SAN JACINTO, Calif. — John Gomez Sr. will never forget the battery-powered car he received from the Santa Claus who showed up at the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians' reservation one Christmas 45 years ago.
"I never saw it run," Gomez recalled. "My family couldn't afford batteries for that little car, so I pulled it around the house on a string."
That was back when the Pechanga reservation was a dusty patch of dirt roads, junked cars, stray dogs, mobile homes and destitute families.
The Pechanga Resort & Casino, which produces an estimated $184 million in revenue a year, changed all that.
As one of the tribe's 990 enrolled members who receive about $10,000 a month from casino profits, the 55-year-old Gomez now tools around the Inland Empire in a new Jaguar, vacations in Spain, collects fine art and bids at silent auctions. While he enjoys making his own smoked turkey in the traditional Indian manner with aromatic wood, he likes to polish it off with an excellent California Merlot.
But Gomez has a problem. As tribal revenue has grown, so have old rivalries and suspicions on the reservation. Recently, the tribal enrollment committee decided to drop Gomez and about 130 people from the tribe, claiming they do not meet ancestral requirements to remain part of the Pechanga Band.
The people targeted for ejection have sued seven committee members in an attempt to stay in the tribe. On Tuesday, a Riverside County Superior Court judge will decide whether he has the authority to hear their lawsuit. The plaintiffs allege that members of the tribe's enrollment committee are trying to increase their wealth by reducing the total number of tribal members eligible for shares of casino profits.
Five years after voters granted tribes the exclusive right to operate lucrative Nevada-style slot machines, numerous Native American groups are fighting over tribal membership.
In Northern California, the Redding Rancheria tribal council recently dropped nearly one-fourth of its membership. A year ago, the Table Mountain Rancheria near Fresno refused to recognize half of its members after its casino started operating.
The Pechanga Band's defendants have generally declined to discuss the ejection of the members, or the lawsuit.
