(Donald Miralle/Getty Images)
By Sam Britt
(SEATTLE) Numerous tribes from the Pacific Northwest and Alaska have joined forces with the states of Oregon and Washington in a lawsuit attempting to halt the closure and sale of the Federal Archives and Records Center in Seattle, according to Alaska News Source.
A five-person Public Buildings Reform Board, which is in charge of finding excess federal property and putting it up for bids, made the decision, according to the Seattle Times.
The site is 10 acres and contains the history of 272 federally recognized tribes. It contains drafts of tribal treaties that contain important items that were eventually left out of the final drafts. The archives have been in the process of digitizing documents but only a “minimal amount” has been transferred over, according to the director of the Seattle facility.
“The General Services Administration approved a recommendation to close the facility in January 2020, without consulting state, local, federally recognized tribes or Alaska Native corporations, as required by agency regulations,” a joint release from Doyon and Tanana Chiefs Conference stated Tuesday. “Many remember that in 2016, when the National Archives facility in Anchorage was closed, the federal government stated that records from Alaska would be relocated to Seattle and remain readily available.”
According to the complaint, the Seattle archive, if closed, would mean Alaska’s records would be moved again to facilities in Missouri and California.
“If they’re gonna look at doing something, why not bring it back here for the people who have the most to get out of it so, you know, why move it further away from us?” Robin Renfroe, who used the Alaska facility to learn about her grandmother, said. “Why not bring it back into the state of Alaska, because basically, it means that it’s lost to us. It’s information that’s lost.”
The original plan of the government was to sell each of the 12 surplus properties separately. However, due to COVID-19 and the commercial real estate market, the properties are now being bundled and sold in a single portfolio.
State Attorney General of Washington Bob Ferguson is suing the federal government for planning to sell the archives without prior notice and disperse its records throughout the U.S. He is also suing because he claims the government didn’t follow the statue being used to sell the property as they didn’t consult with the tribes and others with interest in the archive.
“What pisses me off is that a bunch of federal bureaucrats 3,000 miles away doesn’t have any interest in hearing from the communities impacted,” Ferguson said. “I don’t know why they’re making these decisions deep in the bowels of our federal government. They don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t give a damn.”
Ferguson plans for a virtual public hearing on Jan. 19.