Renaming Yokuts Valley removed slur. Fresno County wants more control over future changes

Nearly 10 months after a federal board changed the name of Squaw Valley to Yokuts Valley, Fresno County supervisors want voters to amend the county charter to clarify it should control name changes in unincorporated parts of the county, requests often made by residents or groups because they feel like some names are offensive or inappropriate.

District 5 Supervisor Nathan Magsig said Tuesday he introduced the resolution in response to a 2022 state law that will remove the word “squaw,” widely considered a slur, from California places by 2025, as well as the city’s push to rename a major road that includes stretches of county jurisdiction in honor of civil rights leader Cesar Chavez.

According to the county’s resolution, the existing state law’s provisions “disregard historical factors and local control involved in the naming of geographic features.”

Magsig said he’s open to name changes that include input from residents of a community, but he has long been critical of the federal government’s process in changing Squaw Valley on the principle that local residents didn’t have enough say in the decision.

The goal of the ballot measure, Magsig said, is for voters to weigh in on whether local control matters for name changes. “I thought it was important to have as much local control as possible,” he said.

The resolution might be largely ceremonial because federal and state law tends to trump local authority. It’s not immediately clear if or how the charter amendment, if approved, would impact name changes that are already in place in Fresno County.

The Fresno County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 on Tuesday to add the charter amendment measure to the March 5, 2024, primary election ballot. Supervisors Sal Quintero and Brian Pacheco cast the two no votes.

Magsig represents Yokuts Valley, the east Fresno County foothill community formerly known as Squaw Valley. The unincorporated town’s name was changed by a federal geographic naming board in January after a local coalition submitted a formal name change petition to the federal government.

Last year, a federal task force voted to remove the derogatory term from six other places in the Fresno area after Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland formally declared the term to be derogatory in a secretarial order.

The resolution is the county’s latest push to defy recent state and federal name changes within the county.

In April, Fresno County filed a lawsuit against the state of California over AB 2022, arguing that it violates the community’s right to free speech and that the state has no authority to order the name change. Many critics – including some residents of Yokuts Valley – called the lawsuit “frivolous.”

Three speakers spoke in favor of the Tuesday resolution and said they were against the Yokuts Valley name change and thanked the board for protecting local control.

Other speakers, including Roman Rain Tree – the activist who led the name change petition and is a member of the Dunlap Band of Mono Indians and Choinumni tribes – said the county’s move was “bogus.”

“It’s a prime example of institutionalized racism,” Rain Tree said. He added that Fresno County had the chance to weigh in on an alternative name, such as Bear Mountain, earlier on in the name change process. The County instead sent a letter to the federal board formally opposing the name change altogether.

While Pacheco commended Magsig for advocating on behalf of his constituents, he said he opposed the resolution because it was a symbolic “act of futility” prompted by a divisive issue rather than a true administrative need.

“In my opinion, this issue or procedure has already been decided by our current laws,” he said. He added that in a constitutional republic, the federal government supersedes the state and the state supersedes the county.

“That’s our system,” he said. “We may not always like the outcome, but that is the system and the rules that we have in place.”

In recent years, another historic California place also changed their name – without such public opposition from county authorities.

In September 2021, owners of the Lake Tahoe-area resort long known as Squaw Valley changed the resort’s name to Palisades Tahoe, after extensive research and dialogue with the local Washoe tribe. The site is famous for hosting the 1960 Winter Olympics. A year later, a federal task force renamed the Placer County unincorporated community surrounding the resort from Squaw Valley to Olympic Valley.

State responds to Fresno County lawsuit

In July, the state of California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta and deputy attorneys general, Matthew Wises and Clinton Woods, responded to Fresno County’s lawsuit, arguing in a filing with the Fresno County Superior Court that the “case suffers from numerous fatal defects” and fails on legal grounds and also because the case should be filed in federal, not state court.. Fresno County, the state argues, sued the wrong entity.

“Yokuts Valley was renamed as a result of federal action,” not a state decision, the state’s response says.

2023.07.20 State Response Fresno County Lawsuit by Melissa Montalvo on Scribd

Magsig said in an interview with The Bee in March that the county decided to go after the state instead of the federal government due to the specific requirements the new law will place on California counties.

The state also argued that the county’s First Amendment complaint was insufficient because the Free Speech Clause regulates only private, not government speech, and that the First Amendment does not prohibit the state from articulating a policy viewpoint. The filings also say that as a political subdivision of the state, the county’s right to government speech doesn’t override the will of the state.

A case management conference is scheduled for December 14 at 3:30 pm.