Internal Native American Disputes Stall Koll Project : Archeology: Developers say they did everything right in plan to build 4,286 homes near Bolsa Chica wetlands.

The Koll Real Estate Group thought it had done everything right.

Almost from the beginning of its effort to construct 4,286 homes near the Bolsa Chica wetlands, the company had followed state recommendations by employing a Native American to monitor the site in case workers stumbled on an ancient burial ground or uncovered artifacts.

Later, about the time that Native American bone fragments were discovered, Koll contacted leaders of the two Orange County bands--the Juanenos and the Gabrielinos--to make sure that each group could participate in preserving its heritage by designating separate monitors for the project.

And recently company officials organized a gathering of the six people designated by the California Native Heritage Commission as the “most likely descendants” of the individuals whose remains had been found. The purpose: to hear their recommendations regarding the bones’ disposition.

Yet, despite its stated good intentions, Koll today is embroiled in a controversy that has stalled the project. So far there have been two Native American demonstrations protesting the work. And the Huntington Beach City Council recently voted to ask the Orange County Grand Jury to investigate whether the handling of the bones was legal.

Frustrated, Koll officials are trying to figure out what went askew. They deny any wrongdoing. Yet they have been caught in the middle of a slew of age-old conflicts among Native Americans involving territory, tribal status and fierce competition for monitoring jobs that pay $200 to $300 a day. Central to the dispute is the location of Bolsa Chica, to which two bands of Native Americans lay claim.

To be sure, there are serious questions regarding the handling of the bones. A report compiled by Councilman Ralph Bauer contains, among other things, eyewitness accounts suggesting that human remains may have been found at the site much earlier than Koll has admitted. Further, Bauer has records indicating that the find may not have been reported to the coroner’s office quickly enough to satisfy the law.

Company officials have steadfastly denied any error.

Among those clamoring for the investigation, however, were Native Americans angry at the developer for a different reason altogether: They said the company had left them out of the loop by dealing with the wrong Native Americans.

“This is war,” said Jim Velasques, chief of a group called the coastal Gabrielinos. “There’ll be no more messing around.”

Said archeologist Patricia Martz of the Bolsa Chica controversy: “It’s a pretty typical situation.” Martz, an archeologist on the faculty of Cal State Los Angeles and head of the state historical resources commission, said she had seen similar situations up and down the state.

“It’s only human nature,” she said. Native Americans “are not getting their share of the American dream and they were the first Americans. It’s sad, really,” she said. Protecting their heritage “is the only empowerment they have right now.”

Velasques put it into economic terms.

“Archeology is a gold mine,” he said. “Native Americans can make money hand over fist.”

It isn’t the first time such issues have been thrust under the noses of Orange County developers.

Five years ago, Velasques himself was being paid $35 an hour--$10 of it for a leased pickup truck and cellular phone--to act as a full time monitor for the Irvine Co. on its Newport Coast construction project. A group calling itself the Native American Coalition of Southern California threatened to stage a demonstration protesting the alleged mishandling of human remains. One of its major concerns, said the coalition--whose members included David Belardes, a Juaneno, and Vera Rocha, founder of a separate Gabrielino group--was the selection of Velasques to represent the Gabrielinos.

“I think what we had was a difference of opinion among different people who represented themselves as Gabrielinos,” recalls Bernard Maniscalco, who oversaw the project for the Irvine Co.

After weeks of negotiations, the company hit on a solution: hire the opposition as well. Members of both the Belardes and Rocha families were given full-time jobs as archeological field assistants on the project, working with Velasques. And almost immediately, the problem disappeared.

“It was miscommunication,” Maniscalco says now. “Hiring representatives of both families helped to provide for better communication all around.”

Officials of the Koll company say that they too tried hard to hire the correct representatives of the Native Americans for Bolsa Chica. Back in 1992, they say, following the advice of the California Native American Heritage Commission, the company contacted designated representatives of both the Juaneno and Gabrielino bands to get their recommendations regarding Native American monitors. Speaking for the Juanenos was Belardes. Representing the Gabrielinos was Cindi Alvitre, then chairwoman of the Gabrielino/Tongva Tribal Council. What followed was a three-month correspondence between Koll and Alvitre that seemed to start with good intentions, but unraveled altogether in the end.

Initially, the subject was monitors; Alvitre approved the hiring of an interim monitor to serve on a temporary basis until permanent monitors--including two Gabrielinos--could be selected.

