Split Rez

My school and its community emphasize the Native American heritage of this place. The school hires a full time Indian Liaison who arranges activities for students emphasizing Pomo identity. Many of the students bus from the Manchester-Pt. Arena Band of Pomo Indians’ reservation.

The Garcia River that runs through the middle of the “Rez” (how the reservation’s referred to locally) flooded recently during big storms. School was closed for a day because many people live north of the river and roads were closed. I heard there used to be a bridge that crossed between the two sides of the reservation. It was higher and not as likely to flood as the one on Highway 1, the main coastal road. You can see from the photos (below) that the one currently used, built in 1938, is pretty low. Fun fact: It’s a Warren Pony truss bridge.

There has been fundraising to rebuild the bridge that would connect the two sides of the Pomo reservation again, but it has been delayed due, as I understand it, to the major families on each side fighting over funds and some embezzlement that may have occurred. The main families are the Leylas and the Pinolas. I hope the “bridge gets mended” figuratively and literally. I also would love to see a land trust for them like the Kashia Coastal Reserve of the Kashia Tribe, which bought back land stretching from Annapolis to the sea at Two Fish Cafe and north and south of it. They can’t develop or buy and sell the land but they can fish there. Best of all, no one else can develop it.