Consultant videos explain Shelter Bay lease process

Some attending the late November Shelter Bay town hall forum were surprised to learn the community has retained $10,000 per month consultants for more than two years to negotiate a new master lease with the Swinomish Tribal Community.

Few, if any, should be surprised now, given the release by those consultants, Dr. Wil James and Ava Goodman, of the first two in a series of educational videos addressing key Shelter Bay topics, including the lease due to expire in 2044 and rent adjustments mandated every ten years.

James, who graduated from Stanford University and is a son of the late Landy James, for whom the La Conner High School gym is named, and Goodman, the principals of Akid'nson, LLC, have been tasked with breaking an impasse of several years to bring Swinomish and Shelter Bay representatives back to the table.

The two are Shelter Bay residents with strong familial ties to the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community.

In a 45-minute YouTube video focusing on the master lease, James and Goodman use a conversational tone to stress the time is ripe for the two parties to reach a compromise whereby Swinomish realizes a more favorable return based on present regional market values while allowing the Shelter Bay Community to remain sustainable going forward.

James echoes what Shelter Bay officials said at the community's Nov. 20 meeting – that securing a new lease will especially benefit allotees, those individual Swinomish landowners whose property is within Shelter Bay. Without a re-negotiated agreement they face either a reduction or loss of what to date has been steady income.

"You can't rent it out and have the land back at the same time," James says in the video. "The people who receive money and depend on that money, are they going to be willing to get a fraction of what they're getting?

"Our advice to Swinomish," he adds, "is don't kill the golden goose."

Tribal officials across the nation place great value in real estate after reluctantly agreeing to numerous land cessions through centuries. Swinomish is no exception, says James.

"The leadership at Swinomish has said land is valuable," he explains. "History has not been kind to us since contact and colonization."

He and Goodman say they are reaching out to all interested parties on the master lease front.

"We're talking to everybody," James says. "This is an opportunity for each side to take a little bit less and come together in the middle.

"Hopefully," he adds, "people will come together. There's strength in cooperation."

Goodman is optimistic the two sides can reach a mutually satisfactory accord "if we stay connected and put forth the effort to stay connected and put forth the effort to listen to one another.

"The Swinomish are loving, sharing, caring people," she says. "There have been some misunderstandings, but I don't think these misunderstandings are insurmountable."

The video offers an overview of the history of Shelter Bay's development. James notes how it took a literal act of Congress for the community's developer to secure a 75-year master lease.

A 25-year term was then the maximum period for which tribal lands could be leased, James says.

"A 25-year lease," he points out, "was not enough time for the developer to get a return on his investment."

With the Shelter Bay lease just 22 years from expiration, Goodman says the trend is for homes to be sold on a cash basis.

"Most homes here," she says, "are cash sales. You're only able to get 15-year mortgages."

James says Akid'nson was approached in 2019 by Shelter Bay leadership "to help navigate negotiations between the Swinomish Tribal Senate and Shelter Bay community," which had stalled out years before.

"We did our due diligence," he recalls. "We went to our attorney to negotiate our contract."

Times have indeed changed in the more than half-century since tribal leaders forged a deal with the Osberg Construction Company to create a residential community on over 400 acres of wild marshland and rolling hills on the Swinomish Reservation southwest of La Conner.

The idea was for primarily seasonal homes and summer cottages to spring up.

"They weren't designed to be year-round residences," James says.

Now there are around 900 homes and its board is bracing to tackle the twin prospects of having to upgrade aging infrastructure and amenities plus control shoreline erosion.

The community in the last couple years has also weathered a controversy involving unauthorized tree-cutting at Rainbow Park by Steve Swigert, a former Shelter Bay board member. The Swinomish Planning Department responded by imposing $92,000 in penalties and fines, which James says works out to just over $100 per household.

At the November public forum, Board President Wendy Poulton indicated the consultants have made headway in getting Swinomish and Shelter Bay closer to engaging in constructive talks.

James and Goodman stress it is in everyone's best interest to avoid costly arbitration and reach agreement on a new lease.

"I tell people it's the best deal we (Swinomish) ever got," James says of Shelter Bay. "It didn't cost us anything and it has given us millions of dollars. Why kill the golden goose?

"This is a wonderful opportunity to grow and walk your talk and find a way to work together," he says. "The time for pushing the can down the road and selling the blue sky is over. It's time to come together."