Next, the company asked her to sign an agreement on behalf of her band under which any remains found would be reburied with full Native American participation at another site near the wetlands. It was during negotiations on this issue that Alvitre made the request that ultimately proved fatal to the discussions: she asked for $4,800 from the company to pay for four Native American shamans--religious leaders--to visit the site for four days.

Koll officials balked, saying that while they were willing to make the site available to the shamans for one day, they were not willing to pay for the visit. Alvitre wrote back rejecting the offer and negotiations broke down.

“What we have here is a shakedown,” Velasques later said of Alvitre’s request.

Alvitre, who has since resigned from the tribal council and formed a separate group, did not return several calls. During the recent meeting with a Koll official and other Native Americans to discuss the disposition of the bones, however, she defended her request as both reasonable and necessary. “I didn’t feel it was inappropriate,” she is quoted as saying in a transcript supplied by the company. “Many of these medicine people I was going to bring out . . . are on fixed incomes. . . . We’re not being reimbursed or compensated for any of this. . . . It’s not a financial endeavor . . . not an exploitive type of thing.”

Eventually the Koll organization hired three Native American monitors for the project--a member of the Luiseno band, a Juaneno and a Gabrielino whose standing later was challenged by Alvitre and others.

But while the Bolsa Chica controversy has heated up in the last couple of years, such tribal challenges and conflicts go back centuries.

Historically, most archeologists agree, the Gabrielinos occupied the territory north of Aliso Creek--in what is now South Laguna--while the Juanenos were on the land to the south, principally around what would become San Juan Capistrano. Juanenos, however, now cite what they describe as a longstanding agreement between the two bands under which, on political matters, they represent Orange County and the Gabrielinos represent Los Angeles County, an assertion the Gabrielinos dispute. And in recent years at least four separate Gabrielino groups have emerged, each claiming to truly represent the band.

It is Gabrielino factionalism, in fact, that provides much of the fuel for the present debate.

Velasques, chief of a Santa Ana-based group called the Local Coastal Gabrielino Tribal Council, says he represents 500 Native Americans and is the true spokesman for the Orange County Gabrielinos. Martin Alcala, current chairman of the Gabrielino/-Tongva Tribal Council based in Marina del Rey, claims that his group is the sole legitimate voice of Gabrielinos. And both Alvitre and Rocha have broken off to form their own separate Gabrielino groups.

The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs office in Riverside makes no formal distinctions between the various groups of Gabrielinos, according to tribal operations officer Frances Muncy. Upon request, she said, the bureau will document an individual’s family heritage and issue a certificate attesting to tribal affiliation and degree of Native American blood.

And in designating the most likely descendants for a particular archeological dig, the California Native American Heritage Commission plays no favorites, preferring instead to stay out of jurisdictional disputes, said Larry Myers, executive secretary.

“Sometimes it is extremely difficult to determine who represents which group,” Myers said. “I don’t really want to get caught in an argument over who’s a real Indian; we accept (people’s claims) at face value.”

As a result, the field is wide open for competition and backbiting among various tribal groups.

Just last month, in fact, Velasques stood up at a Huntington Beach City Council meeting to publicly blast Native Americans who accept money to oversee the disinterment of their ancestors’ bones.

“If that was my mother’s bones,” he said, “I promise you that no one would have to grease my palms to be out there watching. If you have to pay them, you own them.”

Yet, in addition to serving as full time paid monitor for the Irvine Company from 1988 to 1991, Velasques last year applied for--but did not get--a similar job on a project at Loyola Marymount University in Westchester. And as recently as last November, Koll officials say, he made an offer--which the company refused--to provide an archeological “peer review” of the Bolsa Chica project for a fee of $3,000.

“He said he wouldn’t even have to visit the site,” Susan Hori, a lawyer representing the company, recalled. “He assured me that everything was going fine on site and that if we hired him it would resolve any potential problems with the Gabrielinos.”

Velasques confirmed that he had made such an offer, adding that a simple conversation with the archeologist involved in the project would have made a site visit unnecessary. “I just wanted them to tell me what they were doing,” he said. Had the Koll company been willing to negotiate separate deals with him and with the various other Gabrielino factions, Velasques said, “they could have laid the thing to rest.”

All of which leaves Koll officials shaking their heads.

“You try to go through things like the tribal councils and end up getting caught in a lot of personal battles between individuals,” Hori said. “There seem be a lot of power struggles and you end up getting caught in the middle.”