KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) – The southeast Alaska village of Saxman has filed a lawsuit against federal officials over the Federal Subsistence Board's 2007 decision to designate the Tlingit community as nonrural.
The complaint filed July 25 calls the decision and criteria used to reach it “arbitrary and capricious,’’ KRBD reported. The plaintiffs are seeking to have the decision reversed and declared invalid.
According to the lawsuit, the criteria used to group Saxman with the larger community of Ketchikan deny village residents the ability to continue traditional and customary harvests. Plaintiffs say it also fails to account for the economic, social and communal independence of Saxman.
The lawsuit was filed against officials of the subsistence board and U.S. Interior and Agriculture departments. The defendants named in the complaint are Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, Agriculture Secretary and subsistence board chairman Tim Towarak.
Department of Interior spokeswoman Jessica Kershaw said Monday her agency does not comment on ongoing lawsuits. Department of Agriculture spokesman Cullen Schwarz said his agency also would not comment for the same reason.
The plaintiffs say Saxman residents have continually engaged in traditional subsistence gathering since the community was first settled in the late 1800s. They say the U.S. government considered the village rural, at least for subsistence purposes, until 2007. The subsistence board in 1990 ruled that Saxman was a rural community, despite its close ties to nonrural Ketchikan, 2 miles to the north.
In 2000, the board initiated a review of rural designations, publishing a proposed rule six years later that kept a rural status for Saxman, a community of about 410.
During a public comment period, testimony overwhelmingly supported the proposed rule, according to Matthew Newman, an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, which is representing Saxman. He said staff at the Federal Subsistence Management Service also supported a nonrural status for Saxman.
“Then, somewhat unannounced and immediately, the board decided to vote and go in the opposite direction,’’ Newman said.
The subsistence board did not offer an explanation for voting against the proposed rule, Newman said. Saxman officials asked for reconsideration within a month of the board's decision.
The board reviewed the request for a year, then issued a final denial of the request for reconsideration.
Newman said the board earlier this year indicated it could reverse the ruling. But this year marks the deadline for the community to legally challenge the 2007 ruling, he said. The lawsuit could be dropped if the board does reverse it, he said.
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