Reporter Serdar Tumgoren’s recent articles detailing the debt
and questionable business practices of Sargent Ranch owner Wayne
Pierce and his associates has certainly opened eyes in this
community. Let’s hope it also opened the eyes of Amah Mutsun
leaders.
Reporter Serdar Tumgoren’s recent articles detailing the debt and questionable business practices of Sargent Ranch owner Wayne Pierce and his associates has certainly opened eyes in this community. Let’s hope it also opened the eyes of Amah Mutsun leaders.
Pierce and members of one branch of the Amah Mutsun tribe have an “economic development plan” to gain federal sovereignty recognition for the band of Indians and then use that sovereignty to develop the land which would yield $21 million and 3,500 acres for the Amah Mutsun. Pierce would lease back 500 acres and develop it. Several of Pierce’s previous development proposals for the 6,500 acres of unspoiled land off U.S. 101 near the Santa Clara-San Benito county line met with rejection.
The Amah Mutsun tribe is split, with one group favoring the deal with Pierce to gain access to their historic tribal lands, and the other opposed, saying that their ancestral land is sacred and should never be developed.
Why is developing Sargent Ranch a bad idea? Let us count the ways:
First, it would be noncontiguous growth, which is nearly universally accepted as a bad planning practice.
n Second, the land is outside Gilroy’s urban service area.
n Third, Pierce’s staggering $35.5 million debt against Sargent Ranch, which is valued at $25 million, makes his ability to pay for the cost of development highly questionable.
n Fourth, tribal sovereignty rights granted by the federal government would take development control out of local hands.
n Fifth, the Amah Mutsun tribe is deeply divided over the proper fate of their ancestral lands.
But that’s not the end of the warning bells for Pierce’s Sargent Ranch development plans. Perhaps the loudest alarms ring around Pierce himself. His business dealings with former partner David Fitzgerald have drawn the attention of state and federal authorities including the FBI, the IRS and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Pierce and his former business partner have left a trail of bankruptcies and angry investors behind them.
Pierce, who claims Creek and Choctaw lineage and a newfound devotion to Native American rights, might at first have seemed to be an ideal partner to the Amah Mutsun tribe. Now, with the curtains parted on Pierce’s troubled past business dealings and current staggering debt, we hope that the tribe will think again.
Pierce has convinced at least a portion of the Amah Mutsun tribe that his top priority is restoring their ancestral lands. However, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that what Pierce really cares about is getting out from under the $35.5 million he’s borrowed against a $25 million property.
It’s a clearcut case of buyer beware.
