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If you're uncertain about the geography of the upper left-hand corner of the state, understand that there are two Lummis.
Lummi Nation, centered on a 20-square-mile reservation west of Bellingham, is where the community's ancestors were forcibly placed by the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855. The Lummis describe themselves as "fishers, hunters, gatherers of nature's abundance." They also own Silver Reef Casino. Unemployment persists at around 16 percent.
Lummi Island, one of the smaller of the San Juans (just over nine square miles), is peopled almost entirely by white settlers who started arriving, by canoe, in 1871. It's a working person's island and a retired person's island, rich in scenic views and artists, writers, and tiny farms. There's one school, a few cafes, and some B&Bs.
The two Lummis are a mile apart, looking at each other across Hale Passage, the saltwater that joins the Strait of Georgia to Bellingham Bay. An ocean separates the island from the peninsula — culturally, financially, and politically — and a growing dispute over ferry service has widened the gap.
To be precise, the fuss is between the Lummi Nation and Whatcom County, with the Lummi Islanders worrying from the far end. The county operates the Whatcom Chief, a 48-year-old, 19-car ferry connecting the two Lummis every 20 minutes or so when it can. Now and then it can't, because 48 is well past middle age in ferry years.
Lummi Nation, being sovereign, controls the tidelands over which the ferry comes and goes at Gooseberry Point, the end of the peninsula nearest Lummi Island. You can't get to or from Gooseberry Point without crossing Lummi Nation tidelands.
Whatcom County pays the Lummi Nation $16,667 a month ($200,000 a year) for the right to operate the Lummi Island ferry and provide some parking space for its riders. Those rental terms are written in an interim agreement that took effect last February, when a 25-year contract expired. That expired document contains language that allows it to be renewed for another 25 years without a lot of fuss. If the two sides can't come to terms, the contract says, a federal mediator will arbitrate the differences.
Wait. Hold on a minute. The contract between the tribe and county was supposed to be witnessed, back in 1985, by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the federal agency that has the last word concerning long-range Indian agreements. BIG problem: County officers signed it, Lummi Nation officers signed it, but for reasons no one seems to understand, the BIA never did. Although the Lummi lived up to its terms for 25 years, their leaders now say it never was a valid contract. Not without a BIA signature on the paper.
That would mean the renewal language, the section that covers disputes like the one that now boils, has no effect. It leaves the tribe in a position to extract some reparations for the outrages of the Treaty of Point Elliott and some of the insults of the past century and a half. Meet their terms, the Lummis tell the county, or you must stop the ferry by Oct. 15.
On July 30, Lummi Nation Business Council Chair Henry Cagey (pronounced with a hard "g") sent what he called the tribe's "last and final offer" to Whatcom County Council Chair Sam Crawford. (See Cagey's letter and the County's responses here.)
The Lummi Nation's price for continuing to run the ferry:
- A lump-sum payment of $4 million to help the Lummi Nation build a new marina, payable whenever the tribe gets its federal permits to start building.
- A basic rent of $200,000 per year for 35 years, with increases tied to the national cost-of-living index, expected to rise as much as 2.5 percent per year.
- An additional rent payment of $110,000 per year or its equivalent in physical improvements to the docking area and nearby roads.
Crawford, who figures the cost at more than $23 million over the life of the lease, says any counter-offer by the county has to be based on fair market value. He says the tribe is demanding about 58 times the fair market value of the ferry dock, tidelands and other essential acres, as assessed by a professional appraiser chosen by the Lummis. In an Aug. 12 letter to Cagey, Crawford affirmed the county's counter-offer: a fixed payment of $200,000 per year for 25 years.
Neither Cagey nor his vice-chair, Gordon Adams, returned repeated calls. Cagey did talk to Cascadia Weekly Editor Tim Johnson. "We're done negotiating," Cagey told Johnson. "Whatcom County has had more than three years to negotiate this lease, and they have wasted that time. We've waited for them and we are done waiting. Our offer was final."
