Tribe drawn into both sides of Palm Springs development fight

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11:47 PM PDT on Monday, May 28, 2007 By JENNIFER BOWLES and STEVE MOORE The Press-Enterprise Video: elder Alvino Siva talks about Chino Canyon

PALM SPRINGS - For most people, navigating the four-mile drive along boulder-strewn Chino Canyon is simply a way to get to the city's famous attraction: the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which whisks riders high into the .

But the mostly untouched desert scrub on either side of the two-lane road long has been a battleground between environmentalists and a developer who wants to build Shadowrock, a resort with a boutique hotel and high-end homes.

And now, generations of Inland American Indians are divided over the terrain. Story continues below

Rodrigo Peña / The Press-Enterprise Cahuilla elders Alvino Siva, left, and his sister Katherine Siva Saubel, both of Banning, oppose projects proposed for the Chino Canyon area of Palm Springs, including one advanced by the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. They consider the land a tribal treasure. The local tribe, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, recently announced that it has signed a "letter of intent" with Shadowrock officials to develop about 160 acres next to the proposed site of the resort. The tribe owns most of the 160 acres, but one portion of the land is owned by a single tribe member.

Shaman's Spirit

Some Cahuilla elders are against the move. They say the canyon is sacred, once home to one, possibly two, villages and named for Pedro Chino, a shaman and tribal leader whose spirit they say still lives there.

"My concern is that they're going to destroy it," said Alvino Siva, 84, who lives in Banning. "Let me put it this way, to the Cahuilla people -- all the ones that knew, they are all gone -- this Mount San Jacinto was their medicine, that's where they got their songs from, got their power from."

Controversies over land considered sacred have emerged before in the Southwest. A federal judge last year allowed a northern Arizona ski area to use treated wastewater to make snow, a ruling that enraged members of the Navajo, Hopi and other tribes, who said the plan would taint a mountain they consider sacred.

In Inland Southern , Siva is one of the few who still speak the Cahuilla language, along with his older sister, Katherine Siva Saubel, and they are ardent protectors of their heritage. They grew up in Palm Springs although they are members of the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla & Cupeño Indians, whose reservation is tucked into the mountains of northern San Diego County east of Temecula.

Cahuilla Indians once roamed across the Inland region but today make up multiple tribes. Siva said he can no longer talk directly to the Agua Caliente chairman about such concerns.

When asked whether the tribe considered the land sacred, Nancy Conrad, Agua Caliente press secretary, said she couldn't speak to the issue.

"It's just something that made sense for the tribe," Conrad said of the agreement with Shadowrock developer Mark Bragg.

Golf Course, 200 Homes

Bragg said the new project could include a nine-hole golf course surrounded by about 200 homes. And although Indian development isn't subject to city zoning laws, Bragg said the canyon won't be covered with new homes.

The tribal project, he said, will be designed to stand on its own and may or may not be combined with the 288-acre Shadowrock resort. That plan calls for preserving 1,100 acres as open space, including places important to the tribe, Bragg said. For instance, he said, his company will pay the tribe to keep undeveloped a 160-acre parcel near the mouth of the canyon where a creek maintains a tree-lined oasis.

While the tribal partnership was announced recently, environmental groups have long sought to stop the Shadowrock project.

Initially approved by Palm Springs in 1993, Shadowrock is envisioned as a five-star boutique hotel, a Tom Weiskopf Signature golf course, 10 three-bedroom bungalows, townhouse condominiums and a few individual homes nestled against the foot of the mountain.

"I have a lot of other people's money invested in the project, and I have a moral obligation to defend their investment in the city of Palm Springs, it's really that simple," Bragg said, explaining his persistence.

Some say the land should be left alone as a reminder of the natural beauty of the famed winter resort of Palm Springs and as a place for endangered peninsular bighorn sheep to roam.

"If we're going to still be a resort town -- I don't see us becoming an industry town -- we have to preserve those unique qualities that keep bringing people here," said Jono Hildner, chairman of Save Our Mountains, a group that is pushing to preserve the land.

Property Rights

Bragg bought his first property in the canyon 23 years ago, long before the federal government listed bighorn sheep as an endangered species in 1998. Story continues below

"Here's the basic conflict: We own the land, and we have a use for it," he said. "They (environmentalists) want to take out the land for their own use, and unfortunately, the laws in California become very muddy about what people who own land are allowed to do on it. It's basically unfair."

Bragg said he's known tribal members for a long time, and they talked several years ago about the prospect of doing a joint development.

Hildner, who has long fought the Shadowrock project, said he was surprised by the tribe's announcement to join in.

2 "Shock maybe is the right word," he said.

Just about every Inland environmental group is involved in the dispute over the land in one way or another.

A judge has ruled in favor of the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity, issuing a preliminary injunction May 16 that prevents Bragg from grading in the canyon until a lawsuit can be heard. The judge said the damage to the bighorn-sheep habitat from grading could be irreparable.

Agreement Extension

The environmentalists' suit challenges Palm Springs City Attorney Douglas C. Holland's letter to Bragg saying he is "eligible for an extension" of the development agreement because of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delays in processing a permit.

On Nov. 6, Palm Springs voters will weigh in on that agreement.

Hildner's group collected enough signatures for a referendum on the City Council's split vote extending the development agreement, which gave Bragg 10 more years to complete a project initially approved in 1993.

And recently, one of the Inland region's main conservation groups began seeking negotiations with private landowners to buy and preserve some of the land.

"There's 400,000 people a year that go up the tram, and instead of having all housing along that, we feel that having the drama of the natural desert is part of that whole experience," said Pete Dangermond, executive director of the Riverside Land Conservancy. The group is best known for its efforts to protect San Timoteo Canyon and its work with communities to protect hills from development.

Corridor for Bighorns

On his side, Bragg received a much-needed biological opinion by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that the development will not jeopardize the continued existence of the bighorn sheep and other imperiled species, given several modifications.

Bragg said one of those modifications is a 1.5-mile-wide corridor for the sheep to travel, a move he said would replace $100 million worth of homes.

But that approval is tied to a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has suspended its approval until Bragg does more to meet the requirements of the wildlife agency's opinion. That Army Corps permit was also challenged by the Center for Biological Diversity in a separate federal lawsuit.

In the meantime, both sides say they are gearing up for a campaign for the Nov. 6 referendum.

"We think the public is with us," Bragg said.

Siva said he's on the side of the environmental groups to honor Cahuilla heritage if nothing else.

Before Chino, the shaman, died in 1939, he told Siva why the land was so important to the Cahuilla tribe.

"He said 'Up there, there's a spring that comes out and it runs for about 20 to 30 feet and it goes back into the rocks.' He said, 'That's our song, the ripple, we sit and listen to that song.'

"It's not just water," Siva said. "To us, it's something special, it's where we get our power."Reach Jennifer Bowles at 951-368-9548 or [email protected]. Or visit her blog at www.PE.com/blogs

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