Is It a Sign? Hoopa Tribal Chairman Tears Down Political Billboard; Some Argue He’s Silencing Dissent

Political differences brought tempers to a head in the Hoopa Tribe on Monday when Tribal Chairman, Byron Nelson, tore down a sign protesting his policies on land that tribal member Virgil Pole says is his.

Pole’s daughter, Stevie, caught Nelson’s actions on video.

Virgil Pole argues that the destruction of the sign is emblematic of Nelson’s acts since being sworn in as chairman in June.

“He is overstepping his authority,” Pole told us. “He’s making decisions far beyond his position.” Pole had posted the sign protesting not only the recent firing of three members of the Hoopa Tribal Police including the Chief Dana Norton but what, Pole saw, as an entire overthrow of policies that had been put in place previously. He said he had posted the sign to express his political views and Nelson illegally removed it.

One side of the sign stated, “Attention by order of [Chairman] Nelson-The Hoopa Valley will no longer have its own police protection. Jurisdiction over you and these lands will now be under County Sheriff Honsal’s rule.”

The other side got more personal. It stated, “For Sale Sovereignty…For info contact B. Nelson Jr. between naps at Hoopa Tribal Office.”

Sign torn down by Chairman Nelson in Hoopa. [Photos and video above provided by Stevie Pole]

“It’s all about drugs,” he told us. “Everything they are trying to project–about the firing of the police chief, the giving away of sovereignty…It’s just a smokescreen.”

He says that he is struggling to get rid of rampant drug use in the area. “I reinstated [random] drug testing for all tribal employees and tribal council members,” he said. “The past chairman had ordered it to not take place anymore. The first thing I did was to reinstate that.”

One of the issues causing tensions in Hoopa (like thoughout the rest of the Emerald Triangle) is cannabis. Nelson explained that he thinks his position on the controversial crop is causing some tribal members to fight his decisions. “I ran on the issue [of eradicating] the widespread marijuana grows on our reservation,” he explained.

Nelson said he isn’t against marijuana. “When I went to Humboldt [State College], I enjoyed that,” he told us yesterday in an interview over the phone. “I believe that everyone should be able to have their share of marijuana for household personal use. But a few people are advocating widespread grows.”

He believes those are his opponents. “These are the  people that are fighting me,” he explained. But he says he isn’t worried. “I won by a large margin,” he told us. He said he has begun changing the tribe’s policies around cannabis issues. He told us, for instance, that though the last tribal chairman had stopped allowing Humboldt County to do aerial surveillance looking for large marijuana grows, he has reinstating that option.

He said that the firing of the three Tribal officers was something he couldn’t talk about because “that’s a personnel issue.” Though he did say, “The past chairman was still controlling [the now former] Police Chief by making calls and so forth.”

But in the main Nelson argued that the Tribe had to speed up getting the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office. “We couldn’t make arrests or jail anybody [with the tribal police force] the way it has been operating,” he told us. “They were like a security force.”

In a full page ad Nelson posted in the Two Rivers Tribune yesterday, he argued,

Despite all the fabricated outrage by a few tribal members over how our sovereign rights are being threatened by the county of Humboldt, this explosive issue can really be defined by one simple explanation: it is an effort by certain individuals to maintain our Tribal Police Department at an ineffective level so that they can continue with their illegal activities without any police oversite. (sic) (Read Byron Nelson’s entire ad here.)

Marcellene Norton, a former councilmember who says she worked in education for 33 years for the tribe–most of it as the education director–disagrees with Nelson. She says she believes that “Honsal’s agreement would give the Sheriff full control over Tribal Police.”

She argues, “[This would be] the tribe giving up their sovereignty…Under federal laws, our tribal police have jurisdiction full authority to enforce laws.” She alleges that if Sheriff Honsal would just agree to allow those arrested by tribal police to be put in the Humboldt County jail, the tribal police could operate independently of the Sheriff’s Office. “I understand the trouble is with Sheriff Honsal,” she claimed. “All we need really is a booking agreement with the County.”

Last week, Norton organized a meeting to discuss concerns about the firing of the Police Chief (a relative of hers) and another officer. (Since then a lieutenant has also been fired.) “I was amazed,” she said. “At least 100 people packed into this small room–both Indian and non Indian because tribal police jurisdiction affects everybody both Indian and Non-Indian.”

She said that some residents were threatened that they would be terminated from their jobs for going. “One officer said [during the meeting] he was told that if he attended…, he would be fired,” she told us. “People are afraid of losing their jobs.”

Other local residents we spoke to mentioned they were afraid of speaking out publicly about their concerns with Nelson’s decisions for fear of losing their jobs working for the tribe.

The video of Nelson destroying the sign reinforced Marcellene Norton’s fears. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw the video,” she told us. “That’s destruction of private property and it’s against our freedom of expression…I can’t understand his behavior and I can’t understand why the council is just sitting there. They have the authority to reprimand him and the authority to remove him…Now we are facing a dictatorship…The community is becoming very outraged about what is happening here.”

She feels that Nelson and the Tribal Council aren’t addressing the real issues of opioid and hard drug addiction on the reservation. “It seems that the council and the chairman want to focus in on the marijuana–and they are not doing anything about the heroin and meth,” she said. “Hoopa has the highest distribution of opioid drugs [per a Humboldt County report]…Those are the serious problems we have here on the reservation and I haven’t seen Council addressing the problems.”

But Nelson argued in his ad in the Two Rivers Tribune that the fight against him is a fight against the children of the tribe and their future.

…Ultimately it is the children that are hurt the worst from the drug
epidemic in our Valley. The money that goes into maintaining a drug high is diverted from the amount necessary to care for the children.

Drugs also lead to domestic violence which affects the children in so many damaging ways….So remember, all this hatefulness directed towards me, is not about the firing of the police chief or that I am giving away our sovereign rights to the county. It is about maintaining the drug industry in the valley. And for me, it really is about protecting the children of the valley, and for those that have yet to come.

But Virgil Pole, who posted the sign on what he believes was his property, said he sees the Chairman tearing down it down as silencing his voice and stopping his right to peaceful protest decisions he feels are harmful to the tribe and its police force that was just beginning to recover from years of turmoil.

Chairman Byron Nelson, who argues that the sign was slanderous and was posted illegally on a public utility pole, said, “I got more compliments from doing that than anything.”

But, he added, “I won’t do that anymore.”

A new sign has replaced that taken down. It references fears that some tribal members have expressed that Nelson will terminate the jobs of anyone who might oppose him: “Your Safety expendable + at risk–Nelson threatens to fire entire firehouse.” (Note: No one has reported to us having witnessed Nelson making such a threat.)

As of this morning, at 10:20, the sign is still standing.