In his letter to Crawford, Cagey said his people "would like to be good neighbors to the residents on Lummi Island. Yet, we will not expend any additional staff time working on this effort if we are dealing with an unwilling County Council."
The door for bargaining may be barely-cracked-open, however. Adams, the Lummi Business Council's vice-chair, told KING-TV that his council is willing to "sit back down at the table." Cold comfort for alarmed islanders, but it was about as good as anyone brought to a public meeting with the County Council and County Executive Pete Kremen on Lummi Island, Aug. 24.
The "Welcome to Lummi Island" sign says 816 people live there. That works out to about 300 adults. It cannot be that every one of them came to Beach Elementary School Tuesday night (Aug. 24), but that's the way it felt. The gym was packed and dozens who couldn't get in stood around the doors and windows, hoping to hear good news. They heard none.
Meeting the Lummi Nation's demands could double the $10 roundtrip fares, the troubled audience was told. Demographics of the islanders, presently an economically diverse bunch, would shift toward the high end. On the other hand, cuts in service would interfere with mainland jobs and reduce the worth of island real estate. The County might establish a special taxing district, limited to Lummi Island, to levy a property tax of 75 cents per $1,000 valuation just for the ferry service. Or, without a settlement, ferry service could end. One by one, scores of islanders voiced their worries and puzzlement and controlled anger. Whatever it takes, they said, keep the boat running.
"There's a woman I know who has breast cancer," resident Mary Ross told the County officials. "She has to go to town every day for radiation. There are days when walking on is not a solution for her. What would she do without a car ferry?"
There's a public safety problem, Fire Chief Duncan McLane warned the gathering. "We had a fire this afternoon, we had to have help from other fire districts on the mainland." A car caught fire and a small cabin burned, McLane reported, but a nearby house was saved with help from the mainland. "Without the ferry it would have caused a great deal more damage."
There's no alternative to negotiation, islander Bob Morse said. "We have a wonderful service. We don't want any reduction, but we may have to pay more." And don't think about suing, Morse urged the county officials. "A lawsuit would be ruinous and it would poison relationships between the tribe and the island forever."
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Comments:
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 8:19 a.m. Inappropriate
Stop giving in to indian extortion demands.
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 10:25 a.m. Inappropriate
In the long run, I'd expect the Lummi nation to buy back the island and shut down the ferry. As it is there are issues with water permits forcing residents to shuttle water to the island for drinking.
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 11:42 a.m. Inappropriate
Another informative article by Bob Simmons.
The tragedy of this story is that a lease price was never formally negotiated by either side--every staff discussion was "off the record" until LIBC officials sent their letter curtly withdrawing from further negotiations. The first official indication of what the price of the lease might be was contained in the LIBC letter saying they were through dickering.
It's a poor place to begin a negotiation, by withdrawing from further negotiation.
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 4:27 p.m. Inappropriate
This article seems to be slanted towards blaming the Indians for a service disruption with the ferry that is really the result of poor planning by the county commissioners.
Who thought this could go on forever? Of course, it could, if everyone agreed that the costs of running the ferry should be paid by taxation.
But that's not what happened here. Instead, everyone was hoping the boat would last forever and the lease would be renewed on the same terms they got in 1985.
Then the hammer fell. The county commissioners realized that paying a market rate to the Indians would commit them for decades to providing ferry service, which would mean raising taxes. What could be more convenient for the commissioners at that point than pointing to the Indians as the reason the ferry couldn't be kept running?
The story is a real-life drama, and there are other communities in Puget Sound that eventually will face the same challenges. Imagining that these boats can be kept running if only the Indians will help is folly. And a story that took more of a big picture approach would probably be not only fairer, but also more interesting.
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 6:29 p.m. Inappropriate
Speaking as an Islander, with a huge stake in the outcome of this contest, I would like to point out a few observations.
1. Chief Cagey will surely be better off for refusing to settle for business as usual, under the terms of the old agreement. 58 times the fair market value, remains to be seen.
2. The tideland under the ferry dock is about 20' by 200', or the difference between high and low tide. If you own a vacant lot somewhere the same size, and think you can rent it out for 1/2 mil per year, then best of luck to you.
