Mt. Umunhum pact with Amah Mutsun tribe excludes vets
The recent vote of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District to grant the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band a cultural conservation easement on Mount Umunhum is a decision that will have positive lasting effects for generations to come. It presents a unique opportunity for the tribe to further enrich the public on their history and cultural values.
That opportunity, however, didn’t have to come at the form of a quitclaim deed granting what amounts to sovereign rights to the mountain paid for by local taxpayers. The same effect could have been achieved through special-use permits.
Midpen spent over $25 million of local taxpayer funds to open the mountain to let the public see and learn its “full arc of history” (to quote Midpen General Manager Steve Abbors). That “full arc” includes Native American, natural and military history.
In the quitclaim deed, included in the Conservation Values of the mountain are the Cultural and Historic Values explicitly defined as two elements:
1) The Easement Property which is considered to be a sig- nificant prehistoric, cultural, spiritual and ceremonial landscape of the mountain; and
2) the Easement Property contains a radar tower structure that was used for radar surveillance at the Almaden Air Force Station between 1958 and 1980. The County of Santa Clara has included the tower in its Heritage Resource Inventory. The deed also states the radar tower cannot be expanded in footprint, height “or use.”
The “or use” clause concerns a great many people.
The tribe is granted the ability to expand upon their easement if those enhancements are approved by the district in accordance with the cultural values defined in the deed. This ability to increasingly augment the experience and not let it remain static will be greatly appreciated by the public when visiting the site.
Yet the military history of the site has now been permanently frozen and not allowed to be similarly enhanced.
As historian for Almaden Air Force Station, I personally experienced this when I intended to bring up some of the veterans of the 682nd Radar Squadron to the site on Veterans Day weekend and set up a table at the base of the radar tower (prior to its recent temporary re- closure to the public) and was denied.
The intent was to show fascinating photos and artifacts of Almaden Air Force Station to further educate the public on the military’s presence on Mt Umunhum and the significant role it played in the growth, welfare and establishment of the valley below.
This concept shares a direct similarity to that of the conservation easement granted to the Amah Mutsun and their ability to have educational group tours and enrichment opportunities (all without the need for a permit).
Midpen’s very definition of the military’s history on the mountain as a cultural and historic element of the site and their limitation of it is no different than the act of past persecution exacted on the tribe. Whereas this Midpen has allowed the tribe to finally rise past their persecution/oppression, they’ve supplanted military veterans in their place.
The mere presence of the historic radar tower isn’t sufficient to honor veterans. Educational interpretation and expansion of the historic value of the military’s presence on the mountain are just as paramount to the experience of learning as its Native American and natural histories.
As both are now permanently deemed of cultural and historic significance, Midpen should allow the addressing of the significant cultural value of the military history in a way similar to how they have allowed the tribe to address theirs.