Sales Tax, Police, Health Services Pose Unresolved Issues : Indians, Town Feud: ‘Who’s in Charge Here?’

If Pat Beaver has trouble at her motel in this square-mile outpost along the Colorado River, the local police department refuses to respond. She has to call nearby Indian tribal authorities.

When Luana Miller rousts a disorderly drunk from her Red Pony Saloon down the street, she has to know the ancestry of the scoundrel before she knows which police agency to summon.

“It’s a pretty volatile situation in my business,” she grumbles.

These days, nobody’s sure who runs Parker--the townspeople or the neighboring Colorado River Indian Tribes. Two police departments patrol the town. Some stores collect sales tax, some don’t. Some restaurants receive health inspections, some don’t.

The town of 2,800 is surrounded by the independent, sovereign Indian reservation, and about one-third of the lots in town--including Beaver’s Kofa Inn--are also on reservation land.

Ruled ‘Indian Country’

In fact, a federal judge recently ruled at the behest of the Indians that Parker was “Indian Country,” and part of the reservation.

Now the tribes, which share a 47% unemployment rate and are eager for aggressive economic development, want a say in town government.

Townspeople are furious.

“People bought this land (in town) thought they were buying a part of the United States, and they think they are part of the United States. But that’s what the judge ruled--they aren’t,” said Parker Mayor Sam Davis.

The clash of cultures has been anything but peaceful over the years, and both sides say it has held back economic development.

After Parker police fatally shot two Indians in separate 1987 incidents, tribal police began following the city officers, and the city police chief described the situation as “explosive.” Federal mediators helped defuse some of the tension.

The reservation--made up of Mojave, Chemehuevi, Navajo and Hopi Indians--launched a boycott of Davis’ hardware store in Parker, and in April the tribes bought some city land and opened their own hardware store. It’s nearly twice the size of Davis’, and customers--Indian and non-Indian alike--don’t have to pay sales tax.

Store Goes Off Tax Roll

The hardware-store land also went off the city tax roll and will become reservation, tribal attorney William Lavell said.

The Indians said they don’t want to take over the town--all they want is more respect from townspeople.

“We realize we have to work with the town in order to have peace in the community,” said Lawanda Laffoon, one of three tribal representatives on a negotiating team trying to resolve the dispute.

“We both realize neither one of us is going away.”

But townspeople say the tribes are after their tax money, and some say if the tribes take over government in Parker, many in the town will pack up and move.

“It’s conceivable but not practical,” Miller said. “People like me own two businesses and two houses in town. You can’t turn tail and run. My whole life is here.”

The town has spent so much fighting the legal case that lawyers’ fees at one time amounted to 10% of the annual budget.

While other areas along the Colorado River between California and Arizona have boomed with tourism developments, Parker has been left behind.

‘Dispute Hurt Us All’

“I think that the dispute has hurt us all on both sides and we would like to get out of that mode, so to speak, and get on to development,” said Roberta Hoffman, a town council member and representative to the negotiating team.

The 180,000-acre reservation that straddles the river was established in 1865; the town was founded six years later outside the reservation boundaries.

Confusion about the lands took root in 1908 when Congress approved moving the town onto reservation land so it would be near the new railroad.

A 1-square-mile area was carved up and sold by the government, which holds reservation lands in trust. One-third of the land, however, remained unsold and was returned to the tribes.

The town and the tribe lived peacefully together for decades, but trouble began amid a local economic depression caused by a 1983 flood.

That year, the tribes filed suit asking that Indian authorities be given jurisdiction over zoning on the one-third of the town that was Indian land and that the town be barred from denying utilities to those Indian lots.

Before long, the suit was seen as a threat to the town’s independence. The key question was whether Congress meant to “disestablish” the town from the reservation.

Town Loses Battle

In February, the town lost. U.S. District Judge Roger Strand ruled Congress did not separate Parker, and the town was part of the reservation.

Law enforcement is so complicated that a slew of police phone numbers have to be posted by the phone in Miller’s saloon.

Town police can arrest only non-Indian town residents. Tribal police can prosecute only misdemeanors committed by Indians. Felonies by Indians become the domain of federal police, such as the FBI or Bureau of Indian Affairs deputies.

Now, if crimes are committed on Indian land within the town, only tribal police respond.

Some say the town is realizing that there are economic benefits to be reaped by being part of an Indian reservation, which is eligible for special tax breaks and extra federal funding. The reservation is nearing completion of a new generating plant on the Colorado that could offer low-cost electricity to new industry.

“We’re going to save money in the long run,” said town Manager George Kruse. “Attitudes are changing. We’re moving in the right direction now. . . . The lawsuit was the catalyst and the judge’s ruling was the reality.”

But others, like Mayor Davis, said the only permanent solution will have to come from Washington.

“Congress should finish doing what it didn’t do in 1908. If it didn’t disestablish the town, then it should do it now,” he said.