TULALIP – The Marysville Tulalip Community Association is seeking legal advice for members who lease residential land on the Tulalip Reservation in hopes it can get the tribes to pay them for homes they’ll lose when their leases expire.
The association has grown to more than 500 members since a meeting in January stirred interest in the group that is monitoring a variety of issues on the reservation, co-president Tom Mitchell said.
The group has raised more than $5,000 in donations for a legal defense fund, he added.
The association selected a committee of 15 people to focus on the residential leases and the panel has contacted the Seattle law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine, Mitchell said.
Some reservation residents who lease residential land from the Tulalips were upset in December to learn that their leases, many of which have been held by families since the mid-1930s, will come to an end.
In all, 343 families will have to move their homes or lose them, starting with 32 residences in 2012. Most of the rest will be offered one final 15-year lease when their current ones expire between 2008 and 2033.
Families with homes below the Mission Beach bluff won’t be allowed any further lease renewals, because the crumbling bluff has raised safety concerns.
The association seeks to challenge the Tulalips’ change in policy with the hope that lessees won’t lose the money they’ve invested in their homes, members say.
Tribal officials, however, say the contracts specify that when they lease ends, the owners must move the houses or they become tribal property.
Ron Dotzauer, owner of Strategies 360, a public relations firm hired by the tribe, credited the Tulalips with giving the lessees plenty of notice.
“They’re getting at least eight years notice, and some 22 years notice. I think that’s generous on the part of the Tulalips,” he said.
Dotzauer leases office space in Seattle for his business and invested thousands of dollars in it, but he doesn’t own it, he said.
“I hired an architect, space planner, I paid for all of the build-out on my new space, but when my lease is up in four years, I don’t own any of it,” he said. “That’s the deal I signed. I decided I wanted to make my place look better. I assumed the risk.”
Similarly, the homes will revert to the Tulalips when those leases expire, he said.
When the homes below the bluff are empty, they’ll be torn down because they’re not safe with the bluff eroding, Dotzauer said.
“Their independent engineering has determined that is a significant safety hazard. That’s the only reason those homes aren’t being given the 15-year extension,” he added.
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