{"id":385767,"date":"2026-07-04T03:56:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T03:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/385767\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T03:56:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T03:56:40","slug":"new-training-program-grants-tribal-members-access-to-reservation-land-during-emergencies-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/385767\/","title":{"rendered":"New training program grants tribal members access to reservation land during emergencies \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

When emergencies such as wildfires, floods and rockslides caused road closures on Native American reservations in San Diego County, tribal personnel \u2014 including law enforcement, firefighters and elected leadership \u2014 couldn\u2019t access their own land to help their community.<\/p>\n

This week, that changed.<\/p>\n

The Rincon Band of Luise\u00f1o Indians, a tribe with a 5,000-acre reservation in Valley Center, partnered with the Sheriff\u2019s Office, the county of San Diego, the county\u2019s Office of Emergency Services and the Southern California Tribal Chairmen\u2019s Association to launch a first-of-its-kind program Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Rincon Tribe Chairman Steve Stallings said the idea for an Emergency Tribal Access Pass Training has been in the works for 20 years, following the East County fires.<\/a><\/p>\n

The three-hour-long training offers authorized tribal personnel instruction on emergency access procedures, incident command, wildfire safety and first responder coordination. With these passes, they are verified at emergency checkpoints for entry. All tribes in the county can take part in the training.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Rincon Band of Luise\u00f1o Indians hosted its inaugural Emergency Tribal Access Pass Training on Tuesday at the Rincon Government Center. (Sydney Brammer \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n

The pass does not grant entry under all circumstances; whichever agency has top authority at emergency scenes will ultimately determine if it\u2019s safe enough for tribal personnel to enter.<\/p>\n

While Stallings said there hasn\u2019t been a recent emergency in which tribal members have been denied access to enter their land, he said this is a solution for the future, when tribal personnel need access to help their people and protect government operations and infrastructure on the reservation.<\/p>\n

It benefits all groups involved when everyone is on the same page during an emergency, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re not part of the process, then our team of specialists and urgent personnel are operating independently of other local law enforcement when what you want is everyone coordinated in that,\u201d Stallings said.<\/p>\n

Sheriff Kelly Martinez said this has \u201cbeen a long time coming\u201d during her opening remarks at the inaugural training on Tuesday at the Rincon Government Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been long overdue that we allow you access to your critical infrastructure,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cI\u2019m happy to support it.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are 18 Native American reservations in San Diego County \u2014 more than any other county in the United States.<\/p>\n

Martinez said there were representatives from 16 of the 18 tribes, totaling about 260 people, in attendance at the Tuesday training.<\/p>\n

That day, 143 access passes were distributed to authorized tribal representatives who had completed the required application ahead of the training. The other participants at the training will receive their passes once their applications have been finalized, according to a Rincon Band representative.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a game changer,\u201d\u00a0said Rincon Fire Chief Chip Duncan. \u201cWhen we can\u2019t get on the reservation, we can\u2019t provide service.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stallings said the hope is for the training to eventually move online, so people can take the course more quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that this is a change for the better \u2014 puts us on equal footing,\u201d Stallings said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When emergencies such as wildfires, floods and rockslides caused road closures on Native American reservations in San Diego…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,138,181,23,100,3054,74,84,76,75,1696,30905],"class_list":["post-385767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-north-county","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut","tag-valley-center-uninc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}