Reporter Serdar Tumgoren’s recent articles detailing the debt
and questionable business practices and associates of Sargent Ranch
owner Wayne Pierce certainly opened our eyes. 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 and associates of Sargent Ranch owner Wayne Pierce certainly opened our eyes. 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 and to give the Amah Mutsun $21 million dollars and 3,500 acres. Pierce would lease back the remaining acreage and develop it. Several of Pierce’s previous development schemes for the 6,500 acres of unspoiled land off U.S. 101 near the Santa Clara-San Benito county line met with failure.
The Amah Mutsun tribe is split, with one group favoring the deal with Pierce to gain access to what 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. Second, the land is outside any urban service area. 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. Fourth, the federal sovereignty recognition scheme would take development control over Sargent Ranch out of local hands. Fifth, the Amah Matsun themselves are 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 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 Matsun tribe.
Now, with the curtains parted on Pierce’s troubled past business dealings and current staggering debt, we hope the Amah Matsun will think again.
Pierce has convinced at last a portion of the Amah Matsun that his top priority is restoring their ancestral lands. However, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that what Pierce really cares about getting out from under the $35.5 million he’s borrowed against a $25 million property.
It’s a clear-cut case of buyer beware.
