News Release
Ute Indian Tribe
28,500-acre block of ancestral tribal land that is currently owned by the state agency charged with maximizing revenue for funding Utah’s public schools, the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA).
The Tribune’s exposé is based on a formal complaint filed on August 30, 2022, by a state officer and whistleblower, Tim Donaldson, Director of the Utah Land Trust Protection and Advocacy Office. The Donaldson complaint alleges that the bid sale was rigged from the beginning to prevent the tribe from learning of the public bid sale. Then after the tribe submitted the highest bid, Utah state officials maneuvered to halt the sale, threatening to retaliate against Donaldson or any other state officer who allowed the Tabby Mountain property to “wind up” in the hands of the Ute Tribe.
Like other members of the public, the Ute Tribe itself is just now learning the facts revealed by Donaldson’s complaint and the interviews conducted by the Salt Lake Tribune. Shaun Chapoose, Chairman of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee, commended Donaldson for having the courage to come forward with the truth. Chapoose said the tribe is disappointed by these developments. “Until now the tribe believed that SITLA and the State of Utah were acting in good faith. But it’s clear now that the State attempted to stack the deck against the tribe from the beginning,” Chapoose said. He said SITLA’s last communication to the tribe on the Tabby Mountain bid sale was a letter in 2019. The letter notified the tribe that the bid sale was being postponed and advised that the State would notify the tribe when SITLA “determines to move forward.” Chapoose said the tribe had no idea that state officers were being threatened with retaliation for urging that the sale to the tribe should proceed in order to benefit Utah public schools.
Chapoose said the tribe is currently evaluating its next step in light of the revelations.
Chapoose said the public should not lose sight of the fact that Tabby Mountain originally belonged to the Ute Tribe. “From time immemorial these lands were part of our tribe’s aboriginal and ancestral lands.” The tribe’s ownership was formalized under the Ute Treaty of 1861, which included Tabby Mountain in the lands set aside as an Indian reservation for the tribe in the Uinta Basin, known as the Uintah Valley Reservation.” Thereafter, however, between 1902 and 1905, the U.S. Congress authorized the allotment of lands within the Uintah Valley Reservation and the sale of the Reservation’s so-called “surplus lands.” Those congressional acts also authorized the sitting U.S. President, Theodore Roosevelt, to withdraw certain lands from the Reservation for a variety of federal uses, including reservoirs, federal forest reserves, and for federal townships. President Roosevelt used this delegated authority to withdraw nearly half the land mass of the entire Uintah Valley Reservation — 1,010,000 acres — for a federal forest reserve, lands that today comprise much of the Ashley National Forest. Chapoose says the Ute Tribe was never fairly compensated for those lands. Then, in the 1970s, instead of returning the lands to the tribe, the U.S. Forest Service transferred title of the Tabby Mountain block to the State of Utah.
“It’s bad enough that the tribe has to spend millions of dollars just to buy back its own land,” said Chapoose, “but what really grates is the deceit and treachery with which the State has acted in order to block the sale from going through to the tribe, as the highest bidder.”
About the Ute Indian Tribe
The Ute Indian Tribe resides on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in northeastern Utah. Three bands of Utes comprise the Ute Indian Tribe: the Whiteriver Band, the Uncompahgre Band and the Uintah Band. The tribe has a membership of more than three thousand individuals, with over half living on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation. The Ute Indian Tribe operates its own tribal government and oversees approximately 1.3 million acres of trust land which contains significant oil and gas deposits. The Tribal Business Committee is the governing council of the tribe.
