A disagreement between tribal monitors and a construction manager led to a changing of the guard.

Around 5:30pm on Monday, June 19, Jeff Nohr, Avila Construction’s project manager for a planned farmworker housing project in Pajaro, sent an email to Louise Ramirez, tribal chair for the Ohlone/Costanoan-Esselen Nation (OCEN), informing her that the company’s contract with OCEN to provide tribal monitoring for the construction site had been canceled, effective immediately.

Nohr asked that Ramirez send a report of OCEN’s tribal monitors’ observations from the start of construction work, June 7, to that day, June 19. Though the letter did not state this, Avila Construction had already hired the Esselen Tribe to take over tribal monitoring of the site; having a tribal monitor present during construction is a requirement stipulated in the conditions of the project’s approval. This practice is intended to protect indigenous cultural artifacts.

For Ramirez, who lives in San Jose and was not onsite during the construction, the whole thing came as a surprise. In the course of the preceding week, Ramirez and Nohr had exchanged several emails, including about hiring additional monitors due to the fact that there were five earthmoving machines active on the site, which Ramirez says is far too many for one person to monitor.

Nohr initially resisted the idea, but later agreed to authorize OCEN to bring one more tribal monitor to the site. Ramirez insisted there be one monitor per earthmoving machine, which Nohr argued was not stipulated in the contract. Per the contract: “If more than one piece earthmoving equipment is deployed… at the same time, more than one tribal member shall be present during those periods.” Ramirez takes that to mean one tribal monitor for each piece of earthmoving equipment; Nohr’s interpretation differed.

In a June 12 email, Ramirez asked Nohr to compensate a second monitor and added, “I see your lack honor (sic) by your interpretation of our agreement.”

Mike Avila, who owns Avila Construction, says it became a struggle to agree on how to move forward in accordance with state law. “It got to be a personality conflict,” he says.

He adds that OCEN’s monitors called the Monterey County Sheriff/Coroner’s Office six times in two weeks to review for what the project’s offsite archaeologist – viewing pictures of the remains digitally from the Bay Area – confidently concluded were animal bones, not human remains.

Ramirez worries that even some of the animal bones might have cultural significance, including two small pieces that, to her eye, looked like they’d been carved by humans into tools. The presence of abalone shells, miles from the sea, also struck her as significant. She adds that, because there wasn’t a qualified archaeologist onsite, OCEN monitors are trained to call the coroner’s office when bones are uncovered.

Colin Busby, principal of Basin Research Associates, which is providing archaeological services to the project, rejects the notion that anything of significance has been found on the site thus far, and at least three archaeologists have reviewed the site since the 1980s, all with negative results.

When asked whether some of the bones may have been carved, he says, “Bullshit, no way in hell. We have looked at them physically.”