KELSEYVILLE?Robinson Rancheria tribal member Clayton Duncan is heading up an effort to do just that. He says the fact the town is named after one of the men responsible for enslaving and abusing American Indians in the in the mid-1800s is an insult to his people.
Duncan successfully fought for the Kelseyville school mascots and team names “Indians” and “Braves” to be dropped in March of 2006. Now, he”s taking on the town of Kelseyville. Duncan said he read a historical account of the events around the Bloody Island Massacre, which occurred in 1850, that spurred him to action. A plaque at the end of Kelseyville”s Main Street bridge says that after capturing and abusing, and in some cases starving local natives in the vicinity of Bloody Island, Andrew Kelsey and Charles Stone were killed in 1849 by retaliating local natives.
That spurred the Bloody Island Massacre in 1850, lead by U.S. Army troops, and reportedly in retaliation for the two men”s deaths.
Duncan said the account he read detailed molestation of young girls by Kelsey and Stone. “When I read that it just made me sick,” Duncan said. “Two hundred people were murdered there but there is no monument for them. That”s my people, my ancestors, my relatives. It”s insulting my intelligence and my spirit. Either you like a pedophile or you don”t.” District 5 Supervisor Rob Brown, the district Kelseyville is in, said he doesn”t see the point. “This is a ridiculous effort by someone who doesn”t have anything better to do, and it”s not worth the time we”ve already given it,” Brown said.
Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley said an effort to change an unincorporated town”s name would have to go through the initiative petition process.
That involves having a proposed ordinance prepared and explaining in 500 words or less the reasons for the proposed petition.
County council would then prepare a summary and official title. The petition”s proponents would have 180 days to gather the necessary signatures. Duncan said he hopes to have the initiative on the June election ballot, this would require the signatures of at least 10 percent of the entire vote cast in Lake County in the last gubernatorial election.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
