The Santa Barbara County supervisors met behind closed doors for several hours late Tuesday morning trying to make sense of last Wednesday’s announcement that the Santa Ynez Band of the Chumash has initiated the process of taking a 360-acre piece of land adjacent to Chumash Casino Resort into “federal trust status. ” This opaque designation essentially grants the tribe carte blanche to do whatever they want with the land by Highway 154 and Meadowlark Road — now used for passive grazing and occasional special events such as the most recent Intertribal Powwow — unencumbered by local land-use restrictions or considerations.
California: A 360-acre question mark looms over Chumash Casino
October 22, 2026 · 2:27pm ET | 11:27am PT
Image aggregated from The Santa Barbara Independent.
