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City of Pleasanton, Draft General Plan Page 6 October 9, 2008 Concurrently, during this period of time, Mrs. Phoebe Hearst was responsible for funding the fledgling Department of Anthropology at U.C. Berkeley. Dr. Alfred L. Kroeber, one of the early pioneering anthropologists, became known as "the Father of California Anthropology" interviewed some of the knowledgeable speakers of the Indian languages amongst the Mission San Jose Indians in the East Bay. Shattering the Myth that the Ohlones were Never Federally Recognized In 1989 our Tribe sent a letter to the Branch of Acknowledgement and Research in order to have our Acknowledged status restored. After eight years in the petitioning process, and after the submittal of several thousand pages of historic and legal documentation, on May 24, 1996 the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Branch of Acknowledgment and Research (BAR) made a positive determination that: Based upon the documentation provided, and the BIA's background study on Federal acknowledgment in California between 1887 and 1933, we have concluded on a preliminary basis that the Pleasanton or Verona Band of Alameda County was previous acknowledged between 1914 and 1927. The band was among the groups, identified as bands, under the jurisdiction of the Indian agency at Sacramento, California. The agency dealt with the Verona Band as a group and identified it as a distinct social and political entity. On December 8, 1999, the Muwekma Tribal Council and its legal consultants filed a law suit against the Interior Department/BIA naming Secretary Bruce Babbitt and AS -IA Kevin Gover over the fact the Muwekma, as a previously Federally recognized Tribe, should not have to wait 20 or more years to complete our reaffirmation process. In an effort to reaffirm our status and compel a timely decision by the Department of the Interior, our Tribe sued the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1999. The Court had mandated that the Department issue a decision within two years and reaffirmed the previous Acknowledge status of our Tribe. On July 28, 2000, and again two years later, on June I1, 2002, Judge Ricardo Urbina wrote in his Introduction of his Memorandum Opinion Granting the Plaintiff's Motion to Amend the Court's Order (July 28, 2000) and Memorandum Order Denying the Defendants' to Alter or Amend the Court's Orders (June 11, 2002) affirmatively stating that: The Muwekma Tribe is a tribe of Ohlone Indians indigenous to the present -day San Francisco Bay area. In the early part of the Twentieth Century, the Department of the Interior "DOI recognized the Muwekma tribe as an Indian tribe under the jurisdiction of the United States." (Civil Case No. 99 -3261 RMU D.D.C.) On October 30, 2000, the Department of Interior's Branch of Acknowledgment and Research/Tribal Services Division of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, responded to Justice Urbina's Court Order regarding the Muwekma Ohlone Tribal enrollment and descendency from the previous Federally recognized Verona Band, by concluding: When combined with the members who have both types of ancestors, 100% of the membership is represented. Thus, analysis shows that the petition's membership can trace (and, based on a sampling, can document) its various lineages back to individuals or to one or more siblings of individuals appearing on the 1900 "Kelsey and 1910 census enumerations described above."