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The Presidio of San Francisco is a special place inhabited by the Ohlone for thousands of years - 10,000 years more like it. Sacred Burial grounds known to us informed and non-biased, non-racists as Shellmounds. Sacred Burial grounds found and which exists all over the Presidio of San Francisco.
Again and again the National Park Service (NPS) and the Trust will not admit and come out in the open that the Muwekma Ohlone the only tribe that has laid claim to the Presidio - should be acknowledged and respected. The Muwekma Ohlone, as an indigenous tribe exercised their "right of first refusal way back in 1991 when the Army declared that the Presidio was slated for Base Closure. Simply put an indigenous tribe that legally claims patrimony to the land of their forefathers can and should exercise their claim as the right of first refusal. The Department of Defense upon declaring Base Closure have and do inform those tribes that can and should lay claim to the land of their forefathers. The Base Closure Act rightly accepts the indigenous tribe of the local area and encourages them to exercise their patrimonial rights - exercise their right of first refusal. However as I mentioned earlier the Trust and the National Park Service steeped in their modern ways and laced with bias and hatred for all Native People - will do anything in their power not to acknowledge the Muwekma Ohlone. Soon they will have to eat their words and more and pay their respects to the Muwekma Ohlone as equal partners. It was refreshing to see the role of Native Americans at the recent Winter Olympics. Brought tears to my eyes. Why do we Americans have to disown and disrespect the Native Americans? This is their land - all of it stolen in one way or another by strangers. At one time in yester years if you had the gun powder and the muzzle - you could lay claim to anything you wanted. At one time in California for example you could kill a Native American and claim a reward. This was the practice until 1927. In California for years Native American children were sold as slaves. This is a fact. Bounty Hunters where paid a paltry sum of $5 if they produced a scalp that belonged to a Native American. It is a shame that a people steeped by such unjust practices today claim to be civilized. Let me state very clearly they all have blood on their hands. It is this shame that disturbs the NPS and the Trust - they know they got the Presidio of San Francisco for free. As did all those before them. They have no balls to face the Native Americans - in this case the Muwekma Ohlone and say you deserve this land it is yours. Come April 11, 2002 Judge Ricardo Urbina will put the Muwekma Ohlone on the Federal Register. The Muwekma Ohlone were illegally removed by a racist Bureau of Indian Affairs official, L.A. Dorrington - much like the present day NPS - way back in 1927. Shame on those who do not care and will not respect the Native Americans. Shame on the NPS and the Department of Interior. These two entities have done all in their power to keep the powers to be - acknowledging the Muwekma Ohlone as a sovereign nation - putting them back on the Federal Register where they were until 1927. Some of you will remember the Crissy Field Project. The Haas family and many others poured millions of dollars to help build this so called Playground over the Sacred Burial grounds of the Ohlone. This is wrong. The NPS and the Trust knew about the Sacred Burial grounds because I for one told them so. At first they scoffed at me but when they found the Shellmound on Crissy Field - the NPS tried their best to use every convoluted logic to avoid the issue at hand. In the end they decided to save a portion of the Shellmound. The NPS desecrated the Shellmound for all practical purposes and reneged on their words. " If we find a shellmound we will stop the project". The NPS did not. The Shellmound should have been saved in its entirety. The NPS is in the business of protection and preservation. In reality they are in the business of money and greed. Right now there are other Shellmounds at Crissy Field! The NPS brags that it controls thousands of acres of land and if it does so - it should preserve and protect the land. It does not. All over the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) we find actions that have devastated the land that should have been protected and preserved. The NPS talks the talk but it does not walk the walk. At the Presidio of San Francisco the NPS was instrumental in wasting millions of dollars on consultants. It wasted 8 million dollars on the Letterman Hospital - only for George Lucas to tear it down. It kept hundreds of pristine houses maintained by the Army closed and ruined the historic houses. Ruined beautiful hard wood floors - destroyed walls due to dampness and mildew. Scoffed at their own historic guidelines and made buffoons of themselves. Today, the NPS is trying to redo the Cliff House. In the bargain it wants to evict the museums which have been there and cater to the public. Recently the public has cast its vote against the NPS. It does not approve of the NPS not permitting dogs to roam on public land that clearly were set aside for all pets. It has pissed the constituents of Sausalito - the NPS has grand plans for East Fort Baker but at the expense of the constituents who were there before the NPS moved in and decided to be a BAD neighbor. March 17, 2002 the Hasslet Warehouse caught on fire at FishermanŐs Wharf. This property and the Cliff House belonged to the State of California. On the sly the Cannery or Hasslet Warehouse was spruced at great expense to accommodate a fancy hotel and other money making stores. The fire exposed the NPS and the public for the first time found out that the Cannery belonged to the NPS. Much like the public found out the Cliff House belonged to the NPS and that future plans to improve the Cliff House - are geared to increased the greed of the NPS. The NPS will cast stones at the Trust and fault them because they are making money with Presidio housing. Not once the NPS will tell the public that at Upper Fort Mason they are renting some homes for $10,000 dollars a month. Greed knows no bounds when it comes to the NPS. The NPS once the breeding ground of racist all White men still has remnants in pockets and that includes in the GGNRA. Recently it has adopted a policy to contract jobs to outside contractors. It has decided to treat its employees who are of color with hatred. I always ask the racists GGNRA officials what happened to two great African American women Darlene William and Millie Bristow? They will never have an answer because they drove both these great hard working African American women - crazy by discrimination and hassling them every single day. Today, the NPS does not care about its employees who work so hard. Again and again the NPS will challenge the NPS hard working employees. The NPS management is where the corruption festers. The NPS Union under the banner of its President Mike Crahan has been doing his best - with the help of some of his Union comrades. We will not give up even as the snafus continue at the Presidio of San Francisco. Snafus! |
