources, air or other natural land or topographical feature on Tribal land or which would in any way threaten the environmental quality of life for the Tribe, its members and other persons on Tribal land;
  3. Exploring for or excavating upon items, sites or locations of historic, religious or scientific significance without authority from the Tribe or in violation of Tribal or federal laws or regulations.

The law requires the General Manager to issue a written notice and violation is a civil infraction punishable by a $500 fine for each violation. The ordinance also says that Tribal services, Tribal member benefits and other Tribally funded need and non-need based payments and access to Tribal property may be terminated pending compliance by a violator who is a Tribal member.

Appeals would first go to the General Manager and then Tribal Court.

"This ordinance has been talked about for quite some time," said Tribal Council Chairman Reyn Leno. "This ordinance is basically something that we view as is important to protect our membership … a lot of it over in housing, and our employees here at the Tribe. We don't really have anything in place right now, but this is the first step toward that.

"From past experiences over the past year, council has been very frustrated in that we felt that we couldn't protect our membership, couldn't protect our employees. This is the result. This is the maximum of what we have available to us today. … This is just the first piece of it. We're going to keep tightening this up."