FROM PLAYA VISTA PAGE 3 Developers to rebury bones
By Daily Press Staff
DOWNTOWN LA — Despite objections from tribal leaders, the Los Angeles City Council agreed Wednesday to reimburse a developer with $11.4 million worth of infrastructure bonds for excavating an American Indian burial site to make way for the Playa Vista project in Playa del Rey.
The council agreed to use Mello-Roos bonds to reimburse developer Playa Capital for hiring a team of archaeologists to exhume the remains of more than 400 Gabrielino Tongva tribal ancestors, the original inhabitants of the Los Angeles basin.
“This request from the developer is a shame and an ongoing attack on our culture,” said Anthony Morales, tribal chairman and chief of the Gabrielino Tongva San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians.
“Instead of asking for compensation, they should be talking to us about a reburial,” Morales said.“Our ancestors have been out of the ground for several years and in storage. This action is an injustice and genocidal.”
Playa Vista officials agreed to work with the tribe and Councilman Bill Rosendahl’s office to rebury the remains near the original site.
Costs to unearth the American Indian bodies from the massive housing development were estimated at nearly $2 million when the dig began three years ago, but soared to more than $11 million, due to the unexpectedly high body count, according to George Milstein, an attorney representing Playa Capital.
“We worked with the tribal leaders during the excavation in an endeavor to honor their culture, their history and their ancestors by conducting the work at the highest professional standards,” Milstein told the council.
“We certainly appreciate the difficulties that this situation presented and the emotions associated with it, and truly regret any misunderstanding or anguish that may have been caused by these endeavors,” he said.
Mello-Roos bonds pay for public infrastructure, such as sewers, parks and traffic improvements. The bonds are repaid from additional property taxes paid by property owners within the district.
Tribal officials argued that using the bond funds to unearth the bodies was improper, but a report issued by the city’s administrative office said the spending was appropriate.
State law allows excavation of Indian graveyards on private property, but requires that the remains be reburied under the non-binding guidance of a tribal descendent.
Construction of a drainage channel for the development was suspended when the first bones were discovered in October 2003. At the time, the Army Corps of Engineers refused to grant a permit to change location for the channel.
“We already knew that there was a burial ground there, but the developer chose to go ahead and make a corridor through there, taking up all of our ancestors and putting them in cardboard boxes,” tribal member Linda Gonzales argued.
“They should have changed their plans and moved the drainage ditch over.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 18, 2007. Read the original PDF.