Aug. 18, 2000 - Rancheria squeezes home onto its lands

By ERICA BROOKS, Staff writer

SHINGLE SPRINGS -- Residents of the Shingle Springs Rancheria battled narrow time restrictions yesterday morning as they worked to move the home of a 90-year-old Miwok tribal elder onto the reservation.

Although the tribe usually has five and a half hours to move mobile homes in, the local homeowners association of surrounding property owners granted only three hours for Tuesday's move. As of 1:30 p.m., an hour and a half past the deadline, only two of four trucks had completed the route.

"There are too many people on the other side of the bridge, and we're in the middle of a heightened fire season," explained Grassy Run Homeowners Association President Penny Ledoux as she watched the tribe members erect the shaky ramp. "The board decided that the time would be shortened up, simply as a safety factor."

Because of the fire danger, a fire engine and medic unit from the Diamond Springs-El Dorado Fire Department waited on the far side of the bridge, ready to respond to any fire or medical emergencies. They were summoned as a precautionary measure by rancheria officials.

To get the homes across a bridge on the only road in or out of the reservation, the workers must build a ramp to allow the pieces of the mobile homes to clear a set of pedestrian hand rails the homeowners erected several years ago.

Although the rails allow delivery trucks and normal residential traffic, they are too narrow for the mobile homes that rancheria residents live in.

"Before this ramp," said Nick Fonseca, vice chairman of the tribal council, "we were only able to bring up 12-foot-wide trailers."

Ledoux said the hand rails were originally set up because the bridge had no pedestrian walkways set aside.

Now that the bridge has the walkways, Ledoux said the rails are still a safety factor.

"We use this as a guide in figuring that if a vehicle doesn't fit, it's too large to be on the roads," she said.

The tribe, the only ones seriously affected by the space constraints, have offered to erect a new set of rails that could be easily removed for the mobile homes.

The homeowners association turned down the offer.

"There isn't any need for it," said Ledoux.

Tuesday marked the second time the tribe had used the ramp, which cost them $7,000 to build. The trucks wheeled in two mobile homes, one for a 90-year-old tribal elder who wants to spend his last days on the reservation.

Balancing the wooden ramp on support blocks made of stacked 2x4s, workers positioned the structure in front of the trailers' wheels, raising the trucks high enough to clear the rails on the sides.

"When you're doing something like this," said Fonseca, "it's very dangerous."

As the truck and trailer crawled across their temporary support, workers hurried to readjust the two sides of the ramp.

The project saw a setback as the second truck was crossing the ramp, according to spokeswoman Elaine Whitehurst.

"One of the boards started to tip," she said. "That was really scary."

As the third truck was making its way across at about 1:15, Whitehurst said homeowners were at the scene.

"They're out there watching and taking pictures," she said. "We're trying our best. The guys are working real hard."

Tony Fonseca, Nick Fonseca's cousin and one of the workers on the ramp, recalled the first time they erected the ramp, just a few months ago.

At the time, he said, several members of the homeowners association turned out to watch and even videotape the event, policing the workers' activities.

"They were telling (the workers), `don't scratch our poles on our bridge,' " he said.

The ramp's first run saw several setbacks, between miscalculated angles, an extra-long trailer, and at least one medical emergency, when they had to take it down to let a Grassy Run boy through who was suffering from an asthma attack.

Tensions between the tribe and the surrounding community have come to a head several times in the past few years, as residents opposed the tribe's proposed casino.

In 1997, a resident was charged with spreading nails on the road to damage the tires of casino patrons and rancheria residents. In 1998, tribal spokesman Dick Moody was fined $3,000 for homeowners' lawyers' fees after they sued the tribe over a gravel truck that was 15 minutes late leaving the reservation.

Now, tribal spokesmen say the hand rails may be just another way for the homeowners to exercise control over the reservation.

"All we are doing is trying to provide housing for our tribal members," said Nick Fonseca. "Most of our members are forced to live off the reservation because there is no housing for them and no hope of increasing the housing due to these discriminatory restrictions."

Ledoux, however, said the homeowners are well within their rights.

"It's our bridge and our road," she said, "and our hand rails."