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City of Pleasanton, Draft General Plan Page 9 October 9, 2008 Having rejected all of the defendants' arguments on the issue of similarity of circumstances, the Court proceeded to find that "the Department Mild] never provided a clear and coherent explanation for its disparate treatment of [the plaintiff] when compared with Ione and Lower Lake," nor had it ever "articulated the standards that guided its decision to require [the plaintiff] to submit a petition and documentation under Part 83 while allowing other tribes to bypass the formal tribal recognition procedure altogether." Here, the Department's explanation and the defendants' arguments in defense of that explanation and in support of summary judgment in their favor would appear to run afoul of the law of the case established in this Court's prior memorandum opinion. The Court concluded, implicitly if not explicitly, that the plaintiff is similarly situated to Ione and Lower Lake, and remanded the case to the Department for the sole purpose of ascertaining a reason as to why the plaintiff was treated differently. Yet, the defendants do not even acknowledge that their arguments are inconsistent with the law -of -the -case, let alone provide a "compelling reason to depart" from it. The defendants' insouciance regarding the law -of -the -case is particularly troubling because they appear to rely at least in part on administrative records for Ione and Lower Lake that were not considered when the Department initially considered the plaintiff's petition for recognition.... The Court rejected that argument, explaining that "[w]hat mattered] [was] whether the Department sufficiently justified in the administrative record for [the plaintiff's] tribal petition its decision to treat [the plaintiff] differently from Ione and Lower Lake." The Court remanded this case to the Department so it could explain why it treated similarly situated tribes differently, not so that it could construct post hoc arguments as to whether the tribes were similarly situated in the first place. It certainly did not remand the case so that the Department could re open the record, weigh facts that it had never previously considered, and arrive at a conclusion vis-a-vis the similarity of the plaintiff's situation to those of Ione and Lower Lake that it had never reached before. The Court would therefore be well within its discretion to reject the defendants' arguments outright, grant the plaintiff summary judgment with respect to its equal protection claim, and bring this case to a close. SO ORDERED this 30th day of September, 2008. REGGIE B. WALTON United States District Judge Regardless of the Federal Government's recalcitrance to restore our Tribe's status as a Federally Recognized Tribe, we will nonetheless preserver as the Aboriginal Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Region. We have lived here in our ancestral homelands within the greater San Francisco Bay for over 10,000 years and we have no intention of leaving, giving up or abdicating our Indian Heritage and Sovereign Rights! In conclusion, while our Tribe is awaiting the final final decision from the U.S. District Court, Washington, D.C. about our restoration status, we nonetheless, are continuing to exercise our sovereignty and authority as a Federally Recognized Tribe.