The Santa Clara County Democratic Party joins the Santa Cruz County Democratic Party, CDP Region 7, and the California Democratic Party in supporting the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band in its efforts to oppose the construction of a massive open-pit mine at the most sacred Amah Mutsun ceremonial site–Juristac, or the Place of the Big Head.
Juristac is an ancient ceremonial site, located at the southeast tip of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Juristac’s boundaries extend from Santa Clara County, into Santa Cruz County, and San Benito County. Juristac is the most sacred ceremonial site for the Amah Mutsun. Juristac is home to threatened species and is a key wildlife corridor to connect otherwise genetically-isolated animal populations of threatened animal species in the Santa Cruz, Diablo, and Gavilan mountain ranges. The lands of Juristac were forcibly appropriated from the Ancestors of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. Private owners and government agencies have impacted the lands of Juristac for two centuries with activities including oil production, highway and railroad construction, agricultural activity, and commercial construction.
The proposed open-pit mine (Sargent Quarry) would remove four sacred hills and over 40 million tons of sand and gravel from the land. The draft environmental impact report for the proposed mine will be released shortly. Once public comments are submitted and considered, the Santa Clara County Planning Department will make a decision as to whether to approve or deny the permit for Sargent Quarry. If a permit is approved by the Planning Department, it will be appealed to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors to decide if the permit will be granted.
There are three things that all people who wish to help the effort to Protect Juristac can do to help oppose the granting of the permit for Sargent Quarry.
1.) Consider signing and distributing the petition to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors urging that the permit not be approved. There is no age-restriction or residency requirement to sign this petition. To sign the online petition to Protect Juristac, or to print out copies of the petition for others to sign, please visit http://www.protectjuristac.org/petition/.
2.) Consider lobbying your municipality or any organization of which you are a member to pass a resolution to Protect Juristac. The City of Santa Cruz, the City of Morgan Hill, and the City of Santa Clara have all passed resolutions, as have many political, civic, religious, and environmental organizations. To view a partial listal of those municipalities and organizations that have written resolutions supporting the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band’s efforts to Protect Juristac, please visit http://www.protectjuristac.org/statements-of-support/.
3.) Once the draft environmental impact report (DEIR) for Sargent Quarry is released in the near future, there will be a 60-day period for public comment. During that period, it will be important for as many public comments as possible to be submitted to the Santa Clara County Planning Department. It will especially be important for comments to be submitted by individuals who have expertise in the ecological sciences, archaeology, hydrology, cultural resource management, and other similar specialties. Every comment will have to be considered before the Santa Clara County Planning Department will make an initial decision as to whether to approve or deny the permit for Sargent Quarry.
The draft environmental impact report (DEIR) has been released and can be found at this link: https://plandev.sccgov.org/policies-programs/smara/sargent
To learn more about the Tribal-led effort to Protect Juristac, and to be added to the mailing list regarding this effort, please visit https://www.protectjuristac.org.
A short film on Juristac can be found at https://youtu.be/YrVBSCvb1lw. A presentation delivered by Amah Mutsun Tribal Chair Valentin Lopez at the Assyrian Democrats of the Bay Area’s December 7 meeting can be found at https://youtu.be/-9-TpghUJWw.
Several non-partisan grassroots organizations are heavily involved in the effort to support the Tribe’s Protect Juristac movement. Please reach out to them if you have interest. South Bay Indigenous Solidarity is headquartered in San Jose; it’s website is https://www.savesacredsites.org. Friends of Juristac is headquartered in the City of Santa Cruz; its website is https://friendsofjuristac.wixsite.com/friends. Green Foothills is headquartered in Palo Alto; its website is https://www.greenfoothills.org/. The Amah Mutsun Land Trust is headquartered in Santa Cruz; its website is https://www.amahmutsunlandtrust.org/.
