More than 6 months after the City of Ventura served notices on all water rights holders in the Ventura River watershed, notices were served to the local Chumash tribal elders.
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| (courtesy Ojai Valley News) |
A response was published in the Ojai Valley News:
July 10, 2020, the City of Ventura served papers on the Chumash tribal leaders, as a California Native American tribe: the Barbareño/Ventureño Band of Mission Indians, telling them their rights are subordinate to the City. All Chumash, the indigenous people, are being diminished, dismissed and insulted by the City’s assertion of Pueblo-misson rights.
On July 23, in response to nationwide and local protests, the City of Ventura removed a statue of Junípero Serra, the founder of Mission San Buenaventura. According to the LA Times:
Serra was the founder of nine of 21 missionaries in California during the 18th century. While he spread Roman Catholicism throughout much of California, then a Spanish territory, many Native American tribes were decimated through the introduction of foreign diseases, the destruction of villages and native plants and animals. Natives Americans also were forced into the construction of the missions, faced high death rates and were subjected to harsh corporal punishment.
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| ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Serra_statue) |
The response to the City's lawsuit continues:
It is hypocritical of the City of Ventura in one act to vote to remove the Serra statue and on the other to assert that the city’s water rights somehow, outrageously, supersede the rights of our land’s first inhabitants. The lawsuit’s claims undermine their own values. Where is the truth and dignity of the Ventura City Council members?
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