3. The road leading to the dock, and ferry are owned by Whatcom Co, and have been since 1924. Give it back? OK, give back all the county improvements made on the reservation over the last 85 years, with inflation and interest. That's fair.
4. Just to really be fair, have the Lummi Nation charge the same amount to the two adjacent docks next to the ferry, that Islanders end up paying for the right to cross a tideland. They currently pay about $150 a month each.
If the Lummi Nation can pull this off, then map out every tribal boundary in the state, and post a big sign on the edge of the roadways.
ME TOO!
mSkehan
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 7:28 p.m. Inappropriate
serial_catowner:
WC doesn't have county commissioners.
It speaks to your outlier's dismissal that there is a history and a nuanced context to this issue. There's a tendency to polarize issues of this kind from either the frame of sympathy for the aggrieved plight of the Indian (as you seem to adopt) or annoyance at the perpetual "mea culpa" of "the white man's burden" atoning for sins of the past (as perhaps BlueLight does).
The truth is somewhere else, not quite the middle.
The Lummis are formidable, tenacious negotiators worthy of respect, who know where their allies lie and with whom they should and must negotiate (and those NOT due this consideration). But, at times, like all people, they're inartful and hardheaded. That's about as close to the truth of the situation I have skills to express.
Posted Mon, Aug 30, 10:08 p.m. Inappropriate
This is, of course, about a hundred and sixty years of abusive apartheid. But that is a confusing perspective, literally "fusing with" so many other issues that making sense of any,in particular, is futile. And true, the Lummi are saavy and tough negotiators, nothing really left to lose, striving to establish new precedents. But this perspective ultimately only underscores traditional racial divides, and does nothing to solve problems. It only leads to a false dichotomy between Indian hostility and white guilt. It's useless.
The real issue is about public necessity and standards of public service. The problem is exemplified by the rent disparity between adjacent leases for private businesses and the proposed terms for the public road. Usually public necessity commands preferential advantage. Not in this case. The Lummi's "final offer" for the public road is 308 times what the businesses pay. That is not the "just compensation" standard established by law.
The broader context is in the precedents that may be set. The Lummi position challenges federal authority over navigable waters and registered US vessels, federal approval of rights-of-way, oversight over contracts, and the force and effect of several federal laws and policies.
Existing policy clearly discourages the local inter-jurisdictional strife currently being played out. It instead asserts that federal mediation be employed to resolve such disputes in "mutually beneficial" settlements.
The biggest, most succinct problem is that of elected representatives willingness to cateforically ignore the problem, federal policy and law.
Posted Tue, Aug 31, 8:29 a.m. Inappropriate
Especially as a former houseboat owner, I sympathize with the islanders. It's no fun when you think the city can simply take your home, and it's no fun when a guy from the east buys the adjacent property and discovers he can rackrent you to cross 20 feet of dock constructed with the verbal agreement to an easement by the previous owner.
But I sure didn't see any of those arguments about "public necessity and standards of public service" for the Indians back in the 50s and 60s. In fact, I understand it's considered dangerously radical even today to propose that everyone should have basic healthcare, and as for decent housing- forget it. We're not talking about rescuing flood survivors with helicopters here, we're talking about the failure of a transportation system because it's not 1985 anymore.
But let's do the short form. To get square with the Indians, we could dig up the missing hundreds of billions in Trust Fund money, and find the missing decades of records that were mysteriously "lost", and square the accounts- with interest.
Or, we can deal square with the Indians, realize that time moves forward, and replace the worn-out broken stuff with better new stuff. This second approach usually, from what I've seen, results in a significant upgrade to the neighborhood for everyone.
It seems clear that the Lummi have in mind a significant improvement in that area. In that context the numbers for the rent don't seem out of line, and some of it can be paid by the county making improvements to its own stuff. Considering the amount of development we see around Puget Sound, it hardly seems unreasonable to anticipate such development in the future. You can probably guess I lean towards the second option.